India-China 2020 Border conflict

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mist_consecutive

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@Instr keep up the good work. Debating with you is fun :)

That's what I've been trying to point out to you. The Chinese don't need to move assets away from SCS / Taiwan theater.

Funny thing is, India is a bit like China in this regard, but China actually has islands in its ocean and that's its primary focus. But China has a dual land/naval orientation, which is tied together by an air force. The thing is, India is a land problem, not a naval problem, and things like Taiwan / SCS are naval problems, not land problems.

In other words, when India opens a front on containing China, what gets drawn in is the PLAGF, and to a lesser extent, the PLAAF. The PLAN can't actually deploy against Kolkata / Mumbai because of the logistics distance. So when you're thinking you're drawing Chinese resources away, you're drawing away the part of the Chinese military that's otherwise remaining unused.

And, well:


The point being made here is that the InN already had a budget cut because of the Chinese threat. If the Chinese are oriented toward the SCS / Taiwan as their primary mission, the deployment of ground forces has already reduced the InN's ability to intervene in SCS / Taiwan.

===

I'll bring in another analogy. India's position vis-a-vis China right now is similar to China's position vis-a-vis Japan in the early part of the 20th century, although there are quite a few differences (India is more unified than China was versus Japan in the early 20th century, a few insurgencies here and there, but otherwise federal government. The RoC had most of its territory controlled by warlords paying nominal obeisance to the Nationalist government). Unfortunately for China, it was a pre-industrialized society facing an industrialized society, and what's more, Chinese nationalists screwed up. Apparently Chiang Kai-Shek / Jiang Jieshi was seeking to build up against the Japanese forces, but Chinese nationalists forced Chiang's hand into opening the war early. Moreover, if you look at India's present sanctions against China, it resembles China's May Fourth boycotts against Japan, which actually forced Japan to take a military-centric approach instead of a trade-centric approach in expanding its regional dominance.

The end result was that Chiang sacrificed his best divisions to defend Shanghai from the Japanese, to achieve only a delaying action. Chiang, likewise, saw his political system wrecked by years of war against the Japanese, including an uprising against Nationalist levies. The Chinese saw virtually no success against the Japanese, in contrast to the Soviet resistance against the Nazis. Afterwards, the Nationalist system was so weakened that it was unable to stop the Communists, exploiting contradictions created by the war, from defeating them and taking China.

In the same way, Indian nationalists are calling for a hard offset (i.e, major purchases of military equipment) versus China that's unaffordable. I am telling you that a softer offset (i.e, focusing on nuclear deterrence) is more affordable and deters China without allowing China to mushroom Indian defense budgets.

If Indian attitudes are as what they appear, and we can expect a hard build-up in Indian military capabilities, I will wait to see what happens to India's defense spending as a percentage of GDP. If it goes up to 5%, that is good for China, because the taxes and debt involved will weaken and slow India's economy, giving China more time to deal with its primary antagonist, the United States. That's mission accomplished.

===

FYI, contacts in Cong suggest that Indian politicians and analysts know what the strategic balance is and what's happening. But they can't control the bottom elements (i.e, you) from forcing a hard line.
That's what I've been trying to point out to you. The Chinese don't need to move assets away from SCS / Taiwan theater.
Yes, it does. If PLAAF needs to maintain air superiority, it needs to focus at least 2/3rd of the airforce towards Tibet (fun fact, you don't have infra to support even 1/4th of your airforce in Tibet). That's counting IAF vs. PLAAF excluding ground attack jets.
Plus, you need AD brigades, radars, EW, drones, ELINT etc. moved to the Tibetian sector.

But can you actually move even 90% of your PLAGF to Tibet? PLAGF, taking a page out of soviet doctrine, is a cavalry-heavy force, and the Himalayas is a place for light-infantry. Even if you move your infantry in mountains, it does not have the required skills and tactics to fight in mountains effectively.

Our 1/4th of the army is specialized for the offense on mountains (mountain brigades), as well as we are fighting in mountains since the birth of our country.
So fast-forward 10 years, China may have enough skilled mountain troops to tackle India, but not today.

Funny thing is, India is a bit like China in this regard, but China actually has islands in its ocean and that's its primary focus. But China has a dual land/naval orientation, which is tied together by an air force. The thing is, India is a land problem, not a naval problem, and things like Taiwan / SCS are naval problems, not land problems.

In other words, when India opens a front on containing China, what gets drawn in is the PLAGF, and to a lesser extent, the PLAAF. The PLAN can't actually deploy against Kolkata / Mumbai because of the logistics distance. So when you're thinking you're drawing Chinese resources away, you're drawing away the part of the Chinese military that's otherwise remaining unused.

And, well:


The point being made here is that the InN already had a budget cut because of the Chinese threat. If the Chinese are oriented toward the SCS / Taiwan as their primary mission, the deployment of ground forces has already reduced the InN's ability to intervene in SCS / Taiwan.
We will block your shipping routes and starve you of hydrocarbons. USN will help us to contain you in SCS, PLAAF can't reach us in the Indian ocean to mount an offensive on the Indian Navy. Pakistan Navy is too insignificant to be a threat to us.

So, unless you can dominate us in the Indian Ocean too, a long-drawn (>1 month) skirmish will become losing to China :)

In the same way, Indian nationalists are calling for a hard offset (i.e, major purchases of military equipment) versus China that's unaffordable. I am telling you that a softer offset (i.e, focusing on nuclear deterrence) is more affordable and deters China without allowing China to mushroom Indian defense budgets.

If Indian attitudes are as what they appear, and we can expect a hard build-up in Indian military capabilities, I will wait to see what happens to India's defense spending as a percentage of GDP. If it goes up to 5%, that is good for China, because the taxes and debt involved will weaken and slow India's economy, giving China more time to deal with its primary antagonist, the United States. That's mission accomplished.
Again, as I said before, you are assuming that upscaling our defense spending will slow down the economy. It is not just a scale that putting weight on one side tilts the other. We have vast potential to upscale our economy using industrialization and cheap labor. China virus blues are over, our stock market is at an all-time high.
Plus we don't need to keep our defense spending 5% each year.
 

mist_consecutive

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This is something that's really shocking to me, not that this is true, but that Indian nationalists would prefer to think this way. You do realize that the Chinese are a 10k GDP per capita country (in nominal terms) and that the most developed provinces (analogues to Tamil Nadu, Kerala) are virtually equivalent to Japan and Korea, right?

The logistical challenges are real; the Chinese have neglected Tibetan infrastructure for quite some time, although there are programs to change this. But the ability to pay for supply (and recall that they make most of the military supply) is there.

===

I guess posting here is just to see how Indian nationalists would react to being told they're being Vietnamized. As it turns out, Indian nationalists don't care and the big question is how much India will expand its defense spending and whether Indian politicians will have the sense to back down. I assume no to the latter, to the former, it's worthwhile to wait and see.

There is still another solution, and that's moving American bases onto Indian soil. But for the Chinese, this is also a success, insofar as it forces the Americans to spend more on global logistics and split forces between more theaters.
I will quote you the story of a country, which kept a country with 10 times its GDP on its toes. They did not have food, development, education, have a high mortality rate, religious extremism, and all the traits of a poor third-world country.
They shamelessly begged in front of every international community, redirected donation money intended for malnourished infants towards buying guns and tanks, they became bitch of world-powers for many years and allowed themselves to be humiliated and violated, and at last, took extravagant loans with no future plans to return the money, and essentially sold themselves to China.

You guessed it, the country I am talking about is Pakistan.

Do you know what got them going? Hatred for India. When your countrymen are ready to eat grass instead of food to support the country, defeating them becomes nearly impossible unless you kill every one of them.
 

shade

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I will quote you the story of a country, which kept a country with 10 times its GDP on its toes. They did not have food, development, education, have a high mortality rate, religious extremism, and all the traits of a poor third-world country.
They shamelessly begged in front of every international community, redirected donation money intended for malnourished infants towards buying guns and tanks, they became bitch of world-powers for many years and allowed themselves to be humiliated and violated, and at last, took extravagant loans with no future plans to return the money, and essentially sold themselves to China.

You guessed it, the country I am talking about is Pakistan.

Do you know what got them going? Hatred for India. When your countrymen are ready to eat grass instead of food to support the country, defeating them becomes nearly impossible unless you kill every one of them.
Press X to doubt this here lol.
Even if the "eat grass" meme comes into play it won't be there for long.
Eventually people will look for their own individual and group interests over national interests, leading to anti-war protests backed by the usual suspects.

Maybe that is why the Sadhu is non-violent and ahinsawadi, opting for unlimited chai-biscoot foot dragging bs.
 

mist_consecutive

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I'm not sure to what extent the Chinese actually care about casualties, since the Chinese were savaged in Vietnam, and kept fighting. Assuming that the other side will back down when they've lost an army is a big mistake; that is how Carthage lost against Rome (Rome just kept on sending more armies to the field faster than Hannibal could crush them).

Also, TBH, this is precisely the problem with the Sino-Indian conflict. You're saying the Indians are nationalistic, emotional, and with a long memorial, but guess what? So are the Chinese. They're still pissed off over stuff that happened more than a hundred years ago.

The advantage for China is that China can afford to offset India. India can't afford to offset China; as I was about to reply to someone else, India is now in recession again. The fundamental drivers of growth in China were the relatively high education level (which permitted industrialization) and a supportive regulatory environment. The former seemed to have been missing in India, and that's what, I suspect, ruined Modi's attempt to expand the Indian economy.

Problem is, when it comes to India, Jamseti Tata already pointed out the flaws in Indian education even before Independence. Indian education has been a long-term endeavor, pushed for many decades, and I don't see it. Even if, since Amartya Sen complained about India's adult literacy rate (50%), it's risen to about 70%, Indian education, which is needed to support industrialization (there are a lot of cultural habits necessary for industrialization, and it takes literacy to permit such), I think it will take time for the kinks to get ironed out.

===

And TBH, when you talk about honor, you're not talking about an honorable army in your opponent. You're talking about a pragmatic army. They gained no "honor" in fighting what was claimed to be the "third strongest army in the world" (after the Vietnamese defeated the United States). But unlike the United States, the Chinese got what they wanted out of Vietnam. It's a question of duty, not honor, and that's a division between types of armies (warrior armies that seek esteem, soldier armies that seek to do the job and achieve the objective). The Chinese are not the Pakistanis.

That's why I'm saying this chest-beating won't work, and that you're being Vietnamized. The Vietnamese were so hardcore as fighters that mothers strapped their babies with bombs and threw them at Chinese vehicles. Yet the Vietnamese ended up spending lots of money to fortify their northern provinces against China, and by the time the Soviet Union fell, the Vietnamese were neutralized. Meanwhile, the Chinese were expanding their economy drastically.

But hey, suit yourself. As I talk to Indian analysts, we agree that the Chinese have a practice of setting up border disputes to "pressure" countries they have feuds with. The border disputes, for the Chinese leadership, at least, are unemotional, and are simply intended to rile up the other side and get people on both sides killed. If you are being told specifically what the trap is, and you don't care, you deserve what's coming to you.
I'm not sure to what extent the Chinese actually care about casualties, since the Chinese were savaged in Vietnam, and kept fighting. Assuming that the other side will back down when they've lost an army is a big mistake; that is how Carthage lost against Rome (Rome just kept on sending more armies to the field faster than Hannibal could crush them).
India can/will do the same. Although we deeply care about our casualties, that has not deterred anyone from joining armed forces, only motivated them.
You are mentioning Vietnam, our armed forces are actively fighting armed-insurgency in Kashmir for the last two decades. We have an active hot border with Pakistan with regular shelling and firing.
Often at least once a month we will hear in the news of our soldiers been martyred by terrorists or cross-border firing. Has that deterred us, or we have pulled-back our troops to save their lives?

In mountains, at last, who has better supply lines and better trained & motivated troops will matter. To give you a hint, our supply routes are shorter and closer to the frontline than yours, and for experience in high-altitude fighting, I leave it for you to guess :)

Also, TBH, this is precisely the problem with the Sino-Indian conflict. You're saying the Indians are nationalistic, emotional, and with a long memorial, but guess what? So are the Chinese. They're still pissed off over stuff that happened more than a hundred years ago.
I don't remember India & China having any bad blood 100 years ago. Chinese folks literally have no objective to fight India apart from the foolish expansionist dreams of CCP.

The advantage for China is that China can afford to offset India. India can't afford to offset China; as I was about to reply to someone else, India is now in recession again. The fundamental drivers of growth in China were the relatively high education level (which permitted industrialization) and a supportive regulatory environment. The former seemed to have been missing in India, and that's what, I suspect, ruined Modi's attempt to expand the Indian economy.

Problem is, when it comes to India, Jamseti Tata already pointed out the flaws in Indian education even before Independence. Indian education has been a long-term endeavor, pushed for many decades, and I don't see it. Even if, since Amartya Sen complained about India's adult literacy rate (50%), it's risen to about 70%, Indian education, which is needed to support industrialization (there are a lot of cultural habits necessary for industrialization, and it takes literacy to permit such), I think it will take time for the kinks to get ironed out.
India got in recession due to China-virus and strictly-enforced 100% lockdown for many months which made our domestic production nearly zero (apart from agri-sector). America did the opposite, kept the workforce going at expense of people's lives. Our economy is picking pace again as vaccination drive has started and the china virus is in the ending phase.

So, it is temporary, from next year the economy will not be in recession.

And the funny thing is, the Indian and Chinese educational systems is actually very similar, focused on rote-learning, stringent entrance exams to compete for top positions in govt. and industry.

Regarding literacy rate and lack of skilled workforce thereof, that is stale news. Youth today have basic bachelor level education but there is a lack of skilled jobs. With the rise in industrialization, that won't be a problem anymore.

And TBH, when you talk about honor, you're not talking about an honorable army in your opponent. You're talking about a pragmatic army. They gained no "honor" in fighting what was claimed to be the "third strongest army in the world" (after the Vietnamese defeated the United States). But unlike the United States, the Chinese got what they wanted out of Vietnam. It's a question of duty, not honor, and that's a division between types of armies (warrior armies that seek esteem, soldier armies that seek to do the job and achieve the objective). The Chinese are not the Pakistanis.

That's why I'm saying this chest-beating won't work, and that you're being Vietnamized. The Vietnamese were so hardcore as fighters that mothers strapped their babies with bombs and threw them at Chinese vehicles. Yet the Vietnamese ended up spending lots of money to fortify their northern provinces against China, and by the time the Soviet Union fell, the Vietnamese were neutralized. Meanwhile, the Chinese were expanding their economy drastically.

But hey, suit yourself. As I talk to Indian analysts, we agree that the Chinese have a practice of setting up border disputes to "pressure" countries they have feuds with. The border disputes, for the Chinese leadership, at least, are unemotional, and are simply intended to rile up the other side and get people on both sides killed. If you are being told specifically what the trap is, and you don't care, you deserve what's coming to you.
I am talking about an army motivated to fight. Sense of duty, pragmatism lasts till the money exists and a threat to life does not.


Thousands of people gathered to pay their respects for the 22-year old martyred in cowardly Galwan ambush by China.

Can you show me a similar instance in China? Not going into how many were killed on whose side, we know soldiers killed on the Chinese side is at least greater than zero.
Many Chinese men who go to the frontline will never return, their memory and history erased. The best a Chinese family can expect is an unmarked grave somewhere in the remote mountains. Tell me that is an honourable death.
Fighting for a party for whom you are nothing but a dispensable tool, a name on the paper, a unit for work is not motivating.

Yes, your army will be professional and pragmatic. But when tasked to run up the hills against HMG fire ripping up your teammates, living in the cold that cracks your skin without warm-food and supplies for many days, dwindling ammunition, is where that pragmatism will start to kick in, and it will say to run, run in the opposite direction.


pragmatism.

vs.


motivation.

Being emotional works because motivation is basically emotion. Motivation generated from hatred is indestructible.
 

DownWithCCP

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So the narrative building(if there's a skirmish in the summer) has already begun, if you notice carefully you can see the change in Rajnath Singh's tones, at the beginning he wasn't naming China when calling them out, after that he started calling out China by their name and said "We don't want war but if China violates our sovereignty we will respond" and now he has gone on to say this. It also reflects the Indian armed forces' power on ground, if you notice carefully the rabid pieces written on Global times has reduced greatly, this reflects the change in our position on the ground.
 

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Ladakh Reopens Pangong Tso Lake To Tourists Amid China Standoff, Covid

 

DownWithCCP

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Statement after statement becomes hotter and hotter, this is an open threat to the chinks, a few months before even the army chief's statement was limited to "We are committed to finding the resolution of our disputes through discussions and political efforts " but now even his statements pack a punch. I think the Indian top brass has found serious chinks(pun intended) in the Chinese armor, summer is going to be very bad for them, especially after the army chief threatens them to "not test our patience" which means more re-adjustments may take place if talks don't work. The ball is on China's court now, it is up to them if they want to face military defeat and humiliation in the summer months or the lesser humiliation of taking their troops back before the snow melts, just like those 10K troops that ran away like cowards unable to face the Winter.
 
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