Puressence

General,

I have a question that's been on my mind for a while that I hope to bring it to your kind attention and your expertise.

The evolving strategic relationship between America and India is of course happening, and undoubtedly it goes far beyond what is privy to a civilian like me in the public sphere.

However, I am of the impression that there exists, in Indian think tanks, military establishment and interested stakeholders, a deep suspicion of American interests and American help, and that the process of cooperation and mutual coordination has been slower than it could have been.

1. Am I wrong in saying this? And why is the situation thus?

Putting aside agitation of parties such as the far Left, part of the reason would be, I suppose, the deep cooperation and firm understanding between India and Russia.

2. Why is India not able to separate, or compartmenalise, its relationships with the US and with Russia? Do you think there is a tendency for Indian thinkers to mix cooperation based on long term interests and the rather emotional idea of "friend"?

And of course, we must come to China. To be honest, after Rumsfeld met General Cao last year, I had the impression that even the Chinese, a so called competitor, is seeking a closer relationship with the US military than India!

3. Why is it that what troubles India does not appear to trouble China, given that in the last six years, China has faced more hostility from Washington? The Chinese also consistently see the US military as their benchmark, I don't think we can much doubt this, and is the Indian military doing something like this?

From what I have read, the Chinese government consistently plays down Russian help in its military research and development. In fact, I suspect they even encourage open contempt of some Russian weapons and doctrines. India is open about cooperating with Russia in many areas.

4. Besides historical differences, are the two militaries having different visions of how war will be fought in the future? What is your opinion, that is allowable in the public sphere, about current Indian establishment thinking in this area and new American influence?

No one wants a war in Asia. It would be horrific. India's development (and China's of course in other instances) is highly praised by all of us in the smaller countries. I believe the Malaysian government put forward a statement that "Asia is a plane that needs two wings - India and China", hinting at the need for geopolitical balance in a region with deep cultural differences and dominated by two countries.

5. Do you think that there will be a price to pay for India and American cooperation to proceed slower than it could have? Do you think that the American model of warfighting could be replicated by Asian countries?

Thank you.

Jay

just a small nitpick, Ray Sahab was a Brigadier

Indian military procurement was in bed with Russia for 30 years and it aint easy to change them in a sweep.

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A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

Ray

Puressence,

While indeed a Brigadier is one star and is known a Brigadier General in some armies, in the Indian Army, a Brigadier is just known by the rank of Brigadier.
Notwithstanding, I would be surprised if soon we do not change to the American way i.e. Brigadier General.

Ever since General Sunderjee, who was a great fan of the US, having been declared as "exceptionally brilliant" in his CGSC Course in the US, became the Chief, the flavour of Indian military thinking has been US oriented including the gobbledygook!

I don't think that the think tanks are anti US.

I would agree that while most are delighted with the slant towards the US, which was but natural since Indians are a freewheeling lot and are not very keen on having any restrictive shackles, yet there is some reservation amongst the political classes, especially the old guard, towards the US.

Let me explain that.

While the USSR stood by its "friends" through thick and thin, the history of the US has not been so except in the case of Pakistan (as seen by Indian eyes) till of late. The US is guided, and rightly so, by its own interests and not by any sense of permanent commitment. This makes the old guard a wee bit nervous of placing the eggs in one basket!

India is wedded to democratic ideals and hence the natural closeness to US ideals.

Indians are aware of the shortfalls of democracy. One govt need not follow the policies of the previous govt. Right now, India is on pig's back with the Bush Administration. But will this last with the next govt" That is the niggling concern. The suspicion is not deep. It is not even a suspicion, yet is a niggling worry!

The goals of India and the US are common in many spheres. Pragmatically viewed, a closure equation with the US will be to India's immense benefit. Likewise, geostrategically, it is of immense value to US for reasons that is obvious - the Indian Ocean for instance. We Indians, having won our independence after a long struggle, are very sensitive to anything that impinges on our sovereignty and hence we are not effusing in our happiness to equations with foreign nations. Hence, it may appear to you that China is a better bet than India.

The equation with the US does not trouble China but it trouble India is because we are a democracy and the govt has to "sell" its policies to the people. China, is fortunate if you wish to call it so, it does not have to worry about public opinion or votes. India has to. Hence, the cautious approach.

India does not look at the US as a rival. China may. The reason is simple. Most of the aims of both the US and India are common.

Why China is contemptuous about Russian assistance is something China can answer. India is willing to accept or request Russian cooperation since in many fields they are superior to other technologies.

I don't think one could replicate US form of warfighting for the simple reason that none can match its military and economic power. One could model watered down versions nonetheless.

Which country are you from?

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Archer

Ray sir,

What did you make of Sunderji? Was he as good as history makes him out to be? A candid answer much appreciated.

667medic

Ray Sir, I think they dumped Vietnam in 79 and again in 84. Probably the Engineer Sir could elaborate more on this.....

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Seek Save Serve Medic

Jay

Medic,
They never dumped India per se. But what they did in Tashkent in 1965 was unacceptable, but Shastri had to agree on those terms for other geo-political reasons.

Ray

He is from my Regiment.

I knew him very well.

I will be biased!

Ray

They had no options.

There was no end in sihgt and the US public was getting bored!

Ray

They had no options.

There was no end in sight and the US public was getting bored!

The Colonel, Shek, Sniper and others will be better equipped to answer that.

667medic

I was just pointing out that Russia did dump some of its friends.
And you can't blame the Russkies for the incompetence of our politicians.
What about 1971, the 90,000 POW's were freed without a trial for Human Rights violations with the understanding that Pak would ease up on its obsession with Kashmir, the rest is history....
BTW, I can think of only one incident when the we ever needed Soviet help, when USA sent a Carrier to the Bay of Bengal in 72, the Soviets retaliated by sending in a Nuke Sub...

Officer of Engineers

It's extremely one way and the US is not pleased about it. It took a SECDEF to get into the 2nd Artillery Force; not even CINCPAC was accorded such a visit. Chinese Generals get to visit some really niffty stuff like aircraft carriers and visits to war rooms. American Generals and Admirals get kung fu demonstrations.

1) The Vietnamese didn't ask for help
2) The Soviets were too busy with Afghanistan to offer help.

It was a case of "do you need us? No? I'm too busy anyway."

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Chimo

Tronic

dude... the Ruskies did a lot for us... remember the brief war against Portugal? well, the Portugese took the case of Indian "invasion" of Goa to the UN, and then the Soviets used their Veto power to shut the case for good...

and also, the Soviets sending the naval detachment right after the US was a big step boosting Indo-Soviet friendship... that Soviet-US face-off in the bay of bengal could have sparked off a nuclear excgange between the US and the Soviets...

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Nabha Sparasham Deeptam
-Touch The Sky With Glory

Blademaster

And don't forget that USSR never held out the supply of spares as a threat to force India to agree to its terms like US often tries to do so.

xinhui

I hope I don't get flame knowing this is an Indian heavy thread.

anyways, if you don't mind.

There are number of reasons.

You have to be very specifiy, as PLA, PLAAF, PLANAF, PLA2ndArty, PLAN all has different sets of requirements and their own turf to protect.


1st example, PLA2ndArty does not require Russian help, they think they are good enough, you can debate that, but they is how they think. PLA2ndArty's funding come directly from the State, they were protected by Mao personally during the chaos of Culture Revolution. They consider themselves as PLA's packet of excellence.

2. Cost. Two recently examples, Russians offered PLA production right for both BMP-3 and BMD-3 for the PLA, however, they differ in the price, so PLA brought BMP-3's turrent and develop its own chassis.

3. Jobs. The state has to watch for thousands of Mil-complex enterprise, especially engineers what will happen to them when they are out of job. Also interested to note, the first Mil-complex PLA lead go and allow to became privatized was the Shipping industry (in 1988) and the last one was aerospace. To no one’s surprise, the Chinese Shipping industries became the top 3 shipbuilder of the world and consider the most advance sector of Chinese Military-ind complex, and Aerospace is leg behind and only very recently start to show signs of life.
There are number of US studies out there on this very topic, check out Rand and US congress’s US-China Economic and Security Review commission's recent study releases www.uscc.gov

The entire Chinese R&D establishment was not working and in 1998, General Cao canned the entire COSTIND and started a complete new one. The new CONSITD reports directly under CMC's General Armament department and funded by PLA. The CONSTIND was joint operate by the State Council appointed by the National People's Congress (NPC). The NPC were interested more in job protection then production. The 1998 reform cut the old COSTIND jobs into half, one sides went to the General Armament department GAD, if Military-Ind complex do not produce, GAD wont buy as in the old days, the State Council set the quota. T he second half was the formation of the NATIONAL MOBILIATION Committee headed by the Presidency, one level above the state conuncil.

4. Simply put, PLA can not consume much high tech in the early 1990s, they neither had the budget, technical proficient, nor personal for them. They hard learned some really hard lessons with their first 24 Su-27 buy. It took them 10 years commission those 24 birds as an operational unit. (to be fair, it also took ROCAF 10 years to commission their F-16). They did not have a "real" NCO corp until the late 1998 reform. They are working on it, such as the creation of the ROTC program, civilian technical persoanal etc. Some bunch such as the PLAN are better then others. Overall, they are not there yet. PLANAF is generally consider to be worst of the bunch.

5. Culture. It is not in PLA tradition to be the leading edge, I am not going to debate rather this is a good policy or not. PLA likes to touch the stone before cross the river. They buy small numbers, test the crap out of them, either they buy more, as the case of S-300 SAM, or they revise engineeing them.


6. doctrines. Russian doctines does not fit within the frame work of PLA. PLA buys weapons for two reason,

A. to plug the most important gap. such as the case of airdefense.
B. What is important to them, a counter example is CAS, PLA do not rely heavily on CAP/CAS and they don't spend much money on this department. PLA long range fire supports comes in form of long range rockets, and they are putting $$$ where their fire support is.

Officer of Engineers

Not going to happen in my corner, Andy :-)

To add in more about doctrine, Russia does not have a BLUE ARMY and is not finding short comings in the regt-div-army model. China's BLUE ARMY as we've been discovering in CDF is finding advantages of the bn-bde-corps model over the regt-div-army model.