The document discusses India's "hybrid war" strategy against Pakistan, known as the "Doval Doctrine", which aims to destabilize, demoralize, and disintegrate Pakistan. It operates on five fronts: proxy warfare using terrorist groups to wage insurgencies; information warfare using social media to influence public opinion and protests; and supporting separatist, revolutionary, agitator, and mercenary groups that undermine Pakistan from within. The goal is to weaken Pakistan through unconventional means and avoid direct military conflict, since both countries have a nuclear deterrent.

1. THE DOVAL DOCTRINE – INDIA’S
HYBRID WAR AGAINST PAKISTAN
http://lisauk.org/articles/detail/the-doval-doctrine-india-s-hybrid-war-against-pakistan

2. • Lest we forget, World War I and World War II saw more than 100 million people
killed. The battles that engulfed the entire globe began primarily as major
international powers locked horns to establish dominance over each other. The
disastrous results of these wars can no better be exemplified than by their
culmination in the ominous nuclear bombings of Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. The dawn of the nuclear age has tilted the cost of conventional warfare
to a level where major powers have no choice but to refrain from using direct
warfare as an instrument to achieving their national objectives. Nuclear deterrence
was established as the world teetered at the edge of extinction during the 1962
Cuban missile crisis. The establishment of nuclear parity between the Nato and
the Warsaw Pact countries maintained the status quo, but it did not diminish the
need for warfare. This led to a new type of warfare doctrine – the hybrid warfare –
created to achieve national objectives while remaining under the so-called
“nuclear umbrella”. “Hybrid warfare” waged by intelligence agencies, involves
the use of irregular forces and unconventional methods to target key
vulnerabilities of opponents. These vulnerabilities could be political, economic,
social or diplomatic in nature; capitalising on weaknesses of adversaries to
achieve the following objectives which are known as “The 3D Objectives.”

3. • Destabilise
• Demoralise
• Disintegrate
• Five major fronts of India’s hybrid warfare strategy against Pakistan
• India’s hybrid warfare strategy against Pakistan is built on five major
fronts around Pakistan’s perceived weaknesses to achieve the “3D
Objectives” as enumerated above.
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4. • Proxy Warfare
• In the context of a hybrid warfare strategy, the use of irregular forces or terrorism
is to be seen as an instrument of aggression. The Republic of India, cannot afford
to risk an all-out war with Pakistan, which could lead to a nuclear exchange or
even a “limited war” that may severely hamper its economic ambitions. The
Indian air strikes in Jabba on the 26th of February are a clear example of the
willingness found in New Delhi to use a limited conflict with Pakistan, not only
for domestic political goals but also to indicate to Pakistan that it is able to
project force inside Pakistan. Indian leadership has therefore chosen to wage a
hybrid war against Pakistan; in which, the use of irregular forces or terrorist
groups is a key instrument. The spectrum of irregular forces deployed against
Pakistan is carefully designed to target vulnerabilities of the Pakistani state,
including economic, social, political and even territorial fault lines In order to
better understand these dynamics, we must understand the nature of various
groups which either represent a fault line or represent a significant vassal for
political change. There are a number of such groups, some peaceful, some violent
– which have a decisive impact on the overall security matrix of the country,
these groups can be defined by the following categories:

5. • Revolutionaries
• These are political groups motivated to overthrow the Islamic
constitution of the country in order to replace it with a secular
constitution and a secular, Kemalist state – or replace it with an, even
more, fundamentalist theocracy. There are a number of examples of this
including:
• The Rawalpindi Conspiracy of 1951 by communists.
• Hizb ut-Tahrir attempted to overthrow the state through a bloody
military coup in Pakistan – as revealed by the arrest and subsequent
interrogation of Brigadier Ali Khan in 2011.
• The India-backed Agartala Conspiracy designed to overthrow the state
structure in East Pakistan.
• Agitators

6. • These are pressure groups agitating politically or by means of violence to
protect or further their vested objectives by means of blackmail and
sabotage.
• Various militant groups such as BRA, BLA, etc. are led by tribal chieftains –
primarily waging an insurgency for their vested financial and political
interests. These groups have been actively supported by India under the
Doval Doctrine – as revealed by Commander Kulbhushan Jhadav, a deep
cover operator of RAW, who was captured by Pakistan.
• These groups were responsible for many terrorist attacks, including the
one on the Chinese consulate in Karachi which was traced back to
Afghanistan-based and India-funded Commander Aslam Achu, who was
later killed. Similarly, the hijacking of the PIA Flight 544 on May 25, 1998,
is another example.
• Reactionaries

7. • These are violent groups created as a reaction to state policy or various
geopolitical dynamics.
• Al-Qaeda, for example, was created as a reaction to the presence of US
military bases in Saudi Arabia which were installed in the aftermath of the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
• In Pakistan, the TTP was created as a reaction to Pakistan’s role in the USled
war on terror. India found a willing ally in the TTP to attack Pakistan, with
ferocious terrorist attacks on both civil and military targets, in order to bring
about a breakdown of the state structure internally. Former US Secretary of
Defence Chuck Hagel has also confirmed India’s role in fomenting proxy
terrorist forces in Pakistan
• Separatists

8. • These violent groups are created and supported by hostile state actors to try
and undermine the territorial integrity of Pakistan.
• The clearest example of this category of militants would be India-backed
Mukti Bahini militant group which waged a civil war in East Pakistan with
full backing from the Indian military and the Indian government, as was also
confirmed by PM Modi when he went to Bangladesh in 2015.
• Afghanistan-based BLF is another example of militant separatists – with a
clear inclination towards serving the Indian hybrid warfare objectives in
Pakistan. This terrorist group is behind the gruesome executions of migrant
labourers in Balochistan.
• Mercenaries
• These are pressure groups created and aided by hostile state actors to
undermine the political, economic and social stability of Pakistan in order to
internally weaken the state system, erode public trust in the state and
government, and to harm Pakistan’s international relations, image and trade
often through propaganda and other non-lethal means. The narrative and
actions taken by the PTM are consistent with the role defined under this
category.

9. • Information Warfare
• The 21st-century battleground is defined by the emergence of “information warfare”
which constitutes a multitude of facets that keep complicating an already saturated
battlespace. With the emergence of digital technologies, like the Internet, the World
Wide Web, the Darknet, digital data, and social media platforms, etc; the fifth
dimension of warfare has now arrived. The use of weaponised information has existed
for a long time under the ambit of espionage, subversion, propaganda, and
counterintelligence. Majority of techniques and technologies that are specifically
invented for military use manage to find their way into the public domain. The
information warfare has also managed to penetrate into all areas of public life where it
is being used by corporations, political parties and most alarmingly by terrorist groups.
The 2011 Arab Spring which started in Tunisia, followed by Tahrir Square protests in
Egypt, Euromaidan in Ukraine, and protests in Syria shows the key role played by
social media platforms in mobilising huge crowds of people. To a casual observer, it
may seem like a normal and perfectly logical way to organise, conduct and expand
protests using social media. However, these events of civil unrest are also an ideal
opportunity for forces that aim to swing the debate and dictate the direction of
legitimate protest movements, in a way which may result in further instability of a
country, a technique which is known as “engineered chaos”. Social protests
movements are and can be started by foreign-funded NGOs. Pressure groups are
empowered by foreign actors to achieve their own foreign policy objectives.

10. • In Pakistan, the PTM movement has come to be seen as one such movement.
Information warfare experts are deployed when a country wants to disseminate
inaccurate information which is strategically designed to alter the perception of the
masses in an attempt to influence the outcome of a particular protest movement. There
are numerous countries in possession of highly sophisticated information warfare
capabilities, deployed in service of specified foreign policy goals of the country
involved. Indian information operations are often conducted in coordination with local
“activists” or “influencers” who rally the public debate, spread panic, stoke public fears
and uncertainty through social media trends, tweets, blogs, posts, videos, and fake news.
The targeted country is subject to relentless internal and external propaganda. Such
influence operations have also been used during the recent public protests in Iran,
Catalonia and during the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. In short, the public protests and
revolutionary movements that used to be a genuine method for the public to express
their discontent have now become a soft target for countries, interest groups and
politicians who possess sophisticated information warfare capabilities and are motivated
to deploy these capabilities to leverage public discontent by engineering dissent, chaos
and anarchy in order to meet their own ends Many such examples can be found on the
Hashtag being run by BJP #WeWantChowkidar. The proliferation of hybrid warfare
capabilities has made it very easy for nation-states to develop and deploy these
capabilities against their adversaries to undermine their interests or to exert pressure on
them.

11. • These capabilities are used to divide societies and tarnish the image of the adversary by
presenting a bleak image of their stability/instability paradigm. These notable trends
have now become commonplace in the digital battlespace. A unique event took place in
2017, when the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) decided to boycott
Qatar, because its official news agency issued a press release on its website, praising
Iran and criticising other GCC member states. The result would have been a normal turn
of events if the press release was genuine; however, soon afterward, the Government of
Qatar declared that the statement attributed to the Emir of Qatar was false and that
hackers had planted it on Qatar’s official news agency’s website. By that time the
damage was done; the GCC states had taken a strong stand against the small but rich
kingdom, implementing a boycott of Qatar as well as issuing military threats to the
country. Two years later, the boycott of Qatar by the rest of the GCC member states still
continues. Now, let us allow that scenario to sink in for a while; a geopolitical crisis was
engineered by unidentified hackers using cyber tools and a carefully-crafted press
release, which was designed specifically to bring these countries face-to-face, and it
worked. This is a classic example of information warfare in the digital battlespace and
the unprecedented consequences that it can cause. Another example is the “Free
Balochistan” advertisements that were seen on buses and billboards in Europe and the
US in 2017. Although it is a rather obvious information warfare technique; it was
deployed by the Government of India against Pakistan to serve its geopolitical desires.

12. • The campaign first started in New Delhi where it was financed by Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, a close
aide to Prime Minister Modi – who himself has a vested interest in creating unrest in Pakistan. In
September 2017, political analyst Agha Iqrar Haroon asserted that India had spent INR seven billion
to run an anti-Pakistan campaign in Geneva, Switzerland. The impact sought by this campaign was to
mobilise the self-exiled proxy elements (the World Baloch Organization) who felt sympathetic
towards India’s approach towards Balochistan, this is, perhaps the most visible application of
information warfare that has been adopted by the various terrorist organizations that are operating in
different parts of the world. For terrorist organizations using information warfare is a cost-effective
method for getting their message across to their potential recruits and supporters around the world.
Although it is not new for terrorist and insurgent organizations to deploy various techniques of
propaganda to further their cause, the terrorist group which brands itself as ISIS has mastered the art
of digital information warfare to an extent that is truly astonishing. It is clear that terrorist
organizations have a keen interest in developing integrated information warfare capabilities so that
they can carry out influence operations in order to appeal to their potential financiers, to recruit their
potential members and to propagate their battlefield performance. Terrorist organisations make full
use of the Internet-based information dissemination platforms ranging from social media, websites,
blogs, dark web, and video streaming services to spread and propagate their ideologies. The
information war waged by various terrorist and insurgent organisations is becoming very
sophisticated thus presenting a challenging situation for nation states. Experts are of the view that the
radicalisation process for potential terrorism recruits starts from the internet and therefore it has
become absolutely critical for nation-states to develop their own counter-information warfare
capabilities in order to mitigate this threat. For example, during the United States elections in 2016,
widespread allegations of Russian information operations were reported.

13. • These reports claimed that the Russian intelligence operatives
manipulated public perceptions in the United States just before the
elections to help the then-candidate Donald Trump. The evidence of
Russian information operations also led to the discovery of a
systematic psychographic targeting programme run by a British big
data firm called Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, the
Strategic Communications Lab. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) launched a full-fledged investigation into these allegations,
which they believe were designed to undermine public trust in the
integrity of the US electoral system.

14. • Cyber Warfare
• Cyber warfare has come to be known as one of the most important facets of a hybrid
warfare strategy due to the emergence of terrorist organisations and their reliance on the
latest communications and technology. This enhances the importance of cyber warfare
operations because the terrorists have become the best users of anonymity by relying more
on the use of technology to bypass standard monitoring systems to carry out their activities
in a clandestine manner. In today’s connected world, digital data is moving from private
devices to the social cloud. Encryption is widely available to protect the users’ privacy from
prying eyes. Therefore, cyber warfare is a very important aspect of a hybrid warfare
strategy, given threats are increasing as hostile entities are heavily investing in developing
offensive capabilities. In May 2014, the Russian hacker group CyberBerkut exploited cyber
vulnerabilities (routers, software and hard drives) of the Ukranian National Election
Commission to undermine the credibility of the elections. Cyber defense is an actual
element of cyber warfare where the initiative is taken by the state to thwart a threat or
create such circumstances using cyber warfare capabilities to neutralise the effects of any
possible hostile action. In essence, it is the capability to assure a response and its
importance cannot be overlooked. A quick cyber response will enable the state to minimise
the damage of any action done by a hostile element and the same data can be analysed and
quickly used to launch a cyber-warfare operation. During the post-Pulwama attack
escalation in February 2019, the Indian state launched a covert cyberattack on Pakistan in
which Pakistan’s government, military, and commercial assets were targeted. Websites of
Pakistan’s Foreign Office were hacked and put out of service. Cyber warfare is a very
dynamic threat which can be divided into the following categories:

15. • Cyber Terrorism
• Terrorist groups equipped with skills to launch a cyber attack to
damage, disrupt infrastructure or to steal information. During the
past few years, terrorist groups such as the so-called Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS) used cyber-warfare as an instrument of spreading
extremism and committing terrorism. The threat was so serious for
the United States of America – that it decided to kill one of the top
ISIS hackers, Junaid Hussain by a drone strike in Raqqa – Syria.

16. • Cyber Sabotage
• Rogue actors equipped with cyber-warfare capabilities can aid a
hostile state actor to infect systems, computers, software and other
critical networks, specially installed on strategic installations.
• Cyber Intelligence
• The capability to execute an illegal harvest and analysis of large sets
of highly important digital data. Revelations by the former US
intelligence analyst, Edward Snowden, about the mass surveillance
programme run by the US National Security Agency, are an example
of cyber intelligence.

17. • Cyber Weapons
• The capability to develop and deploy highly sophisticated cyber weapons,
designed specifically to target high-value installations such as nuclear reactors,
dams, electricity grids, or economic targets such as the stock market, financial
institutions like the banks or industrial assets such as oil refineries, etc. Cyber-
attack on the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz by a cyber-weapon called the
“Stuxnet” succeeded in delivering immense damage to the reactor in 2010. It
was the first time a cyber weapon was used to achieve military objectives in
the real world.
• Cyber Espionage
• The capability to attack and steal information stored on highly secured
installations. For example, military secrets, industrial espionage, technical
intelligence and ongoing surveillance of native networks. Such attacks are
mostly targeted at highly fortified military systems. The hacking of data of
Lockheed Martin on the F-35 fighter aircraft is considered to be cyber
espionage.

18. • Economic Warfare
• Economic warfare is used to weaken a country’s economy and slow its rise to a point where
it cannot threaten the domination of the existing superpower or regional power. This type
of warfare is currently being waged between the United States and China, the so-called
“Sino-American Trade War”. The economic warfare also poses a great risk for Pakistan, as
its hostile neighbour India has a vested interest in keeping Pakistan’s economy stagnant
and uncompetitive. Economic warfare can be further divided into the following categories:
• Hydro warfare
• Violations of Indus Waters Treaty by India. River Nile dispute over Renaissance Dam
between Egypt and EretriaBlockade of the Kabul River by Indian construction firms in
Afghanistan to starve Pakistan’s share of water.
• CAATSA
• Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is an instrument to
wage economic warfare against America’s key adversaries, which is best exemplified by the
American-Chinese trade war. In 2018, Washington imposed sanctions on the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA)’s Equipment.
• Development Department (EDD) for purchasing Su-35 fighter jets from Russia. The
restructuring of Nafta, and an increase in import tariffs by the US government is also
another such example.

19. • Energy
• Gas sanctions on the Russian Gazprom by Europe, and oil and gas export sanctions on Iran by
the United States are examples of using the energy market as a policy weapon.
• Financial Institutions
• Sanctions on key financial institutions of Iran, and Russia, etc, as well as cyber-attacks
directed against Pakistan’s financial institutions, can be described as instruments of a hybrid
warfare strategy. For instance, in 2018, the head of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)’s
cyber crime wing has said data from “almost all” Pakistani banks were stolen in a recent
cybersecurity breach.
• Political Warfare
• Political warfare is the fifth and final element of a hybrid warfare strategy. This dimension of
hybrid warfare employs a mix of legal warfare (Lawfare), diplomatic warfare and other
political instruments to weaken the target country. Asad Umar Pakistan’s Finance Minister in
March 2019, asked the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to remove India from the co-chair
of the Asia-Pacific’s Joint Group.
• The group is reviewing the country’s progress on implementation of the FATF action plan.
Pakistani policy makers suspected that India was attempting to get the country blacklisted
for its own internal political and foreign policy purposes. This element of Indian hybrid
warfare strategy against Pakistan can be further divided into the following instruments:

20. • Lobbying
• Indian lobbying in Washington DC is believed to have been a contributing factor for
the denial of 6X Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, which were due to be released to
Pakistan Navy in 2010- 2011. Israeli lobbying in Washington is believed to have been
responsible for the denial of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles for the Egyptian F-16
aircraft, which massively reduced their capabilities to shoot down a hostile aircraft
from a beyond visual range. Sanctions are used to undermine a country’s
technological and military industrial potential, thus reducing their self-defense or
power projection capabilities, which in turn have a devastating impact on the overall
national power.
• Containment
• A policy of strategic containment is used to choke a country from global trade,
energy, technology, and military cooperation. Such a policy is currently being applied
against Iran, Russia, and China. The policy of strategic containment was also applied
against the USSR during the Cold War.
• Arms embargo imposed on Pakistan back in the 1990s under the Pressler
amendment gave India an unfair tactical advantage over Pakistan and consequently
a greater say in geopolitical issues.

21. • Blockades
• India in 2016 blockaded Nepal from its trade access routes in order to influence its internal
political situation and to draw diplomatic and political concessions from the landlocked
country. Blockade and nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt lead to an invasion by Britain
and France in the 1950s. Iran regularly threatens to blockade the vital Strait of Hormuz as an
act of geopolitical blackmail and saber rattling. Blockade of vital ground and maritime lines of
communications is an instrument of hybrid warfare, especially when used in conjunction with
the aforementioned tactics. Hybrid warfare has immense societal, economic and security-
related implications for Pakistan, some of which are listed below.
• Civil unrest
• Cultural subversion
• Division in civil-military relations
• Economic crisis & economic sabotage
• Espionage and terrorism under hybrid warfare umbrella
• Political extremism and separatism
• Subversion of Pakistan’s international image and foreign, economic, and diplomatic relations
• The decline in conventional war fighting capabilities because the military is deployed inside
the country as a police force.

22. • It is clear that hybrid warfare not only poses a great threat but also
presents innumerable opportunities through the employment of a
paradigm shift in the war of narratives. The implications of this type
of warfare resonate deeply with the security of Pakistan as social
cohesion, economic well-being, and its political stability are all at risk.
It is very important to understand that social media and internet
platforms are an excellent source for information but they have an
immense capability to be exploited for negative purposes. This fact
should be kept in mind when attaining information from social media,
especially during politically sensitive times such as during protest
movements, elections, or times of great political upheaval and
instability.

23. • What does this mean for Pakistan?
• It is of utmost importance for governments and state institutions to carefully
study these dynamics and strategically develop countermeasures against external
forces that would use these tools to engineer chaos and instability in the country.
Military institutions need to pay special attention to the new type of hybrid
warfare, which in itself seeks to subvert the national fabric, political system,
economy, culture, and national security. There is an urgent need for the hybrid
warfare capabilities to be understood and developed not only to safeguard our
national interests and ensure state stability but also to remain globally
competitive and politically relevant in this new, fast-evolving battlespace. In order
to achieve that, Pakistan must develop a national policy plan to effectively
respond to aforementioned hybrid threats throughout the entire spectrum of
hybrid warfare doctrine, ranging from cyber, information warfare to physical
kinetic operations, and political/diplomatic warfare.
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