Analysis of India's Ability to Fight a 2-front War 2018

by Ravi Rikhye

  Even more curious was China’s assertion that it was on its own territory. In 1962 China advanced to its maximum claim line, which became the Line of Actual Control. When India said China was 19-km inside Indian territory, it was measuring from the LAC, not from its claim line which it had long since lost. The LAC became the border as forced by China, not by India’s choice. So, China was inside India by its own claims of the last fifty years. The only possible conclusion is that China now claims Indian territory 20-km from the Line of Actual Control. It seems likely that if India will not make a stand, the Chinese will one day claim as their own Indian territory 40 or 50 or a hundred kilometers from the official LAC.

  India operates on the British principle that the boundary between India and Tibet lies on the ridgeline, roughly, the McMahon Line. China maintains borders are to be demarcated in the valleys. It appears not to have occurred to either GOI or China that by Chinese logic, India’s customary possession of the Arunachal ridge line entitles us to all South Tibet.

  Appeasement should be used only to buy time

  Appeasement as a diplomatic tool should be used only to gain a delay which you use to improve your situation prior to the next crisis. There will always be a next crisis because a coercer can never be content with her/his initial gain. Before Poland, Britain and France appeased Germany over the Sudetenland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. (I am not doubting the justice of Germany’s demand that the Germans now scattered through various countries should be unified, or its objection to the Carthaginian Peace imposed by the Allies.) Germany had lost Sudetenland to France as punishment for losing World War I. Hitler was terrified that the French might resist and even invade Germany. The German military, crippled by Versailles sanctions only recently thrown-off, could not possibly resist the French, who had the most powerful army in Europe. But France and England were exhausted from the Great War. They let Hitler have his way, partly because they recognized the injustice of Versailles borders drawn to split Germany. In retrospect, it was no surprise that he took Czechoslovakia and then Austria. Again, the allies were divided because Hitler said he was only restoring the pre-War border. The appeasement was ratified at Munich. He then bid for Danzig, a German territory given to Poland. When Poland refused, he invaded On September 1, 1939, forcing Great Britain to follow on September 3. India should have accelerated its military buildup underway in 2013. Instead, we deaccelerated and then stopped it. What came next seems inevitable.

  Incidentally, while of course we Indians know about Hitler’s annexation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland, and Alsace Lorraine, most are likely unaware that Hitler annexed German-speaking areas where he found them in his drive for Greater Germany. This included non-Germans whom Germany considered Aryans. He undertook nine more annexations, and planned more including German Switzerland, North Schleswig, northeast France based on Burgundy, Russia to the Volga – to the Urals was another option considered with Eastern Russia to go to the Japanese, North East Italy, even Lombardy. An ambitious fellow.

  Now, obviously China does not want to annex South Asia. It does want the South Asian states to be its vassals, and unless India stands up for itself, that seems inevitable. No doubt most Indians will think this is rabble-rousing. They should perhaps understand that we are talking two different time frames here. China is thinking long-term out to 2070 and further. We think in terms of one day: today, and thus approach the Zen ideal of living in the moment. Technically, by the way, there is no present, only past and future, because by the time the brain takes its 1/1000th of a second to process what you see, it is already 1/1000th in the past. Forget visualizing tomorrow, the day after tomorrow is so distant that we cannot imagine it will come. Someone talking to Indians about tomorrow may as well be talking about the time when the stars stop shining, 1014 billion years from now. This does not mean that Indians cannot intellectually conceive of infinitely long and short time frames. For example, my spiritual teacher told me Indians are on record in Vedic times as thinking about 10-15 of a second. No wonder we consider ourselves as marvelous. This ability does not help when the Chinese point guns at us and tell us to withdraw.

  Think about this: up to 1937, the British-Indian Empire, including the vassal states of Afghanistan and Tibet, stretched 7-million-square-kilometers. Only a time-traveller could foretell that just 34-years later, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Burma would be independent, and Tibet annexed by China, shrinking India by half. The Chinese have no intention of making these nations part of China. Their aims are more modest: control of our foreign policy, dictating the limits of our military power, and a one-way control of our trade. This means we must take everything they want to export, while they import only what they want. All these countries, including ours, will do what we Indians excel at, “adjust”. Our national flag should feature a giant yellow chicken, emblazoned with our national motto: “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.” Fairly soon sharp-minded intellectuals will simplify this to “He who runs away, lives another day”. The American grammarians Strunk and White [20], who insisted on cutting needless words in favor of diamond-sharp conciseness, might suggest an even shorter version: “Run today, live tomorrow”. The classically-minded may prefer one word: “Aatmasamarpann.” Given the younger generation communicates in text language, here’s something simpler still: “JFS, for “Just Freaking Surrender.”

  2.4 The futility of negotiating

  Brahma Chellaney, one of India’s foremost strategic thinkers, states the context of the crisis potently. [21]

  In a classic replay of its old game, China intruded stealthily into a strategic border area in Ladakh and then disingenuously played conciliator by counseling "patience", "wisdom" and "negotiations". The incursion bore all the hallmarks of Chinese brinkmanship, including taking an adversary by surprise, seizing an opportunistic timing, masking offense as defense, and discounting risks of wider escalation. Occurring at a time when India has never been so politically weak, the intrusion was shrewdly timed to exploit its political paralysis and leadership drift.

  What China did was to impudently violate border-peace agreements with India by employing coercive power on the ground. Then — armed with the leverage from its encroachment into the Depsang plateau — it embarked on coercive diplomacy by setting out military demands for India to meet.

  In doing so, it presented India with a Hobson's choice: either endure the Chinese ingress into a region controlling key access routes or meet China's demands at the cost of irremediably weakening Indian military interest in a wider strategic belt extending up to the Karakoram Pass and the Siachen Glacier. After a three-week standoff, China withdrew from the occupied spot but only after India blinked by ceding some ground — an action it has tried to rationalize as granting China a "necessary face saver.”

  With the MEA putting so much emphasis on negotiations to “better” relations with our enemies, let us walk back this position. If Pakistan and China had, at any point negotiated seriously, peaceful solutions were possible. But both countries hurled themselves into the offensive without warning. Pakistan has waged six wars against India and was responsible for forcing one more. Now it is preparing for an eighth, which by 2015 should make an average of one war every 8-9 years.

  How eight wars? We can agree easily on three, 1947-48, 1965, and 1999. The other wars were:

  1971. Though India began the conventional part of the war on November 21-22, Pakistan had been waging war against India from April 1971 by using terror to push out 4-million Hindus and massacring 200,000-500,000 in one of the largest genocides since the end of World War II. How could India be expected to stand aside while its co-religionists were being killed or expelled? There are constant calls for greater western intervention in Syria because perhaps the Assad regime has killed 60,000 civilians – the total of 120,000 quoted in the media includes combatants on the government and the rebel side. The west says it has a duty to intervene because of human rights violati
ons. Similarly, the west attacked Serbia in 1999 because Belgrade was violating the human rights of the Kosovars. The same applies to Libya 2011-12. If the West believes its interventions in Serbia, Libya, and Syria were justified, then India, whose own people were the victims of a brutal Pakistani crackdown, also had every right to intervene. If the west accepts that Pakistan had a case when it attacked Kashmir in 1947-48, 1965, and 1999, ostensibly to “free” Muslim Kashmiris from Indian rule, then the west must accept that India had every right to intervene in East Pakistan. This was not a war of India’s choosing or wanting.

  1980-88 Punjab insurgency. Pakistan intervened in the Punjab not to save Muslims, but to support Sikh terrorists fighting India. Pakistanis justify this by saying India intervened in East Pakistan. But if Pakistan had not killed and expelled Hindus to India, India would have no justification or legal basis for intervening. Indian Government expelled no Muslims from Indian Punjab into Pakistan after Partition.

  1987-2005 Kashmir insurgency. This was overt aggression against India; the argument that Pakistan was only helping Kashmiri freedom fighters does not wash because Pakistan will not let Kashmir become independent. The insurgents were NOT fighting to join Pakistan! When Pakistan has (a) already detached the Northern Territories from Kashmir and joined them directly to Pakistan, (b) given away parts of Kashmir to China, and (c) denied the residents of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir freedom to govern themselves at local level or even to protest Pakistani occupation, Islamabad can hardly come forward as the savior of the Kashmiris.

  1991-2018 Ongoing terror war. By any standard that the west applies to itself, or uses to justify its global war against Islam, the Pakistanis have declared war on India. We accept the west has a right to defend itself against Islamic terrorism. It would be a good idea if the west – particularly the US – dropped its hypocritical double standard and accepted India has a right to counter Pakistan. Also, it would be good for the US/NATO to remember they invaded and occupied Afghanistan to stop terror. Why is India denied the same right?

  2013-onward. The next Pakistan terror offensive against Indian Kashmir is underway. After Afghanistan is sorted out, the Pakistan Taliban (as distinct from the Afghan Taliban which bears India no animus, at least at present) together with the international Islamic jihadi mercenaries will expand this attack.

  We are not judging the morality of Pakistan’s multiple wars against India. We should accept that since Pakistan sees India as a mortal foe, it must secure its interests as it sees fit. The question rather is: what kind of Government sits through eight wars without once going after the instigator and defanging him for good? The answer is only a government of fools, clowns, poltroons, and cowards who care nothing, absolutely nothing, for the people in whose name they rule. The primary, most fundamental purpose of a nation and a government is to protect its citizens from threats external and internal. The Government of India has consistently failed to do this vis-à-vis Pakistan, as also China.

  (Before it is argued India did hit back in 1971, it needs to be noted the perpetrators of East Pakistan’s problems were West Pakistanis. Defeating West Pakistan by taking away a colonial province it would have lost sooner than later in no way punished it for forcing India to go to war. India had planned to disarm West Pakistan, but this objective was abandoned even before the war began. India’s offensives were solely defensive in response to Pakistan’s offensives; the first chance India got, as the fall of Dacca became inevitable, it offered a ceasefire. Far from being punished, Pakistan rose again, politically stronger because it no longer had to deal with East Pakistan, and militarily easier to defend. Pakistan after 1971 has caused far more trouble for India than it did before.)

  The Chinese like to say the border problem began when India began aggressive patrolling in 1959. But why did India start aggressive patrolling? Because by 1956 the Chinese were openly intruding on Indian territory in the Aksai Chin. Then after having put India in its place, starting in the 2000s the Chinese decided India had to be taught another lesson and began pushing India all along the Tibet border, using salami tactics to take away 10-square-kilometers here and a hundred there. This is nothing but aggression. And again, in an existential sense the Chinese are not to blame: they are behaving as any strong nation behaves. The blame lies in the trembling Government of India, which collapses emotionally and physically every time a strong posture against China is required. Again, the GOI has failed in its fundamental duty to protect the people from external enemies, there is nothing to be said. India is reduced to the status of a banana republic, thanks to our government.

  So: GOI thinks negotiations are the way to solve the issues we have with Pakistan and China. But how is it our adversaries have never hesitated

  to use force in place of negotiations?

  What stopped Pakistan from approaching the United Nations in 1947 after the accession of Kashmir to India and asking for negotiations? Nothing. Except traditional Islamic arrogance and belligerence. Had Pakistan not attacked, Nehru would have had to keep his word for a plebiscite and Kashmir would have gone peacefully to Pakistan. The Pakistan position is: Negotiate with the Hindus? Never! We conquered them with sword, blood, and fire. We kept our boot on their faces, down in the mud, which is where Hindus belong. We ruled for a thousand years. Each time they tried to stand we massacred them. We will conquer them again. Unleash the raiders!

  What stopped China from saying to Indians: “We appreciate we have different views on Aksai Chin. Why not negotiate? You have already shown good faith by accepting our sovereignty of Tibet. Surely we can work out a compromise on what ‘Tibet’ means.” Nothing stopped China except Han imperialism. Negotiate with barbarians? Absurd! We are Chinese. We take what is ours. If anyone stands in our way, we beat them down. And we will beat India down.

  Does this make the Chinese and Pakistanis evil children of Satan? Hardly. Both engaged, and continue to engage, in realpolitik. Which in this case is translated as: “I am taking this because I want it. You want it back? Make me give it back!” India has also engaged in realpolitik when it could get away with it: Junagarh, Hyderabad, Goa, Sikkim, East Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, to name some cases. This is the way of the world. Always has; always will be. The strong conquer, the weak submit. The strong take what they want. The weak blubber about the law.

  Nehru was particularly prone to blubber about the law and about morality. It never occurred to that good, decent man that when you produce ten documents, the other side can produce ten that contradict our ten. When we produce another ten, they produce another ten. And so it goes on, until they get fed-up and slap us down. Whereupon we pick ourselves up, roll up our sleeves, and bravely step forward again – with another ten documents.

  The only Independence leader who understood how the world works was Sardar Patel. He never had the chance to become Prime Minister because in 1947 he respectfully allowed Nehru to become PM without a contest; by 1950 he was dead. While Kashmir burned, Nehru dithered about accepting accession. Why? Because the Maharaja did not enjoy popular approval. Does it say anywhere in the Partition agreement that a ruler had to be popular before his accession could be accepted? It did not. Accession to one country or the other was strictly the ruler’s choice. Nehru accepted the Partition agreement, which was carried out without the approval of Indians. So why of a sudden, with the barbarians at the gate, was his conscience deeply troubled because Hari Singh was unpopular? Because, quite simply, Nehru did not believe he just represented India. He believed he was India. What mattered was not the national interest, but his conscience. Patel had exasperatedly to tell him: Do you want Kashmir or not? When Nehru said he did, Patel essentially got him out of the way while he, Patel, secured Kashmir for India.

  The thing with land is that everyone has a case. Every piece of land on this earth has been owned by someone else. Take, for example, the Poles. It has been said India’s borders change every 50 years. If I recall correctly, that is in Joseph Schwartzberg’s Historical Atlas of Ind
ia (University of Chicago, 1978). A single used copy is available on Amazon for $11,443, at which point the average scholar must head for a bar singing “Goodnight, Irene”, Irene being the atlas in this case. But even more dramatic have been the changes in Poland’s borders 1635 till today: a compilation in Wikipedia lists 40, about one every ten years. Everyone has documents proving their claims. But does anyone pay attention to those claims? No, because in international relations possession is not nine-tens of the law. Possession is 100% of the law.

  2.5 Interlude: Poonch, August 6, 2013

  On this day, six soldiers from 21 Bihar Regiment and 14 Maratha Light Infantry were on what the Army calls an area domination patrol. Now, normally when the term “domination” is used about territory, it means dominating enemy ground, not one’s own territory. If we are dominating our own territory, it means we avccept our ground as contested.

  The men decided to rest in a temporary shelter 450-meters inside Indian controlled territory. While they slept, a Pakistan Army Border Action Team infiltrated a gap in the border fencing and shot the Indian soldiers at point-blankALlegedly range. Only one, seriously wounded, survived. A Border Action Team is composed of various types of Pakistan Army troops; it may or may not incorporate terrorists. This team consisted of men from Pakistan Special Service Group and 101 Mujahid Battalion. The Mujahids earlier were a militia adjunct of the Pakistan Army but now have their regular regiment.