PEACETIME SIMULATION FOR WARTIME SPEED

India’s last comprehensive national wargames involving civil and military leaders were staged almost four decades ago. To respond effectively to a future crisis, we must hold such exercises regularly

- LT GEN SYED ATA HASNAIN (RETD)

HEN General K Sundarji conceptualised Operation Brasstacks in 1987, India’s security environment was intense, but still largely linear.

The exercise was not merely a rehearsal of military manoeuvres. The three stages prior to Brasstacks IV involved national wargaming that brought together political leaders, bureaucrats, scientists, logisticians, and military commanders—a rare moment when the State thought collectively about war, governance, and national preparedness.

At that time, Pakistan was only 16 years past the trauma of 1971—still adversarial, but conventionally outmatched. China was only in the early phase of Deng Xiaoping’s Four Modernisations—emerging, but not yet shaping regional security dynamics. In that environment, it was logical that Brasstacks focused on massed conventional operations across geographically defined battle spaces.

Today, that world is scarcely recognisable. Pakistan possesses nuclear deterrence, missile capabilities, and is expanding access to drones and other emerging warfare technologies. Its fiscal fragility and internal instability do not restrain its behaviour; they often incentivise asymmetric posturing. With diminishing leverage in Afghanistan, it has sought a reverse form of strategic depth through intelligence footprints and sympathetic networks in Bangladesh. China has evolved into a deliberate strategist, not merely supporting, but shaping Pakistan’s threat profile. The contest is now multi-domain—cyber, informational, economic, diplomatic, and psychological—where narratives matter as much as capabilities.