Daily Times

Border, boundary and the frontier are three things which are easy to define but sometimes difficult to limit or delimit on ground. Strategy is also mute on this as a subject; these are for sure geographical terms with political or sometime geo-political intents. Other thing which creates a fog here is the perception and interpretation, which one has of borders, boundaries and frontiers. This is exactly what Indians are trying to make people believe, that Chinese are misinterpreting the line of actual control (LAC) all along 3488kms. Strange, a border which was fought for in 1962, India having bloody nosed, accepted everything and then on 7th September 1993 Mr Narasimha Rao signed the agreement on the maintenance of peace and tranquillity along the line of actual control in the India-China border areas. Indians for some reasons then, and even now are calling LAC as not precisely marked, rather more of a concept. The Chinese concept of LAC is different, they do not occupy the ground permanently, have better infra-structure on their side, and troops at Chinese nearby garrisons are better acclimatized being at 1600 ft and above due to landscape. On Indian side there is a gradient almost at everywhere. Chinese monitor the LAC through an elaborate system of ground sensors and military satellites. Necessity for physical occupation therefore speaks of some serious Chinese concerns. India is trying to downplay the same by deputing this to mere engineering issues of making a road here and a bridge there. China is seeing this as a part of cartographic aggression.

Pakistan has to now lay its long range perspective plans and say hello to the coming algorithmic warfare of artificial intelligence, block chain, deep learning and machine thinking

Himalayan watershed is once again in lime light. Ladakh, Aksai-chin, Sikkim, Tawang district and even the complete Arunchal pardesh is now the spot light. Chinese army is camping at four places, Pangong Tso Lake, Galwan valley near Dault Bag Oldi (the world highest airstrip and a recently made bridge by Indians on Shyok River), Demchok and Natha- la at Sikkim. The recent construction of roads, bridges and ALGs (advance landing grounds) has reduced the mobilisation time of Indian army from months to mere weeks. These infrastructure projects were undertaking by India since last decade, then why despite having a better system of surveillance Chinese never objected earlier. This question and its answer are the key to understand the strategic algorithm which has triggered the standoff. This is also the same reason which has forced the Nepal to have volte face with India by claiming jurisdiction on three places including 67km area of Kalapani. What is going on in strategic Himalayas? The seed for this crisis was sowed on 31st Oct 2019 when India unilaterally changed the status of Ladakh to that of union territory. After this for Chinese, the significance of Indian road and communication infrastructure changed to that of offensive posturing. Nepal also got perturbed and thought that next might be the Nepalese to become the Indian subject, despite the traditional roti-beti (the bread and the matrimonial of having spouses from Nepal) concept between the Indian and them. That was the beginning of the strategic partnership between China and Nepal (though cooperation was also going on earlier). China, otherwise as an emerging world power is conscious of its peripheries, as they think that a fish rots from the periphery. The Himalayas watershed, South China Sea and East China Sea are their peripheries. Since last one decade an interesting debate is taking place amongst the strategic elite of India which is another reason resulting rather, precipitating this crisis. In 2010 in PMO (Prime Minister Office) a highly confidential meeting of Indian leadership and military high ups was held, agenda was to chalk out a two front war plan and accordingly sanctioning of the resources. This is when a new, 17 mountain corps along LAC was born. Two front wars is an ambitious strategic counter stroke which India is planning since years. They expect the primary will be the Pakistani front and secondary the Chinese, with Chinese not generating more than 10% of their combat power in the theatre along LAC. Chankiya would have gotten goose bumps after listening to this stratagem of Indian strategic elite. Chinese because of very superior road, rail, and air infra structures at Himalayas are capable to generate overwhelming combat power in matter of days. Pakistan is also not a piece of cake, its army has never lost a single battle on its eastern front, the history is witness from 1947/48 encounter on Kashmir, 1965 war, 1971 war(east Pakistan was not a war, it was a deceitful dismemberment), Siachin, Kargil and latest the Balakot. General Bajwa is well composed, sober in thoughts and actions, and as per Indian defence analysts, Mr Pravin sawhney very ably heads the three verticals of SPD, a very professional military operations directorate and the ISI. On the Indian side there seems to be an aberration in strategic thought. Just recently General Rawat held a promotion board of officers from Brigadier to Major General (the most important tier of any army) less one; he promoted all the officers with counter terrorism experience, despite the jargon of Indian army chief. Heading the new office of DMA (department of military affairs) he wants to divide India in several theatre commands and the joint commands of air defence, logistics and training and doctrines along with a peninsular command. He believes in dual use formations from the primary front (Pakistan) to secondary (China) and vice versa, again a strategic pitfall. CDS, General Bipin Rawat has many times spoken to have been adopting the concept of net centric warfare, which is again a decades old concept. World has moved on, it seems that Indian military leadership is prisoner of a new doctrine after every decade. Probably, that is the reason the Chinese follows the 36 military stratagems since last 2000 years. With this back ground what will happen now? India will now adopt the posture of strategic defence with initially posturing with 14, 15, 16, and 17 mountain corps (2 corps for limited offensive). China will not take any theatre as battle field rather from the start of escalation it will go for the battle space, which includes also the cyber, space and electromagnetic spectrum along with all three conventional forces. China’s kill-chain is very potent and also not very profoundly visible. As for Pakistan the conventional parity exists along with the intact deterrence. The LAC development reminds one of the famous books by Stephen Cohen on Indian modernisation of its military, “Arming without aiming”. Pakistan has to now lay its long range perspective plans and say hello to the coming algorithmic warfare of artificial intelligence, block chain, deep learning and machine thinking. Friends, Welcome to the fourth industrial revolution.

The writer is a freelance contributor on security related issues. He is also a Ph.D Scholar who can be reached at sindhulatif@gmail.com Twitter: @Abid_Latif55