1971 War: How Russia sank Nixon’s gunboat diplomacy

[praveen007]

PART--1
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Rakesh Krishnan Simha,
specially for RIR
Exactly 40 years ago, India won a
famous victory over Pakistan due
to its brilliant soldiers, an
unwavering political leadership,
and strong diplomatic support
from Moscow. Less well known is Russia’s power play that prevented a joint British-American attack on India.
An Indian Army machine gunner fires at Pakistani positions in a village across an open field, 1,500 yards inside the East Pakistan border at Dongarpara
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1971 War: How Russia sank Nixon
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on Dec. 7, 1971. Both sides have taken trenchlines position, in an attempt to prevent each other’s moves. This picture was taken about 200-miles North East of Calcutta. Source: AP
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Washington DC, December 3, 1971, 10:45am.
US President Richard Nixon is on the phone with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, hours after Pakistan launched simultaneous attacks on six Indian airfields, a reckless act that prompted India to declare war.
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Nixon:- So West Pakistan giving
trouble there.
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Kissinger:- If they lose half of their country without fighting they will be destroyed. They may also be destroyed this way but they will go down fighting.
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Nixon:- The Pakistan thing makes your heart sick. For them to be done so by the Indians and after we have warned the ***** (reference to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi). Tell them that when India talks about West Pakistan attacking them it's like Russia claiming to be attacked be Finland.
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Washington, December 10, 1971, 10:51am.
A week later the war is not going very well for Pakistan, as Indian armour scythes through East Pakistan and the Pakistan Air Force is blown out of the subcontinent’s sky. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military in the west is demoralised and on the verge of collapse as the Indian Army and Air Force attack round the clock.
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Nixon:- Our desire is to save West Pakistan.. That's all.
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Kissinger:- That's right. That is exactly right.
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Nixon:- All right. Keep those carriers moving now.
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Kissinger:- The carriers--everything is moving. Four Jordanian planes have already moved to Pakistan, 22 more are coming. We're talking to the Saudis, the Turks we've now found are willing to give five. So we're going to keep that moving until there's a settlement.
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Nixon:- Could you tell the Chinese it would be very helpful if they could move some forces or threaten to move some forces?
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Kissinger:- Absolutely.
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Nixon:- They've got to threaten or they've got to move, one of the two. You know what I mean?
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Kissinger:- Yeah.
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Nixon:- How about getting the French to sell some planes to the Paks?
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Kissinger:- Yeah. They're already doing it.
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Nixon:- This should have been done long ago. The Chinese have not warned the Indians.
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Kissinger:- Oh, yeah.
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Nixon:- All they've got to do is move something. Move a division. You know, move some trucks. Fly some planes. You know, some symbolic act. We're not doing a goddamn thing, Henry, you know that.
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Kissinger:- Yeah.
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Nixon: But these Indians are cowards. Right?
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Kissinger: Right. But with Russian backing. You see, the Russians have sent notes to Iran, Turkey, to a lot of countries threatening them. The Russians have played a miserable game. If the two American leaders were calling Indians cowards, a few months earlier the Indians were a different breed altogether. This phone call is from May 1971.
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Nixon:- The Indians need--what they need really is a—
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Kissinger:- They’re such
bastards.
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Nixon:- A mass famine. But they aren't going to get that…But if they're not going to have a famine the last thing they need is another war. Let the goddamn Indians fight a war.
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Kissinger:- They are the most aggressive goddamn people around there. The 1971 war is considered to be modern India’s finest hour, in military terms. The clinical professionalism of the Indian army, navy and air force; a charismatic brass led by the legendary Sam Maneckshaw;
and ceaseless international lobbying by the political leadership worked brilliantly to set up a famous victory. After two weeks of vicious land, air and sea battles, nearly 100,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered before India's rampaging army, the largest such capitulation since General Paulus' surrender at Stalingrad in 1943. However, it could all have come unstuck without help from veto-wielding Moscow, with which New Delhi had the foresight to sign a security treaty in 1970.
As Nixon’s conversations with the wily Kissinger show, the forces arrayed against India were formidable. The Pakistani military was being bolstered by aircraft from Jordan, Iran, Turkey and France. Moral and military support was amply provided by the US, China and the UK.
Though not mentioned in the conversations here, the UAE sent in half a squadron of fighter aircraft and the Indonesians dispatched at least one naval vessel to fight alongside the
Pakistani Navy.

 

[praveen007]

PART--2
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However, Russia’s entry thwarted a scenario that could have led to multiple pincer movements against India.
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On December 10, even as Nixon and Kissinger were frothing at the mouth, Indian intelligence intercepted an American message, indicating that the US Seventh Fleet was steaming into the war zone. The Seventh Fleet, which was then stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, was led by the 75,000 ton nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise. The world’s largest warship, it carried more than 70 fighters and bombers. The Seventh Fleet also included the guided missile cruiser USS King, guided missile destroyers USS Decatur, Parsons and Tartar Sam, and a large amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli.
Standing between the Indian cities and the American ships was the Indian Navy’s Eastern Fleet led by the 20,000-ton aircraft carrier, Vikrant, with barely 20 light fighter aircraft. When asked if India’s Eastern Fleet would
take on the Seventh Fleet, the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Vice Admiral N. Krishnan, said: “Just give us the orders.” The Indian Air Force, having wiped out the Pakistani Air Force within the first week of the war, was reported to be on alert for any possible intervention by aircraft from the Enterprise.
Meanwhile, Soviet intelligence reported that a British naval group led by the aircraft carrier Eagle had moved closer to India’s territorial waters. This was perhaps one of the most ironic
events in modern history where the Western world’s two leading democracies were threatening the world’s largest democracy in order to protect the perpetrators of the largest genocide since the Holocaust in Nazi Germany
However, India did not panic. It quietly sent Moscow a request to activate a secret provision of the Indo-Soviet security treaty, under which Russia was bound to defend India in case of any external aggression.
The British and the Americans had planned a coordinated pincer to intimidate India: while the British ships in the Arabian Sea would target India’s western coast, the Americans would make a dash into the Bay of Bengal in the east where 100,000 Pakistani troops were caught between the advancing Indian troops and the sea.
To counter this two-pronged
British-American threat, Russia dispatched a nuclear-armed flotilla from Vladivostok on December 13 under the overall command of Admiral Vladimir Kruglyakov, the Commander of the 10th Operative Battle Group (Pacific Fleet). Though the Russian fleet comprised a good number of nuclear armed ships and atomic submarines, their missiles were of limited range (less than 300 km). Hence to effectively counter the British and American fleets the Russian commanders had to undertake the risk of encircling them to bring them within their target.
This they did with military precision.
In an interview to a Russian TV programme after his retirement, Admiral Kruglyakov, who commanded the Pacific Fleet from 1970 to 1975, recalled that Moscow ordered the Russian ships to prevent the Americans and British from getting closer to
“ Indian military objects”. The
genial Kruglyakov added: “The Chief Commander’s order was
that our submarines should surface when the Americans appear. It was done to demonstrate to them that we had nuclear submarines in the Indian Ocean. So when our subs surfaced, they recognised us. In the way of the American Navy stood the Soviet cruisers, destroyers and atomic submarines equipped with anti-ship missiles. We encircled them and trained our missiles at the Enterprise. We blocked them and did not allow them to close in on Karachi, Chittagong or
Dhaka."
At this point, the Russians intercepted a communication from the commander of the British carrier battle group, Admiral Dimon Gordon, to the Seventh Fleet commander: “Sir, we are too late. There are the Russian atomic submarines here, and a big collection of battleships.” The British ships fled towards Madagascar while the larger US task force stopped before entering the Bay of Bengal.
The Russian manoeuvres clearly helped prevent a direct clash between India and the US-UK combine. Newly declassified documents reveal that the Indian Prime Minister went ahead with her plan to liberate Bangladesh despite inputs that the Americans had kept three battalions of
Marines on standby to deter India, and that the American aircraft carrier USS Enterprise
had orders to target the Indian
Army, which had broken through the Pakistani Army’s defences and was thundering down the highway to th gates of Lahore, West Pakistan’s
second largest city. According to a six-page note prepared by India's foreign ministry, "The bomber force aboard the Enterprise had the US President's authority to undertake bombing of the Indian Army's communications, if necessary."

---------- Post added at 08:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 PM ----------

PART--3
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China in the box
Despite Kissinger’s goading and
desperate Pakistani calls for help,
the Chinese did nothing. US
diplomatic documents reveal that
Indira Gandhi knew the Soviets
had factored in the possibility of
Chinese intervention. According
to a cable referring to an Indian
cabinet meeting held on
December 10, “If the Chinese
were to become directly involved
in the conflict, Indira Gandhi
said, the Chinese know that the
Soviet Union would act in the
Sinkiang region. Soviet air
support may be made available
to India at that time.”
Interestingly, while the cable is
declassified, the source and
extensive details of the Indian
Prime Minister’s briefing remain
classified. “He is a reliable
source” is all that the document
says. There was very clearly a
cabinet level mole the Americans
were getting their information
from.
Intolerable hatred
On December 14, General A.A.K.
Niazi, Pakistan's military
commander in East Pakistan, told
the American consul-general in
Dhaka that he was willing to
surrender. The message was
relayed to Washington, but it
took the US 19 hours to relay it
to New Delhi. Files suggest senior
Indian diplomats suspected the
delay was because Washington
was possibly contemplating
military action against India.
Kissinger went so far as to call
the crisis “our Rhineland” a
reference to Hitler’s militarisation
of German Rhineland at the
outset of World War II. This kind
of powerful imagery indicates
how strongly Kissinger and Nixon
came to see Indians as a threat.

 

[Rajaraja Chola]

An situation occured during those times !!!
Indian army does rocks !!!
If the carrier they sent dared to attack india, next day it would have been in the bottom of the bay sent to its dooom by typhoon nuclear sub !!!
And a WW3 would have occured !!!

 

[acetophenol]

Nice read. What would have been the scene if the soviets hadn't shown up!

 

[BLUE_ Pheonix]

i thinks this why we must never trust us. we must stick with russia. i kinda miss soviet union.

 

[praveen007]

PART--4
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Cold Warriors Another telephone conversation between the scheming duo
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............
reveals a lot about the mindset of those at the highest echelons of American decision making:
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Kissinger:- And the point you made yesterday, we have to continue to squeeze the Indians even when this thing is settled.
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Nixon:- We've got to for rehabilitation. I mean, Jesus Christ, they've bombed—I want all the war damage; I want to help Pakistan on the war damage in Karachi and other areas, see?
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Kissinger:- Yeah
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Nixon:- I don't want the Indians to be happy. I want a public relations programme developed to piss on the Indians.
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Kissinger:- Yeah.
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Nixon:- I want to piss on them for their responsibility. Get a white paper out. Put down, White paper. White paper. Understand that?
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Kissinger:- Oh, yeah.
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Nixon:- I don't mean for just your reading. But a white paper on this.
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Kissinger:- No, no. I know.
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Nixon:- I want the Indians blamed for this, you know what I mean? We can't let these goddamn, sanctimonious Indians get away with this. They've pissed on us on Vietnam for 5 years, Henry.
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Kissinger:- Yeah.
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(The epic quote)Nixon:- Aren't the Indians killing a lot of these people?
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Kissinger:- Well, we don't know the facts yet. But I'm sure they're not as stupid as the West Pakistanis—they don't let the press in. The idiot Paks have the press all over their place.

 

[BLUE_ Pheonix]

Nice read. What would have been the scene if the soviets hadn't shown up!

we would be on same category as iran, defending country at any cost.

 

[RoYaL~GuJJaR]

Nice read!!!

Long Live Indo-Russian Friendship!!

 

[rama]

well..a nice read

 

[sputnik]

Well to best of my knowledge, enterprise was well in Indian waters and few of my relatives in Bengal says tht it was visible from cull ultra port. Indian army used Russian speakers on it ships but due Russians, the attack didn't take place I highly doubt. It is due to American pressure tht all surrendered ones able to go back home. But yes I am ready to belive of Russian pressure on china.

 

[Drawn_Sword_of_God]

i thinks this why we must never trust us. we must stick with russia. i kinda miss soviet union.

go and say that to the germans and afghans

 

[Rocky25]

go and say that to the germans and afghans

Atleast they supported in the time of need! They were not as useless as US or China for Pakistan. I see many Pakistanis are happy with China's military might and they are dreaming that China will come to its rescue with all out war... But why should China make that stupid move to please their less capable all-weathered friend.

China did not come to this place by some luck... They reached this point with very hard work, Will they spoil all this and forget their dreams of super-power just to help the very unstable friend? I sincerely doubt that!

 

[jjande2]

nice thread
gave me goosebumps
we should not forget what russians have done for us in past and are still doing to this day(FGFA, Su 30, GLONAS etc.)

 

[NeutralCitizen]

Well In the end we could say Pakistan got a few laughs for 1971 when the USSR collapsed and Russia lost alot of land, it's economy, and Military, and population were lost.

 

[StormShadow]

Well In the end we could say Pakistan got a few laughs for 1971 when the USSR collapsed and Russia lost alot of land, it's economy, and Military, and population were lost.

And for the sake of those "few" laughs, they are suffering even to this day! Where as Russia is licking it's paws to regain it's super-power status.