India China LAC & International Border Discussions

[tarunraju]

Chinese whispers In Ladakh: With its land grab, Beijing sends tough message to New Delhi and the world​

To India, specifically, China is saying: don’t join a containment structure or we will show you to be a paper tiger.

I would argue that the Chinese have taken the risk of being exposed to the world as a paper lizard, should India choose to call its bluff, continue infrastructure works in Ladakh, continue military buildup, raise rhetoric to the nuclear and thermonuclear domains, and get foreign investors to see that their prospective industrial investments in China are just as unsafe as they would be in India, and they'd rather invest in India. This, in my opinion, will be Modi's crowning geopolitical achievement.

So, parallel to a huge military build-up, India must:

• Test K-4 SLBMs some more (make these very visible tests)
• Test its ASW capabilities by spotting a chicom submarine
• Have one of our submarines make a friendly port call in Japan to show that it has successfully evaded chicom ASW in their so-called 9-dash line waters
• A hypersonic/quasi-hypersonic cruise missile test won't hurt
• Under IAEA oversight, simulate a fusion weapon test.
• Start making Nepal's life miserable. Stall off all logistics supplies under national security claims and inspections, inflict economic devastation in Kathmandu. When a panicked Kathmandu begs Beijing for immediate support, it will only throw the Chinese strategy off-gear.

What has Beijing scared is that compared to the 2010s, India's industrial and logistics infrastructure are finally matching China's, we have a cheap and sufficiently skilled labour force, and western industrialists can get things made in India at costs beating China's. Also, unlike China, India's shipping industry is virgin, for European shipping companies to move in.

Beijing lost half the battle to India with its COVID-19 fuckup that's 1000x Chernobyl (both in loss of international reputation and global socioeconomic impact).

So military drama is basically Beijing's last ditch effort to make India look like a bad investment destination. It's a battle China is destined to lose.

 

[Bhadra]

I prefer working silently. Public attention is diverted due to Covid19. Declaring war has many ramifications including invoking civil defence. Declaring war may cause panic in large cities. This is not the time to start a war.

You have choice of the time and place to start the War but not for meeting the challenges of War inflicted on you by others. So fo India it may not be a time to start the war but what will do since China has already initiated it?

It is time to prepare for war.

And what were you doing for 74 years?
Protecting the country and its people from external aggression is the most fundamental responsibility of the "State". You mean India as a "State" has failed to so and you need time to prepare for war which is being heaped on you.
This is one aspect of the existence of State that makes it "Sovereign". There is no bigger valid reason for existence of a state than exercising sovereignty internally and externally. This is one issue our polity, politicians, bureaucracy and academia need to be reminded of who generally have been saying- there will be no war.. there can not be a war.... and implementing govt policies based on that myth.

There is no 'local' war with China. Any conflict with China MUST NOT be compared with Pakistan.

Very true. National military planning is never based on guesswork but hard facts. The threat is always taken at the maximalist level and not at the lowest level. But in India, it seems to be culture to take everything including intelligence out of guesswork... Look how Nehru. Menon, MN Malik and Desai worked on pure guesswork in 1950s and then what a historic pain they inflicted on Indian civilization.

I only hope that Modi and BJP do not fall for the lollipop of bureaucratic guesswork but are guided into action by realistic assessments. Though Doval being there chances of bureaucratic guesswork passing as policy guidelines are significantly less but the dangers of oft-repeated bureaucratic labyrinthine affecting decisions is the bane of our system. .

 

[Indrajit]

You have choice of the time and place to start the War but not for meeting the challenges of War inflicted on you by others. So fo India it may not be a time to start the war but what will do since China has already initiated it?

I could not agree with you more.

 

[Bhadra]

I would argue that the Chinese have taken the risk of being exposed to the world as a paper lizard, should India choose to call its bluff, continue infra works in Ladakh, continue military buildup, raise rhetoric to the nuclear and thermonuclear domains (and get foreign investors in China to see that their industrial investments in China are just as unsafe as they would be in India, and they'd rather invest in India). This, in my opinion, will be Modi's crowning geopolitical achievement.

You have correctly outlined the Macro issues and courses of action but the tiger is sitting in Galwan and Pengang Tso?

Our strat community must generate options to deal with it as it has potential to harm the future course of the country.. in internal and external dimensions. The entire world would be watching Modi and what India does..

Here no one talks of 38000 sq km loss of territory but of 50 or 360 sq Kms loss - Panag or Shukla never cried for that loss even when they were in Service but today loss of finger or two has become national loss.

India in the present circumstance has only two options :

* Not to bite the Chinese bait and keep vigorously building infrastructure while holding China as it is along LAC with added strength. Force China to attack India and draw them into our own killing zones. The cushion time must be utilized to build up forces and developing multiple Options.

* Call Chinese bluff and push them back as much as India could do after reasonable preparation and concentration of forces...

* Hold Ladakh where they think they have gained advantageous position and attack somewhere else where it would hurt them more ,,, say Doklam or Taklakot...

Just doing nothing and keeping quiet will be harmful internally and externally.

China has a nationalistic perspective with regard to the boundary as contained in letters of Chau en Lai - to make India accept the so-called LAC as the final boundary. Chinese have been working on that goal since 1960 and even trapped India in an agreement on LAC in 1993 under BPTA.

BPTA agreement should have not been entered into without defining LAC.

India must never accept LAC as any boundary since the Chinese have shown that they do not respect it and have no qualms about changing it whenever they so wish. It is better to have troubled LAC rather than a disadvantageous fixed troubled border. Chinese will always be trouble makers even if we give them a fixed boundary as per their desire.
.

 

[garg_bharat]

The romantic idea that we must snatch back land that China occupied (just walked over with little resistance - ostensibly due to our reduced patrolling due to Covid19) is not a great idea. If we did not build strong defences in the area where Chinese just walked over - then it is logical that we were always at risk of this event. You cannot call this an accident.

At the same time we must define our objectives before we start a military action. Are we ready to occupy this area in such a way that we can defend it 24x7? Because that is what Chinese would want us to do as their objective is not territory but economic and personnel losses of India.

 

[garg_bharat]

I maintain that India MUST NOT walk into a trap. Rather wait for China to walk into a trap laid by West. There is a good chance that Chinese will withdraw without any war.

 

[fire starter]

seems like locusts reached China

 

[tarunraju]

You have correctly outlined the Macro issues and courses of action but the tiger is sitting in Galwan and Pengang Tso?

Galwan Valley has zero chicom infiltration, while the response to Pangong Tso will be an Indian excursion into Chicom-held territory.

Just doing nothing and keeping quiet will be harmful internally and externally.

I wouldn't say we're doing nothing. A black-topped road to DBO isn't doing nothing. It's the ultimate 2-front ga*nd mein ungli (act of defiance).

By stimulating India to build its border infrastructure on a literal war-footing, China committed strategic mistakes that will haunt it in the wars to come.

China has a nationalistic perspective with regard to the boundary as contained in letters of Chau en Lai - to make India accept the so-called LAC as the final boundary. Chinese have been working on that goal since 1960 and even trapped India in an agreement on LAC in 1993 under BPTA.

BPTA agreement should have not been entered into without defining LAC.

India must never accept LAC as any boundary since the Chinese have shown that they do not respect it and have no qualms about changing it whenever they so wish. It is better to have troubled LAC rather than a disadvantageous fixed troubled border. Chinese will always be trouble makers even if we give them a fixed boundary as per their desire.

And we won't. Unlike morons like Brajesh Mishra, who let the Chinese get the bargain of their lives (trading Indian recognition of Tibet as PRC in exchange for chicom recognition of Sikkim as India); we have competent people at the top. This administration (and party) has the highest participation of military vets.

 

[Shashank Nayak]

Galwan Valley has zero chicom infiltration, while the response to Pangong Tso will be an Indian excursion into Chicom-held territory.



I wouldn't say we're doing nothing. A black-topped road to DBO isn't doing nothing. It's the ultimate 2-front ga*nd mein ungli (act of defiance).


And we won't. Unlike morons like Brajesh Mishra, who let the Chinese get the bargain of their lives (trading Indian recognition of Tibet as PRC in exchange for chicom recognition of Sikkim as India); we have competent people at the top. This administration (and party) has the highest participation of military vets.

1500 workers left yesterday for ladakh.. A total of 3500 would be working on blacktopping the remaining stretch of DBO

 

[Bhadra]

The romantic idea that we must snatch back land that China occupied (just walked over with little resistance - ostensibly due to our reduced patrolling due to Covid19) is not a great idea.

Ah! it may be romantic for Mr Garg ut not for children who lose their father, for mothers who lose their sons and ladies who become widows. It is not romantic even to the generals and the government.

If we did not build strong defences in the area where Chinese just walked over - then it is logical that we were always at risk of this event. You cannot call this an accident.

It not an accident of course but a border is guarded purely based on threat assessment, Patterns of guarding are adopted based on what can be accepted and restored and what is not acceptable. No border in the world is foolproofly safe. However, I agree that our fundamental appraoch towrds guarding LAC has not been correct in any way. Nehruvian necessities and Liberalism has no place in border guarding. People in this country talk of unsubstantiated rubbish like international norms etc and apply those on the most threatened line which can hardly be called a border.

At the same time we must define our objectives before we start a military action.

Forces do have things defined for themselves but the Country (politicians and bureaucracy ) has never given any objectives to the military so far. Show me any military directive so far over 74 years.

Are we ready to occupy this area in such a way that we can defend it 24x7? Because that is what Chinese would want us to do as their objective is not territory but economic and personnel losses of India.

Chinese should also have ways and means to force us to adopt a posture. Military operations always have a civilian objective and are not merely a tamasha of fight to finish.

 

[Shashank Nayak]

The burning brown sepoys ... An article by Sanjaya Baru has caused serious burn

 

[cereal killer]

You have choice of the time and place to start the War but not for meeting the challenges of War inflicted on you by others. So fo India it may not be a time to start the war but what will do since China has already initiated it?



And what were you doing for 74 years?
Protecting the country and its people from external aggression is the most fundamental responsibility of the "State". You mean India as a "State" has failed to so and you need time to prepare for war which is being heaped on you.
This is one aspect of the existence of State that makes it "Sovereign". There is no bigger valid reason for existence of a state than exercising sovereignty internally and externally. This is one issue our polity, politicians, bureaucracy and academia need to be reminded of who generally have been saying- there will be no war.. there can not be a war.... and implementing govt policies based on that myth.



Very true. National military planning is never based on guesswork but hard facts. The threat is always taken at the maximalist level and not at the lowest level. But in India, it seems to be culture to take everything including intelligence out of guesswork... Look how Nehru. Menon, MN Malik and Desai worked on pure guesswork in 1950s and then what a historic pain they inflicted on Indian civilization.

I only hope that Modi and BJP do not fall for the lollipop of bureaucratic guesswork but are guided into action by realistic assessments. Though Doval being there chances of bureaucratic guesswork passing as policy guidelines are significantly less but the dangers of oft-repeated bureaucratic labyrinthine affecting decisions is the bane of our system. .

Agree totally China have brought this on us & is clearly the aggressor who is changing the status quo. India has every right to act now. China maybe thinking Like them Indians also have no apetite to fight. Even if we are all keeping this under the wraps Chinese are spreading their own narrative & our leftists & commies have only added fuel to the fire like Ladakh is gone. I read someone here said our cities won't be safe I mean WTF nothing is safe in war. Btw a large scale conflict is impossible in Himalayas & I don't think Navy has to anything unless China tries something from Djibouti.

 

[rock127]

Agree totally China have brought this on us & is clearly the aggressor who is changing the status quo. India has every right to act now. China maybe thinking Like them Indians also have no apetite to fight. Even if we are all keeping this under the wraps Chinese are spreading their own narrative & our leftists & commies have only added fuel to the fire like Ladakh is gone. I read someone here said our cities won't be safe I mean WTF nothing is safe in war. Btw a large scale conflict is impossible in Himalayas & I don't think Navy has to anything unless China tries something from Djibouti.

The reason Chini have let one of it's paltu called Oli to bark against India instead of firing any bullet.

Chini can then claim oh see these Indians are so aggressive that they "bully" even their hindu brother Nepal.

Chini might pay few million and even Lanka might issue some statement against India as well.

 

[Defcon 1]

1 Recce and Support outfit was equipped.

If this was ever done, I don't think the information is in public domain. As per publicly available information, NAG has never been mass produced.

I am aware of the issues highlighted in the rest of your post sir. I only intended to point out that the statement "Nag was ordered a decade back" is false. It has not been ordered yet, at least publicly.

Also budget allocation or DAC clearance are not same as ordering. MMRCA was alloted budget during the time of UPA government and LCA Mk1A was given DAC clearance sometime back. We know the status of orders of both these projects.

 

[Defcon 1]

Yeah

Send me your CV and tell me about your interests, etc on DM. Will try and find something for you.

 

[Tridev123]

I agree with all your points especially the first one that was bang on (some action needed there). I don't know what is the reason we are so reluctant to take on the Chinese bully regardless of who is in power. In Doklam we took a stand & gave a massive hit to China geopolitically. For all we know China may be plotting a revenge after that & after revocation Article 370 they had to do something. DSDBO is a direct threat to Karakoram Highway besides India is already eyeing GB. I think this is all power posturing & they are trying to keep India in defensive position. The current government has made lot of noise regarding these issues Let's see whether they walk the talk. Because if we give in now then mission PoK will just be a fantasy & rhetoric like all these years.

Replying late.Had some urgent work. Yes, intelligence gathering can see improvement. I believe we have made an exponential leap in technical intelligence like satellite imagery. We have a constellation of remote sensing satellites. But in this case it was more a case of failure of human intelligence. We knew that the military exercise was on and probably had high resolution maps/pictures of the deployments. But we could not guess the intentions of the Chinese commanders. I believe this incident has underlined the crucial role played by human intelligence. All the high tech tools like satellites and reconnaissance planes cannot read the mind of the opponents commanders. I believe we need to seriously beef up our China desk. We should attempt to infiltrate Chinese society and the PLA. It is a herculean task. But look at Israel. Such a small country has a first rate external intelligence agency. They have infiltrated all of their much bigger neighbours. So having assets in the PLA at the tactical and strategic level is possible.
Having said the obvious there is no need to demoralise our intelligence setup. No country or its intelligence services have an 100% successful record. Failures will be there be it the CIA, KGB, MI5/MI6 or the Mossad. But we need to learn our lessons from our failures.

Yes, Doklam was an operation we can be proud of. But please keep in mind it was an defensive action as we stopped an Chinese incursion into Bhutan. We did not invade Chinese controlled Tibet. But the PLA was thoroughly outsmarted and humiliated. They could not go to war as we controlled the approaching heights on three sides and would have routed them. They lost face regionally and internationally. Without using air power they were doomed to failure.
China could be having her revenge in the present situation on the border.

I think we need a change in planning when constructing strategic border roads. We cannot have a situation where we construct and own the roads but lose control of the surrounding heights. If we want to ensure the security of the road then we need to occupy the surrounding heights also. Pakistan was able to threaten our key highway during the Kargil War by occupying surrounding heights and the Chinese are repeating the move. Why doesn't it occur to us that any mountain feature which can imperil the strategic road has to be first taken over and occupied. Capture the heights overlooking the road to ensure safety.

India is slowly matching the Chinese in Defence but the process should be speeded up. I agree there is no need to tolerate Chinese nonsense. Other countries like Vietnam will fight the Chinese irrespective of the state of their economy. May be we have chosen a more cautious approach.

 

[cereal killer]

The reason Chini have let one of it's paltu called Oli to bark against India instead of firing any bullet.

Chini can then claim oh see these Indians are so aggressive that they "bully" even their hindu brother Nepal.

Chini might pay few million and even Lanka might issue some statement against India as well.

Who said anything to do Nepal? They can cry their lungs out. Their parliamentary resolution holds no value. Both India & Pakistan are playing this game for ages & both know it means s**t. Current lankan govt is pro India but next one may be anti India under Rajapaksa. Anyways we can't sit back & watch. Clearly China will not go back & I don't think they will agree with talk.

 

[dumdumdum]

What will it take to Balkanize China? For all our discussion about current situation..problem will not go away till China is not scaled down, broken down. It will keep taking stabs at us either directly or through its external and internal proxies.

Has any thinking on such lines ever happened in Indian strategic circles? Can somebody shed some light?

 

[Bhadra]

The reason Chini have let one of it's paltu called Oli to bark against India instead of firing any bullet.

Chini can then claim oh see these Indians are so aggressive that they "bully" even their hindu brother Nepal.

Chini might pay few million and even Lanka might issue some statement against India as well.

This does happen in politics when a 10 Class pass man from a poor background, with criminal records and 14 years prison term shoots to be the PM of chaotic fledgling democracy... How much will be his price... in bidding the Chinese outbid the Indians... so simple..

But how did the Chinese manage the majority is the moot question..

 

[rock127]

What will it take to Balkanize China? For all our discussion about current situation..problem will not go away till China is not scaled down, broken down. It will keep taking stabs at us either directly or through its external and internal proxies.

Has any thinking on such lines ever happened in Indian strategic circles? Can somebody shed some light?

I got the whole blooo print but RAW Mudi & Mota Bhai has told me not to spill the beans in public or else plan would be compromised.