Ladakh: No 'Deal' was Struck with China

[Srinivas]

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?

Yes yes you are true, with his magic wand in two weeks.

 

[Joe Shearer]

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.....

What exactly does size of country have to do with this?

 

[danger007]

What exactly does size of country have to do with this?

am referring the army not country size....

 

[Joe Shearer]

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.

Please do the numbers.

Two military districts are responsible for defence against India. Chengdu alone can do what is needed.

 

[Fuego]

Whre are those conspiracy theorisis now

 

[Joe Shearer]

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.

I thanked your post for its sheer entertainment content.

The Indian Army has never trained for guerrilla warfare. The Indian Army does not have a single unit that has trained for guerrilla warfare. The PLA is the world's largest army with a guerrilla warfare background. To conduct guerrilla warfare, the Indian Army has to have a friendly population and plentiful supplies of food and military materiel. In Arunachal, the population is 13 per square kilometre. The PLA has supply lines running right up to the frontier.

Keep up the good work.

Yes yes you are true, with his magic wand in two weeks.

I THOUGHT so. I do so like to know everything about everything.

am referring the army not country size....

Err...you have looked up the respective sizes lately, I take it? You are aware that either military district tasked by the PRC for action against India could defeat our existing deployments?

 

[Srinivas]

I thanked your post for its sheer entertainment content.

The Indian Army has never trained for guerrilla warfare. The Indian Army does not have a single unit that has trained for guerrilla warfare. The PLA is the world's largest army with a guerrilla warfare background. To conduct guerrilla warfare, the Indian Army has to have a friendly population and plentiful supplies of food and military materiel. In Arunachal, the population is 13 per square kilometre. The PLA has supply lines running right up to the frontier.

Keep up the good work.

You are trying to play mind games with an expert here, and this is not the first time I made your blood boil.




IA is one of the best Counter terror forces in the world, IA has decades of experience in Guerrilla warfare in North east jungles and mountains where they hunted militants and also in Kashmir.


Even USA and other western powers come to Indian North east for guerrilla warfare training.


Counter-insurgency and Jungle Warfare School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




I don't bank on thanks like you. Nor they will keep me running here in threads.


By the way I think I spoiled your party here which infuriated you .

 

[janon]

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.

I made my post, taking the title of the thread as the premise. That is, I took it at face value that India did not give into any of their demands. That was the only data point available before me when I wrote what I wrote. Is it possible that the reality is different, that actually concessions were made, which our govt is not telling us? It is possible, of course; but in the absence of any reports to that effect, I have no choice but to take this report at face value.

Now your reply, OTOH, is making some unjustified assumptions. You are assuming for one, that the people of China can never make a mistake. That everything they do is done in a cold and calculated manner, with no room for mistakes or errors of judgement. Here is the line that is, IMO, the central, root assumption that you are making, from which your conclusions logically follow:

Whatever they do, they do for a reason, a national purpose.

Such a statement can only be made if you ascribe mythical qualities of infallibility to them, and elevating them above humanity. They are not infallible demi gods who do everything with logical precision. They are also humans like us, and it is more than possible that somebody gave an order that he regretted in a day, but couldn't withdraw because of all the media attention. Despite the eerie precision with which their soldiers march in military parades, they are still humans like us, with all the frailties and imperfections that come with being human.

Is it not possible that a local commander bit off more than he could chew, and regretted it? Could it be that the platoon leader read a map wrong? Could it be that the decision was really taken at the highest levels, but it was still a collective error of judgement, and they later realized that mobilizing troops for war was not really worth it? Don't the presidents and senates and monarchs of mighty nations and republics in Europe or North America or other highly accomplished societies occasionally make stupid decisions? Why do you think the Chinese leadership is immune to any of that?

Sure, they have won a lot of commendable victories in the past. But even in the greatest military campaigns, small mistakes are made everywhere at every level. Also, just because they have some handsome victories in the past, does not make them immune to an occasional blunder or two. Besides, the words "they" and "them" cannot be used forever to mean the same entity. The people who lived then are not the people who live now. The organisation may have the same name then and now, but the people, the equipment, tactics, training are all new. If every part of a chair is replaced, is it still the same chair? That has been a favourite topic of musing for philosophers. Anyway, that is irrelevant too, because the people then were also people, even if they achieved great victories.

(Let's not forget something, the very same people who achieved those military victories, also enforced an economic and political system that oppressed their country, kept people in poverty, starved millions to death. They have made plenty of mistakes, some of which have resulted in some of the biggest human tragedies in human history. Remember the "great leap forward"?)

I do not dispute your characterization of the preparedness on our side. What I dispute is your (mis)characterization of the people on other side. Now our lack of preparation, shortage of ammunition, lack of border infra are all well known. However, the armed forces have repeatedly said that they are prepared to face any threat. And somehow, I believe them. (Ok, maybe it's a leap of faith on my part, and I don't have any hard evidence on why I should believe them.) Anyway, the fact is that since we are all aware of the shortcomings our army faces, the armymen themselves knew it, presumably before we did. And if they are worth what the taxpayers pay them, then they must have made war plans based on what they got. Remember, there are many, many factors in war. The fact that division sized formations cannot manuever through the mountains; the fact that if we prepare our defences properly, they will need a lot more concentrated firepower and numerical superiority to unseat our defenders' advantage; the fact that concentrating numbers is a difficult task in that terrain; and lots more. You talked about the superior infrastructure they have, and that is undoubtedly true. However, future wars will not be like 1962. The IAF will not sit on its backside this time. It WILL interdict their supply lines, blow up their railtracks, and road networks. They will keep rebuilding, but those moments may prove decisive. There are so many "unknown unknowns", to borrow a phrase from Dick Cheney.

By the above para, I do not mean that we can keep defending against them forever. In a prolonged war, they will win, because they can outmanufacture us, and outnumber us. We will end up losing all our long range strike aircrafts sooner or later. And other stuff too. But a short, swift border war that deals a crushing blow to us, like what happened in 1962 is NOT possible. Will China really want a longer conflict, and lose a lot of national resources?

If they are prepared to do that, why have they not done it yet? They are not saints. If the situation was so hopeless and dismal for us, they would have taken the territories they want, and put an end to the decades old disputes once and for all. The only reason they are not doing it is because our armed forces stand between them and that goal. And not because they have hearts of gold, and sympathy and large heartedness towards their less fortunate neighbours, or the chivalry to wait until we develop our infrastructure and modernize our forces and then attack us.

Now it may very well be that India made some concessions in this affair. I do not know. But until and unless we know for sure what transpired in the diplomatic engagements, we cannot speculate. But we certainly should not fall for the image they try to create, of one supreme leader and a high command that can never err, coldly commanding robotic millions to march and do their bidding, all towards some supreme national goals. Their leaders are also humans, they are also prone to gaffes, they too indulge in corruption (yes! that's not an Indian monopoly.), they too make judgemental errors once in a while. It is possible that this was one of them.

To sum up, I'm only pointing out that you are making an unwarranted assumption about the Chinese. If you set that aside, you will notice that many other possibilities exist, for this recent affair. Now what actually happened in reality? We cannot know for sure, probably we never will.

 

[danger007]

I thanked your post for its sheer entertainment content.

The Indian Army has never trained for guerrilla warfare. The Indian Army does not have a single unit that has trained for guerrilla warfare. The PLA is the world's largest army with a guerrilla warfare background. To conduct guerrilla warfare, the Indian Army has to have a friendly population and plentiful supplies of food and military materiel. In Arunachal, the population is 13 per square kilometre. The PLA has supply lines running right up to the frontier.

Keep up the good work.

yeah i do agree with you, but you have to understand one thing.... The Himalayan terrain makes difficult to move heavy weaponry.... they got world largest army, but with alot land to take care... do they can maintain the supply lines deep into AP? ...

i forget to ask, are you sure they are trained for guerrilla warfare?

 

[Matrixx]

What exactly does size of country have to do with this?

Dumb comment...please come in correct flag


Thank god you understood "size of country" only

 

[thinkingcap81]

You are trying to play mind games with an expert here, and this is not the first time I made your blood boil.

Hi, are you from the army? Or you have relatives in the armed forces? (no sarcasm intended)

 

[Srinivas]

Hi, are you from the army? Or you have relatives in the armed forces? (no sarcasm intended)

I do have my sources and they are from high level.

I know the ground realities and Indian strategy, I also receive inputs on foreign affairs, military affairs and politics.

 

[danger007]

I thanked your post for its sheer entertainment content.

The Indian Army has never trained for guerrilla warfare. The Indian Army does not have a single unit that has trained for guerrilla warfare. The PLA is the world's largest army with a guerrilla warfare background. To conduct guerrilla warfare, the Indian Army has to have a friendly population and plentiful supplies of food and military materiel. In Arunachal, the population is 13 per square kilometre. The PLA has supply lines running right up to the frontier.

Keep up the good work.



I THOUGHT so. I do so like to know everything about everything.



Err...you have looked up the respective sizes lately, I take it? You are aware that either military district tasked by the PRC for action against India could defeat our existing deployments?

no i am not aware... make me educate? so you are think one military district of PLA can defeat entire IA? back up your claim with numbers and sources please....

 

[Joe Shearer]

You are trying to play mind games with an expert here, and this is not the first time I made your blood boil.




IA is one of the best Counter terror forces in the world, IA has decades of experience in Guerrilla warfare in North east jungles and mountains where they hunted militants and also in Kashmir.


Even USA and other western powers come to Indian North east for guerrilla warfare training.


Counter-insurgency and Jungle Warfare School - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




I don't bank on thanks like you. Nor they will keep me running here in threads.


By the way I think I spoiled your party here which infuriated you .

Only a complete dunderhead would confuse anti-insurgency capability with guerrilla war-fighting capability.

 

[danger007]

@Joe Shearer: so you are saying military district from chengdu region will defeat IA? hmmmm can you back your claims...