Rusty
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This thread is not about 71 war..so please consider it as my last reply..though more then willing to discuss it in a new thread...
I never said China has nothing to brag about 62...However there are very stark differences b/w 62 and 71...Don't want to get into it...Anyhow just few clarifications...
BD was never given much of teeth when it comes to defense...In short it was peace of cake for IA all the time...I hope you would agree here...but then what was holding IA??...it was PA in the west....Here are my reasons for the loss in 71 and yes distance was the least of the reason...
1. Defense of east lies in the west was the mantra of PA...That was the philosphy based on which BD defenses were ignored. Idea was that if IA venture into BD then PA will make inroads into India's western sector and thus use that as bargaining chip. However in 71 PA lost more land in western sector then it occupied...So the bargaining chip theory bite the dust.
2. In order to re-plenish their troops open sea lanes were a must for Pak...However PN was beaten hands down by IN and thus closing that route...
3. Last but not the least...Imposing bloackade, holding PA in the west and making advances in the east had to be done very swiftly...We all know the pressure being mounted on India by international forces...China was being very vocal, USA was almost ready to attack us(thanks to USSR to keep them away)...Thus practically job of PA was to hold Indian onslaught for some more time before a forced truce was re-inforced by international community. Achieving all this in just 17 days was definitely a marvel...In fact at many levels...In fact when surrender was enforced in dhaka then there were hardly 3000 IA personnels surrounding Dhaka compared to 30,000 odd counterparts..I am sure if Niazi would have been aware of the situation he would have hold his ground for some time and who knows results would have been different...
In short there is much to cheer about 71 war...In contrast 62 war was very limited war where AF, Navy were not involved...In fact it was a time when our PM Nehru was of the view then defense forces are waste of resources...However a defeat is a defeat irrespective of the reasons...One must learn from their mistakes and IA did show that in 67, and late 80's when similar(on a small scale) hostilities broke with China...
Holy moly No one asked for an in depth review of 71.
But the funny thing is that after all that, you still just proved my point.
All those missteps that Pakistan took meant that it was a cake walk for India.
So once again, if you are going to tell China that they have nothing to be proud of for 62, then India really has nothing to be proud of for 71. But heck, you guys even have a national day for 71 war. Kinda sad considering all the facts IMHO.