An open letter to General Martin Dempsey

[fatman17]

An open letter to General Martin Dempsey

Published: July 31, 2011


Sir,

This is regarding your deposition before the Defence Committee in which you said that Pakistan falsely considers India to be a threat to it, and that “the United States is working to convince Pakistan that extremists in the West are a great threat and probably a greater threat to them than any threat that India might pose.”

Sir, the threat from India is very real, as the present deployment of the Indian forces on our borders shows:*-

p The 15th and the 16th Corps, along with an armoured and artillery brigade, are deployed against us in the Indian occupied Kashmir.

p The 11th Corps having three infantry divisions, an armoured brigade and a mechanised infantry brigade, and the 10th Corps consisting of one regular infantry division and three Rapid Deployment infantry divisions are facing us in Punjab.

p In Haryana, the 2nd Corps with one armoured division, one Rapid infantry division, a regular infantry division, and an additional armoured brigade, is deployed against us.

p In Rajasthan, we are facing the Indian 12th Desert Corps, along with an armoured brigade and a mechanised infantry brigade.

p In addition to the above deployment on our borders, the Indians have the following forces suitably placed to reinforce their military power on our borders:*-

p 21st Corps supported by an armoured division, a Rapid infantry division, an Engineers brigade and an additional armoured brigade.

p The 1st Strike Corps with an infantry division, a mountain division and an armoured division.

This shows that 70 percent of the Indian forces are physically deployed against Pakistan. In fact, India has only their 33rd Corps, 3rd Corps and the 4th Corps deployed against China and Bangladesh.

The Indian army officially unveiled the Cold Start Doctrine on April 28, 2004, at the Army Commander’s Conference. This doctrine is undoubtedly Pakistan specific and its officially stated objectives are:-

p India now plans to act offensively against Pakistan for any perceived acts of strategic destabilisation of India, proxy war and terrorism.
India has in declaratory terms enunciated that it will undertake offensive operations against Pakistan, short of the nuclear threshold.

p India could initiate offensive operations either as pre-emptive strikes or straight away without giving Pakistan the time to bring diplomatic leverages in play.

p The Indian army’s combat potential will be fully harnessed for offensive operations at the outset by eliminating the differentiation between “defensive formations” and “offensive formations”.

p Implicit in this doctrine is that the Indian army will no longer concentrate on capturing and holding the Pakistani territory as leverage for post-war negotiations, but the new operation will aim at destroying the combat potential of the Pakistan Army and its warfighting capacity.

p The above is to be achieved by fast moving armoured and mechanised operations supported by preponderant artillery firepower and, even more preponderant, combat firepower of the Indian air force.

Since April 2004, the Indian armed forces have carried out 11 exercises to debug and operationally perfect the Cold Start Doctrine. Only a few weeks ago, the Indian army and air force held a combined exercise involving over 50,000 troops, only 70km from our border in Rajasthan.

Furthermore, the headquarters of their Strike Force and Rapid Force are being shifted from Central India to Punjab.

Sir, you very well know the threat to Pakistan from neighbouring India is real and there is no falsehood about it. However, what is mendacious is to advise us to ignore it.

– Inam Khawaja

 

[Ali.009]

Well written

 

[muse]

Imagine if the points laid out , were laid out to a US general and the adversary was some other country -- Given the points laid out, what would be A US military analyst's recommendation be to his General??

 

[Leader]

very true...

 

[DADU]

An open letter to General Martin Dempsey

Published: July 31, 2011


Sir,

This is regarding your deposition before the Defence Committee in which you said that Pakistan falsely considers India to be a threat to it, and that “the United States is working to convince Pakistan that extremists in the West are a great threat and probably a greater threat to them than any threat that India might pose.”

Sir, the threat from India is very real, as the present deployment of the Indian forces on our borders shows:*-

p The 15th and the 16th Corps, along with an armoured and artillery brigade, are deployed against us in the Indian occupied Kashmir.

p The 11th Corps having three infantry divisions, an armoured brigade and a mechanised infantry brigade, and the 10th Corps consisting of one regular infantry division and three Rapid Deployment infantry divisions are facing us in Punjab.

p In Haryana, the 2nd Corps with one armoured division, one Rapid infantry division, a regular infantry division, and an additional armoured brigade, is deployed against us.

p In Rajasthan, we are facing the Indian 12th Desert Corps, along with an armoured brigade and a mechanised infantry brigade.

p In addition to the above deployment on our borders, the Indians have the following forces suitably placed to reinforce their military power on our borders:*-

p 21st Corps supported by an armoured division, a Rapid infantry division, an Engineers brigade and an additional armoured brigade.

p The 1st Strike Corps with an infantry division, a mountain division and an armoured division.

This shows that 70 percent of the Indian forces are physically deployed against Pakistan. In fact, India has only their 33rd Corps, 3rd Corps and the 4th Corps deployed against China and Bangladesh.

The Indian army officially unveiled the Cold Start Doctrine on April 28, 2004, at the Army Commander’s Conference. This doctrine is undoubtedly Pakistan specific and its officially stated objectives are:-

p India now plans to act offensively against Pakistan for any perceived acts of strategic destabilisation of India, proxy war and terrorism.
India has in declaratory terms enunciated that it will undertake offensive operations against Pakistan, short of the nuclear threshold.

p India could initiate offensive operations either as pre-emptive strikes or straight away without giving Pakistan the time to bring diplomatic leverages in play.

p The Indian army’s combat potential will be fully harnessed for offensive operations at the outset by eliminating the differentiation between “defensive formations” and “offensive formations”.

p Implicit in this doctrine is that the Indian army will no longer concentrate on capturing and holding the Pakistani territory as leverage for post-war negotiations, but the new operation will aim at destroying the combat potential of the Pakistan Army and its warfighting capacity.

p The above is to be achieved by fast moving armoured and mechanised operations supported by preponderant artillery firepower and, even more preponderant, combat firepower of the Indian air force.

Since April 2004, the Indian armed forces have carried out 11 exercises to debug and operationally perfect the Cold Start Doctrine. Only a few weeks ago, the Indian army and air force held a combined exercise involving over 50,000 troops, only 70km from our border in Rajasthan.

Furthermore, the headquarters of their Strike Force and Rapid Force are being shifted from Central India to Punjab.

Sir, you very well know the threat to Pakistan from neighbouring India is real and there is no falsehood about it. However, what is mendacious is to advise us to ignore it.

– Inam Khawaja

Who wrote it; you?? This is very good however a note of caution don’t get emotional on this , be technical i.e. instead of IOK put maybe something like Indian administered Kashmir.

I suppose you don’t have to act retrospect on this unless one’s in the army but it’s always good to have a decent level reply instead of ‘they don’t have time’ to view a letter with a strong tone......

 

[VCheng]

The response is totally off the mark. Please allow me to explain:

“the United States is working to convince Pakistan that extremists in the West are a great threat and probably a greater threat to them than any threat that India might pose.”

What this is saying is that Pakistan needs to realize that the extremists are a greater threat to them than any threat that India might pose. Responding with a list of Indian deployments does nothing to negate that statement.

 

[fatman17]

^indian troops are just there to eat 'daal roti"!!! - we shouldnt worry about them and move all our formations to the west.

 

[VCheng]

^indian troops are just there to eat 'daal roti"!!! - we shouldnt worry about them and move all our formations to the west.

No Sir, they do pose a risk, it is just that what the statement says is that the extremists pose a greater risk. Hence, the response fails to address that meaning at all.

 

[fatman17]

Imagine if the points laid out , were laid out to a US general and the adversary was some other country -- Given the points laid out, what would be A US military analyst's recommendation be to his General??

not long ago there were hundreds of thousands of troops in western europe bcuz the soviets had deployed similar or larger numbers in eastern europe (warsaw pact) - reduce/mitigate that threat (which happened), the troops numbers were reduced. infact europe dosnt need NATO anymore - same applies here. as long as india posts 2/3rd of its military might along the pak border, pakistan has no choice but to meet that challenge.