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IAF sees China, Pakistan as challenges, not threats

I know, I know; it's just that this is getting into the sphere of diminishing returns as far as dispassionate observers are concerned. I admit that for fanatic and unreasonable defenders of the Indian position, who will not listen to anything, your reaction remains appropriate.

Finally, you have to decide whether you wish to address the Capt.Popeyes and Joe Shearers and the dozens more like them who post here, or the Internet warriors who need to tee you off just because you are Chinese.

Let me share the irony of the situation with you, in case it hasn't occurred to you yet (unlikely). Most of us reasonable Indians face the identical same dilemma when faced by two diametrically opposite responses from the other side, whether Pakistani or Chinese. It isn't an easy choice. I have come to a present stage (it was different before, it may be different later) where I ignore the trolls and attempt to communicate with the humans. However, there is a lot of pent-up anger as a result, and I take it out on Indian trolls; nobody Pakistani or Chinese can pick on me for that!

The thing is I understand the situation same as you do, but hormonally and personality wise, I just can't do it. I am forcing myself to just to not read the threads that are obviously full of bile but I still get caught out. I will do better to keep your dilemma in mind for the future.

and I kind of know that the more I do this kind of stuff the less likely I am to be able to participate in the serious discussions because of past perception (and generally less able to promote good discussion because of image).
 
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The thing is I understand the situation same as you do, but hormonally and personality wise, I just can't do it. I am forcing myself to just to not read the threads that are obviously full of bile but I still get caught out. I will do better to keep your dilemma in mind for the future.

and I kind of know that the more I do this kind of stuff the less likely I am to be able to participate in the serious discussions because of past perception (and generally less able to promote good discussion because of image).

CS, If I may say so; I share and understand some of your concerns. And I also understand that it is quite easy to get stuck and drawn into some of the "quicksand". Most times, IMO it is wiser to give some discussions here (if that word can be used) a wide berth. Unfortunately I've seen some of our colleagues who could'nt avoid that and I daresay that has hurt them to some extent. And I don't feel too good about that.

Nevertheless, I am willing to wait for the (possibly rare) discussion that merits serious attention. Otherwise, will remain content to comment on events and facts.
 
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I keep getting quoted, perhaps because of my essential position that it is necessary for every Indian to understand the intricate details of 62 with a view to ensuring that it never happens again. In expressing this position, I have not failed to highlight the debacle in the western sector of Arunachal Pradesh. However, there were two other sectors where there were clashes, and we have not discussed those in detail. It is tempting to return to the original thread and to write in detail about the events in those two sectors, which could possibly correct an impression that reporting the failure of the Indian Army in a biased and hostile manner was the point of my posts. The point of my posts was emphatically not this; it was to represent in clinical detail what happened, although what happened was not a happy recollection for the Indian Army. An extension of this reporting to the other two sectors involved would display the Indian Army in a much better light. As it happens, it is not inappropriate to represent these events in clinical detail as well; for the same reason as the western Arunachal events were represented, to learn from them, and to reproduce what good things were done, as well as to correct the bad things that were done.

Perhaps it is time to return to that thread and to round out the record.

However, in this case, what is in discussion is not the details, tactical or strategic, of the hostilities that ensued, but an enquiry into motivation. We never entered into motivation beyond some mention of what Nehru did, to the extent that it had a bearing on events on the ground.

If asked my own evaluation of Nehru's role in the matter, I believe that I would more or less endorse Toxic Pus' posts on the matter, specifically his post 84.
That exactly is what is being misinterpreted by many of our friends here. Your post detailing the debacle of '62 gives the impression, that wasn't your intention I believe, that IA and Nehru were to blame for the failure. That may or may not be the case - I am not an expert here, you are. But less informed people tend to take that as a tacit confession that Nehru was indeed responsible for the mess, while au contraire, the reasons for this conflict started way back in the 50's with China's posturing as the CIA reports mention. One often also neglects that China choose the time of Cuban crises to precipitate this crisis and stopped hostilities and withdrew once the Cuban crises blew over. Your post coupled with specific passages taken out of context from the CIA report are being used to portray India as the aggressor.

A lot was on GoI's plate in the years following Independence and ignoring the threat or postures taken by the Chinese was a blunder. But priorities were different then and what ensued, ensued. Blame it on incompetence or lack of priority on India's part but giving China a wide berth is plain wrong.
 
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That exactly is what is being misinterpreted by many of our friends here. Your post detailing the debacle of '62 gives the impression, that wasn't your intention I believe, that IA and Nehru were to blame for the failure. That may or may not be the case - I am not an expert here, you are. But less informed people tend to take that as a tacit confession that Nehru was indeed responsible for the mess, while au contraire, the reasons for this conflict started way back in the 50's with China's posturing as the CIA reports mention. One often also neglects that China choose the time of Cuban crises to precipitate this crisis and stopped hostilities and withdrew once the Cuban crises blew over. Your post coupled with specific passages taken out of context from the CIA report are being used to portray India as the aggressor.

A lot was on GoI's plate in the years following Independence and ignoring the threat or postures taken by the Chinese was a blunder. But priorities were different then and what ensued, ensued. Blame it on incompetence or lack of priority on India's part but giving China a wide berth is plain wrong.

This is going to be painful, and I request your sympathetic attention.

I do in fact blame Nehru, and the Indian Army, among others, for the debacle, in an outbreak of hostilities that should not have happened, and that overshadows our security world-view as a result.

But they were not solely to blame, and that, I understand, is the point that you are making.

Nehru was swept along by his self-created self-imposed vision of a statesman setting the world to rights, now that he and his comrades had set India to rights. This quest for prominence and leadership on the world stage could well have belonged to him in more durable fashion if he had handled the China question with the statesmanship that he projected. But, rapt in an internationalist frame of mind, he lost track of his own country's interests.

There were other mistakes, other faults.

The use of the most convenient maps, rather than other, less convenient ones, was very strange. His refusal to acknowledge the essential fuzziness of British views of the boundary, both the clumsy and botched attempts of McMahon at boundary delineation, and the wildly ambitious and greedy Charles Johnson pushing the boundary to the Kuen-Lun Mountains on the other side, was one of the keys to the solution of the problem. His belief that the expressed good intentions of the Chinese leadership, as conveyed by Zhou enLai, would extend to treating the border issue as a game of chess with the soldiers of either side serving as live pieces, was silly, at the mildest, insane, at the extreme. But he did worse, in his interactions with the Indian Army, for instance.

Between his fascination for Kashmiri Pandits, and ill-concealed efforts at every possible opportunity to promote their individual causes, the eccentric intellect of Krishna Menon, right in most things but always wrong overall, the slimy B. M. Kaul, and a bunch of sycophants described in cruel but fitting terms as the Kaul-boys, the Indian Army was fighting a difficult battle from the outset. It allowed its best general at that time, S. P. P. Thorat, to retire in the face of the greater seniority of P. N. Thapar, who turned out to be India's worst COAS. What it did on one of the three battle-fields beggars description. However, my lingering on those events was intended, I repeat, to make us conscious of how badly we fought some of that war.

This is by no means to absolve the Chinese establishment; there is no point in repeating the various ways in which they took advantage of Nehru's foolishness to build themseves a fool-proof position legally and on the ground.

So there you are.
 
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This is by no means to absolve the Chinese establishment; there is no point in repeating the various ways in which they took advantage of Nehru's foolishness to build themseves a fool-proof position legally and on the ground.
So there you are.

Thank you for this post. This is not my area of expertise, but reading some posts over again, provides a much clearer insight to me. I wholly agree with you when you say that mistakes, which could have been avoided in the first place, should not be repeated. The blame does rest with GoI, especially Nehru as you mentioned, for the way he along with his cronies handled the whole situation.

However, my beef is not with absolving GoI of their incompetence and failure. Its just that your post and CIA reports are being misinterpreted to lay the blame entirely on Nehru and GoI for the whole episode, without understanding the motivation and causes for the conflict - from both sides.

I hope that clarifies my pov.
 
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Good speech !!!!

Yes China is not a threat for India(if you believe that :D) ... I believe this giant sould not be a threat for indians' own sake !!!! anyways ....
 
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Thank you for this post. This is not my area of expertise, but reading some posts over again, provides a much clearer insight to me. I wholly agree with you when you say that mistakes, which could have been avoided in the first place, should not be repeated. The blame does rest with GoI, especially Nehru as you mentioned, for the way he along with his cronies handled the whole situation.

However, my beef is not with absolving GoI of their incompetence and failure. Its just that your post and CIA reports are being misinterpreted to lay the blame entirely on Nehru and GoI for the whole episode, without understanding the motivation and causes for the conflict - from both sides.

I hope that clarifies my pov.

Of course.

If you believe that my posts are being used out of context, or the information provided is being misused, I would be happy to intervene. As it happens, in this case, I think CardSharp lost his cool at some sharp jab of yours, which itself was due to irritation to what you felt was unfair descriptions of our representatives and representative institutions, and from there on, things got out of hand. I am not too worried about that particular incident any more, and believe that both people involved are more than capable of understanding the dynamics, dialling down the heat levels, and normalising the situation rapidly.
 
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Of course.

If you believe that my posts are being used out of context, or the information provided is being misused, I would be happy to intervene. As it happens, in this case, I think CardSharp lost his cool at some sharp jab of yours, which itself was due to irritation to what you felt was unfair descriptions of our representatives and representative institutions, and from there on, things got out of hand. I am not too worried about that particular incident any more, and believe that both people involved are more than capable of understanding the dynamics, dialling down the heat levels, and normalising the situation rapidly.

I was ticked off because he was wrong and his mistaken views is something I've seen once too many times on this subject.

The fact that the Chinese withdrew as soon as the Cuban Missile crises de-escalated is also a known fact (another country which used an international event to mask its territorial ambitions was Georgia in 8/8/08!!). IA was literally caught with its pants down but the Chinese knew they could not sustain and hold their advances given IA's preparations to get back and international attention diverting from Cuban crises onto the conflict. So yes, territorial ambitions were denied to the then enemy.

Nothing here is sustained by fact or source. It insinuates that China was caught with its hand in the cookie jar and ran away when India got wise to the ruse.


I've posted the Polo report only to debunk part about the Cuban missile crisis.

The border dispute had a momentum of its own. The
Chinese a t t a c k would almost certainly have been made even
if there had been no Cuban crisis and e v e n if t h e r e had been
no Sino - Soviet d i s p u t e . Whether t h e C h i n e s e w o u l d have
a t t a c k e d precisely when t h e y d i d if t h e r e had been no Cuban
m i s s i l e c r i s i s is c w c t u r a l , but the Soviet charge that
the Chinese attacked because of the opportunity provided
them at that time is overstated


He then pulls some passage from the same report about how Nehru didn't think the Communist were gentleman as proof that China started the war. I mean what the hell does that work?


How conveniently you stick to that only one section.
Heres how the whole mess starts:

"with his view that the Chinese Conununist leaders were amenable to gentlemanly persuasion" Alas this was NOT the case.

Next time you selectively quote the CIA POLO documents out of context, make sure to quote the reasons mentioned in the very first section of the report!
 
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