I am so glad that the Wall Street Journal is finally covering this issue. No one is talking about it and even my readers in India down play the dangers...but make no mistake about it.
When China and India finally come to blows it will be a sight to behold and will shake the world.
The thing that people are missing is that both sides are girding for war. India has formed a Mountain
We might not see full scale warfare but skirmishes will happen and I would bet that the soldiers involved will swear they fought WW3....the fighting will be that intense.
It is hard to do a full scale war when both sides are separated by the Himalayas.
ReplyDeleteAnd unlike China's eastern neighbors, India is willing to negotiate with China for a permanent borderline. India's political culture is far different from that in East Asia where any kind of willingness to negotiate over territories would constitute an act of treason.
I'll say this first hand as an Indian Citizen. The Govt. here is not doing enough to inform its own citezenry about the Indo-China confrontations. What comes out in Indian media is a absolutely garbled information where no proper source can be verified. Its being doing this about the China Border since we became an Indipendante Country. The kind of clarity that most indians have about the Paki border is missing here.
ReplyDeleteOff course its going to be a WW3 or something like that. If the Chinese ever get involved militarily with India, the Taiwanese might just get some Ideas. What those ideas are is well known to everybody here. Maybe even Japan might get some Ideas.
ReplyDeleteSolomon, the current modernization of out Forces consists of a Mountain Corps, not just a single Division. It will have two infantry divisions supported by three independent armoured brigades, three artillery brigades, an engineer brigade, an air defence brigade, an aviation brigade and logistics support units. It will be called the 17 Corps. And there are talks about raising another one after this but that is just pure speculation at this time.
Those efforts at countering China will be aided by "Tibetan Volunteers", or the modern tibetan equivalent of the good old Mukti Bahini. Fanatical locals already acclimatized, speak the local language, know the local people and landscape with relatives and supporters living as far away as Lhasa. We already have a Divison sized force of such tibetans in regular service. Wont be surprised if we get to easily recruit another 10,000 plus to make a irregular Partizan force working on both sides of the border.
DeleteA little know secret, when we were initially guaging the mood of Bengalis in East Pakistan and the eventual formation of the Mukti Bahini before the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 the first covert troops to enter Bangladesh were not Indian but Tibetan. That was the first time the Kalashnikov made its debut in India.
Slowman
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a scrap about a few square miles of mountain glacier
Its a war over Tibet, Burma, sri lanka.
Not to mention the Maoist naxalite rebels that are waging an insurgency in much of north east India.
There's no negotiated peace there, not long term.
When you consider that neither side would really notice a few minor cities eating nukes and a few million dead, it has the potential to be like nothing we've seen in our life times
About the Maoists and the Tribal war....these are the last remaining unconquired people of India. Proof of that- Majority of the people residing here still follow the good old gods/forces of nature and belong to no organized religion like you amd me. Aryanic/Vedic hinduism, Islam and christianity have made small enclaves in this territory but most of these people are true Tribals and have been like that since the evolution of man in the Indian Sub-continent. Its only now that we have found natural resources and and unsatiable apetite for those resources that we are making inroads into their lush green hills, sacred groves etc. The Iron Maiden song- The Clansman comes to mind here. Poor soules these tribals...they have no idea that the full might and greed of Indian and International capitalism is on its way over there.
Deletewould tnis mean another round of mumbai style attack in india just remind the indian goverment how vurnerable is their biggest population centers from terrorist attacks ? I dont think India would dare to face the chinese militarily , not when russia is trying to woo china and india's total dependence on russian weapons..
ReplyDeletemaybe later lol but certainly not now or in the near future..
Russia and China are frenemies. They aren't currently shooting each other, at the moment, but China considers large amounts of Russia to be Chinese territory that was stolen, and China would like it back.
DeleteAsk yourself who the short tangle battlefield nukes in Vladivostok are really pointed at.
China has done a good job of isolating itself from everyone, everyone it shares a border with, and plenty it doesn't, has reason to see it knocked down a peg.
buntalanlucu...the thing about terrorist attacks here in the Sub-continent is that they they dont involve a loss of soverign territory. Even aftetr the attack, that territory is still yours making the strategic impact of terrorists a small irritation in the bigger picture. After the Mumbai Atacks the police in the big cities are more than competent to resolve these attacks even during war time. The best example of this can be found when our Police rose up to the challenge of the "Gibraltar Force" in 1965 where Paki Regulars were infiltrating all over the border to incite communal passions and create an resistance in India. There are many cases of Police engaging Paki Para-Troppers who got in through low level sorties.
DeleteHigh Altitude trench warfare, It's been done during world war one.
ReplyDeleteYou dont send in 2 Infantry Divisions backed up with 3 armored brigades for doing trench warfare Zebra. Also, its pretty hard to dig a trench in a 65 million year old rock which we call the Himalayas. The accompanying artillery is going to be those ultra-light weight Howitzers with a heli-transport capability. That should account for a significant composition pf the aviation component in the 17 Corps.
DeleteI, however will admit that the procurement for those Howitzers and accompanying choppers is in a complete mess. Too be resolved soon. Will update all on any progress on this front.
Update 1.....The Tanks are here though. T-90's. 55 Tanks to a battalion. 3 Battalions to a brigade. 3 Brigades in total. The Tank Plant at Avadi has no problem meeting this order.
Update 2..... The Airforce is on a Runway Expansion Program. The best example of this was seen when the airfield at Daulat Beg Oldie saw a C-130 land and take off from there as a capability demonstrator for rushing forces forward.
Update 3.....A significant number of Guided Missile Artillery Units are also being raised on this front. How many....i cannot confirm at this time.
Here is a great documentary on the last great border war in the 1962 Sino-Indian war.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zfieuXDomE
There is a lot about all the Indian wars against Pakistan that give you lots of Info also about armoured clashes. The second biggest tank battle called Chawinda I don't know why they didn't put this one in the documentary series The Greatest Tank Battles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chawinda
We need to keep a tight watch on the Pakistan-China connections. The harder China helps the Paks the more likely they are to get confrontational with India. And no one forget the problems India has had with Muslim extremism. If Pakistan goes full-tilt Islamic Radical leadership, then India faces not one but two potential foes, both with nuclear weapons. China knows India is their biggest competitor to be the next superpower. With a radicalized Pakistan who will with zero-doubt be supporting terror/insurgency in India, the Chinese could make rumblings to cow India into conceding the world's biggest mound of rocks or else face a two front war.
ReplyDeleteIndia is an unspoken brother in the fight against Radical Islam and are forging new ties to Israel (they just chose buying Israeli anti-tank missiles over the US Javelin among others) both of which are things we should back them up on.
By the way, is India still recruiting Gurka battalions? I heard the new Nepal government has been making it hard for India and Britain getting them.
Nepal does that periodically for Aid Money. No problem. We just gave them a Billion Dollar line of credit for making Hydel Power Projects and grabed Nepal before the Gargantuan Chinese Hydel Power Industry could make inroads here. Ditto for Bhutan. In any case, due to the open border between Nepal and India and easy work permits there are a whole lot of Nepalis and their Gurkha component already living in India.
DeleteI dont know what Britan has contributed to softem the Nepali stand.
Our ties with Israel are kind of new, considering that we did not have an embassy with Israel up till 1992. But that was for other purposes.
Our current defence expenditure is barely 1.7-.1.8% of our GDP. There is a lot of potential here for growth and an outright doubleing of this figure in case Pakistan becomes even more radicalized or just collapses triggering in a new crisis. Belive me, there is plenty of money and manpower in India to counter any Chinese rumblings using Pakistan of all countries as bait. All we need for the moment are weapons which i am sure in this scenario the West or even Russia wont deny us.
The last time we pulled one over the Chinese diplomatically and geographically was in 1972 when the Buddhist Kingdom of Sikkim decided to Join the Union of India and the Chinese didnt know squat about it till it actually happened. From that moment onwards they have been keepong tabs on almost every disputed territory on the border- Arunachal and Aksai Chin. Sikkim, if you believe legends and old myths was part of the Tibetan Buddhist Brotherhood/empire before the acceded to India. The Chinese do not....repeat...do not want that to happen again.
Solomon should renew this page after a couple of months so that we can add more to this.
ReplyDelete