Border face-off: China and India each deploy 3,000 troops

[Oracle]

There can no longer be any doubt.

Chinese kung fu suicks!

Ok, so, Aksai Chin/Shaksgam Valley is Indian territory, so is Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. Now, China too is facing Covid-19 heat (mismanagement, not warning the world early enough), issues with Taiwan, Japan, Aussies, EU, and now India.

PLA soldiers come with batons fitted with barbed wires, stones. A clash occurs. Soldiers from both sides die. So, orders for this clash must have come from the top of the CMC, which is Xi. Heights in Ladakh give the Chinese strategic relief as far as Tibet & Xinjiang are concerned, as also their investments in PoK.

Now, my question is why now? China can and have bulldozed their people when it suited the CPC, so I don't think CPC has to built a narrative and divert attention from the Covid-19 disaster inside China. Also, what China did now is IMV sowed the seeds of mistrust that was always there in Indian minds, but which is now set in stone that the Chinese cannot be trusted. Why would the Chinese kind of, axe their own foot? I find it hard to believe that Xi belongs to the same land that Mao/Deng (I consider them visionaries) came from.

[Oracle]

Based on a quick read of this author's past statements, I expect she's essentially a Chinese apologist for the Communist Party. That's another way of saying that this essay is the official Chinese position, minus the triumphalism put on for public consumption in China. In defense of her quoted article, though, it's typical, in a situation where both leaders want to avoid further expenditures on large scale military operations, for both sides to declare victory and move on. That's what appears to be happening here.

What you've said is correct. I have a slightly different take on this. The PLA initiated this fight not only to encroach Indian lands, but also to bulldoze the Indian Army into surrendering without a fight. They were wrong. Their strategic thinking in this era, how I see, is lack of foresight. In a conventional war, China has to throw all they've got to beat India, and even then I doubt China will win. When we sense we're losing, we'd be mating our nukes (this gift is specially and only for China). US, Russia etc will ask both to stand down. So, who wins? Nobody. And our respective economy goes back by 2 decades. Wars in present times, should be swift, short, and tactical gains made within the first 2-3 days.

[Mithridates]

When we sense we're losing, we'd be mating our nukes

I'm sure India will issue nuclear threats. That's what nukes are useful for - for threatening a non-nuclear power. But actually using them against a nuclear power - no amount of land is worth hundreds of millions of dead. We never see a nuclear war between two nuclear powers. They will have stated doctrines that involve using nukes as a deterrent strategy against conventional attack. But unless they have a very high degree of confidence (i.e. 100%, given the millions of casualties inflicted by even 1 MIRV'ed ICBM) that they can take the other side's nukes out of the equation and are willing to conquer the other country from end to end, they will not use nukes. Because even if they get the jump on their adversary, and succeed in neutralizing the other side's nuclear arsenal, leaving them to rebuild as a hostile power is a guarantee of nuclear revenge. Without physical occupation of the receiving country's territory, a nuclear conflict is the beginning, rather than the end, of an ultimately genocidal conflict between two adversaries.

Note that Japan started rebuilding Hiroshima and Nagasaki pretty much the day after the explosions. Without US occupation, it's likely that Japan would have returned the favor at some point in the future. With the kinds of casualties inflicted by either country in the wake of an all-out first strike by India (or China), it's almost guaranteed that both countries would become one - ruled either from New Delhi or Beijing.

[Double Edge]

ROE's have been changed

‘No restrictions on using firearms’: India gives soldiers freedom along LAC in extraordinary times | HT | Jun 20 2020

A significant change in Rules of Engagement (ROE) by the Indian Army following the Galwan Valley skirmish that left 20 Indian soldiers dead gives “complete freedom of action” to commanders deployed along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) to “handle situations at the tactical level,” two senior officers said on Saturday on condition of anonymity.

Forward troops keep their guns slung on their backs with the magazines in pouches and not clipped on.

“Since soldiers are allowed to carry weapons while patrolling the LAC, it is inherent that they can use the firearms in unprecedented situations like the attack in Galwan Valley,” said former Northern Army commander Lieutenant General BS Jaswal (retd).

The government said on Thursday that soldiers involved in the June 15 clash with Chinese troops were carrying weapons and ammunition but did not open fire as they were following border agreements between the two countries

[Officer of Engineers]

The reason China would be forced to march North i'm thinking is that China is also a legitimate target for the Soviets.

This was WWIII we're talking about. Not some border squabble. Chinese and NATO armies were not going to march down the streets of Moscow. Soviet armies were not going to celebrate in Washington. More than likely, Soviet flags would have flown in Beijing.

What could not be denied was that all three would have been growing mushroom clouds.

If the prospect of settling the border on our terms presents itself why not : )

You're talking about a pissing contest. The Chinese kept one going hot on the Sino-VN border. This does not compare with the existential threat faced by the Taiwanese ... or the Cold War going hot. The Cold War going hot would be an existential crisis for all belligerants ... and quite a few non-belligerants as well.

[Oracle]

I'm sure India will issue nuclear threats. That's what nukes are useful for - for threatening a non-nuclear power. But actually using them against a nuclear power - no amount of land is worth hundreds of millions of dead. We never see a nuclear war between two nuclear powers. They will have stated doctrines that involve using nukes as a deterrent strategy against conventional attack. But unless they have a very high degree of confidence (i.e. 100%, given the millions of casualties inflicted by even 1 MIRV'ed ICBM) that they can take the other side's nukes out of the equation and are willing to conquer the other country from end to end, they will not use nukes. Because even if they get the jump on their adversary, and succeed in neutralizing the other side's nuclear arsenal, leaving them to rebuild as a hostile power is a guarantee of nuclear revenge. Without physical occupation of the receiving country's territory, a nuclear conflict is the beginning, rather than the end, of an ultimately genocidal conflict between two adversaries.

Note that Japan started rebuilding Hiroshima and Nagasaki pretty much the day after the explosions. Without US occupation, it's likely that Japan would have returned the favor at some point in the future. With the kinds of casualties inflicted by either country in the wake of an all-out first strike by India (or China), it's almost guaranteed that both countries would become one - ruled either from New Delhi or Beijing.

First, India has never issued a nuke threat against another nuclear country or non-nuclear country. Not that I disagree with you, but your post goes beyond what I stated initially. I stated and I quote -

When we sense we're losing, we'd be mating our nukes (this gift is specially and only for China). US, Russia etc will ask both to stand down.

So the war gets over, and no nukes are being used. So, we now focus at my last sentence -

Wars in present times, should be swift, short, and tactical gains made within the first 2-3 days.

gains that are made in the battlefield by both sides, comes up for negotiations, post the war ends.

[Officer of Engineers]

Now, my question is why now?

From what I see, the Chinese are engaged in pissing contests. The terrain is absolutely useless except because it some line on a map and national pride is concerned. Military operations are extremely limited and no one wants a hot war. Everyone is still doing patrols and no one wants to station a damned machine gun nest anywhere. Why? Because it's too damned hard and too damned miserable to man.

It's a friggin pissing contest.

[Oracle]

From what I see, the Chinese are engaged in pissing contests. The terrain is absolutely useless except because it some line on a map and national pride is concerned. Military operations are extremely limited and no one wants a hot war. Everyone is still doing patrols and no one wants to station a damned machine gun nest anywhere. Why? Because it's too damned hard and too damned miserable to man.

It's a friggin pissing contest.

Sir, if the PLA command those heights, they can dominate Indian border roads and choke supplies. It's not a pissing contest for the PLA.

Some more details of the Galwan clash.

[Officer of Engineers]

Sir, if the PLA command those heights, they can dominate Indian border roads and choke supplies. It's not a pissing contest for the PLA.

Some more details of the Galwan clash.

So, line up some good old artillery on them. We've made tremendous advances in military science for a reason.

[Double Edge]

Bharat's recommendations

In no particular order

(1) ask Beijing to shut the f…k up on Kashmir, and take to wagging an admonishing finger at Beijing on every forum now that it has tethered the freedom loving Hong Kongese to the Chinese Communist totalitarian yoke;

(2) publicly initiate negotiations with Taipei to upgrade the extant trade and consular relations into a full fledged diplomatic relationship with the sovereign state of Taiwan, and use Taiwan’s manifest superiority in high-technology to upgrade India’s manufacturing base, and industrial and military wherewithal — a perfect riposte to Beijing’s recently raking up the Sikkim status issue; the “virtual participation” in President Tsai’s investiture ceremony by BJP MPs Meenakshi Lekhi and Rahul Kaswan ought to be a precursor event;

(3) officially bury China’s spurious “one country, two systems” policy by withdrawing support for it with respect to Taiwan, Hong Kong and also Tibet, the last on the legally sound basis, I have long advocated, of Tibet not being genuinely “autonomous” in any way and hence no part of China as Delhi had originally recognized it, thereafter India should spearhead a worldwide “free Tibet” Movement;

(4) openly support the Uyghur cause and use the OIC to mobilize the Islamic opposition to China’s systematic denigration of the native Muslims there and for turning Xinjiang into a vast prison camp for the natives;

(5) cutoff imports of all goods from China, and having done that negotiate small incremental increases in access to the Indian market in return for strict reciprocity in trade and commerce combined with a heavily punitive regime to prevent small and big time traders within India from transacting any goods from China, and the formalization of LAC as formal border;

(6) as current chairman presiding over WHO, use the underway scrutiny of China on the Covid-19 issue to skewer China and pillory it as an opaque and irresponsible state not worthy of respect from the international community;

(7) for God’s sake, use the precedent of China’s secretly transferring nuclear weapons and missile technologies to Pakistan to pay back Beijing in the same coin, even if 40 years too late, by onpassing the very same technologies, or better still, the nuclear warheaded Brahmos cruise missile, to any state on China’s periphery desiring the ultimate means of militarily keeping Beijing quiet. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, are you listening?!, and

(8) by way of meta-strategic arrangements, minimize China’s global salience by weaponizing BRICS by excising China from it and getting Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa (BRIS) into a loose and informal security coalition; and to complement it by sewing up a similar coalition to India’s east — the ‘Mod Quad’ — the Quadrilateral of India, Japan, Australia, and a group of rich and capable Southeast Asian countries minus the unreliable United States. It is an organic security scheme that will permanently box in China politically, militarily and economically with a marginal, extra-territorial, role for the US should it want one.

[Officer of Engineers]

I wish your pundits stop pushing Taiwan, Japan, Australia as the answer to China. If those countries wanted military co-operation with India, they would have already done so. Quite frankly, India DOES NOT represent their military needs. India is NOT the power the pundits think she is. India CANNOT answer their military requirements. Put it bluntly, there is no way in hell could India come to the rescue of Taiwan, not even in the unlikely event if she invades and conquers Tibet.

[Double Edge]

Japan & Australia already participate in naval exercises with India. Whether Australia is allowed into Malabar exercises remains to be seen.

His idea has always been about BrahmOS to Vietnam and now Phillipines. I've asked him about MTCR of which China is not party to, waiting for a reply.

China proliferated nuclear as well as missile tech to the Paks with no reply from India. Yeah i know nothing more than CHICH4 but still. Without China would the Paks have nukes at all. One could hold India partly responsible for not preventing it.

[Officer of Engineers]

Japan & Australia already participate in naval exercises with India. Whether Australia is allowed into Malabar exercises remains to be seen.

Dog and Pony shows. Hardly an integrated combined task force with specific taskings and objectives.

Neither VN nor the Phillipines can use the Brahmos. They lacked over-the-horizon detection and targetting.

And do you think the US would actually allow India to arm Taiwan with nukes? ESPECIALLY when Taiwan NEEDS the US, not India, for protection. Tell the guy to wake up and smell the coffee.

And turning BRIC into BRIS? Does he actually thinks that South African gold can actually replace Chinese funds? China is the economic powerhouse with BRIC. Without China, BRIC might as well be BROKE. Out of the four country, only China has the money and the infrastructure to invest and spend. South Africa doesn't even come close.

What is this idiot smoking and where can I get some?

Note: China apply for MTCR membership in 2004 but she lacks the proper bureaucracy to adhere to membership requirements (whatever that means). However, in a written memoremdum of understanding, she has pledged to follow MTCR guidelines. It is the same kind of memoremdum that India pledged to the NSG not to test nukes. Take that for what it's worth.

Also, tell this idiot that any attempt to proliferate nuclear weapons would mean the end of NSG hopes and the end of the 123 Agreement.

[maverick]

Some interesting links I found browsing CNN:

Original article:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/17/asia/...cli/index.html
It talks about military posture on both sides, institutional experience etc. What I disagree on though is that any Western power will help India or can be classified as "allies". Intelligence sharing -maybe-, but nothing material. Though may become an opportunity for these powers after-the-fact to become closer. The West and their allies in Asia will not fight India's war.

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/d...20Postures.pdf

Center for a New American Security
https://www.cnas.org/publications/re...lance-of-power

I also don't think that India can really imitate China's conduct in the past, notwithstanding the rhetoric within the India media. Arming neighbours with anti-ship missiles doesn't mean they will be ready to actual use them. Institutional changes will have to be made to make this asset a warfighting asset, which takes years, if not decades and billions of dollars. Also can't nuke arm Taiwan either, Cuban Missile Crisis anyone? Also, having a nuclear asset fall in hands of someone as unstable as Duterte? Don't know who will have it worse, the Filipino people or the rest of the world. Not to mention the s**tfit the world will have due to nuclear proliferation in a potential military hotspot.

Economically, BRICS really cannot do too much either. China is on a whole other level when compared to the countries that make up the organization.

[Double Edge]

AIM has been right about a lot of things to do with this border crisis so far

China admits its commanding officer killed in Galwan clash | The Week | Jun 22 2020

The Global Times, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party regime, has maintained that Beijing chose to withhold the casualty numbers since it did not want further escalation of the tension between the two countries.

On Monday, the paper published an article in which it said: "They (Chinese experts) do not want to put more pressure on the government to further provoke China, and the reason why China did not release the number is that China also wants to avoid an escalation, because if China's casualties number less than 20, the Indian government would again come under pressure."

heh, yeah right.