Armed Confrontation Between China and India

[Officer of Engineers]

How do you judge the overall state and direction of Chinese-Indian relations?

Confusing. Government to government relations and business to business relationship seems stable. Military relationship is in a competition but not a confrontation. Political and diplomatic relationship is frayed with problems with opposition parties in both China (yes, there is political opposition within the CCP) and India playing problems to the hilt, not to damage each other but making points against the ruling party.

The Think Tank seems to be stretching hard to suggest a chance of actual conflict, and the most they suggest is "well, if multiple things all go wrong at once, yeah, they might start shooting each other."

They got to get pay somehow. I discount think tanks because they have absolutely zero say in policy but it is a good open source of intel.

I cannot imagine either infringing on the waters of the other and I cannot imagine any naval dispute between the two will not have the US as the big dog anyways.

They have to. Both India and China have to go into each other's back yard if for nothing else but to guarantee their trade. Waving the flag so to speak, not so much against each other but to show everyone that they can and will protect themselves.

Let's face it. A single British or Canadian destroyer meant squat but when faced with Somalian fishermen, they trounced the scene real fast.

Apparently both sides are scaling up their Himalayan operations, but I still cannot imagine that becoming a major issue.

This is where the military competition comes into play. Both sides infrastructures are obsolete and damned expensive. Now, that both sides have planes that can do more weather, it's damned cheaper to fly troops in than to station them there all year round which used to be the case.

But to do so, you need to build landing strips and roads wheras human mules used to only need a cow path. Both sides need to spend moneys now to save moneys in the future but the unfortunate thing is that both sides see the other is building up a threat ... which is true but this need constant military attention by both sides to keep each other in check.

If I were China, my major concern would be Indian WMDs, particularly the nuclear and missile programs, and that would be a long-term concern and much less pressing than anything in the South China Sea.

How far off am I?

Neither side are worried about nukes. RE; Indian General Sundarji and Chinese Field Marshall Rie. Deterrence is not war fighting.

[anil]

If your concern is that we arm Pakistan, that's fair, but keep in mind that the US also arms Egypt, a frenemy of Israel, and provided AWACS to Saudi Arabia above Israeli objections.

How the hell did you take "counter-balance" from my comments and turn it into plain "arms trade"?

[Deltacamelately]

This is where the military competition comes into play. Both sides infrastructures are obsolete and damned expensive. Now, that both sides have planes that can do more weather, it's damned cheaper to fly troops in than to station them there all year round which used to be the case.

But to do so, you need to build landing strips and roads wheras human mules used to only need a cow path. Both sides need to spend moneys now to save moneys in the future but the unfortunate thing is that both sides see the other is building up a threat ... which is true but this need constant military attention by both sides to keep each other in check.

Colonel Sir,

This line of thought would still not explain the raising of brand new and shining dedicated Mountain Corps, atleast from the Indian perspective. The PLA unfortunately and to the IA's chagrin, has just buttered its side of bread way too much in Tibet. The IA has but little options.

[Deltacamelately]

How the hell did you take "counter-balance" from my comments and turn it into plain "arms trade"?

Anil,

He is not. Do reconsider his argument.

[Officer of Engineers]

Colonel Sir,

This line of thought would still not explain the raising of brand new and shining dedicated Mountain Corps, atleast from the Indian perspective. The PLA unfortunately and to the IA's chagrin, has just buttered its side of bread way too much in Tibet. The IA has but little options.

How many new Regiments have received their Colours?

[anil]

Anil,

He is not. Do reconsider his argument.

It has just loomed upon me that the balance of power strategy maybe a very vague concept to most civilians in theory; incl some members on this forum?. In practice(in syria, afpak, ukraine etc), I imagine it must be very confusing for its citizens.

Allow powers in the region to compete and balance against each other(arms donation). When that fails, intervene with as little force and risk as possible(see warships going "off the tangent")

[Cactus]

How many new Regiments have received their Colours?

From open-source, they seemed to have been raising the XVII Corps as one of the two Mountain Strike Corps -- but it was put on hold earlier this year: http://www.rediff.com/news/report/ar...y/20150422.htm

Given the terrain in the Himalayas, does it make sense to raise such monolithic formations? I would think that an equivalent number (6-9) of modernized independent brigades under existing corps would give them the needed counter-offensive / deterrent capabilities. Methinks they have a lot better chances of getting funded if they presented a realistic set of objectives, and a road-map of no more than 3-years to get there.

[Officer of Engineers]

From open-source, they seemed to have been raising the XVII Corps as one of the two Mountain Strike Corps -- but it was put on hold earlier this year: http://www.rediff.com/news/report/ar...y/20150422.htm

According to the article, they're just moving regts from one corps to another. No new regts received their Colours.

Given the terrain in the Himalayas, does it make sense to raise such monolithic formations? I would think that an equivalent number (6-9) of modernized independent brigades under existing corps would give them the needed counter-offensive / deterrent capabilities. Methinks they have a lot better chances of getting funded if they presented a realistic set of objectives, and a road-map of no more than 3-years to get there.

It's just a name, Indian army formations, whatever their specialty, have served in terrain that they were not trained for, ie, mountain troops have served in the desert.

That is true for all armies. If you're free and no one else is available, you're going whether you like it, trained for it, or not.

[Cactus]

According to the article, they're just moving regts from one corps to another. No new regts received their Colours.

In India, IIUC, new formations receive cadre units from existing formations and the existing formations make up short-falls with newly raised units. New units are being raised, but not to the scale requested by the army. From what I remember, the RajRif, Rajput, JAKLI, Bihar and Parachute Regiments have raised new battalions in past 5 years, plus there are three new Scout battalions. However their army wanted 30 new battalions.

It's just a name, Indian army formations, whatever their specialty, have served in terrain that they were not trained for, ie, mountain troops have served in the desert. That is true for all armies. If you're free and no one else is available, you're going whether you like it, trained for it, or not.

This is true, but it is more common to move individual units rather than the whole formations. The formations are allocated resources based on the terrain and opposition they face (i.e. resources not organic to component units). Plus there are a whole bunch of billets at the divisional and corps levels. This is where my amateurish understanding stops, and I rely upon you and DCL to explain why they may (or may not) need as a single corps vs a number of independent brigades with other corps

[Officer of Engineers]

Simple question of frontage. A Corps HQ monitors several ridges at the same time and can move brigades where they're needed. Brigades can commit battalions and companies to the fight but if they're on the wrong mountain ridge, they're SOL. It's corps' job to tell them which mountain ridge to man.

[lemontree]

Captain, 2:1 the war in the Himalayas would be a side-show from the real objectives in the Indian Ocean (i.e. for resources from the Middle East and Africa, and control of the SLOCs in the IOR). The only land-centric scenario I can think of is, the Chinese hit critical pay-dirt in Afghanistan and decide to team-up with the Paks try to dislodge you from Kashmir to buffer their tenuous link over the Karakorum Mountains. Even in this scenario the ability to choke-off your significant imports of fuel and armaments will surely affect the war on the land?

Yes you are right in the scenario given by you. But this will take time as PLAN has to build up its sea legs and carrier force.
Till then its a mountain war scenario.

[Double Edge]

Colonel Sir,

This line of thought would still not explain the raising of brand new and shining dedicated Mountain Corps, atleast from the Indian perspective. The PLA unfortunately and to the IA's chagrin, has just buttered its side of bread way too much in Tibet. The IA has but little options.

Which was supposed to be 90k strong but heard had been trimmed to 30k. This was around the time when Xi visited.

I think his price argument has its merits.

[Firestorm]

The Mountain Strike Corps plan is in doldrums. The previous govt. approved it without specifying where the huge amount of money required was going to come from. The initial estimated expenditure was around $10 billion. The new govt. came in last year, took a look at the empty coffers and balked.

Fund crunch hits Army's new strike corps

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, before leaving for South Korea late on Tuesday night, told journalists that the UPA did not do due diligence about cost implications while clearing the plan in 2013. "We will have to work out the size of the corps. It cannot be the size initially approved. It will have to be trimmed down," he said.

[Firestorm]

You're missing the main point of Chinese military doctrine and that is to deter. Deterrence, not warfighting, is their main goal.

They DO NOT want to go toe-to-toe with the USN. They just want to deter the USN from being determined to do so.

When I said toe-to-toe with the USN, I should have clarified that I meant in the distant future (2-3 decades).

The deterrence doctrine makes sense against the USN which is a vastly superior force (for now). But against India, why would they follow the same if they have, or think they have a way to force the outcome?

[Officer of Engineers]

The deterrence doctrine makes sense against the USN which is a vastly superior force (for now). But against India, why would they follow the same if they have, or think they have a way to force the outcome?

Because they can't force an outcome. They may emerge victorious in a military confrontation but that doesn't stop India from rebuilding and coming around for round 2. But if they deter you from seeking a military confrontation and still get what they want or negotiate to their advantage, then they have the better advantage and you wouldn't be so pissed off to look for a fight.