America intervened to save India in 1962, newly released documents reveal

[AnnoyingOrange]

LOL...Dude... get a life.

 

[drunken-monke]

I would say that, It was Nehru because of whom we lost a more than 2000 years old friend..

 

[Echo_419]

US is a traitorous country. It will abandon you whenever its interests suit it. Look what they have done to Pakistan.

Woh ham pe depend karta hai

 

[Syed_Adeel]

Woh ham pe depend karta hai

how ? Obviously you are weaker and US is stronger and you depend on US to counter China.
That is the reason US is getting close to India day by day. Dont forget the days when US called Pakistan as Allies and great friends during Soviet invasions on afghanistan. infact they called Taliban as "Moral equivalent of our Founding ancestors" and when US's interest was over they left both countries as they dont know them.
Off course there are interests by which every country derives its foreign policy but there are some ethics as well which are no where present in US history. US is the best example of selfish foreign policy.

 

[Arsalan mehmud]

One question arises that If US was so close with India in 1962 what how could US helped Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. They only betrayed us?

 

[FullMetalJacket]

So then explain to me what was the reason for the Americans intervening against India in the 1971 war? Is there any evidence depicting American troops in India? Something is not right here.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f7f9173a-8a2d-11e5-9f8c-a8d619fa707c.html#axzz3sH5Un8y0

Review: ‘JFK’s Forgotten Crisis’, by Bruce Riedel


A few weeks before he was assassinated in November 1963, John Kennedy said: “I can tell you that there is nothing that has occupied our attention more than India in the last nine months.” Even comatose students of history might have had to reread that line. Surely he must have meant Cuba or the Soviet Union?

In fact, it was India — and the prospect of a resumption of its war with China — that haunted the final weeks of Kennedy’s life. The Cuban missile crisis had been resolved a year earlier. After coming within a hairsbreadth of war, Nikita Khrushchev famously blinked and withdrew Soviet nuclear weapons from the Caribbean island. In exchange, Kennedy quietly removed US nuclear weapons from Turkey.

Few westerners could forget those days of superpower tension, the closest the world has come to nuclear war. Only a tiny handful would recall, however, that at the same moment the American U-2 spy jet had spotted Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, China had invaded India. In Kennedy’s words, it was the “climactic period” of his administration.

His intervention was as decisive in the 1962 Indochina war as it was in Cuba. In the words of John Kenneth Galbraith, America’s plenipotentiary ambassador to India, it was the most dramatic combination of crises faced by a US president. “In the same week, on almost the same day, that the two great western powers confronted each other over Cuba, the two great Asian countries went to war in the Himalayas,” he wrote.

The disparity between our memories of the two crises is striking. Bruce Riedel — a national security adviser to four US presidents — brings the forgotten Indochina one to life. His book is a minor gem of elegant history writing. The Kennedy library’s compendium of books on the Cuban crisis runs to 13 pages. Yet Riedel’s is the first to address the president’s role in the Sino-Indian war.

One reason for the disparity is India’s desire for the 1962 war to be forgotten. To this day, its official report on the disastrous war remains top secret. Successive Indian governments denied that Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s prime minister, had even asked for Kennedy’s help.

It is easy to see why. Nehru’s worldview was based on India’s non-alignment in the cold war and third-world solidarity against the former colonial powers. He was disdainful of the US and believed deeply in “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai” or brotherhood.

Yet when Mao Zedong decided to “teach India a lesson” by hurling thousands of People’s Liberation Army troops across the border, Nehru turned to Washington. He had little choice. India was facing a “struggle for survival against an unscrupulous and powerful aggressor”, Nehru wrote to Kennedy. At Galbraith’s urging, the US president responded immediately. Within days 10,000 US servicemen had arrived in India. Eight flights a day of US and British weapons were sent to Calcutta. A US aircraft carrier was diverted to the Bay of Bengal. Having advanced with ease into northeastern India, Mao abruptly declared a ceasefire. “Like a thief in the night peace arrived,” wrote Galbraith. The clarity of Kennedy’s response was critical; but for him, it is doubtful Mao would have halted so soon.

There is much in Riedel’s short book to pore over. The tale of Nehru’s humiliation is poignant. China’s betrayal, and India’s sudden reliance on the US, killed Nehru’s spirit. He died a broken man a few months later.

Galbraith’s role is also instructive. The Harvard economist was arguably the most powerful US ambassador in modern times. For a full week after China’s invasion, he received no letter, call or telegram from Washington. It was utterly preoccupied with the Cuban crisis. Kennedy entrusted the US response entirely to Galbraith. It was a shrewd decision. The latter preferred to communicate directly with the president. Going via the state department was like “fornicating through a mattress”, said Galbraith.

Most of all, however, Riedel’s book shows the strength of a president who knew when to delegate authority and when to ignore the experts. The latter urged him to bomb Soviet missile sites in Cuba. Kennedy ignored them. We may well be alive today because he did so. India, likewise, has reason to remember him generously.

The writer is the FT’s chief US columnist

‘JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA, and the Sino-Indian War’, by Bruce Riedel, The Brookings Institution, $29

Pakistan had the chance to break India in 1962, but the current political situation during the time did not allow it; however there were some plans.

 

[zebra7]

Source Nehru sought US assistance during 1962 Indo-China war | The Indian Express

Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had sought American assistance and wrote to the then US president John F Kennedy to provide India jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression during the 1962 Sino-India war, according to a new book.

The main objective of Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, to attack India in 1962 was to “humiliate” Nehru who was emerging as a leader of the third world, it said.


“India’s implementation of the Forward Policy served as a major provocation to China in September 1962,” Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official, wrote the book titled ‘JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War’.
“Mao’s focus was on Nehru, but a defeat of India would also be a setback for two of Mao’s enemies: (Nikita) Khrushchev and Kennedy,” Riedel wrote.

As India was losing its territory to China fast and suffering heavy casualty, Nehru in a letter to Kennedy in November 1962 said India needed “air transport and jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression.”

“A lot more effort, both from us and from our friends will be required.” Nehru wrote another letter to Kennedy in quick succession, Riedel writes.

A letter written by Nehru in a state of panicky was hand delivered by the then Indian Ambassador to the US B K
Nehru to Kennedy on November 19.

“Nehru was thus asking Kennedy to join the war against China by partnering in an air war to defeat the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army of China). It was a momentous request that the Indian Prime Minister was making. Just a decade after American forces had reached a ceasefire with the Chinese Community Forces in Korea, India was asking JFK to join a new war against Community China,” Riedel wrote in his book.

Ahead of Nehru’s letter, the then US Ambassador to India Galbraith sent a telegram to the White House giving the President an advance notice that such a request was coming from Nehru.

In the letter, Nehru asked for 12 squadrons of US air forces, Riedel told the Washington audience during the preview of the book at an event organised by the Brookings Institute – a top American think-tank – yesterday.

“A minimum of 12 squadrons of supersonic all weather fighters are essential. We have no modern radar cover in the country. The United States Air Force personnel will have to man these fighters and radar installations while our personnel are being trained,” Nehru wrote in the letter, which has been quoted by Riedel in the book.

In addition, Nehru also requested “two squadron of B-47 Bombers” to strike in Tibet, the author says quoting the letter.

In the letter, Nehru assured Kennedy that these bombers would not be used against Pakistan, but only for “resistance against the Chinese”.

The stakes were “not merely the survival of India”, Nehru told Kennedy “but the survival of free and independent Governments in the whole of this subcontinent or in Asia”.

Riedel said in the second letter Nehru was, in fact, asking Kennedy for some 350 combat aircraft and crews: 12 squadrons of fighter aircraft and crews: 12 squadron of fighter aircraft with 24 jets in each and two bomber
squadrons.

“At least 10,000 personnel would be needed to staff and operate jets, provide radar support and conduct logistical support for the operation,” Riedel said adding this was a substantial forces, large enough to make it a numbered air force in the American order of battle.

The British Prime Minister received a similar letter from Nehru, the American scholar writes. Referring to the subsequent instructions passed by Kennedy to his administration, Riedel described them as the one that of a president preparing for war.

But before the US would take further steps, China announced unilateral ceasefire.

After making major advances and being in a strong position to annex entire of North East and reach as far as Kolkata, the Chinese leadership surprised the world by announcing a unilateral ceasefire fearing that both Britain and the United State were getting ready to provide material support to India in the war.
“Of course, we will never know what the specifics of American assistance to India would have been if the war continues,” he wrote in the book set to be officially released in the first week of November.

“We can be reasonably certain that America, India and probably Great Britain would have been at war together with China,” Riedel concludes.

The book also notes that Kennedy played a “decisive role” in “forestalling a Pakistani attack” on India, even as
Islamabad then was clearly capable of initiating war with India and taking advantage of the situation – New Delhi’s
vulnerability.

Nehru, Riedel argues, ignored the advice of his general on the scene and instead listened to the top brass in New Delhi.

“This was a serious mistake. Having surrounded himself in New Delhi with ‘courtiers’ who told him ‘only what his top military advisors believed he wished to hear’, Nehru took their bad advice,” he wrote.

Riedel writes that Mao probably finalised the decision to go to war in a meeting in Beijing on October 6, 1962 with his senior generals. Mao told them that China had defeated Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists Imperial Japan, and the United States in Korea, he wrote.

Responding to a question, at the Brookings panel discussion, the former CIA official said, “The People’s Liberation Army was ordered to impose a ‘fierce and painful’ blow on India and expel India from the territory of China claimed in Kashmir west of the Johnson Line and in NEFA South of McMahon Line.”

According to Riedel, on October 8 the Chinese Foreign Minister informed the Soviet Ambassador in Beijing that a massive attack by Beijing was eminent.

“Because the Soviets were engaged in their own high-stakes gamble in Cuba, Moscow did not discourage the Chinese, despite Khrushchev’s close relationship with Nehru,” he said in the book.

““At the same time defeating India would answer the question Kennedy had raised in his 1959 speech in the Senate about which country, democratic India or communist China, was poised to win the race for great power status in Asia. For Mao the conflict with India provided a surrogate for his rivalry with Moscow and with Washington,” Riedel wrote in his book.

“On October 28, 1962, the day before Nehru asked for American military help, the US Ambassador in Pakistan, Walter McConaughy met with the then Pakistani ruler Ayub Khan.

“The Ambassador urged him to send assurances to Nehru that Pakistan would not take advantage of India’s war with China,” he wrote.

In response Khan proposed that “the Americans and Pakistanis work together to seek the surrender of Indian territory just as Chinese were grabbing land”.

This the US considered as “blackmail”, Riedel said. Galbraith immediately sent an “alarming telegram” to Washington and Karachi “asking for God’s sake that they keep Kashmir out” of any American message to Pakistan, Riedel said in the book, adding that Washington sided immediately with Galbraith on Kashmir.

At the advice of the US, Nehru then wrote a letter to Ayub Khan.

“Pakistan was clearly capable of initiating war with India, but decided in 1962 not to take advantage of India’s vulnerability,” Riedel writes.

According to Riedel, the Americans played a decisive role in forestalling a Pakistani attack on India. “Kennedy’s message to Ayub Khan, reinforced by similar message from Prime Minister Macmillan, left little in doubt that the United States and the United Kingdom would view a Pakistani move against India as a hostile and aggressive action inconsistent with the SEATO and CENTO Treaties. The Americans told Pakistan that the Chinese attack was the most dangerous move made by Mao since 1950 and that they intended to respond decisively,” he wrote.

Riedel, a well-known American expert of South Asia and advisors to four successive US presidents including Barack Obama, is a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project.

Prime Minister Nehru wrote two letters in quick succession to the US President John F Kennedy on the night of November 19, 1962. The war situation had become desperate and India was at the verge of collapse with the Chinese troops having reached the foothills of NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency, now called Arunachal Pradesh). Bomdila had fallen and the retreating troops from Sela had been trapped between the two passes. Fear of Chinese coming down the valley and occupying the eastern sector had percolated down the line, creating an aura of panic and helplessness. The plans were afoot to evacuate major cities in Assam. This was the grim scenario under which Nehru wrote those two letters.

He asked for a comprehensive aid from the US that included immediate help of the US Air Force for the purpose of air defence of the eastern sector. For the Indian Air Force to be employed in offensive role against the Chinese on the war front, it was felt necessary to have the US Air Force to defend the eastern sector against the PLAAF (People’s Liberation Army Air force as Chinese air force is known), should the Chinese retaliate by attacking Indian cities, oilfields and the industrial complexes in the region. The UK Prime Minister was also kept in the picture. However, by then the Chinese declared a unilateral ceasefire and a phased withdrawal. Obviously, they must have met their limited objective as set at the outset of the war. Besides, they could ill afford to stay on with the passes getting snow bound in days to come. These letters made public recently betray Nehru’s fears and the state of helplessness, as also the deference with which he approaches the subject of help from the US President.In the light of these letters, it has become necessary to re-visit the controversy surrounding this vital issue of non use of combat elements of the IAF, despite the overwhelming Chinese onslaught. The Army rightly feels aggrieved that despite the grave circumstances, the Air Force did not come to its rescue. Perhaps, had Nehru not been so influenced by US Ambassador, Galbraith’s advise and the IB boss, BN Mullick who had Nehru’s ears always, the outcome could well have been somewhat different. Whilst the former had Cold War compulsions in mind in advising Nehru the way he did, the latter was led to exaggerating the Chinese threat in the absence of real intelligence.

India had technologically advance aircraft comprising Toofanis, Mysteres, Gnats, Hunters and the Canberras. Some of these aircraft were in location in the eastern sector

Lack of genuine intelligence with the government, as also the armed forces and consequent fear of Chinese retribution due to over assessment of their capabilities obviously led to this unfortunate decision. Thus, it was the fear of the unknown that created a sort of paranoia amongst the higher hierarchy in the govt which totally froze and took decisions and actions that did not bring much honour to the nation and its Prime Minister, as stands revealed now.

The US advice that it would be unwise to involve the combat elements of the IAF played a major role in arriving at this decision. The suggestion that the eastern cities and the air bases at Tezpur and Guwahati, Calcutta industrial complex, oil installation might become targets for the Chinese bombing unnerved the government. The intelligence about the Chinese having active air bases at Rudok, Gartok and Tashigong further added to the confusion. There are no such bases even today in 2010. Thus, the government was led to deciding in favour of not using the IAF in operations other than the logistic support to the army, lest it should result in some sort of disaster. The demand for twelve all weather supersonic fighter squadrons placed by highly paranoiac Nehru on President Kennedy also seems rather naive and not based on any sound professional advice. It was not a small number that somebody would have given us on a platter. Maj Gen Palit writes in his book “War in the High Himalayas” that when he was shown the draft letter as a DMO at the AHQ, seeking these fighter squadrons, he could only welcome the help in light of desperate circumstances, whatever its source. Whether the Air HQs were similarly consulted is not clear at all.

The Chinese were known to have only Mig-15, Mig-17, IL-28 bombers and a few Mig-19. Most airfields in Tibet are at high altitude and had inadequate infrastructure to take on offensive fighter operations. The IL-28 bomber was the only aircraft that could have posed some threat in the eastern sector. In fact, in 1962, the PLAAF was at its weakest. The Soviets had pulled out of China in August; 1960. Their aeronautical industry was in tatters. Their serviceability was low due to non-availability of spares and so also was perhaps their morale. According to some western estimates based upon inputs from the Chinese sources, the Chinese Air Force was nearly grounded due to total suspension of supplies and the spares by the Soviet Union. Discord with Taiwan was also keeping the Chinese engaged on the eastern board. Large contingent of army and air force were deployed there.

It may be mentioned here, though with the advantage of hindsight that during the period leading from the 62 war with India to its 1979 war with Vietnam, the PLAAF had shown a marked bias towards Air Defence as against Offensive Air Operations. That this was inspite of having more capable bomber like the Tu-16/H-6 at the time implies that this predilection towards Air Defence had more to do with their air force doctrine rather than the ‘short legs’ of its aircraft. Would it therefore, with the hindsight of course, be correct to say that the PLAAF in all likelihood would not have used its offensive power against Indian cities? This is a question that can perhaps never be answered.

In comparison, India had technologically advance aircraft comprising Toofanis, Mysteres, Gnats, Hunters and the Canberras. Some of these aircraft were in location in the eastern sector already, though the Air Defence set up was rather rudimentary. With inherent flexibility that the air power has, it would have not taken much time for the IAF to reinforce the sector with requisite assets.

Unfortunately, the Air Force too was not as clear and certain as it ought to have been, due to the lack of requisite intelligence inputs. And that is the reason indeed for not having any in-depth study on Chinese capabilities in Tibet in hand prior to the start of war. Lack of intelligence on China’s capabilities and their intentions was obviously the limiting factor resulting in India not being as ready as required by the emerging scenario. The fear of Chinese retaliation seemed to have weighed so heavily that it coloured all our decisions. In light of the fact that the Henderson Brookes report is unlikely to be released for public scrutiny, the only source of information in this regard would be the few surviving senior officers of the day.

Ambassador Galbraith went to a great length in pressurising Nehru to desist from using combat aircraft against the Chinese which would widen the scope of the war. The US would not be able to support or provide any fighter cover. Galbraith could not have acted entirely on his own volition or hunch in advising Nehru so strongly without the backing from the home front. It could well have been the US military as also the CIA that were saying so. They had their own Cold War compulsions. Besides, the US was not very sure in regard to the extent of fissures in Sino-Soviet relations. However, what is of great interest is the fact that Prime Minister Nehru trusted Ambassador Galbraith without any trepidation whatsoever.

Writing in his journal later to be published as ‘Ambassador’s Journal’, on 19 Nov 62, the day Nehru dashed off his missives, Galbraith notes, “The Indians at all levels are in a state of shock .Not one but two pleas for help are coming to us, the second one of them still highly confidential. They want our Air Force to back them up so that they can employ theirs tactically without leaving their cities unprotected… I think it would be very unwise for them to initiate any air action.” Then he goes to footnote this event by saying, “In the ensuing days, I urged against doing so in the strongest possible fashion”. In his next entry on 21 Nov 1962, he goes on to explain the logic behind his urgings, when he says, “The cities of the Gangetic Plain are accessible from the airfields of Tibet. There is no chance that the Indians could retaliate to China and there is nothing in Tibet”. It is instructive to note that soon after this entry is an account of Galbraith’s 10 AM meeting with Prime Minister Nehru.

Whether the US deliberately exaggerated the Chinese air threat is indeed debatable. The Soviets too could not afford to take a pro India stand in October 1962…

One of the main factors in the calculus of the Americans would have been the fact that the Cold War was at its peak with the Cuban missile crisis unfolding at this very juncture. Any clear siding with the Indians would have provoked the Soviets in some form or the other. That’s how the US did not want to be seen getting too involved on the Indian side. Any such perception would have brought the Soviets closer to the Chinese who had not yet fully parted company. The US on account of Cold War constraints obviously did not want another region getting embroiled in any major war and hence the advice to Nehru to avoid widening the scope of Sino-Indian conflict by employing its air power. Whether the US deliberately exaggerated the Chinese air threat is indeed debatable. The Soviets too could not afford to take a pro India stand in October 1962 because of their pre-occupation with the US on account of Cuban missile face off.

The unfortunate consequence of this canard being sowed deep into the minds of the Indian decision making elite was that it soon began acquiring a life of its own, as a section of the military came to believe that using the IAF offensively would lead to the PLAAF responding with operations to hinder the IAF’s air maintenance of the Indian Army on which it was extremely dependent. That’s how a few requests for close air support by some units engaged on the front with the Chinese were promptly turned down by the army authorities on these very grounds.

Despite Nehru’s entreaties, the US help was not forthcoming till after the end of the war, although there are references here and there in regard to the US aircraft carrier (USS Enterprise) being present in the Indian Ocean and its movement towards the Bay of Bengal. The US in response to India’s request for help got the Commonwealth countries to come forward and support it in this effort. President Kennedy with the help of British Prime Minister Macmillan worked out a joint military aid package of the order of about $120 million or so for India. Other Commonwealth countries were too roped in to share this responsibility on the grounds that India was more familiar with British and the Commonwealth countries’ equipment and the weapon systems rather than that of the Americans’. The US help therefore, came in the form of non-combat equipment only. It thus became a support from the western powers and not necessarily from the US who was wary of the Soviets’ reaction.

Where India went wrong was in its strategic assessment of Chinese intentions that they would not resort to war. But they did and caught us totally off guard.

Thus, Ex Shiksha was planned between the air forces of the US, UK, Canada and Australia in order to check the air defence of Delhi and the eastern sector. Later, the help materialised in the form of aircrafts and the equipment from these countries. Besides, the US agreed to train certain number of Indian pilots in US. The US also gave badly needed winter clothing, some transport aircraft and later 500 series Star Saphire air defence radars which were later deployed all along the Himalayas from the west to the far east. Canada sent a squadron of Caribous transport aircraft. UK too provided some support in the form of submarine training to one batch of Indian naval officers. Some of this came free, some on concessional rates and some on full payment.

Interestingly, a stage came when India was able to get the best from both the sides. Right till 1965 war, India was able to acquire major military hardware from the US as well as the Soviet Union. No wonder, India’s non-alignment policy came to be referred as ‘bi-alignment’. Questions about India’s foreign policy began to be raised all over, particularly in the western world. Even within the country, the eyebrows were raised that the architect of India’s non-alignment policy was seeking military intervention by the US forces. However, what really matters is the way one looks at it. National interest must remain paramount, ideology notwithstanding.

Where India went wrong was in its strategic assessment of Chinese intentions that they would not resort to war. But they did and caught us totally off guard. This shattered Nehru and his much coveted non-alignment policy. Being still in “Bhai Bhai, era,” even our intelligence could not adjust to the emerging adverse relationship. To add to the woes, Nehru’s proclivity of ignoring the armed forces that unfortunately remained in World War-II mould all this while till the Chinese shook us resulted in the nation paying this heavy price. However, what needs to be debated in India is as to who sowed the seeds of imagination in the minds of the Indian polity of the time. Nehru was obviously not advised correctly or professionally. The unexpected Chinese onslaught and consequent rout of the Indian Army led Nehru and his advisors to overestimate Chinese politico-military objectives.

@Nilgiri @Rain Man

 

[zebra7]

Pakistan had the chance to break India in 1962, but the current political situation during the time did not allow it; however there were some plans.

How ? Did India placed his all his army and airforce in the eastern border.

 

[FullMetalJacket]

Pakistan had the chance to break India in 1962, but the current political situation during the time did not allow it; however there were some plans.

You guys should have taken the chance, instead you opted for 1965, where you guys spent the quickest time entering kashmir and then retreating from it.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

You guys should have taken the chance, instead you opted for 1965, where you guys spent the quickest time entering kashmir and then retreating from it.

Honestly, Pakistan never really planned on Invading India in 1965; we still had huge hopes that Kashmir will indefinitely be gained diplomatically. It was Pashtun Tribesmen (admittedly they were encouraged by the Army) that moved into Kashmir; India responded with a full scale invasion on Punjab; although most of Pakistan Army was in Rajasthan and Kashmir at that time - India's main offensive was focused on Lahore, a soft spot. The Lahori Garrison fought bravely and managed to thwart the massive Indian offensive, meanwhile irregular and regular reinforcements were on their way to counter-attack; they had the force and capability and move deeply into Indian territory without meeting heavy resistance, but unfortunately the peace treaty was already declared before they could reach the front - had the peace talks stalled, they would've been deep within Indian Punjab.

 

[FullMetalJacket]

Honestly, Pakistan never really planned on Invading India in 1965; we still had huge hopes that Kashmir will indefinitely be gained diplomatically. It was Pashtun Tribesmen (admittedly they were encouraged by the Army) that moved into Kashmir; India responded with a full scale invasion on Punjab; although most of Pakistan Army was in Rajasthan and Kashmir at that time - India's main offensive was focused on Lahore, a soft spot. The Lahori Garrison fought bravely and managed to thwart the massive Indian offensive, meanwhile irregular and regular reinforcements were on their way to counter-attack; they had the force and capability and move deeply into Indian territory without meeting heavy resistance, but unfortunately the peace treaty was already declared before they could reach the front - had the peace talks stalled, they would've been deep within Indian Punjab.

Seems silly that India focused its entire military in pressing towards Lahore and not leave reserves to defend areas of interest. There's no way to be sure, unless a source exists, otherwise that would have been a major blunder by the IA.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

Seems silly that India focused its entire military in pressing towards Lahore and not leave reserves to defend areas of interest. There's no way to be sure, unless a source exists, otherwise that would have been a major blunder by the IA.

Of Course India did leave reserves, but the reserves would not have been able to withstand the massive counter-offensive. It would've been like Germany's invasion of Russia.

 

[Vedicity]

Of Course India did leave reserves, but the reserves would not have been able to withstand the massive counter-offensive. It would've been like Germany's invasion of Russia.

If India's frontline troops collapsed like a Daravahi tin shack, then the reserves stood no chance whatsoever against the Chinese onslaught. You have to give Nehru credit. He abandoned his pride and begged America to intervene to save India, and as a result, India was indeed saved.

 

[my2cents]

Pakistan had the chance to break India in 1962, but the current political situation during the time did not allow it; however there were some plans.

Yes, but it took you three years to get your troops ready until 1965. India was prepared by then. Next time strike when the iron is hot.