Sino-Indian border dispute: a reality check

0

Tweet

Around the time Manmohan Singh was telling off Li Keqiang about Chinese shenanigans on the LAC, AK Antony was chairing a meeting in the MoD reviewing progress on border infrastructure. Sources indicated the minister seemed less than happy. Like it or not, there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency in India when it comes to building roads along sensitive frontiers. That complicates Antony's agenda when he heads to Beijing for talks with his counterpart. He knows and the Chinese know that along much of the western and eastern sectors, there are gaps where the Chinese can walk in, perhaps effect another face-off. There's nothing in the India China joint statement to suggest the Chinese won't do a repeat. The betting is they will but not immediately. The gaps need to be closed, the forces on the ground beefed up but the pace at which India moves....

India-China face-off in Ladakh: reading between the lines of actual control

1

Tweet

With the status quo ante restored at Raki Nulla, it would seem India has had the better of China in the 20-day-long face-off. Going by the government's spin masters, India conceded little other than agreeing to discuss border infrastructure and troop build-up during official level talks with Beijing. But is it that simple? Like it or not, Chinese troops were camped on Indian soil for 20 days and India held back from throwing them out physically because of the asymmetry in force levels and logistics. Not that China is stronger than India in the Raki Nulla area but as senior officers admitted, China could mobilise troops and equipment quickly over long distances by road and rail. China has the power to escalate, open up more fronts to incursions, an unwelcome prospect for India. Perhaps if India had seized the initiative early on, this could have been....

Pros and cons of a two-front war

1

Tweet

Fresh from three weeks of gruelling drills that involved all operational commands, the Air Force says it's ready for a two-front war (the brass prefers to call it contingency). In these three weeks the brass says they moved aircraft across commands, simulated every wartime scenario, accounted for aircraft and pilots lost in enemy action etc. Air Marshal AK Singh, former chief of Western Air Command, says the military always plans for a two-front war. It's been factored into war planning even before 2009 when the government woke up to the possibility of having to fight on two fronts simultaneously. While the exercise appears to have gone on off well, AK Singh is less optimistic says fighting on two fronts will be a tough call. "If you talk of a China going along with Pakistan then we will certainly be hard pushed to contain on both fronts and....

Five Indian Armymen killed in South Sudan: could it have been prevented?

0

Tweet

Could the ambush which killed five Indian peacekeepers in Juba, South Sudan on Wednesday have been prevented? Senior Army officers with long experience of counter insurgency operations say it's difficult. Although the situation in Juba is nowhere comparable to insurgencies in India, they say a well-planned and sited ambush carried out by motivated people is very hard to counter. Analysis at Army Headquarters (based on the limited information available) does indicate this ambush was professionally done. The Indian peacekeepers were escorting a convoy of 36 vehicles (with civilians on board) from Gurmuk to Bor, a distance of 200 km. Because of the distance involved, no armoured vehicles could be detailed for this mission (the Indian contingent includes a number of BMP-2 infantry combat vehicles). So all the vehicles were of the "soft skinned" variety, vulnerable to small arms fire (in this case the ambushers used RPGs that....

Something's churning in that feudal institution called the Indian Army

0

Tweet

"In the army it's the habitual malingerers, malcontents and rogues who deliver in combat," said the young colonel. In his view, many of the jawans found guilty of indiscipline by a tribunal probing the Nyoma incident last April, may have been rogues and malcontents. But they were also people who would not let you down when the bullets started flying. "I never punished a single jawan when I was commanding my battalion," the colonel said. "If they came late from leave I didn't remove them from service or dock their pay, there are other methods of ensuring discipline. Frankly a commander must have a large heart." His concern (evident among other officers) was for the jawans, many of whom are likely to be removed from service. The army doesn't give pensions to those who are sent home before completing the mandatory 16 years. In effect the jawans....

India takes a convincing step towards achieving nuclear triad capability

0

Tweet

India's nuclear triad is far from complete. But India has crossed a major technological hurdle with the launch of the Bo5 (aka K-15) medium range missile from a pontoon submerged 50 metres below in the Bay of Bengal. As a senior naval officer pointed out, "what has been demonstrated and achieved is the ejection of the missile from underwater, breaking surface at which stage the canister in which the missile is sealed falls off and the forward flight". (The missile has been tested to its full range of 700 km with longer range variants under development). The next step is the integration of the missile on to the submarine INS Arihant, docked at Vizag for the last several months undergoing harbour trials. During this period which is expected to last at least two more months, every on-board system and sub-system is tested and re-tested. The reactor....

The big picture: Turbulence along the LoC

0

Tweet

How does one assess the events along the Line of Control (LoC) over the last 10 days? Was it only "local dynamics" at play as some officers who have served on the LoC believe or was there a larger strategic intent? If it was only "local dynamics", meaning Pakistani and Indian battalion commanders taking "the measure of the other", then nothing further need be read into it. Those who suspect something bigger, say the kind of operation which resulted in the killing of Hemraj and Sudhakar Singh could not have been authorised by any brigade commander. They believe it was cleared either at the Division or the Corps level. Which means the Pakistanis may have planned something bigger and better in the days ahead. It's important to understand here that the Indian and Pakistani troop strength along the LoC is roughly the same, around 40,000....

Honour for our soldiers will come when our people demand it

2

Tweet

The pictures would classify as "passport sized", usually faded black and white, showing a man or a number of men with name, rank and number below followed by a few lines in tribute from "the commanding officer and all ranks". The tribute is usually badly worded, littered with adjectives (heroic, braveheart); sometimes they seem a direct translation from Hindi. But it's impossible not to be moved and for those of us from military families, we know that in the quiet of cantonments and posts in some forgotten corner of the country, individual units do ceremonially honour their war dead. What of the civilians? It took them 50 years to acknowledge the thousands of men who fought and died in 1962. The 1965 war doesn't resonate but 1971 does (there's even a "memorial" under India Gate). Kargil is "iffy"; even today the Congress Party seems to distance itself from....

The flip side of buying American arms

0

Tweet

Could 2013 see Washington pushing India harder on arms sales? The buzz is that President Obama, in his second term, will do precisely that (perhaps defining it as quid pro quo for the nuclear deal). The two militaries are already training intensively together every year, the Americans would like to take that forward in a certain strategic direction and have argued strongly in favour of "interoperability" - meaning commonality of weapons and equipment will enable the two militaries to work better together and also communicate better. Certain recent Indian military acquisitions do tend to work in that direction. The C-130J Special Forces aircraft is already flying with the Indian Air Force, with the C-17 strategic airlifter to follow and thereafter the Apache attack helicopter and the Chinook heavy rotary wing transport. US helicopter maker Sikorsky is bidding to supply its range of helos to the Indian Navy....

'Tibet is not a priority for China'

1

Tweet

Lobsang Sangay represents the new face of the Tibetan Government in Exile. With the Dalai Lama now out of the picture, Sangay is the Siyong (equivalent to prime minister), the man who runs the government with his cabinet. Excerpts from an interview Change in Tibet policy: In China don't expect any change even with a new leadership. It is true Xi Jinping's father knew the Dalai Lama and even the Panchen Lama. He had in fact backed China's most liberal premier Hu Yaobang. Whether the father's ideas have influenced the son is not clear. We may or hope to see some change only after the 19th party congress in about five years from now. The present people are in their 60s, people whose minds were shaped in a different era. Also, the system carries on no matter whose in charge. Point to note is that Tibet is not....