In the recent developments that have happened, India needs to rethink its foreign policy engagements a little more militarily and selfishly.
We two simultaneous challenges at the moment:
1. A militarily self-reliant China that has enough local critical mass to profit from wars & wants a war on our border (
They know that we are still import-reliant and therefore wars are costly for us)
2. A limping Pakistan that has the full support of an Islamist Turkey, which is using scholarships and funding with Muslim groups and associations in India to radicalize local Muslims (
ironically still the only community that 'gets radicalized' against the country at the drop of a hat).
Both these threats need to be seen in two separate dimensions.
1. CCP-controlled CHINA
For China, even if the current Ladakh stand-off doesn't convert into a war (it almost is), it will still keep needling till CCP controls Tibet - let's face it, that's the reality we need to be prepared for. Communist Party of China has a goal of Mao's Five Finger Punch strategy since after1967 when they lost badly at the hands of a better prepared Indian Army.
They may stop salami-slicing for some time temporarily to restore some economic confidence, and make us believe that things have normalized, maybe through a change of leadership soon in China (not change in the political party but leadership). Nonetheless, they will keep trying to wrest the Himalayas from us. In this century, any country that controls Himalayas + Indian Ocean is the superpower. The Indian Ocean is in our control and 70%+ of the Himalayas is in India. CCP doesn't like that. They believe that the entire Himalayan belt should be in the control so that they can dictate terms to us using water flow as an excuse the way they have already started doing.
The only way to counter this is to have an aggressive and pre-emptive Tibet Action Plan (TAP for short). While Tibetans themselves may not offer any serious threat to the now powerful PLA, PLAAF and PLAN, they can be instrumental assets in dealing with the CCP when trained adequately. We also need to start rethinking about the One China policy more proactively.
Meaning, for every dispute that China backs against India, we should also raise voices in support of Taiwan and Tibet.
Leave Xinjiang intentionally out because they are turning to Islamist ideology for violence. Once we support them proactively, we cannot expect the world to buy our words when we raise the issue of our own jihadi Islamist problems within India. Turkey is already backing the Islamist factions in that area through their common "Turkic roots".
A. The QUAD
Everyone thinks that the answer is a four-letter word called QUAD. Well, it is so when you see from a bird's eye perspective. But when we dig a little deeper, there are a lot of ifs and buts that we need to consider here.
Allow me to explain in detail.
A.1. The United States of America
While the USA has been very vocal in its support and wants to clip CCP's wings, you have to consider that it is a temporary measure and that their supply chain backing to us may not be reliable at the peak of the war. They are known to have ditched "non-white, non-western" allies in the middle of the action in the past.
The Republican party in its current iteration is opposed to China; the Democrats are virtually in bed with them because of the business interests of many Democrat financiers and political backers. And it is quite obvious that both the parties have the blessings of the Deep State that politically controls the country in the garb of the "two or more political parties".With less than two months and Trump trying to salvage his party right now, It is very unlikely that the US would get seriously involved in any form of combat with CCP alongside us.
A.1.2. Australia
Australia under the Morrison government has been quite friendly to India and has a realistic assessment of the threat perception in the Asia Pacific region. However, economic realities will compel Australia to not push CCP too far, too soon. There is a lot of pressure on the Morrison government to go easy with China despite his legitimate reasons after the Australian university issue that Australia faced (
basically, the CCP had infiltrated their institutions to make them talk pro-China or suffer economic consequences).
They may tighten the purse and limit CCP's further access to the Australian economy. But then again that is not of much use in a scenario of war.
A.1.3. Japan
Japan has been doing a lot on the economic front and is perhaps the most aggressive country in the Quad other than us - they are literally
paying their companies to dismantle their setup in China and come to India (along with a few other friendly countries).
But militarily, they are not ready. If there is action in the Sea of Japan, they will call upon the 35,000+ US military forces present in their territory. CCP may be egoistic but it is not foolish enough not open up a front with Japan+USA while it is fighting us. Such a confrontation would be from the main cities of China that are all exposed to the Pacific and don't have the buffer zone of Tibet to take a casualty.
Also, the Japanese military is not known for combat these days -> they may have fancy gadgets and lots of US-backed war games, but the games mean nothing unless you have faced real combat. They haven't seen a fight in the last 75 years, making them extremely vulnerable in a war.
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This puts us in a situation where the only non-Quad country will militarily stand by us if we give them enough reasons to trust us and that country is Vietnam. They are the only ones who have given a bloody nose and have a psychological advantage over CCP-led China. They are capable of inflicting a lot more damage down south in the long run.
Another country that can potentially be helpful, is Taiwan. But none of Taiwan's territories is occupied by China. Also, it is a defensive force with limited offensive capabilities. But politically it can be quite a strong support like Australia.
So realistically, it is us along with some degree of weapons supply from the USA (not without political strings) in case this 'race to the top' exercise between our soldiers and PLA converts to a full-blown hot war. If coaxed enough, Vietnam can seize this opportunity to take back their Paracel islands while the PLA/PLAAF are engrossed in the Himalayas.
2. Turkey and Pakistan
This might sound funny here to put Turkey in the same league as even Pakistan, but remember that they are a credible threat of upsetting India from within. They might be a nobody in head-to-head military confrontation against us, but they hold quite a sway among India's large Muslim population that has a serious identity crisis since their conversion happened a few centuries ago. Sorry for being unapologetically crude here, but this is a fact. These are the only people apart from devout Xtians who have a tendency to start siding with outsiders at the drop of a hat. They may say that they don't need a certificate to prove their patriotism, but that applies to individuals.
Judging by the vicious brainwashing and total control of information in the majority of their community, they can pose to be quite an internal problem. Bengal, which is just a few hundred km away from my city, saw the rise of India's
first sharia-compliant village - no cellphones, no TV, no music allowed. Turkey can easily manipulate this, given their desperate attempts under Erdogan to recreate the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Erdogan is not a threat but can become a problem for us due to our own stupidity of not reining the radicalization of Muslim community by their clerics in the country by taking a closer look at their religious teachings; all in the name of 'democracy'.
Turkey needs to be nipped in the bud before it becomes out of control. As we all know Erdogan the jabber jaw cannot keep his mouth shut & has already angered Greece and France with his territorial intrusion of the Greek and Cypriot waters.
This presents a perfect opportunity for us to meddle into Turkey's affairs. Not meddling into their affairs thinking that they will respect our concerns, is stupid. We need to be more aggressive with them.