Indian Defence Review

Target India

Factually, the PRC perceives India as a potential challenger to its quest for regional hegemony, particularly when she attracts alliance from those who are the objects of its assertive torment. The PRC is also troubled by the knowledge that 1.2 billion Indians disapprove of its brazen take-over of the Tibet and imposition of Sinicism upon its indigenous society. They are also discomfited in finding an incorrigibly destabilising China as a new next-door neighbour. Indeed, being a natural ‘game-spoiler’ against the PRC’s steam-roll over Tibet, diversion of international rivers flowing out of the Tibetan Plateau and domination of the Indian Ocean, India qualifies for the PRC’s wariness.

Furthermore, with a burgeoning domestic market and sustained economic development, India also emerges as a potential antidote to China’s economic stranglehold in the region. Viewing through its own instincts, the PRC concludes that India too is intent on building up her military muscle, not only to hold onto the territories over which China has ‘historically established’ claims, but also to break its monopoly over regional resources. The hullabaloo raised by India’s purported military modernisation, revamp of defence structure, huge imports of modern weaponry and upgrade of logistic infrastructure adds to that wariness. Combined with her propensity of building up regional relationships and a suspected American bias, India is therefore seen to be acquiring the requisite stamp of power to forge regional groupings at the cost of PRC. This, therefore, is the matter of a rising challenge in what PRC considers as its area of influence, if not domination, that it may not be comfortable with. India, therefore, is a target to tackle.

As stated, for India, the situation is grim. Bereft of the Tibetan buffer, for the first time in history she finds the quintessential Chinese imperialists as her contiguous neighbour. The situation is further exacerbated by the PRC’s propensity in boosting Pakistan’s intransigence and possible incitement of internal rogues in India’s North-East, including subversion in Arunachal Pradesh. Whether this new neighbour gathers progress and power in an environment of stability or gets caught in internal or external conflicts, India must bear the fallouts either way. Had the PRC been an economy-centric power like Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, it would have been manageable to handle such spill over of upheavals. But with the PRC’s ‘tiger ride’ leaving it with no option but to resort to regional hegemony while perpetuating domestic autocracy, military-centricity must be its salvation. Even if India remains stoic in regional politics and keeps engrossed in her internal circus, there is no escape for her from this bind – that is, of having to live with a great neighbour who believes in conducting domineering diplomacy in the backdrop of military options.

Interlinked by hard realities of geo-politics, the Sino-Indian rivalry can only be contained, not resolved. Being the superior and revisionist power, initiative for any reconciliation must fall within the PRC’s competence but no such indicators have been forthcoming in the its demeanour nor may any largesse be expected in the future. Therefore, even if unwilling or unable, India still has to find convincing military deterrence to be able to preserve her national security. Nuclearisation was one such step but that is just a recessed deterrence of conditional efficacy to neutralise one aspect of the PRC’s India-aversion. Viewed in light of past experience, at some point of time, it may be enticing for the PRC to inflict upon India a military setback while broadcasting farcical lamentations of it being an ‘innocent victim’ who is left with no option but to ‘counter-attack in self-defence’. Conventional deterrence, demonstrative and credible to keep the Indian Union intact from being undermined is, therefore, a necessity.

Inauguration of a Hegemon       

The decade past has found the PRC going increasingly aggressive in military terms. Perhaps buoyed by fruition of its military modernisation, the hawks among the Communist Party’s Politburo are no more able to restrain themselves from exercising their tactic well-honed. It is a repetitive drill, that of presenting a fait accompli by surreptitiously ‘nibbling’ into claimed territories and consolidating till found out, following which diplomatic obfuscation over the victim nation’s alleged ‘trouble making’ (sic) are to be broadcast while consolidation of the occupation continues regardless. Indeed, this tactic is in full evidence along the Indo-Tibet Border just as similar ‘nibbling’ action against all of the China Sea littoral nations is in full flow, the targets being the three dozen or so islands, reefs and shoals which are claimed by China as well as one or more of the littorals.

Meanwhile, having already firmed its possession of the Shaksgam Valley, the PRC is engaged in an ominous process of assuming stakes over the Gilgit – Hunza areas of the Pakistan occupied part of Jammu and Kashmir. Concurrently, grounds for the next phase of expansionism are under preparation by raising the pitch on such outlandish claims which had so far been left dormant – India’s Arunachal Pradesh and the so-called ‘Nine Dash Line’ enclosing the entire resource-rich waters of the China Sea, for example. The roll of the PRC’s unilateral territorial ‘settlements’ seems unstoppable.

Defending the Himalayas

Around 2005 or so, it was becoming evident that having secured the PLA’s path to modernisation, the PRC was turning militarily aggressive – the behaviour being described in diplomatic parlance as ‘assertive’. Since then, the LAC is violated by regular intrusions e.g. at Lungma-Kerang, Asaphila-Longju, and the Hayuliang-Fish Tail areas in the Eastern Sector and Daulat Beg Oldi, Depsang Plains, the Pangong Tso, Demchok and Chumar areas in the Western Sector of the Indo-Tibet Border.

Sequestering the IA from management of much of the Indo-Tibet Border – a right decision of course – the Government chose to restrain the border police from ‘provoking’ China by such bland measures as giving up patrolling up to own claim lines and playing down the intrusions when detected. In the process, it has reportedly self-imposed a moratorium on patrolling over 400 square kilometres of heretofore Indian claimed territory. May be that act of buying relief by overlooking Beijing’s new brand of ‘forward policy’ complements the policy of investing on socio-economic development at the cost of the military institution. But alas, steering the destiny of a nation is not so simplistic an equation of just ‘give-here and take-there’.

By 2007, the pace of PRC’s development of military infrastructure along the Indo-Tibet Border had at last raised the placid Indian Government’s concerns. Thus, contrary to its core inclinations, it had to sanction raising of two army divisions to bolster the IA’s defence capability in the Eastern Sector. Measures to strengthen the air force capabilities were also taken in the form of upgrade of certain air bases and tactical ancillaries, induction of combat aircraft and acquisition of air-transportation assets. In actual terms, these enhancements would consolidate the conduct of defensive operations including deliberate counter-attack, but would remain insufficient yet in deterring deliberate offensive from an opponent as powerful as the PLA. This was so because the element of autonomous offensive action, which must be an intrinsic component of defensive strategy, remained unaddressed.

That was the deficiency which is sought to be overcome – at least partially – by the raising of the ‘Mountain Strike Corps’, the proposal for which had been pending with the Government for years now.

Cause for a Mountain Strike Corps

While the IA was pushing the case of the Mountain Strike Corps with the Government, in April 2013, a detachment of the PLA’s Border Guard Regiment took up residence in a small part of Eastern Ladakh adjoining the Aksai Chin, nearly 19 kilometres West of the LAC. The intrusion came to the countrymen’s notice after some ten days, and that led to much consternation among the people and their representatives in the Parliament. Given the delay in detection of the incursion and its eviction by military force being unthinkable, the Indian Government cooed statements aimed at playing down what actually was a brazen affront, and kept Beijing in good humour with the purpose of resolving the issue by beseeching its benediction. The show of humility seems to have pleased Beijing and it magnanimously decided to let India off in return for dismantling certain ‘bunkers’ on the Indian side of the LAC in Chumar area of South-Eastern Ladakh.

A crisis was thus averted after a fortnight of helpless gloom, at least in this instance, because had Beijing decided to stay put, as it had done in the Demchok area in Ladakh, and Zimithang, Asaphila and Hayuliang areas in Arunachal Pradesh, India could have been able to do little about it. Given that situation, that was the best possible bargain under the circumstances. Notably however, with the Indians having given up on showing their flag in such areas of new contention and so to avoid provoking the PRC, the LAC has inter alia been drawn backwards and loss of swaths of Indian-claimed territory is more or less final. The Government reconciles to such back-tracks on the pretext of ‘differing perceptions of an undefined LAC’; actually, the LAC remains purposefully undefined at the PRC’s behest, obviously to carry on with expansion of its claimed areas.

It is certain that this kind of helpless situation had been accepted matter of deliberate policy for the Government had of such vulnerabilities all along. Indeed, the Indian Government was alive to the PRC’s propensity in arbitrary enforcement of its territorial decree but hoped that it would be some years before that behaviour becomes unbearable, thus giving itself more time to push through with economic development while keeping defence expenditure to the minimum. The intrusion in Eastern Ladakh, however, gave an indication of an ominous future and its dangerous fallouts. This intrusion was no doubt a deliberately conceived and executed operation as a part of PRC’s military-diplomatic policy articulation.

It was the build-up of such concerns over the PRC’s persistent aggression – and the festering wounds of the 1962 debacle, which pushed the Government to fill the void of autonomous counter-offensive capability without which no defensive campaign can succeed.

17 Corps In-being

In late 2013, the Government approved the raising of the 17 Corps, to be structured for conduct of offensive operations in the mountainous terrain of the Indo-Tibet Border. It would be a unique formation to operate on a desolate terrain that could extend 3,000 kilometres or more over discontinuous frontages and altitudes of 4,300 to 5,300 metres where the highest temperature remains sub-zero. So indeed would be its composition: two to three Infantry divisions, two each of independent Infantry and Armoured Brigades and over 200 units of many descriptions, all customised specifically. No doubt, such a force would offer remarkable strategic dividends when manoeuvred along multiple and independent axes but that would necessitate novel conceptual ingenuities and pioneering battle procedures. Obviously, sieved of the satisfaction generated, there are major issues to be deliberated upon and resolved in the backdrop of the nation’s strategic aims of committing this formation.

One issue is the matter of equipping. Most critical weapons and equipment customised to high altitude mountain warfare are not available in the global arms industry nor has the Indian defence industry attended to that rather obvious need. Equipping the 17 Corps in a manner operationally desired would, therefore, require specialised design modifications, field trials and import or indigenous production under an overarch of economical viability.

The other issue is the question of creation of the corresponding base facilities and logistic infrastructure – the most critical component of warfare in the mountains. Even if well within India’s engineering capabilities, these would require deployment of additional executing agencies and enormous funding; these two factors would determine whether the projects would take a decade or double that to be in place. No doubt, these issues must have been deliberated upon before sanctioning the raising and that must have decided the time line of seven or eight years for the Corps to be fully operational. But as to the implementation, there must be alacrity.

Finally, past experiences indicate that when infused with even modest enhancements, a strategic force of the nature of the 17 Corps may churn out better options and proportionally higher dividends than what might have been envisaged in the first place. Therefore, not just the Mountain Strike Corps but more than that, it would be the build-up of commensurate military infrastructure that would signal India’s deterrence. Postured with strategic acumen, the Corps could, therefore, put any aggressor to caution. Obviously, the last word on the 17 Corps is yet to be stated.

A Bulwark Against Torment

Arguably, in the near future, the PRC may not be keen to attack India. There is, however, little doubt that an imperialist-minded Beijing will like to ‘accommodate’ India within its beholden hegemony. For India, it is not a matter of gaining or losing the claimed territory; given the circumstances under which the Indo-Tibet Border was drawn, it needs to be settled through ‘give-and-take’. But for the nation to find its destiny, it cannot accede to one-sided transactions or contemptuous treatment executed either through force or blackmail, nor indeed to any subterfuge like the so-called ‘demilitarisation of Siachen Glacier’ or ‘turning the Line of Control with Pakistan into an International Border’.