Doval Doctrine

India's Defence Planning Committee was set up on 19 April 2018. It was chaired by national security advisor Ajit Doval and included the foreign secretary, defence secretary, chief of defence staff, the three service chiefs and secretaries of the Ministry of Finance.

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It set itself the enormous tasks of looking after 'national defence and security priorities, foreign policy imperatives, operational directives and associated requirements, relevant strategic and security-related doctrines, defence acquisition and infrastructure development plans, national security strategy, strategic defence review and doctrines, international defence engagement strategy', and so on. It met once, on 3 May 2018, and does not appear to have met after that.

In the absence of a national security doctrine India has presumably relied upon what is informally referred to as the Doval Doctrine. This doctrine may not be out yet in print but it is available on video. In February 2014, a few weeks before he was appointed national security advisor, Doval spoke at the Sastra University in Thanjavur. During his speech, he made the following points:

Terrorism was a strategic threat to India because it was an international phenomenon; because Pakistan fed and promoted it; and because India has a large Muslim population.

However, terrorism could not be fought because it was an idea, a word. Only terrorists could be fought (or 'degraded' in capacity), because only a tangible enemy could be defeated, not a word.

India thus had to name its threat, in this case, Pakistan. Having identified the enemy, Doval asked the question, 'How do you tackle Pakistan?' and then proceeded to explain.