Is he wrong though? Taking this level of casualties against poorly trained militamen is concerning.
I am not saying that the SOP's followed by the Army cannot be improved or better bullet proof trucks and LSV's could not have been used.
Do a proper Post Mortem of the situation to identify gaps in strategy, training and equipment. By all means..
But let's not throw shit on the entire Army record in Counter Insurgency/Terrorism operations spanning decades.
If we(the Army) were so ineffective then the North East and Kashmir should have been severed from the Indian Union long time ago by our enemies.
Now which supposed Superpower has not suffered fatalities at the hands of grossly inferior(training and equipment wise) fighters.
The mightiest Superpower the United States tasted humiliation in Vietnam. So called peasant soldiers with basic weapons killed dozens of US Army soldiers in numerous ambushes. Understating the casualties. Not to forget the significant fatalities incurred in Afghanistan at the hands of the Mujahideen.
The Chinese similarly were ass whipped by the inferiorly equipped Vietnamese Army. I doubt whether the PLA will fare any better if used in prolonged Counter Insurgency operations. I believe that the main reason that they were able to control Tibetan insurgents in the fifties and sixties was because of overwhelming numerical superiority. A ratio of 10:1 or even 20:1.Not by very good tactics or fighting ability. Also I believe that there were some reports of Chinese soldiers who served in United Nations peace keeping missions in Africa abondoning their posts and fleeing when attacked by rag tag African militias. An act of cowardice no doubt, if the reports are true.
Lastly the Russians tasted humiliation in Afghanistan at the hands of the ill trained, ill equipped Afghan Mujahideen.
One or even a few setbacks does not make our Army an ineffective force. Remember that the attack was certainly not an spur of the moment attack. It would have been preceeded by days of reconnaissance of the movements of our military convoys by the terrorists. The time and place would have been carefully chosen. So the element of surprise was with them. An failure of our intelligence network in the region, no doubt.
But as the ex Prime Minister of UK Margaret Thatcher once said 'we have to succeed every time but the enemy needs to succeed only once'. A reference to the then Irish Republican Army.
Not condoning any lapses on the part of the Army. But things become really serious only when repeated failures and setbacks occur suggesting an inherent flaw in our strategy. Other wise a couple of setbacks should not badly taint the reputation of the Army.
Human(Indian) lives are no doubt precious and every effort should be made to minimise casualties in any insurgent/terrorist attack.
Coming to the record of the pig lovers The Pakistan Army. Less said the better. The Pakistan Army has suffered numerous humiliations at the hands of the Balochis, the Pashtoons and other ethnic armed groups.I believe most of the Pak infantry travel in Toyota unarmoured vans and cars. The fucking reality is that they have even less bullet proof vehicles than India. And their vehicles have been blown up by mines many many times. Sometimes they have lost even more than a dozen men in such attacks.
There are ways to respond to such attacks. If orchestrated by Pakistan and its Army/ISI then this forum has seen multiple suggestions by members to dramatically raise the cost for the Pakistanis. Both open and covert options are available. I will not repeat the same.
On the other hand if the attack was carried out by one of the bigger powers then also some sort of costs should be imposed on the aggressor.
This is not the first such attack or the last. We will see repeated occurances.
It would be desirable to discuss on the merits of the issue without going overtly political. After all the Army belongs to all the political parties and the Indian Public at large.
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