Ladakh: No 'Deal' was Struck with China

[Secur]

And what if seven Chinese Divisions asked us to? Politely? What is this 'wouldn't agree' business?

How much troops can India and China simultaneously bring along the Line of Actual Control in case of a conflict , sir ? What are the estimates ?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Then we have some breathing space, provided we do the right things. Hope we become strong enough in the next decade --- so that even with both fists the threatened blow will not be strong enough --- but i keep wondering what will be the shape of our political landscape after the next general elections.

Please help me to understand this post.

Is it possible that you believe that India can beat China in the given battle-fields, in any scenario short of a complete breakdown of China?

Please consider that both in Ladakh and in Arunachal, we fight against an enemy with better logistics and internal lines of defence. Please consider that they can assemble more troops than we can, with more supplies and ordnance, quicker. Please consider that they have a better integrated military organisation. Please consider that they do not move unless the political administration and the military leadership are united, and that these decisions are fully supported by the entire population.

In Ladakh, we fortunately have only the mechanics of the situation against us. In Arunachal, even the geology is against us.

 

[Ayush]

self delete

 

[deckingraj]

Have cut the post since the theme is very well versed in your last para...Though very accurately pinned yet with due respect it has painted only one side of the coin.....

This is not the time to fight. We know it, the Chinese know it. They are putting on pressure, and, typically, in Chinese fashion, having put on the pressure, and conveyed clearly what the respective inventory is, they took it off. Now it's up to us. We can respond with realism and intelligence, and cut a deal, whatever the deal is, or we can react like a teenager with raging hormones, and try to fight on emotion, instead of fighting with fighting skills, proper supplies, the right equipment and with good leadership.

Why so many of us think it was a victory for India really defeats me.

Well you have rightly pointed that it is not the time to fight...Indian is surely not prepared for it...Having said that Chinese preparation might be apt but an hostile front with India is the last thing they would want especially at this point in time...Lot of things are brewing in the so called China-Japan theater...with US maintaining its largest fleet in this sector...well i can't comprehend any smartness in the move that Chinese have put in.....

You just said that this is the Army which don't get's into ego trips...You are saying that they don't want to drag things any more....really?? May i know why you think there is so much confusion between LAC?? Why do you think both sides have their own perception about LAC?? If you answer that correctly you will see who is dragging there...Mind it i am not exonerating New Delhi here...Secondly they had clearly put in conditions before withdrawal...Have they been met...if yes then i agree they have given the message and we have taken in the fashion they wanted us to take....if not then i am afraid this move of theirs have only cautioned India and have made anti-China rhetoric more powerful than it ever was.....What would be the outcome of this..only time will tell however IMHO some of the immediate effects would be

- Chinese primer trip is not going to be of much consequence..Mood in India is not apt at the moment.
- India is going to seriously reconsider the power equation and i fear interaction with US/Japan is going to be much more rigorous than otherwise...There is a reason PM extended his Japan trip by one more day


I don't want to tag it a victory or defeat for india..but certainly Sir, this is not a victory for CPC...

 

[Joe Shearer]

Do we really know that they can do it?I certainly don't.And i think the army doesn't either.The army chief has gone on record multiple times confirming it and most officers that i have met have maintained that there overall power may be superior,but they don't have the force levels necessary to achieve their target.

With due respect, where is the evidence to back up these brave words?

Suppose I explain to you a scenario in which the PLA could cut right into our heartland in a two-week campaign? Notwithstanding what anyone thinks? Or goes on record, confirming? Or maintains?

 

[deckingraj]

Please help me to understand this post.

Is it possible that you believe that India can beat China in the given battle-fields, in any scenario short of a complete breakdown of China?

Please consider that both in Ladakh and in Arunachal, we fight against an enemy with better logistics and internal lines of defence. Please consider that they can assemble more troops than we can, with more supplies and ordnance, quicker. Please consider that they have a better integrated military organisation. Please consider that they do not move unless the political administration and the military leadership are united, and that these decisions are fully supported by the entire population.

In Ladakh, we fortunately have only the mechanics of the situation against us. In Arunachal, even the geology is against us.

Again i don't think any body is challenging that front...However the message i am getting from your post is that it is a lost frontier and nothing can be done about it...Please reconsider on this front...

 

[thinkingcap81]

Please help me to understand this post.

Is it possible that you believe that India can beat China in the given battle-fields, in any scenario short of a complete breakdown of China?

Please consider that both in Ladakh and in Arunachal, we fight against an enemy with better logistics and internal lines of defence. Please consider that they can assemble more troops than we can, with more supplies and ordnance, quicker. Please consider that they have a better integrated military organisation. Please consider that they do not move unless the political administration and the military leadership are united, and that these decisions are fully supported by the entire population.

In Ladakh, we fortunately have only the mechanics of the situation against us. In Arunachal, even the geology is against us.

Perhaps i was not clear enough. I have no doubt that defeat is certain for us (though i have no idea how much or how swift it will be in a shortish battle). I just meant that we can hope to be strong enough in the next decade or so for the Chinese to not think about using 'two fists' to attack us --- they would also face considerable damage in the process. Even more important, hopefully, would be the diplomatic and economic fallout.

Funny that as per some news briefs, we could only dangle the freezing of economic co-operation, rather future potential co-operation --- not a word of using our military capabilities --- shows how weak we are.

 

[Srinivas]

I couldn't disagree more with your analysis.

This is a time of transition, and none of the paradigms adopted by the previous regime remain sacred. It is clear that the PLA, the PLA AF and the PLAN are modernising rapidly. Slower than they wished, but faster than we are. It is also known to us and to the rest of the world that the military machine that jarred the fillings in the teeth of the victorious US Army emerging from WWII, that swept through Tibet, and that used a brilliant military campaign to beat a hard-bitten professional force only twenty years away from facing down both the Wehrmacht and the Imperial Japanese Army is not to be under-rated at any time. They are not the kind of organisation that gets into ego trips and pushes the envelope, just to impress itself and its girl-friends. Whatever they do, they do for a reason, a national purpose.

The PRC sent us a message, a loud one. They don't want to drag things on, not any more. They want a resolution. Unfortunately, that window when we could have exchanged Aksai Chin for their claims on Arunachal is closed. I doubt that we will get an easy solution, as things stand. But there isn't much choice. We cannot match the Chinese, not with our logistics in the rickety condition that it is in, not with our mountain divisions bereft of a policy for mountain warfare, not with our artillery seriously obsolete, thanks to egregious political neglect by both the Congress and the gormless hyper-nationalists who did nothing except talk up a storm when they were out of power, and tried to fiddle with textbooks and organised pogroms when they were in power. We have insufficient MANPADs, insufficient fire-power at platoon and company level to stop an attacker in the mountains, insufficient stores of ammunition, supplies or food due to our sclerotic supply lines.

This is not the time to fight. We know it, the Chinese know it. They are putting on pressure, and, typically, in Chinese fashion, having put on the pressure, and conveyed clearly what the respective inventory is, they took it off. Now it's up to us. We can respond with realism and intelligence, and cut a deal, whatever the deal is, or we can react like a teenager with raging hormones, and try to fight on emotion, instead of fighting with fighting skills, proper supplies, the right equipment and with good leadership.

Why so many of us think it was a victory for India really defeats me.

Do you know about the Battle of Stalingrad of WW2, where a technically superior Germany army was defeated by Soviet Russia.

The most important part was played by collapsed buildings and weather.

The air raids of Germans made the city into a concrete jungle, which in turn made the German tanks and artillery obsolete.

From then on the war quickly converted into Guerrilla war fare, snipers also played their part.

In the end Soviets were victorious because they have logistics.



Similarly the Battle in the Himalayas also can be turned quickly into Guerrilla warfare , Main reason for India to not to upgrade any infrastructure along the chinese border so that the invading Chinese will use that infrastructure to give further thrust into Indian main land.


Secondly India has no problem of logistics since we are sitting below the peaks where as Chinese supplies has to arrive through mountains which is a huge problem if IA attack their supplies.


Thirdly Chinese priority is not Indian Lands but to some how sub due India and become sole super power of Asia. They won't rest until we become weak or we are broken into pieces.

Any war between India and China will be an indecisive one.

 

[danger007]

Please help me to understand this post.

Is it possible that you believe that India can beat China in the given battle-fields, in any scenario short of a complete breakdown of China?

Please consider that both in Ladakh and in Arunachal, we fight against an enemy with better logistics and internal lines of defence. Please consider that they can assemble more troops than we can, with more supplies and ordnance, quicker. Please consider that they have a better integrated military organisation. Please consider that they do not move unless the political administration and the military leadership are united, and that these decisions are fully supported by the entire population.

In Ladakh, we fortunately have only the mechanics of the situation against us. In Arunachal, even the geology is against us.

Certainly it won't be any decisive victory to either one.... yeah china is big power no doubt about it.... but India is not any tiny country.... it won't be any cake walk.....

 

[thinkingcap81]

With due respect, where is the evidence to back up these brave words?

Suppose I explain to you a scenario in which the PLA could cut right into our heartland in a two-week campaign? Notwithstanding what anyone thinks? Or goes on record, confirming? Or maintains?

Is it more than just a theoretical scenario? For that mustn't the entire PLA be against an IA not entirely defending our eastern borders?

I can't believe that our situation is so bad.

 

[Joe Shearer]

They may suffer far more losses but isn't it quite likely that they will be able to hold on to some bits of out land? This prospect is the actual humiliating part. Also given the feelings of Chinese superiority the IA and IAF may hold back and not deliver powerful punches whenever possible --- all the more advantageous to the PLA.

I know that this is a well-meaning post, but it is marinated in military myth.

There is a popular conception that the PLA won in 1962 with human wave tactics, and won in spite of inept tactical disposals and attacks. That is not true. If concentrating force against the weakest part of the enemy amounts to human wave tactics, then every military commander, without exception, used human wave tactics. What actually happened, from the accounts published, is that the Chinese attacked in overwhelming force; they attacked at night, and used every ruse of war to make our soldiers fearful and nervous; they attacked our trenches and dug-in positions from the sides, not in front, and overwhelmed the line by rolling it up. They used terrain. They attacked from high ground, but approached along river valleys. The Indian road-jam between Se La and Bomdi La was attacked by way of the Bailey Trai. Count how many troops and organisations were pinned down.

Suffer far more losses? Wars are about winning. Ask the Pakistanis. For every encounter, they cling on to some face-saving metric, like they were outnumbered, they fought a better fight, their kill ratio was better. There is nothing between defeat and victory. Even if the Chinese had lost twice as many soldiers, their victory was their victory. If in the next encounter, they lose many soldiers, but we lose the encounter, it is their victory and our defeat. Period.

Again i don't think any body is challenging that front...However the message i am getting from your post is that it is a lost frontier and nothing can be done about it...Please reconsider on this front...

It is a lost frontier, if we fight on battlegrounds of the opposition's choice. Think about what that implies.

Perhaps i was not clear enough. I have no doubt that defeat is certain for us (though i have no idea how much or how swift it will be in a shortish battle). I just meant that we can hope to be strong enough in the next decade or so for the Chinese to not think about using 'two fists' to attack us --- they would also face considerable damage in the process. Even more important, hopefully, would be the diplomatic and economic fallout.

Funny that as per some news briefs, we could only dangle the freezing of economic co-operation, rather future potential co-operation --- not a word of using our military capabilities --- shows how weak we are.

In my understanding, that is the SECOND reason for the PRC selecting this point of time to send a message. The first remains, I think, their need to isolate their problems, and get rid of their smaller ones first.

My opinion.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Do you know about the Battle of Stalingrad of WW2, where a technically superior Germany army was defeated by Soviet Russia.

The most important part was played by collapsed buildings and weather.

The air raids of Germans made the city into a concrete jungle, which in turn made the German tanks and artillery obsolete.

From then on the war quickly converted into Guerrilla war fare, snipers also played their part.

In the end Soviets were victorious because they have logistics.



Similarly the Battle in the Himalayas also can be turned quickly into Guerrilla warfare , Main reason for India to not to upgrade any infrastructure along the chinese border so that the invading Chinese will use that infrastructure to give further thrust into Indian main land.


Secondly India has no problem of logistics since we are sitting below the peaks where as Chinese supplies has to arrive through mountains which is a huge problem if IA attack their supplies.


Thirdly Chinese priority is not Indian Lands but to some how sub due India and become sole super power of Asia. They won't rest until we become weak or we are broken into pieces.

Any war between India and China will be an indecisive one.

I am sorry, but I see nothing worth refuting in this analysis.

And yes, you may be surprised, but I have read about the battle of Stalingrad, somewhere. Wasn't that when Harry Potter beat Snape one on one for the first time?

 

[RoYaL~GuJJaR]

If True!

Than this is really a victory for our Diplomats.

 

[Srinivas]

I am sorry, but I see nothing worth refuting in this analysis.

I respect your opinion, the fact is India is heavily banking on Guerrilla warfare and choking Chinese supplies. Just like Taliban are doing in Afghanistan.

Terrain plays a huge part in Himalayas.

 

[thinkingcap81]

I know that this is a well-meaning post, but it is marinated in military myth.

Suffer far more losses? Wars are about winning. Ask the Pakistanis. For every encounter, they cling on to some face-saving metric, like they were outnumbered, they fought a better fight, their kill ratio was better. There is nothing between defeat and victory. Even if the Chinese had lost twice as many soldiers, their victory was their victory. If in the next encounter, they lose many soldiers, but we lose the encounter, it is their victory and our defeat. Period.

It is a lost frontier, if we fight on battlegrounds of the opposition's choice. Think about what that implies.

I meant just that and not on the tactics used by PLA, for i am not a military person.

I remember talking to my friend whose brother is in the army (he has recently successfully cleared the brigadier selection exam). I asked my friend if using our AF would have given better outcomes --- he just said NO. We were ill prepared then & still are. Had we used our AF, then overall it would have been worse for us.