December 2021

Volume 48, Issue 1

Modern Politics - the Progressive, the Messy, and the Panicking:

By Hannah Liu, F1 Columnist

It’s hard to define what “politics” means these days. Most commonly, politics is associated with the government and how the government acts and presents itself, perhaps even with elitist groups and high-end politicians and CEOs. However, social issues have also been a part of people’s views of politics, and so activism has also been associated with the term “politics”.


The thing is, the world of politics, especially democracy in the government, has been increasingly muddled up and misanalysed in the past decades, with thousands of different opinions and calls to arms springing up and spiraling around every moment. For instance, people discussing poaching in foreign countries on social media are convinced that they are talking about “politics”, even if their own elected government has no power to control how animals are treated across the globe.


“Politics” of the modern day seems to have lost its formality and eloquence, along with its clarity. The most prominent and in-your-face instance of the past few years would be the entire presidency of Donald J. Trump, which was characterized with an array of outlandish and clownish displays, intended more to anger and catch attention than to convince and inform.


Whatever antics the Trump administration yelled out at rallies, on FOX News, or on Twitter, it's worked - just not in the way we'd exactly prefer. The loud and explosive politicians of modern times have one goal: to catch the average voter's attention, and to rally them up enough so they post angry things online, thus getting more people’s attention. Whoever yells the most and the loudest will always have the most heads turning their way, and the more convincingly they scream these claims, the more likely an unsuspecting voter will become enraptured with their ideas.


It’s not hard to say that “politics” of old was also as explosive as the “politics” of today, yet the key difference is that, way back “then”, discussion about politics was limited to those who had a significant social status, who could be well-known enough to be worthy of a news article on the paper. The average citizen was welcome to discuss their choice of candidate, but their opinions would not be voiced in the press for everyone to see and consider. Nowadays, however, a quick post on the internet is all it takes for some opinion to reach thousands, or even millions, of people.


The media, more specifically social media, and this web of widespread communication we've weaved for ourselves has given rise to a sort of “Ideological Revolution.” Discussions and an easy way to express oneself have been enormous factors in human advancement - the ideas of democracy, equal rights, and acceptance have been fostered and shared across the newspapers, radios, and internet posts of the modern world. Since, especially now, just about anybody can share something for the world to see, reaching out to the entire population of a country or even planet has been easier than ever before.


One would think that broader discussion would provide more transparency in the world of “politics”, yet, unfortunately, that has not been the case. People these days, as highlighted by those who believe that ivermectin is an effective way to treat COVID-19, are swamped with alarming headlines and calls to revolt. Many are confused by what is real and what isn't, and some are so caught up in a particular set of theories that they help a despot such as “the world’s coolest dictator,” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, be elected despite the alarming data that suggests the opposing choice would be wiser.


Social media is so accessible now that anyone can pick up their phone, choose the social media app of their liking, and film or type out a post for or against just about anything. If someone thinks that exercise is now racist, nothing's stopping them from getting thousands of views on TikTok, and then convincing a few hundred of those thousands. People can now do their “research” online, most often from websites that can be written by just about anybody, or other non-certified posts and videos. Their “sources” may just be other misguided users, which produces an echo chamber of emotions and “fake news.”


To conclude what modern politics really means, one must first consider what is widely seen as “political”. Most notably, “political” discussion includes discussion about society and social issues: stereotypes about types of people and their “aesthetics”, fantasizing relationships between characters in fictional universes, and even children being “cringe” online (“cringe” being internet slang for something that is awkward or embarrassing) are almost always eventually related to something political: wardrobe and online profile decisions are labeled as cultural appropriation, “ships” about fictional characters are called out for putting minors in a relationship with adults or promoting a toxic relationship, and children singing songs or pretending to think deep thoughts receive exasperated comments about the failing school system.


At this point in modern development, more parts of society are interconnected. How the government acts affects the people, which in turn affects communities and the social aspect of being a human. People are led to do or say certain things by their living conditions, which are almost always affected by laws and regulations. Politicians are like celebrities - many people hear about them and how they act, and so what a candidate says and does affects how the “average citizen” thinks about the world around them. All in all, politics has evolved from being elitist and contained to the government to being an all-encompassing concept of society, how humans decide to govern themselves, and how we interpret and interact with our surroundings.


Many can argue that the ease-of-access to these mostly unmoderated forums is providing echo chambers for misinformation, prejudice and hatred to breed and spread, which is a valid point. However, discussion and freedom of speech, expression and belief are all things that should be fostered in a democratic, liberal society, clearly.


Society is at a standstill, as social media evolves faster than our views on “politics” can catch up with. On one hand, discussion leads to understanding, innovation and the sharing of ideas and knowledge. On the other, however, the wrong information can turn a small issue into a larger one. A direct way to control the spread of misinformation would be to shut down the media altogether - no online forums, no social media, no communication. Clearly, this would be primitive and tyrannical, and thus not a valid option.


The root of the problem is not the more widely-available media and open society that has developed in our world - with all good things will come downsides, and this remains a constant with this issue. Instead, we must remember that misinformation is only spread when there are willing viewers open to listen to it without considering the facts. The “panic instinct” is present in all humans, and misinformation and calls to arms work by manipulating that instinct: “clever” metaphors, exaggerations, catchphrases, taking quotes and facts out of context, they are all how misinformation spreads.


It’s up to “average citizens” to be on the watch for potentially questionable sources or exaggerated stories, not the moderators on social media or the news stations. Users of social media should, however (justifiably) angered or saddened they might be, take a step back from alarming posts and consider it.


Let’s see an example. When browsing on social media, one may come upon a Twitter post that says the following (quoted from Maxime Bernier’s Twitter account): “It’s 2030. You wake up queasy from your 14th booster jab taken yesterday. You pop your meal bar made of bugs into your microwave. It’s freezing in your government-supplied apartment because of electricity shortages. You own nothing. Is this the future you want?”


The context may seem exaggerated, once one starts to think about it. Consider the following: are fourteen booster jabs what health experts are actually suggesting? Are meal bars made of insects really going to be a staple diet? What does owning nothing suggest in this context? And finally, why does this post make it seem like this future is the only one if nothing happens? Continuing on from that last point, this post is phrased so that it serves as a call to arms with a clear message: if we don’t fight back against vaccine mandates and quarantines right now, the future will be dystopian and the world will essentially end. We have to fight back, NOW!!!!


However one may think about this post (a reminder that all opinions are valid), it is still vital that all members of society can learn to calm down, take a deep breath, and think about what they have just read. Consulting multiple sources, picking through choice vocabulary and asking for multiple opinions and perspectives can help clear minds and combat the spread of misinformation that can truly be damaging to individuals and their communities.


Personally, I disagree with this view on the future. However much any government or any political party acts, it’s unlikely that something coming straight out of a 2021-revised 1984 is possible in the near future. There are slight truths here, I must admit: insects are high in protein and could make for nutritious meals. Energy shortages will be a factor of the future due to humanity’s hesitance to switch to renewable energy. However, the main message that I believe this post is suggesting is based on exaggerations meant to pull at the panic instincts of well-meaning citizens.


All in all, it’s clear that “politics” in society has changed greatly due to the evolution of social media and individual approaches to social issues. While transparency and discussion are the building blocks for an inclusive and progressive society, social media is also a hotbed of misinformation, panic, calls to arms and hasty arguments. Just about anyone on social media can fall into the trap of alarming and exciting posts from the internet, and so misinformation spreads in an echo chamber. To combat this, it’s important to remember that, whatever opinions one may have, the opinion should be backed up with evidence that has been researched and thought through. When facing any information on the internet, it’s vital to society’s development and internal cooperation that one considers the information carefully.

American Independence and the Met Gala

By Jessica Yi, M4 Columnist

This year, the theme for fashion’s biggest night out was American Independence, based on the exhibition “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” which is currently being displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a strange choice on the part of Vogue (the host of the event), considering many of the attendees weren’t even American. However, even stranger is the choice of wording, which invokes ideas of patriotism or the actual Revolutionary War, a stark contrast from the costume exhibition the event was based on, about the developing inclusivity and reconciliation within the American fashion industry. Ultimately, this theme prompted confusion and controversy more than anything.


When you first hear the words “American Independence,” most of you will likely think of the Midwest, American wars, or other symbols of American patriotism. For many, these are symbols of oppression and white supremacy, both prevalent in a society that likes to wash away POC experiences and perspectives. One attendee, model Precious Lee, called this theme “a polarising subject,”. In light of the rising popularity of activism through social media we, as a society, are finally becoming more reflective of the systemic problems that exist in institutions. Being that, the United States is a country of contentious origins; a country that stole from and ripped land out of the hands of Indigenous peoples, a country that used colonialism and imperialism to further its political agenda, and a country built by Black slaves who were abducted away from their homes and cultural roots to be enslaved in a country without rights, dignity or heritage. Even today, the United States still continues its conquest of power, but now in a new format, by using institutions like the World Bank or IMF to force developing countries into resource-based economies that will always leave developing countries economically vulnerable and susceptible to coercion. These practices are not anything to be proud of or to celebrate, but they are implicit and intertwined with the American identity, and whatever American independence represents.


Another way that this theme is massively insensitive and tone-deaf is celebrating the United States in a time when its citizens should be reflecting on the fact that POC are facing massive injustices—institutionalized and systemic racism that costs them their happiness, their prosperity, and even their lives. This is the murder of Black Americans like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Daunte Wright at the hands of the police. It is the over-incarceration of Black and Latinx populations, where POC now make up 60% of inmate populations. It is the fact that the war on drugs has been waged exclusively at communities of color. The institution that is the United States has done little, even in light of massive amounts of social uproar to address these injustices and remains a racist and prejudiced country. Let’s not celebrate racism.


Now, in no way am I implying that Vogue is racist or as bad as the institutions that perpetuate the discrimination. Rather, it was a bad wording choice that caused unintended consequences. The original intention of the theme was to have attendees explore the evolving American identity and how it has changed over time, while reflecting on the progress the United Stateshas made with social justice. However, what we received was tacky attempts at recreating the Star-Spangled Banner or other American iconography. From Megan Rapinoe’s American flag-inspired suit to Emily Blunt’s Lady Liberty-inspired ensemble, these all inevitably tie into a stereotypical American representation that promotes pride and glorification of a broken and unjust system. Some stars opted to not interact with the idea of America at all, and simply came dressed in whatever they wanted. However, this compromised much of the coherence of the event, and just by looking at the outfits, you never would have been able to guess that the theme was American Independence.


In short, this theme of American independence is not only vague and confusing but also perpetuates themes of white supremacy and neo-colonialism that completely ignore the injustices faced by POC today. At its core, the United States is still contentious at best and needs to redeem itself before it can be celebrated. Having some celebrities wear some red, white, and blue isn’t going to change anything.

Do You Know What's Better Than a Bulletproof Vest?

By Sanskriti Shindadkar, S6 Columnist

We’ve all heard of people wearing fur for fancy accessories… how about human muscle? Trendy, right? If you’re a little worried, don’t be. This human muscle is 100% ethically sourced. Or, to be more accurate, it’s synthetic muscle. It's as good as the real stuff… except it's not harvested from a real human. Let’s get into the why. It turns out that human muscle is strong. A vest made out of human muscle fibers would be tougher than bulletproof vests. Intrigued yet? It seems ideal to have a material that would never undergo wear and tear. Some of you might be a little concerned, or feel a little… uncomfortable about using material that resembles human muscle fiber. However, this fiber is grown in the lab from enzymes, and is representative of the next step in clothing evolution: genetically engineered clothing. Imagine ethically-sourced products from extinct or endangered species - beautiful polar bear pelts, turtle-shell guitars. And all of this can be achieved without harming animals in the process.


How We Can Make Better Clothes Works

If using fancy technology to make clothes seems a little weird to you, you might be shocked to hear that we already do it. For example, enzymes are usually used to bleach and wash clothing articles. It is indisputable that preparing clothing through dyeing and bleaching is the “most polluting and energy-intensive processes involved in making our clothes”, according to CNN. There’s a potential way to reduce the water and energy involved in this task: get bacteria to do it for us. Faber Futures, a UK design agency, is a step ahead. They have made a bacterial pigment extract of the bacteria S. coelicolor (the name fits perfectly). Check out a cool reversible silk jacket made from this process below! They have a number of other interesting projects ready, so check out their website to learn more.


Another cool example is in Japan. From about a decade ago, silkworms have been genetically modified to spin colourful, glow-in-the-dark silks. They started off with three main colours, each derived from three different sources of DNA. The red and orange colours came from two different corals, and the green colour came from a protein found in jellyfish. Briefly, these different organisms have parts of their DNA that code for protein production, which just happens to be in these colours - and once this DNA was spliced into silkworms, their silk changed colour too. And there was a demand for these products! See above for a picture of a fluorescent wedding dress, designed by prominent designer ​​Yumi Katsura.


For all of you sports fans out there, don’t you love to have shoes with good, comfortable foot cushioning? Wouldn’t it be even better if the foot cushioning was environmentally friendly and was of higher quality? Ecovative Design has already accomplished this. They’re using mushroom derived structures (specifically, the thread-y part known as mycelium as depicted in the picture below) to create wonderful, compostable foam in your shoes. Mycelium has a higher heat resistance and insulating capabilities when compared to the plastic-based foams most companies use. It is also very porous, and thus lightweight enough for shoes. Combined with an incredibly fast growth rate, what’s not to love?


Food for Thought

Hopefully, you walked away with a new appreciation for clothing, even if you’re a “wear sweatpants and random shirts everyday and hope no one notices” type of person. Which I… definitely am not. At all.


Was the human muscle clothing a clickbait? Nope. Keep an eye out for the next Cuspidor article for a continuation.


Resources

  1. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210830081757.htm

  2. https://www.labiotech.eu/in-depth/biofabrication-fashion-industry/

  3. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/dyeing-pollution-fashion-intl-hnk-dst-sept/index.html

  4. https://faberfutures.com/projects/other-biological-futures/

  5. https://faberfutures.com/projects/

  6. ​​https://www.wired.com/2013/06/colorful-fluorescent-silk/

  7. https://synbiobeta.com/biotechnology-meets-fashion-and-sports-performance-trends-in-the-apparel-industry/

The Future of Marvel

By Serena Suleman, S5 Columnist

Note: This article was first written in October, before the release of the Eternals.

Before Marvel’s newest film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, was released, it was surrounded by just a little bit of controversy.


First, Shang-Chi was Marvel’s first in-theatre-only installment since the pandemic began, which isolated a lot of potential viewers. Second, big movie franchises try not to drop movies on Labour Day weekend, as they generally don’t garner the same attention as movies in other release windows. Third, Shang-Chi as a comic character was created with racist stereotypes in mind to jump on the whole “kung-fu” trend in the nineties and he never became that popular, as far as comic-book characters went. Marvel announced that Shang-Chi would only have a 45-day theatrical release, and would be available on streaming platforms afterward, which means that they didn’t have much hope for it in the box office. And in the months leading up to the movie, Marvel didn’t seem to be pushing the movie all that hard in terms of marketing.


This was obviously very disappointing. Here’s an Asian-led, beautifully crafted superhero movie (starring UTS’s own Simu Liu!!!!) from the greatest superhero franchise of all time, with a cast including Tony Leung, Michelle Yeoh, and Awkwafina. And this is the movie that Disney CEO Bob Chapek calls “an experiment?” This one?


I, like many fans, wasn’t thrilled with Chapek’s comments. But although he could have phrased it much, much better, the overall sentiment is understandable. Marvel couldn’t afford to give Shang-Chi a lengthier theatrical release. They couldn’t afford to market it more. Not in terms of money, because, again, it’s the most expensive franchise in history, but in terms of time.


If you’re not familiar with Marvel’s release calendar for the last six months of 2020, let me help you out. A fan favourite, Loki began streaming on Disney+ on June 9th and continued into July. The long-awaited Black Widow dropped concurrently in theatres and on Disney+ Premier Access one month on July 9th. Not wanting to be outdone, What If…? was released on Disney+ on August 11th and finished in October, followed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on September 3rd. Eternals drops on November 5th, followed by Hawkeye on November 24th. Less than a month later, Spider-Man: No Way Home will be released on December 17th. In case you lost count, that’s seven major Marvel projects, all within six months.


I remember when it was a big deal that Marvel released three movies in the same year. They had time to market, to build up suspense, and to create a universe that produced what was briefly the highest-grossing movie of all time, Avengers: Endgame. Nobody has time to analyze, examine, and theorize about a trailer when they release one after another. And I’m not going to pretend that the good ol’ days of Marvel were a thing, because that’s just dumb, but there is something to be said when trailers for three separate projects (Eternals, Hawkeye, and Spider-Man NWH) were dropped the same week as a major theatrical event (Shang-Chi). There’s something to be said when the CEO of Disney calls a movie that could have been the Marvel event of the year “an experiment.” There’s something to be said when there are so many new projects being released that it’s hard for one to be special anymore. There are so many new Disney+ series that I can’t keep track of all of them. And it sucks so much because they all sound so cool.


Take Eternals, for example. It’s directed by Academy Award-winning Chloe Zhao and stars a terrific cast. Spider-Man: NWH hints at a live-action multiverse of Spidermans. (Spidermen?) Ms. Marvel is something I’ve been looking forward to long before it was announced—its protagonist, a Pakistani-American nerdy teenager, is one of my favourite comic-book characters. Echo tells the story of a disabled Indigenous girl with a passion for fighting crime. Moon Knight brings another beloved comic character to light with Oscar Isaac, whom you may recognize from Star Wars. She-Hulk, although not as highly anticipated, sees Bruce Banner pass on the mantle of the Hulk on to his cousin, and there are so many more. Ironheart. Secret Invasion. Armour Wars. Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness. Thor: Love and Thunder. The Marvels.


Marvel was able to produce the highest-grossing movie of all time with Avengers: Endgame because every project had been leading up to it for a decade. Anyone could watch Endgame: casual watchers, comic-book readers, hardcore movie fans. It took Marvel eleven years and twenty-three projects to get to their Endgame. At this rate, they’ll be there in three. And with so many new characters in every project, it’s just not sustainable to have a movie for all of them.


Did Marvel get greedy? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Does that mean that we’ll finally have superheroes representative of the viewers? Honestly, yeah. Is Marvel digging its own grave right now, slamming the door on any chance of creating a coherent, singular timeline? I don’t know. I look forward to finding out. Until then, keep the popcorn coming—you’ll need it.

Art by Charlotte Bauer, S5

Stalemate on the Subcontinent: Nuclear Exchanges and the Looming Failure of Indian Military Doctrine in the Next India-Pakistan War

By Vivek Sapru, S6 Columnist

Introduction

India and Pakistan’s famously hostile relationship is best described by one fact: the only major conflict fought between two powers armed with nuclear weapons was the 1999 Kargil War. To this day, the two nations regularly spar over every political, economic and diplomatic issue conceivable, sometimes going as far as taking military action on each other’s soil.


What makes their geopolitical relationship most intriguing for an observer is the possibility it offers to engage in some ‘amateur wargaming.’ Three factors make it feasible for someone without the resources of a think tank to predict the conduct and outcome of a future Indo-Pakistan war: their geography, shared history and the plethora of freely available data about their military resources, grand strategic doctrines and political goals. Unlike other rival powers (the US and China, for instance), India and Pakistan share a 3300 kilometre long border, spanning from the Kashmiri Himalayas to the Arabian Sea. The presence of a contiguous border is particularly helpful as it offers a sort of ‘blank slate’ for us to work with — we can tell exactly which areas would be relevant flashpoints during a war. Secondly, the four wars between India and Pakistan (1947 Kashmir conflict, 1965 War, 1971 Liberation of Bangladesh and the 1999 Kargil War) provide a historical context about their military plans and operations. Offensive actions in certain sectors (i.e. the Battle of Basantar and the Battle of Chamb in the Shakargarh salient in eastern Pakistan) are likely to reoccur in a future India-Pakistan war simply due to the strategic nature of the battlefield in question. Finally, there is a plethora of online information, statistics, documents and interviews which shed much-needed light on the actual plans and military capabilities of each side (much of which was used in the writing of this article).

Military Balance of Power

India has always enjoyed a qualitatively and quantitatively superior military than Pakistan, primarily because of her far superior economic situation (a GDP of $2.6 trillion vs Pakistan’s $264 billion). That being said, a fundamental problem for India is that her conventional military superiority is not decisive enough to guarantee a rapid defeat of Pakistan through a broad-front offensive.

India’s Military Doctrine and its Application during a Future War

As is evident from the statistics, India has varying degrees of superiority over Pakistan in just about all categories of their armed forces. However, this comes with two caveats.


With regards to the Indian Army and Air Force, neither has an advantage so clearly larger and superior than Pakistan to guarantee a swift and efficient conventional victory. This is especially true with the Indian Air Force (IAF) which has struggled to receive the funding and resources to maintain their desired 42 squadron force. In its current form, the IAF would be hard pressed to achieve air superiority (a degree of dominance over an enemy’s airspace) over Pakistan in 2-3 weeks, thus denying the Indian Army easy access to close air support during an invasion of Pakistan.


Secondly, India’s armed forces would not be concentrated on Pakistan itself. By nature of India’s larger size, large parts of the Indian military would be spread out, with a particular emphasis on the border with India’s other prominent rival (China). As the defending side, Pakistan would be able to concentrate its forces in an advantageous manner against only one enemy — without that luxury, India would have to pick and choose select areas to attack (in order to fulfill the old military maxim of assembling a 3:1 superiority for a successful offensive).


India’s vaunted ‘Cold Start Doctrine’ (CSD) is widely considered to be the main Indian plan for an offensive war against Pakistan, a claim which gained credibility after the Indian Military’s first public acknowledgement of CSD’s existence in 2017. CSD was engineered to replace the ‘Sundarji’ doctrine which guided India’s military stance against Pakistan from the 1980s to 2004. In December of 2001, after a Pakistan-sponsored terrorist group attacked India’s Parliament building (killing and injuring 27 people), the Indian Army received a mobilization order under Operation Parakram (Operation Victory). In the attack’s immediate aftermath, the Indian Government privately contacted their American counterparts, demanding that the Americans force Pakistan to “rein in” its “support for [the] militant organizations” responsible for the dozens of annual terrorist attacks on India. Should Pakistan not comply, India was prepared to “take action” (i.e. send the military across the border into Pakistan) to forcefully put an end to the terrorist threat. While it is still unclear whether India actually planned to invade Pakistan in 2001, what is certain is that India demonstrated that “it was willing to go to war to end Pakistani support for militants in Kashmir” regardless of the Pakistani military/nuclear response. But, as the weeks went by, the Indian response simply failed to materialize: the ponderous Indian Army mounted a slow-paced mobilization that completely failed to resultmount a rapid invasion. Indeed, it took India’s armoured corps (the finest units of the army, making up tank, APC, IFV and motorized formations) a staggering three weeks to reach the border! This delay allowed Pakistan to “countermobilize on the border” in defensive positions, but more importantly, led to enough international pressure on both sides to force a withdrawal. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf eventually made a few superficial promises to tackle the terrorist issue, but the greater deed was done; India had failed to seize the initiative to make good on her promise to end the terrorist threat once and for all.


In the subsequent years, the conclusion of the Indian Military’s post mortem report was that the fatal flaw in Operation Parakram had been the shoddy mobilization speed. To rectify this, the Indian Military scrapped the Sundarji Doctrine and replaced it with the Cold Start Doctrine.


The Sundarji Doctrine had consisted of “seven defensive holding corps” close to the Pakistani border that would defend against potential Pakistani preemptive attacks (or counter attacks during the conflict). The seven corps were not particularly modern formations; they were made up of “infantry divisions for static defense” with a sprinkling of armoured units. The main Indian strike force in the Sundarji Doctrine were “three strike corps” comprising a full armoured division “with mechanized infantry and extensive artillery support.” These units were deployed far from the international border (I Corps in Mathura, II Corps in Ambala, and XXI Corps in Bhopal). Following the outbreak of a war, it was assumed that the seven holding corps would halt a preemptive Pakistani attack (as Pakistan both instigated and struck first in the 1947, 1965 and 1999 wars) and make some initial breakthroughs into Pakistan. Next, the strike corps would exploit those breakthroughs and “penetrate deep” into Pakistan to destroy Pakistan’s so-called “Army Reserve North and Army Reserve South” (Pakistan’s main force). India expected to wage a “high-intensity battle of attrition” with “deep sledgehammer blows” to dismember Pakistan and decisively defeat the Pakistani Army in the Rajasthan sector. The IAF was expected to achieve “air superiority over Pakistan and then provide close air support” to army operations.


The Sundarji Doctrine had three reasons for its failure when enacted in Operation Parakram: the overly large size and slow nature of the strike corps, “lack of strategic surprise” since Pakistani intelligence (HUMINT and SIGINT) was able to track the three large corps, and the “lack of offensive power” in the seven holding corps, who would be immediately involved in fighting following the conflict’s outbreak.


In 2004, India’s military establishment had completed their new Cold Start Doctrine. CSD’s name draws from the analogy of a rapid ‘cold start’ of a car’s engine (rather than waiting for it to heat up first). It aimed to swiftly deal a significant, though limited, amount of damage on Pakistan (via destruction of her armed forces and seizure of Pakistani territory for use as a post-war bargaining chip) while avoiding a Pakistani escalation to nuclear weapons. Instead of three strike groups, India created eight “[small] division sized integrated battle groups (IBGs)” in the same vein as the Soviet Union’s Cold War army structure. Each IBG is based closer to the border and would follow a different axis of advance into Pakistan, while working in tandem with the IAF. The holding corps were also strengthened by extra “armor and artillery” and were expected to conduct more offensive actions, rather than focus on defending against Pakistan. The IBGs are instructed to enter Pakistani territory within 72-96 hours of the mobilization order, a far cry from the nearly month-long mobilization in 2001.


Overall, the strategy of making medium-sized penetrations into Pakistan by “quickly mass[ing]...firepower” on the Pakistani military (while avoiding attacking civilian centers like Lahore or seeking to deliver a ‘knockout blow’ to Pakistan by cutting the country in two) is much more feasible than the Sundarji Doctrine. While room for improvement still remains, Indian military exercises post-2004 have demonstrated a reasonable ability to achieve that rapid breakthrough into Pakistan by the IBGs, suggesting that they would be able to mount an offensive into Pakistan prior to the enemy reaching its own defensive positions. Moreover, the removal of the unfeasible, albeit certainly appealing to Indian nationalists, goal of permanently dismembering/destroying Pakistan is positive in that it does not overly threaten Pakistan into responding with nuclear weapons. This ‘eight-pronged limited war strategy’ may succeed at unsettling a potential Pakistani response, since the actual targets of the Indian offensives would be unclear.

Pakistan’s Military Response during a Future War and the Nuclear Shadow Looming over the
Subcontinent

In most public forums, Pakistani officials decline to discuss their conventional response to an Indian attack and instead focus on the deterrence effect of Pakistan’s 130+ nuclear weapons. However, this cedes unnecessary ground for our purposes at a geopolitical analysis. The simple fact of the matter is that it is unlikely that all eight Indian IBGs will simultaneously be strong enough to achieve independent success, when CSD calls for a greater focus on the offensive capabilities of the holding corps and as India accounts for the threat of a second front by China, Pakistan’s close ally. The quantitative resources available to India do not fully match up with the lofty goals of CSD.


Assuming that the rapid mobilization of the Indian Army proceeds within the 72-96 hour timeframe laid out in CSD (after a hypothetical provocation incident that sparks a future India-Pakistan war), I think that it is likely that the IBGs will make some limited gains immediately. However, the constraining factor on CSD (of only making limited gains to prevent a Pakistani nuclear attack) severely hampers the Indian Army’s freedom to maneuver. By being forbidden from encroaching further than 80 kilometres into Pakistan, a certain degree of initiative is ceded to Pakistan. A detailed survey of the border’s geography makes it easy for Pakistan to predict where the eight axes of advance will be: India will obviously avoid populated urban areas like Lahore, forested regions, the mountains and hills of Kashmir, the most inhospitable parts of the Thar Desert and some of the salt flats/canals in southern Pakistan (to play to the strengths of their tank-based IBGs). In doing so, the Pakistani defender is better prepared to defend since the possibility of a broader Indian advance is reduced. Furthermore, assuming that the initial Indian gains are achieved (though that remains doubtful should Pakistan mount a successful protracted defence, something that this article cannot reasonably assess), the Indians would encounter great difficulty in holding onto those gains. Denied freedom of maneuver by CSD’s limited objectives would allow Pakistan to mass reserves and freely choose where to counterattack one of the eight IBGs (who would be unable to proactively respond). The Indian Air Force would also be unable to provide direct air support (be it supporting the offensive or Indian defensive acts) in the first few weeks of a conflict as it grappled with the Pakistani Air Force. Thus, in a future war, it’s unlikely that India would hold on to all of its territorial gains (assuming that its offensives succeeded in the first place), reducing India’s hand at the post-war negotiations. Even if they fended off Pakistani counterattacks, one wonders how much land the international community would tolerate India keeping in an offensive war regardless.


Now, should India choose to not sit back and absorb Pakistani counterattacks after seizing small chunks of the latter’s territory, India risks opening the nuclear Pandora’s Box. Pakistani nuclear doctrine has repeatedly been made clear: Pakistan is willing to use nuclear weapons in a ‘first strike’ should a large chunk of Pakistani territory be seized or a large portion of the Pakistani military be defeated (in contrast to India’s ‘no first use’ policy of nuclear weapons). Worryingly, Pakistan has consistently lowered its ‘redlines’ to nuclear usage (through the development of short-range nuclear missiles like the Nasr), perhaps in response to the limited war aspect of CSD. It isn’t inconceivable to expect Pakistan to use a tactical nuclear weapon on Indian armoured columns should India push to seize more than a few slivers of Pakistani land. Should India respond (as is enshrined in Indian nuclear doctrine), the situation could spiral out of control very quickly. A nuclear first strike is somewhat more viable on the Indian subcontinent than in other historical situations, becauses missile flight times are (at a maximum) only six minutes. One study by Rutgers University found that a major nuclear exchange (involving a few dozen warheads) between India and Pakistan that resulted from a limited war gone wrong would result in the deaths of millions worldwide, in part because of the long-term effect through famines. While one hopes that such a future is avoidable, the longer India and Pakistan’s issues remain unresolved, the likelier a war as described above becomes.


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