High on bombast, low on capability

[Zarvan]

Pakistan has worked with limited resources to maximise its defence. On the Indian side, there's mostly bluster

By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 2nd Jan 2018

Last month in Islamabad, Lieutenant General (retired) Khalid Kidwai outlined a new Pakistani approach to defence strategy. Kidwai is someone worth listening to carefully, being uniquely qualified across the spectrum of Pakistani security and a trusted establishment spokesperson. An artillery officer with deep roots in conventional warfare planning, Kidwai saw battle in Bangladesh in 1971, ending up in an Indian prisoner-of-war camp. As a lieutenant general, Kidwai moved in 2000 into the realm of nuclear planning when he was appointed to head Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD). During an unprecedented 15 years in SPD, Kidwai masterminded Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine of “full spectrum deterrence”. This included the deployment of “tactical nuclear weapons” (TNWs) – short-range, low-yield nuclear bombs that cause lesser damage, creating the illusion of “usability”. TNWs are meant to deter Indian retaliation against any major terrorist provocation from Pakistan, which would involve lightning Indian armoured attacks on multiple fronts to quickly overwhelm Pakistan’s smaller military. In deploying TNWs, Pakistan is following the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which planned to use TNWs in the 1950s and 1960s to avoid being overwhelmed by massive Soviet Union armoured offensives into Western Europe.

Pakistan has deployed Kidwai’s measured articulation on two occasions to rationalise Pakistan’s controversial TNW policy. In March 2015, at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC, Kidwai explained that TNWs were meant for “reinforcing deterrence, preventing war in South Asia [and] ensuring peace…” Naturally, he did not mention that this wish for peace was not so much for Indo-Pakistan relations to flower, but rather to provide Pakistan the leeway to pursue “sub-conventional operations” – the use of terrorist and armed militants in cross-border operations against India – without fearing military retaliation. Kidwai also dismissed as “bluster”, India’s doctrinal promise that any attack on Indian forces with weapons of mass destruction (including TNWs) would invoke “massive retaliation”. This is not described, but is assumed to mean the use of heavy nuclear weapons against Pakistani cities, killing tens of millions. Kidwai pointed out this would inevitably evoke a matching response by Pakistan against Indian targets, given the rough parity between the two nuclear arsenals (credible recent assessments say Pakistan’s arsenal is larger) and that numerous Pakistani nukes would survive Indian retaliatory strikes, howsoever massive.

Now Kidwai has been fielded again, this time as Advisor to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, which controls Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, to signal a new, less apologetic, international policy. Speaking at a seminar in Islamabad, Kidwai outlined a two-point argument. First, he said India had realized that conventional war was no longer possible, due to Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities – meaning TNWs for war-fighting, with the main arsenal deterring Indian retaliation. Second, without the option of conventional military force, India was now developing sub-conventional capabilities (read terrorist proxies). Said Kidwai: “Because of mutually assured destruction, there is unlikelihood (sic) of a hot war or conventional war and therefore the conflict has shifted towards sub-conventional level.” In essence, this involved a “cold war era for regional supremacy… [through the] creation of proxies.” Essentially, Kidwai dragged India down to Pakistan’s level, justifying Pakistan’s support for cross-border terror with his postulation that this was now the new cold war with India.

Pakistan’s allegations of “Indian terrorism” are rich in irony and could have been convincingly dismissed, coming from a government that has long used terrorism and armed militancy as instruments of state policy. India has dismissed such allegations in the past when Islamabad accused New Delhi of backing separatists in Balochistan, and destabilising its Pakhtoon (Pashtun) border belts from its consulates in Afghanistan. But this time Kidwai could point to “public pronouncements by Indian [political] leadership of using terrorism to destabilise Pakistan”. This reference was to Manohar Parrikar who, while serving as defence minister on May 22, 2015, told a gathering in New Delhi (to loud applause): “We have to use terrorists to neutralise terrorists”.

Pakistan has been presented the chance to take advantage of India’s jingoistic security narrative, in which political leaders regard the military as a handy prop for nationalistic grandstanding. In this, reality is second to posturing before the domestic audience. Much was made of the “surgical strikes” of September 2016, but figures tabled in Parliament hardly suggest that Pakistan has been taught a lesson. Ceasefire violations almost doubled in 2017, rising from 405 in 2015; and 449 in 2016, to well over 800 this year. Pakistani firing killed 10 Indian soldiers (including from the Border Security Force) in 2015; and 13 died in 2016, but India lost more than 30 soldiers on the border in 2017. Armed militants took a beating in encounters in the Valley in 2017, but the number of soldiers killed in those encounters also rose. An alert media and strategic community should be parsing these figures, but is not discharging its duty.

Nor is there much searching examination of India’s defence readiness. The army does without basic infantry weapons and soldiers fight without ballistic helmets, bulletproof jackets or fire- and water-retardant clothing. The army remains desperately short of artillery guns, air defence protection, tactical battlefield drones and high-mobility logistics vehicles. The navy commissions warships without sonars and anti-submarine helicopters. Last month, the prime minister presided over a farce while commissioning a new submarine that lacks critical combat capabilities – the Scorpene shares a tiny stock of 64 two-decade-old torpedoes with four old Shishumar-class submarines. The air force remains short of fighters; and the ones it has deliver such low serviceability rates that the 2016 contract for 36 Rafale fighters had to include a $350-million clause binding the vendor, Dassault, to deliver a serviceability rate of 75 per cent for five years – a rate that modern fighters, incorporating modular engineering and built-in test equipment should achieve as a matter of course.

Pakistan’s security establishment, despite its appallingly immoral approach to conflict, has worked with limited resources and money to maximise its national defence – integrating nuclear, conventional and sub-conventional resources to continue bleeding an apparently hapless India. Officials like Khalid Kidwai can stand before an international forum and detail a strategy for Pakistan to achieve its security interests.

In contrast, India’s approach to defence is best summed up by this simple fact: Over the preceding year, three separate defence ministers have occupied that hallowed corner office in South Block. Not one of them would be able to lucidly explain India’s defence strategy and how our military would fight the two-front war we claim to be ready for. Asked how we would match India’s expansive defence allocations with the shopping list of badly needed weaponry, not one would have a coherent answer. Will this change in 2018? Probably not.

http://ajaishukla.blogspot.in/2018/01/high-on-bombast-low-on-capability.html

 

[Kinetic]

Pakistan has worked with limited resources to maximise its defence. On the Indian side, there's mostly bluster

By Ajai Shukla

What Ajai wanted is India taking $ 33 billion from US to be their hunting ground? Taking more from China and give away our land?? What kind of idiot is that?

 

[noksss]

Pakistan has worked with limited resources to maximise its defence. On the Indian side, there's mostly bluster

By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 2nd Jan 2018

Last month in Islamabad, Lieutenant General (retired) Khalid Kidwai outlined a new Pakistani approach to defence strategy. Kidwai is someone worth listening to carefully, being uniquely qualified across the spectrum of Pakistani security and a trusted establishment spokesperson. An artillery officer with deep roots in conventional warfare planning, Kidwai saw battle in Bangladesh in 1971, ending up in an Indian prisoner-of-war camp. As a lieutenant general, Kidwai moved in 2000 into the realm of nuclear planning when he was appointed to head Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD). During an unprecedented 15 years in SPD, Kidwai masterminded Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine of “full spectrum deterrence”. This included the deployment of “tactical nuclear weapons” (TNWs) – short-range, low-yield nuclear bombs that cause lesser damage, creating the illusion of “usability”. TNWs are meant to deter Indian retaliation against any major terrorist provocation from Pakistan, which would involve lightning Indian armoured attacks on multiple fronts to quickly overwhelm Pakistan’s smaller military. In deploying TNWs, Pakistan is following the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which planned to use TNWs in the 1950s and 1960s to avoid being overwhelmed by massive Soviet Union armoured offensives into Western Europe.

Pakistan has deployed Kidwai’s measured articulation on two occasions to rationalise Pakistan’s controversial TNW policy. In March 2015, at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC, Kidwai explained that TNWs were meant for “reinforcing deterrence, preventing war in South Asia [and] ensuring peace…” Naturally, he did not mention that this wish for peace was not so much for Indo-Pakistan relations to flower, but rather to provide Pakistan the leeway to pursue “sub-conventional operations” – the use of terrorist and armed militants in cross-border operations against India – without fearing military retaliation. Kidwai also dismissed as “bluster”, India’s doctrinal promise that any attack on Indian forces with weapons of mass destruction (including TNWs) would invoke “massive retaliation”. This is not described, but is assumed to mean the use of heavy nuclear weapons against Pakistani cities, killing tens of millions. Kidwai pointed out this would inevitably evoke a matching response by Pakistan against Indian targets, given the rough parity between the two nuclear arsenals (credible recent assessments say Pakistan’s arsenal is larger) and that numerous Pakistani nukes would survive Indian retaliatory strikes, howsoever massive.

Now Kidwai has been fielded again, this time as Advisor to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, which controls Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, to signal a new, less apologetic, international policy. Speaking at a seminar in Islamabad, Kidwai outlined a two-point argument. First, he said India had realized that conventional war was no longer possible, due to Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities – meaning TNWs for war-fighting, with the main arsenal deterring Indian retaliation. Second, without the option of conventional military force, India was now developing sub-conventional capabilities (read terrorist proxies). Said Kidwai: “Because of mutually assured destruction, there is unlikelihood (sic) of a hot war or conventional war and therefore the conflict has shifted towards sub-conventional level.” In essence, this involved a “cold war era for regional supremacy… [through the] creation of proxies.” Essentially, Kidwai dragged India down to Pakistan’s level, justifying Pakistan’s support for cross-border terror with his postulation that this was now the new cold war with India.

Pakistan’s allegations of “Indian terrorism” are rich in irony and could have been convincingly dismissed, coming from a government that has long used terrorism and armed militancy as instruments of state policy. India has dismissed such allegations in the past when Islamabad accused New Delhi of backing separatists in Balochistan, and destabilising its Pakhtoon (Pashtun) border belts from its consulates in Afghanistan. But this time Kidwai could point to “public pronouncements by Indian [political] leadership of using terrorism to destabilise Pakistan”. This reference was to Manohar Parrikar who, while serving as defence minister on May 22, 2015, told a gathering in New Delhi (to loud applause): “We have to use terrorists to neutralise terrorists”.

Pakistan has been presented the chance to take advantage of India’s jingoistic security narrative, in which political leaders regard the military as a handy prop for nationalistic grandstanding. In this, reality is second to posturing before the domestic audience. Much was made of the “surgical strikes” of September 2016, but figures tabled in Parliament hardly suggest that Pakistan has been taught a lesson. Ceasefire violations almost doubled in 2017, rising from 405 in 2015; and 449 in 2016, to well over 800 this year. Pakistani firing killed 10 Indian soldiers (including from the Border Security Force) in 2015; and 13 died in 2016, but India lost more than 30 soldiers on the border in 2017. Armed militants took a beating in encounters in the Valley in 2017, but the number of soldiers killed in those encounters also rose. An alert media and strategic community should be parsing these figures, but is not discharging its duty.

Nor is there much searching examination of India’s defence readiness. The army does without basic infantry weapons and soldiers fight without ballistic helmets, bulletproof jackets or fire- and water-retardant clothing. The army remains desperately short of artillery guns, air defence protection, tactical battlefield drones and high-mobility logistics vehicles. The navy commissions warships without sonars and anti-submarine helicopters. Last month, the prime minister presided over a farce while commissioning a new submarine that lacks critical combat capabilities – the Scorpene shares a tiny stock of 64 two-decade-old torpedoes with four old Shishumar-class submarines. The air force remains short of fighters; and the ones it has deliver such low serviceability rates that the 2016 contract for 36 Rafale fighters had to include a $350-million clause binding the vendor, Dassault, to deliver a serviceability rate of 75 per cent for five years – a rate that modern fighters, incorporating modular engineering and built-in test equipment should achieve as a matter of course.

Pakistan’s security establishment, despite its appallingly immoral approach to conflict, has worked with limited resources and money to maximise its national defence – integrating nuclear, conventional and sub-conventional resources to continue bleeding an apparently hapless India. Officials like Khalid Kidwai can stand before an international forum and detail a strategy for Pakistan to achieve its security interests.

In contrast, India’s approach to defence is best summed up by this simple fact: Over the preceding year, three separate defence ministers have occupied that hallowed corner office in South Block. Not one of them would be able to lucidly explain India’s defence strategy and how our military would fight the two-front war we claim to be ready for. Asked how we would match India’s expansive defence allocations with the shopping list of badly needed weaponry, not one would have a coherent answer. Will this change in 2018? Probably not.

http://ajaishukla.blogspot.in/2018/01/high-on-bombast-low-on-capability.html

Pretty much sums up who he is targeting

This reference was to Manohar Parrikar who, while serving as defence minister on May 22, 2015, told a gathering in New Delhi (to loud applause): “We have to use terrorists to neutralise terrorists”. Pakistan has been presented the chance to take advantage of India’s jingoistic security narrative, in which political leaders regard the military as a handy prop for nationalistic grandstanding.

Since shukla is not the Defense minister why should India have problem in doing this

Officials like Khalid Kidwai can stand before an international forum and detail a strategy for Pakistan to achieve its security interests.

 

[shootingstar]

India lacks the ingenuity of Pakistan.

 

[Ahmet Pasha]

Complacency kills.
No matter what india says, we have to have top notch weapons.

 

[django]

@Zibago @Hell hound @Moonlight @Signalian @Ulla @Ocean @war&peace
An interesting article by erudite defence analyst Col (retd) Ajai Shukla...naturally I do not share with all of his views, never the less a lot is revealed about the Indian capability or rather the lack.

By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 2nd Jan 2018

Last month in Islamabad, Lieutenant General (retired) Khalid Kidwai outlined a new Pakistani approach to defence strategy. Kidwai is someone worth listening to carefully, being uniquely qualified across the spectrum of Pakistani security and a trusted establishment spokesperson. An artillery officer with deep roots in conventional warfare planning, Kidwai saw battle in Bangladesh in 1971, ending up in an Indian prisoner-of-war camp. As a lieutenant general, Kidwai moved in 2000 into the realm of nuclear planning when he was appointed to head Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD). During an unprecedented 15 years in SPD, Kidwai masterminded Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine of “full spectrum deterrence”. This included the deployment of “tactical nuclear weapons” (TNWs) – short-range, low-yield nuclear bombs that cause lesser damage, creating the illusion of “usability”. TNWs are meant to deter Indian retaliation against any major terrorist provocation from Pakistan, which would involve lightning Indian armoured attacks on multiple fronts to quickly overwhelm Pakistan’s smaller military. In deploying TNWs, Pakistan is following the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which planned to use TNWs in the 1950s and 1960s to avoid being overwhelmed by massive Soviet Union armoured offensives into Western Europe.

Pakistan has deployed Kidwai’s measured articulation on two occasions to rationalise Pakistan’s controversial TNW policy. In March 2015, at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC, Kidwai explained that TNWs were meant for “reinforcing deterrence, preventing war in South Asia [and] ensuring peace…” Naturally, he did not mention that this wish for peace was not so much for Indo-Pakistan relations to flower, but rather to provide Pakistan the leeway to pursue “sub-conventional operations” – the use of terrorist and armed militants in cross-border operations against India – without fearing military retaliation. Kidwai also dismissed as “bluster”, India’s doctrinal promise that any attack on Indian forces with weapons of mass destruction (including TNWs) would invoke “massive retaliation”. This is not described, but is assumed to mean the use of heavy nuclear weapons against Pakistani cities, killing tens of millions. Kidwai pointed out this would inevitably evoke a matching response by Pakistan against Indian targets, given the rough parity between the two nuclear arsenals (credible recent assessments say Pakistan’s arsenal is larger) and that numerous Pakistani nukes would survive Indian retaliatory strikes, howsoever massive.

Now Kidwai has been fielded again, this time as Advisor to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, which controls Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, to signal a new, less apologetic, international policy. Speaking at a seminar in Islamabad, Kidwai outlined a two-point argument. First, he said India had realised that conventional war was no longer possible, due to Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities – meaning TNWs for war-fighting, with the main arsenal deterring Indian retaliation. Second, without the option of conventional military force, India was now developing sub-conventional capabilities (read terrorist proxies). Said Kidwai: “Because of mutually assured destruction, there is unlikelihood (sic) of a hot war or conventional war and therefore the conflict has shifted towards sub-conventional level.” In essence, this involved a “cold war era for regional supremacy… [through the] creation of proxies.” Essentially, Kidwai dragged India down to Pakistan’s level, justifying Pakistan’s support for cross-border terror with his postulation that this was now the new cold war with India.

Pakistan’s allegations of “Indian terrorism” are rich in irony and could have been convincingly dismissed, coming from a government that has long used terrorism and armed militancy as instruments of state policy. India has dismissed such allegations in the past when Islamabad accused New Delhi of backing separatists in Balochistan, and destabilising its Pakhtoon (Pashtun) border belts from its consulates in Afghanistan. But this time Kidwai could point to “public pronouncements by Indian [political] leadership of using terrorism to destabilise Pakistan”. This reference was to Manohar Parrikar who, while serving as defence minister on May 22, 2015, told a gathering in New Delhi (to loud applause): “We have to use terrorists to neutralise terrorists”.

Pakistan has been presented the chance to take advantage of India’s jingoistic security narrative, in which political leaders regard the military as a handy prop for nationalistic grandstanding. In this, reality is second to posturing before the domestic audience. Much was made of the “surgical strikes” of September 2016, but figures tabled in Parliament hardly suggest that Pakistan has been taught a lesson. Ceasefire violations almost doubled in 2017, rising from 405 in 2015; and 449 in 2016, to well over 800 this year. Pakistani firing killed 10 Indian soldiers (including from the Border Security Force) in 2015; and 13 died in 2016, but India lost more than 30 soldiers on the border in 2017. Armed militants took a beating in encounters in the Valley in 2017, but the number of soldiers killed in those encounters also rose. An alert media and strategic community should be parsing these figures, but is not discharging its duty.

Nor is there much searching examination of India’s defence readiness. The army does without basic infantry weapons and soldiers fight without ballistic helmets, bulletproof jackets or fire- and water-retardant clothing. The army remains desperately short of artillery guns, air defence protection, tactical battlefield drones and high-mobility logistics vehicles. The navy commissions warships without sonars and anti-submarine helicopters. Last month, the prime minister presided over a farce while commissioning a new submarine that lacks critical combat capabilities – the Scorpene shares a tiny stock of 64 two-decade-old torpedoes with four old Shishumar-class submarines. The air force remains short of fighters; and the ones it has deliver such low serviceability rates that the 2016 contract for 36 Rafale fighters had to include a $350-million clause binding the vendor, Dassault, to deliver a serviceability rate of 75 per cent for five years – a rate that modern fighters, incorporating modular engineering and built-in test equipment should achieve as a matter of course.

Pakistan’s security establishment, despite its appallingly immoral approach to conflict, has worked with limited resources and money to maximise its national defence – integrating nuclear, conventional and sub-conventional resources to continue bleeding an apparently hapless India. Officials like Khalid Kidwai can stand before an international forum and detail a strategy for Pakistan to achieve its security interests.

In contrast, India’s approach to defence is best summed up by this simple fact: Over the preceding year, three separate defence ministers have occupied that hallowed corner office in South Block. Not one of them would be able to lucidly explain India’s defence strategy and how our military would fight the two-front war we claim to be ready for. Asked how we would match India’s expansive defence allocations with the shopping list of badly needed weaponry, not one would have a coherent answer. Will this change in 2018? Probably not.

 

[shootingstar]

That ingenuity is like handing over country to US, China and Arabs as their hunting ground for some dollars.

And Modi puts up the country for sale for free or negative price.

 

[Signalian]

In contrast, India’s approach to defence is best summed up by this simple fact: Over the preceding year, three separate defence ministers have occupied that hallowed corner office in South Block. Not one of them would be able to lucidly explain India’s defence strategy and how our military would fight the two-front war we claim to be ready for. Asked how we would match India’s expansive defence allocations with the shopping list of badly needed weaponry, not one would have a coherent answer. Will this change in 2018? Probably not.

Ofcourse Indian ministers cannot open up about Indian activities in Afghanistan against Pakistan and furthermore assisting TTP, BLA etc against Pakistan which is India's strategy at the moment, Yadav is a living proof. Cross border terrorism has worked for India since 1971.

Its just the frustration against TNW for which there is no definite response.

 

[hit&run&hitagain]

Isn't Shukla the same lackey who attended Mani Shanker Aiyer's dinner with Pakistanis ?

 

[punit]

Another lackey of conGress ... Who is facing unemployment due to modi !!

 

[Inception-06]

@Zibago @Hell hound @Moonlight @Signalian @Ulla @Ocean @war&peace
An interesting article by erudite defence analyst Col (retd) Ajai Shukla...naturally I do not share with all of his views, never the less a lot is revealed about the Indian capability or rather the lack.

By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 2nd Jan 2018

Last month in Islamabad, Lieutenant General (retired) Khalid Kidwai outlined a new Pakistani approach to defence strategy. Kidwai is someone worth listening to carefully, being uniquely qualified across the spectrum of Pakistani security and a trusted establishment spokesperson. An artillery officer with deep roots in conventional warfare planning, Kidwai saw battle in Bangladesh in 1971, ending up in an Indian prisoner-of-war camp. As a lieutenant general, Kidwai moved in 2000 into the realm of nuclear planning when he was appointed to head Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD). During an unprecedented 15 years in SPD, Kidwai masterminded Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine of “full spectrum deterrence”. This included the deployment of “tactical nuclear weapons” (TNWs) – short-range, low-yield nuclear bombs that cause lesser damage, creating the illusion of “usability”. TNWs are meant to deter Indian retaliation against any major terrorist provocation from Pakistan, which would involve lightning Indian armoured attacks on multiple fronts to quickly overwhelm Pakistan’s smaller military. In deploying TNWs, Pakistan is following the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which planned to use TNWs in the 1950s and 1960s to avoid being overwhelmed by massive Soviet Union armoured offensives into Western Europe.

Pakistan has deployed Kidwai’s measured articulation on two occasions to rationalise Pakistan’s controversial TNW policy. In March 2015, at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC, Kidwai explained that TNWs were meant for “reinforcing deterrence, preventing war in South Asia [and] ensuring peace…” Naturally, he did not mention that this wish for peace was not so much for Indo-Pakistan relations to flower, but rather to provide Pakistan the leeway to pursue “sub-conventional operations” – the use of terrorist and armed militants in cross-border operations against India – without fearing military retaliation. Kidwai also dismissed as “bluster”, India’s doctrinal promise that any attack on Indian forces with weapons of mass destruction (including TNWs) would invoke “massive retaliation”. This is not described, but is assumed to mean the use of heavy nuclear weapons against Pakistani cities, killing tens of millions. Kidwai pointed out this would inevitably evoke a matching response by Pakistan against Indian targets, given the rough parity between the two nuclear arsenals (credible recent assessments say Pakistan’s arsenal is larger) and that numerous Pakistani nukes would survive Indian retaliatory strikes, howsoever massive.

Now Kidwai has been fielded again, this time as Advisor to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, which controls Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, to signal a new, less apologetic, international policy. Speaking at a seminar in Islamabad, Kidwai outlined a two-point argument. First, he said India had realised that conventional war was no longer possible, due to Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities – meaning TNWs for war-fighting, with the main arsenal deterring Indian retaliation. Second, without the option of conventional military force, India was now developing sub-conventional capabilities (read terrorist proxies). Said Kidwai: “Because of mutually assured destruction, there is unlikelihood (sic) of a hot war or conventional war and therefore the conflict has shifted towards sub-conventional level.” In essence, this involved a “cold war era for regional supremacy… [through the] creation of proxies.” Essentially, Kidwai dragged India down to Pakistan’s level, justifying Pakistan’s support for cross-border terror with his postulation that this was now the new cold war with India.

Pakistan’s allegations of “Indian terrorism” are rich in irony and could have been convincingly dismissed, coming from a government that has long used terrorism and armed militancy as instruments of state policy. India has dismissed such allegations in the past when Islamabad accused New Delhi of backing separatists in Balochistan, and destabilising its Pakhtoon (Pashtun) border belts from its consulates in Afghanistan. But this time Kidwai could point to “public pronouncements by Indian [political] leadership of using terrorism to destabilise Pakistan”. This reference was to Manohar Parrikar who, while serving as defence minister on May 22, 2015, told a gathering in New Delhi (to loud applause): “We have to use terrorists to neutralise terrorists”.

Pakistan has been presented the chance to take advantage of India’s jingoistic security narrative, in which political leaders regard the military as a handy prop for nationalistic grandstanding. In this, reality is second to posturing before the domestic audience. Much was made of the “surgical strikes” of September 2016, but figures tabled in Parliament hardly suggest that Pakistan has been taught a lesson. Ceasefire violations almost doubled in 2017, rising from 405 in 2015; and 449 in 2016, to well over 800 this year. Pakistani firing killed 10 Indian soldiers (including from the Border Security Force) in 2015; and 13 died in 2016, but India lost more than 30 soldiers on the border in 2017. Armed militants took a beating in encounters in the Valley in 2017, but the number of soldiers killed in those encounters also rose. An alert media and strategic community should be parsing these figures, but is not discharging its duty.

Nor is there much searching examination of India’s defence readiness. The army does without basic infantry weapons and soldiers fight without ballistic helmets, bulletproof jackets or fire- and water-retardant clothing. The army remains desperately short of artillery guns, air defence protection, tactical battlefield drones and high-mobility logistics vehicles. The navy commissions warships without sonars and anti-submarine helicopters. Last month, the prime minister presided over a farce while commissioning a new submarine that lacks critical combat capabilities – the Scorpene shares a tiny stock of 64 two-decade-old torpedoes with four old Shishumar-class submarines. The air force remains short of fighters; and the ones it has deliver such low serviceability rates that the 2016 contract for 36 Rafale fighters had to include a $350-million clause binding the vendor, Dassault, to deliver a serviceability rate of 75 per cent for five years – a rate that modern fighters, incorporating modular engineering and built-in test equipment should achieve as a matter of course.

Pakistan’s security establishment, despite its appallingly immoral approach to conflict, has worked with limited resources and money to maximise its national defence – integrating nuclear, conventional and sub-conventional resources to continue bleeding an apparently hapless India. Officials like Khalid Kidwai can stand before an international forum and detail a strategy for Pakistan to achieve its security interests.

In contrast, India’s approach to defence is best summed up by this simple fact: Over the preceding year, three separate defence ministers have occupied that hallowed corner office in South Block. Not one of them would be able to lucidly explain India’s defence strategy and how our military would fight the two-front war we claim to be ready for. Asked how we would match India’s expansive defence allocations with the shopping list of badly needed weaponry, not one would have a coherent answer. Will this change in 2018? Probably not.

Bro thx for tagging, keep on, I always try to read everything, less time to respone, just keep on !

 

[django]

Bro thx for tagging, keep on, I always try to read everything, less time to respone, just keep on !

No probs bro, will keep on tagging the team and fellow enthusiasts.Kudos Ulla

 

[Tshering22]

In the sense of pure defence issues, I kind of agree with the title of the article what he has written. While he has a bias against the policies of Manohar Parikkar, India's defence has largely failed to punch equivalent to its weight.
The country has the fourth strongest armed forces behind USA, Russia and China but continues to be plagued by issues which might test its limit against even much smaller countries.

And there are a whole host of operational, logistical, administrative and psychological reasons behind it.

Just ot keep this post short, I think our defence still remains relatively poor compared ot what we are supposed to be.

 

[Kinetic]

And Modi puts up the country for sale for free or negative price.

Surgical strike by Indian army? Or Pakistan handing of Gwadar to China and NWFP to Trump?

 

[hit&run&hitagain]

In the sense of pure defence issues, I kind of agree with the title of the article what he has written. While he has a bias against the policies of Manohar Parikkar, India's defence has largely failed to punch equivalent to its weight.
The country has the fourth strongest armed forces behind USA, Russia and China but continues to be plagued by issues which might test its limit against even much smaller countries.

And there are a whole host of operational, logistical, administrative and psychological reasons behind it.

Just ot keep this post short, I think our defence still remains relatively poor compared ot what we are supposed to be.

Sonia Gandhi lead Congress-I systematically made Indian arm forces weak. Lack of critical weapons, ammunition, ammunition storage/dumps close to border were all missing. Current Government has brought about changes or war scale.

This Congi Lackey author is only paddling lies by not telling the complete picture, when work is in progress, India is far more aggressive, inflicting harm like never before.

Indians must learn to seperate Wheat from the chaff before falling to clever headlines.

I remember same presstitutes blamed newly formed government for ammunition less than fews days to fight war. Ajay Shukla is nothing but a political tool, anything he spouts carries no credence.

As far as bringing bigger bang on IB and LOC is concern then I don't think there is any lack of will in this government to make tough calls and escalate. Forces and Government biofeedback each other, there must be good reason that India is enduring these attacks.

Also it must be understood that these attacks are sign of frustration as more men and material is being made to parish fast, on top of it Kashmir insurgency is dying with democratically elected government and local police dominating the affairs of Kashmir.