Have always wanted to ask you about India's position vis a vis china and pakistan.
Why is our leadership so hesitant to initiate action is it simple diplomacy or something more do we have strategies or plans in place to eventually deal with this current predicament.
Two very different questions with no straightforward answers to either I am afraid. I also cannot claim to know exactly why things are the way they are. That said, following is my understanding of the dynamics that in part affected strategic discourse in the country over the last 70-75 years.
First and foremost, in hierarchy of importance is the overall national philosophy wrt foreign policy. India has always positioned itself as a peaceful status quo power with no avarice for territory. It is purely a defensive country that would never attack but respond to provocations. This is a philosophy that has been drilled down right from childhood to higher learning across generations. Think “India has never invaded another country in 1000 years”. The first two generations of political class, taught in UK in a post war left dominated ecosystem were enamored of socialist and left liberal principles and carried their hatred of military aggression and general disdain for armed forces to political decision making in India. Sardar Patel was an exception to the norm and understood ground realities and made pragmatic choices. For the others, ideals were always placed above pragmatism, and hence we had this weird image globally, of a nation that talks peace when the enemy has kicked in its front door. Behind the back of India’s political class, the international political class and intelligentsia laughed at our disconnect with reality. “The land of snake charmers”
This is a cultural phenomenon, and its impact can be felt to this day. Indians in general find it very hard to grasp the concept of being the attacker. Ask yourself, how comfortable you would be with Indian army attacking unprovoked across international borders? How comfortable would people you know be with such an action?
The entire Indian population has been rendered passive and pacifist and are not mentally and philosophically equipped to reimagine an aggressive, forceful India that uses violence as an instrument of state policy. Think of BJP/NDA spokespersons’ commentaries and statements within India. You will find hints of the imprint of this subconscious passivity and reactiveness within their statements. It has been very hard for strategic think tanks and academicians, who are the purveyors of strategic discourse in any country to even advocate or simulate proactive approaches because of the inherent hesitancy of majority of Indians. They fear being mislabeled as hawks. You will not find this strategic hesitancy amongst the think tank community and academia in US, UK.
All of this affects everyone: The Political class, the diplomatic class, the armed forces, the intelligence agencies. It is a self-imposed mental block that narrows field of view to strategic alternatives.
Next, Indian strategic community, the political class and the armed forces have struggled to define strategic objectives. Except for 1948, 1961 & 1971, we have always suffered from ambiguity about our own strategic objectives and therefore by extension the victory conditions or war winning conditions.
Now for an offensive to succeed the two most important preconditions are demarcation of war winning objectives and having a war closure plan. A war winning objective is something that both sides recognize as being decisive to the outcome of the conflict, and forcing the loser into either strategic escalation or into a war closure position.
What is our war winning condition for a war with Pakistan? CSD postulated the capture of 50-70km sliver of land across a broad front. Does anyone here seriously believe Pakistan will surrender or stop fighting just because they lost 70 km of land? What happens if PA continues permanent resistance post IA securing objectives? I would argue that given that PA is (or was) aware that IA objectives only extend to capture of 70 km land, PA would pull back from all nonessential fronts and conserve its forces to ensure permanent sustained combat capability. PA wins just by continuing engagements and showing that they remain a potent fighting force. As for the land, they already know it will be returned post war in negotiations. The victory condition for PA is merely survival without significant loss of combat potential or firepower. This is an example of muddled strategic thought process resulting in poor strategic objective identification leading to poor war outcome. A more effective war winning objective would be either capture of POK (AJK is a Pakistani fantasy, doesn’t exist) and/or destruction of the strike corps of PA. The destruction of Mangla based I Corps & Multan based II corps for example, would severely degrade PA combat capability and render conventional resistance unsustainable against the overwhelming force of IA. PA therefore is forced to either escalate strategically or seek peace. As such it is a decisive event and therefore a war winning objective. Same for annexation of POK, it is a strategic loss for PA and leaves PA with no choice but to either escalate or seek peace. Conventional resistance would be pointless at that point and have no impact on strategic positioning of IA.
I ask the same question for the China front. What would constitute a war winning objective? What is our war winning objective? Are those war winning objective attainable for our armed forces? What would force PLA to rethink the strategic calculations wrt a war with India? Would capturing slivers of land force any change in PLA operations? The way I see it, the only way PLA rethinks operations against IA is the destruction and degradation of PLA forces facing the India theater to an extent that PLA believes current operations would be ineffective and therefore forcing PLA to escalate the conflict massively or back down. These are difficult questions to answer.
