Ali Ahmed

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  • Ali Ahmed was Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Click here for detailed profile

    Towards a Proactive Military Strategy: 'Cold Start and Stop'

    The article reviews the Cold Start doctrine in light of the limited war doctrine. It argues that the launch of strike corps entails a risk prone war expansion. War termination should therefore be short of the launch of strike corps offensives. It suggests a 'Cold Start and Stop' strategy with limited offensives by integrated battle groups being used to coerce Pakistan. Pakistani amenability to Indian war aims would be dependent on India offering incentives diplomatically alongside. India's limited war doctrine, currently not articulated, must be informed by such a war waging strategy.

    May 2011

    Making Sense of ‘Nasr’

    In rethinking Cold Start as a default option and working towards proactive ‘contingency’ options, India is a step ahead in doctrinal shadow boxing.

    April 24, 2011

    Revision of the DSCO: Human Rights to the Fore

    The Doctrine for Sub Conventional Operations (DSCO) is due for review this year. This Brief suggests directions in which the Doctrine can better address the Human Rights factor.

    March 22, 2011

    India-Pakistan Relations: Military Diplomacy vs Strategic Engagement

    Military diplomacy has not figured significantly in India-Pakistan relations with ample reasons. Military to military engagement between the two states is confined to CBMs of varying significance. Even as both militaries have several regional and extra-regional engagements falling under the rubric of military diplomacy, the ones between the two are restricted to the routine exchanges of military advisors in respective missions in national capitals. However, there is a case for expansion in military diplomacy between the two.

    India-Pakistan Relations: Military Diplomacy vs Strategic Engagement

    Military diplomacy has not figured significantly in India-Pakistan relations with ample reasons. Military to military engagement between the two states is confined to CBMs of varying significance. Even as both militaries have several regional and extra-regional engagements falling under the rubric of military diplomacy, the ones between the two are restricted to the routine exchanges of military advisors in respective missions in national capitals. However, there is a case for expansion in military diplomacy between the two.

    January 2011

    The Arab tumult in its wider meaning

    The threat of extremism has been used too long to deny democracy. Instead, democratisation is a possible antidote for extremism.

    February 04, 2011

    Army ‘Transformation’: A ‘Radical’ One?

    A shift in strategic thinking over the past two decades has now led to India being poised between the strategic doctrines of offensive and defensive realism.

    January 17, 2011

    The advantages of ‘Cold Start Minor’

    Workable options short of war, as ‘Cold Start Minor’ suggests, would serve as deterrent to informed by the logic of leaving something to chance.

    December 13, 2010

    Cold Start and ‘The Sehjra Option’

    The Cold Start doctrine is an innovative exercise. While Cold Start discusses how to start the campaign, equal thinking needs to attend how to end it. On the conventional level, the learning is that the Cold Start offensives of the integrated battle groups need to be delinked from those of the strike corps. Plausible political aims cannot be visualised that make nuclear risk of launch of strike corps offensives worth running. On the nuclear front, fallout of the scenario considered is on the doctrine of ‘massive’ nuclear retaliation.

    October 2010

    Obama’s AfPak Review should emphasise on Peace Talks with the Taliban

    The US needs to take direct charge of the peace talks prong of strategy to meet the mid-2011 deadline of beginning its troops withdrawal as well as to enable NATO departure by 2014.

    November 23, 2010

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