Tempestuous South Asia

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Background

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The countries in South Asia never had it easy. After the end of WWII, India was free although Britain left with a parting gift in the name of Pakistan to keep India busy. And the rest was done in 1950s, when India gifted the Security Council seat to China. China later thanked India in 1962 for the favours, whereas Pakistan never got over its hate with India, and kept living in the delusion that Kashmir belonged to it, and because Kashmiris are Muslims, Hindus have no right to rule them (this, was recently told by a Pakistani guest in the NEWSHOUR).

Sri Lanka had its own share of troubles as well. Some say that Indira Gandhi fueled the Tamil movement in SL, in order to keep it in check, due to which many groups spawned. The most powerful group being the LTTE, which was supported by Indian Tamils. Rajiv Gandhi changed this policy and sent Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), which was slaughtered by the Tamil tigers, and later Tamils assassinated Rajiv Gandhi as well.

Since 1990, India and China have been growing economically quite steadily, and lately China has grown much more than India. Single government, single party system has helped her to keep things disciplined and keep her citizens in check as well. She can take the land she wants for development and she can enforce the rules she wants. Freedom of speech is out of question in China, with most of the American social networking websites banned.

Russia, although not in SA, has been an all weather ally to India. It was because of Russia that USA was kept out of reach in 1971 war. The stories of how Russian submarines surrounded the American ships fill Indian hearts with joy. But that was USSR. Lately, Russia has become much more shrewd, and with delays of years of the Admiral Gorshkov (INS Vikramiditya) and cost overruns, it more of less looks like a cunning businessman looking out to dig more and more money from India. Of course, there have been cases where Russia has made life tough for India when it comes to giving out the spare parts.

Still, things were more or less stable in South Asia till recently. Even though India, Pakistan and China, are all nuclear states, things have never got out of hand. Pakistan last tried some adventure in 1999 in Kargil, and got her hands burnt badly. More than 4000 of her personnel were killed and they have to leave. Diplomatically she was all alone, and China could do nothing. You can give some credit to America for being a big boss out there to keep things under control.

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Change in World Order

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However, the Syria debacle has showed that the wrath of USA no longer scares other countries. USA's currency - $ (or PetroDollar?), depends a lot on Oil control, and (conspiracy theory?) USA wanted to control both Syria and Iran in order to keep $ strong. Perhaps that's why after Libya, it was targeting Syria. Syria, which is having its own battle against the Muslim extremists. The plan, perhaps was to target Iran via Syria, however, thanks to assertive diplomacy by Russia, China and other states (which include India), this plan had to be shelved.

First UK, the closes ally of USA, was forced to stand down. For the first time since 1956 Suez crisis,  the proposal to go to war was defeated in a vote. France did show some support, however even she was hesitant. President Obama showed a lot of aggression, but that didn't impress many. Putin literally couped American minds by writing a brilliant editorial in the New York Times, and after these events, war cries disappeared. The episode was finally closed after Russia proposed it would take away the Syrian chemical weapons, and Syria merrily agreeing to it.

This ensured that USA would not be able to gain access to Syrian and Iranian oil. This meant that in a mid or long run, $ would suffer. This meant, for the first time, that USA lost a war, before even starting it.

This meant, for the first time, that USA looked weaker than other countries!

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South Asia

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But hey, wasn't this blog about South Asia? Yes, definitely it is. And now I would come back to the point.
USA always has had a huge influence on Pakistan, and good control over China. However, after the Great Recession, China invested a lot of money, some say around $1T in USA, thus weakening American hold over China. Also Pakistan gifted away Gilgit-Baltistan to China, and in return, seems to be getting good favours (like JF-17).

Russia, which gave INS Vikramiditya to India, after much delay, was perfectly okay with China reverse engineering its Sukhoi-27s. Let us not forget, India only has Sukhoi-31 and Super Sukhois, and Russia has sold Sukhoi 35s to China as well. And now that China has the tech for Su-27s, we can safely assume that she would be mass producing it, in which she is expert in.

Thus we have two rogues states surrounding India, and they are out of American influence. And Russia, which till few years back wanted RIC Axis, no longer worries if China copies its tech, or if the weapons it has to provide to India are delayed. Plus Russia is pissed off with the fact that India is open to buy military tech from other countries now. Hence for Russia, China and India are more or less equal, with China being more equal as it is more powerful.

In the southern front, LTTE is finished. SL is pinning Tamils a lot now. Attacking, capturing, arresting Tamil fishermen is now an every day's news. I would not count SL as one of the India's friends. Another neighbour - Nepal, has been converted from a Hindu Kingdom to another Maoist state. Bhutan is irrelevant. Maldives is being run by the Jihadis after a coup. Myanmar is pushing its luck as well. First it intruded intro Manipur border village and set up a camp. Later it also tried to build fences on Indian border without bothering to come to understanding with Indian authorities. Only saving grace seems to be Bangladesh, who has jailed the extremists and banned their party.


Pressure Points on India, before the Keran Adventure

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Lonely India

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So you have India on one side, and China, Pakistan, Maldives, Myanmar (?) and SL on other side. PLUS, Russia and America out of the equation now

Another entity which is against India is Indian Government. Never in the history of India has India had such a shameless and inefficient government. It is only due to this government that a rift has been created by the retired military personnel and the current ones. Also, a lot of delays in procurement of weapons, shortage of ammunition can be credited to this government. Not to forget, we have not built any infrastructure close to India-China border/LAC to support our troops and troop movements

Few might call it bad luck, however I would call it bad planning that as of now, India is devoid of any operational Aircraft Career (AC). One AC is usually enough to hold one front. This was displayed excellently during the 1971 war where East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was blocked away totally from West Pakistan via sea route.

More bad luck to India - Out of the 42 required squadrons, India is having only 31 squadrons of fighters. Delay in procuring new planes, huge delay in LCA and aging away of Mig-21s are few reasons of it. People who are happy about MMRCA should know that the deal is still not closed, and delivery of all the planes might take 10-15 years. PAK-FA (Su T-50) is still in development phase, and is hitting few roadblocks. LCA is not ready so MCA is still a far fetched dream.

The dream of a super-infantry, in the form of F-INSAS is still a pipe dream. Private sector has been totally shunted out of this ambitious project, and last I read, even the coms required for the F-INSAS have not been developed fully. You might understand where would the rest of the things stand as of now.

There are a lot of more examples, however, the bottom line is technically Indian Military is not doing great. Be it Army (much delay in F-INSAS), Navy (diesel powered submarines aging away, one was destroyed in an accident few weeks before, no operaional AC) or Air Force (11 squadrons short), we are seriously under-prepared.

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Cornered India

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Coming back to South Asia, India has been pressed from all sides. On the western front, be it brutal and barbaric beheading of 2 Indian soldiers or killing of 5 Indian soldiers after crossing the LoC or recent Keran misadventure, Pakistan is testing India roughly. In the southern front after finishing off LTTE, SL is punishing the Tamil fishers, as mention peviously in this blog. In the far eastern front, Myanmar tried to build the fence/wall without getting in sync with Indian authorities. And on the China front, camping inside Indian border, or coming in India and destroying surveillance cameras or stopping Indians from patrolling has become a norm. China has also operationalised two airfields in Tibet, one near Ladakh, and one near Arunachal Pradesh. Also, a dozen more airfields have been planned in Tibet.

The latest gift from Pakistan is Keran infiltration, or should I say, invasion. This invasion was detected on 23rd September, as per news. However, I digged more in the archives and found that on July 26th as well, there was an intrusion attempt, which was detected and foiled. Few intruders were killed. Coming back to 23rd Sep, Indian authorities seemed to know about the intrusion attempt, and still our dear MMS had a chit-chat with Sharif Sahab. The outcome is best known to them, but what is known to us is, Pakistan pushed its Special Forces in.

A note - To add to our woes, our Defense Minster has started a new unofficial policy. Unless verified and confirmed by Pakistan, all the Pakistani soldiers who intrude into Indian territory would be henceforth called as "Militants in Pakistani Uniform".

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Keran Mishandling

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Coming back to Keran, Media kept Keran intrusions a low key affair for almost 2 weeks. I remember that when an Army camp was attacked, I read only a ticker running that 30 terrorists have been surrounded, and that was a delight! However, those 30 terrorists were later termed as Special Forces, and even after the claims of Indian Army that we had killed 15 of them, the numbers of intruders looked to stay static at 30-40. Funny - still we are being told, that the number of intruders are 30-40. And that after 15 days of operation.

Another funny thing - although Indian Army said the area is secured and surrounded, we could not recover a single body. Although few pictures of the Pakistani Soldiers have emerged (I won't call them terrorists)

 

To add to that, we had deployed 300 Para Commandos (PCs). 300! And that too PCs? I am not a military man, however I do know that usually PCs are deployed behind enemy lines. Thus, can we assume that those PCs were  actually deployed west of the intruders. Let me make a small ASCII drawing:

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  \ 
  \     PCs              |  o   o o o o o o
   \      PCs     X   X  |    o oo o o
LoC |    PCs     X X X   |  o    o o o o o o
    |  PCs PCs  X X X    | o    Indian Infantry
   /      PCs    X X X X |   o -----------------
  /    PCs       X  XX   |    o  o o o o
 /        PCs     X X    |   o o o o o
/    PCs   PCs  X X      |   o       oo o       o


PCs - ParaCommandos
X - Intruders
o - Indian Infantry

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This picture would hold only true if intruders are deep enough to give space for PCs to land. So, how far have they come? Although the news is coming that 300-400 meters, however, I cannot trust that now that after PCs are deployed. Of course if PCs are deployed East of intruders, then this picture would be utter nonsense, but then deployment of PCs would be utter nonsense as well.

Another news that is bothering me is, it came out around 500 Indian soldiers, including PCs ar fighting. Why would 500 fight just 40? Beats me! Unless the number of intruders is not 40.

Few other observations that have concerned me -

• Every second day an announcement comes that operation is on its last legs, it doesn't end.
• Big guns/Pinakas are not being used.
• It has been 15 days and IAF not used in combat. In Kargil, IAF came into picture after 11 days. IAF has already declared it is ready to assist!
• Lt General looking nervous during his Press Conference. Next press address was straight by COAS.
• Fear mounts in Zirhama village but General claims it does not exist
• Army, AF and Navy chiefs had a meeting with PM. Played down as a scheduled meeting.
• China has been making its inroads, bullying Indian army on easter front.
• China has built roads in Bhutan.

These concerns are more to do with how this entire operation has been handled. It may or may not be over soon, however, this is not how a professional government manages the tough situations. If Pakistan was just testing India, then I would have to say, India has not been upto the mark. This would be encouraging China and Pakistan.

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Future *Tense*

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Border (LoC) skirmishes, like Keran are more than what meets the eye in today's world. I must say here, that the Keran intrusion was part of a bigger plan against India and is part of a patter. With both China and Pakistan acting hostile, and SL, Myanmar acting rogue, things might easily go out of hand for India. Let us not forget that Russia is not very pleased with India, with the fact that India has opened her defense market to rest of the countries, in order to diversify the products being bought. And Russia is getting quite cozy with China, and has handed her the technology of Sukhoi-27s and sold Sukhoi-35s. And with influence of USA dwindling, India might find herself when there are military adventures by her neighbours against her.

The worst case scenario might be:

1. Pakistan starts a small skirmish on LoC
2. India deploys its resources to teach Pakistan a lesson.
3. China intrudes a bit in Leh/Laddah and North East frontier.
4. India tries to push out China
5. Pakistan attacks India in Kashmir with full force.
6. India is now acting on two fronts.
7. China pushes in through Bhutan and hits India hard.
8. India loses Kashmir and North East states

Why would China-Pakistan do it? Pakistan is a state created out of hatred towards India, so using reasons on her is not be feasible. They just want to destroy India, and capturing Kashmir has been there dream since a long time.

China might want to create a post-WW1 Germany of India. By putting military coersion on India, it would then try to control India's natural resources, teach other of her neighbours a lesson and control Indian economy to benefit hers. If India is subdued, China would soon be world giant, with Russia on her side.
And obviously, affects on Indian economy would be devastating.

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Indian Counter Strategy

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It is high time India formulates and fixes policies on how to deal with the worst case scenario. More important, India should activate plans which would ensure that worst case scenarios never materialize themselves. There are many theories going around.

China:
In order to contain China, India can make strategic partnerships with China's neighbours, of which almost all of them troubled with the assertive China.

South China Sea troubles involve Phillipines, Singapore and Vietnam. Japan hasn't shared a rosy history with China, and only recently China surpassed Japan economically in PPP terms. The Japanese empire was quite harsh on China, and few developments, as mentioned above in the blog, have highlighted the troubles in their relationship. Japan and India need to cooperate to ensure China doesn't become too adventurous

Taiwan is another state which China is trying to acquire. Although USA has interests in Taiwan, it won't hurt India to build a good relationship with her as well. Myanman is acting a little smart lately with Indian, however I don't think it would be very difficult to get her to behave properly and even ally with India. India stood for Myanmar when Obama was very assertive. It is time to use this.

There is a nice article on the appropriate response to Chinese aggression. Do go through it.

Pakistan:
Pakistan is pretty jubilant that USA is leaving Afghanistan in 2014 and has already opened few fronts to try to assert herself in the region. In order to destablize the Afghan government, it has opened the Haqqani front, Pakistan is fighting Baloch and other separatist groups, and recently she opened the LoC front as well. Hence, Pakistan is involved in three fronts and this should be exploited by the Indian establishment.

In LoC, we are already pushing ourselves, so that goes without saying. This article explains why should we be involved in Balochistan. And another article on how to succeed in Balochistan. And in order to work on the Afghan front, we need to build deeper inroads and invest more.

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Conclusion

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I would like to conclude by stating that:

• The World Order has changed after Syria and India needs to adapt to it.
• More than defense expenditure, the defense procurement needs to be expedited.
• Keran was handled very poorly and lessons need to be learnt.
• It is high time Air Force finishes the job in Keran.
• Indian establishments need to show a backbone and focus on friendly diplomacy with China's rivals.
• The power imbalance in Asia might lead to a two-front war against India and we need to be prepared for it.
• India needs to exploits the 'acne' within her neighbour countries to keep them distracted.

This was my attempt to put my thoughts about the dangers that India is facing today from her hostile neighbourhood and how we could deal with it. Please leave your feedback.

Thanks.

Jai Hind!