Meeting India's military challenge

[fatman17]

Sound advice

Dawn Editorial

Thursday, 28 Jan, 2010

Transparency and openness are foundational. But so is common sense, and that is what seems to be lacking on occasion. Our advice: listen to Adm Mullen.

“ANY kind of public accusations or public finger-pointing, quite frankly, that does not serve any of us well. That doesn’t mean we won’t have disagreements. But I hope that we can do that privately, and not publicly.” We could not agree more with Adm Mike Mullen and urge Pakistani, Indian and American officials to take note of his comments.

Look at what’s happened in recent weeks. On Dec 30, 2009 The Times of India published a report with the headline ‘Army reworks war doctrine for Pakistan, China’ in which the possibility of a ‘two-front war’ with China and Pakistan was referred to. Cue pandemonium in Pakistan, where outrage at Indian army chief Deepak Kapoor’s ‘statements’ nearly caused a fresh diplomatic crisis. Meanwhile, in India itself the comments went largely unnoticed until the news of Pakistani outrage began to seep across the border. The ‘Deepak who?’ reaction in India is possibly inexplicable to Pakistanis long used to having generals occupy centre stage.

Over in China, the other ‘target’ of a two-front war, there was nary a peep and the country serenely continued to focus on its march towards economic-superpower status. Point being, Gen Kapoor’s dilation on Indian war strategy created an unnecessary and unwanted kerfuffle in Pakistan. While the comments were made in a closed-door seminar, the modern communications era demands that comments by public officials be very guarded whenever there is the slightest chance of a leak.

Just days after Gen Kapoor’s comments made the headlines in Pakistan, Prime Minister Gilani’s remarks about Pakistan being unable to guarantee that there would not be another Mumbai-style attack in India caused an uproar across the border. Like Gen Kapoor’s comments, there was nothing technically wrong with what the prime minister said. But perception is sometimes everything and to the Indian side it seemed as though the prime minister was suggesting that Pakistan will continue to sponsor and nurture jihadi groups ideologically opposed to India. Again, unnecessary and unwanted.

Then on the American side there are the routine public demands for Pakistan to ‘do more’ and act against the Haqqani network and the so-called Quetta shura — reinforcing suspicions here that the Pakistani state is fighting ‘America’s war’ and complicating the fight against militants. Once again, unnecessary and unwanted — and perhaps even self-defeating for the Americans. We are not suggesting that Pakistani, Indian and American officials start doing everything in secret and hide even more than they already do from the public. Transparency and openness are foundational. But so is common sense, and that is what seems to be lacking on occasion. Our advice: listen to Adm Mullen.

 

[fatman17]

this thread reminds me of this song...

David Bowie Lyrics - Space Oddity

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills
and put your helmet on

Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown,
engines on
Check ignition
and may God's love be with you

[spoken]
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff

This is Ground Control
to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule
if you dare

This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating
in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

Though I'm past
one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much
she knows

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead,
there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you....

Here am I floating
round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do.

 

[TechLahore]

Its a matter of opinion. There was a $10 billion which Musharraf apparantly misused and there was a huge hulla about it recently.. Also do u have a non Pakistani link for this $30 billion over last 9 years (avg $3.3 billion/annum). Seems a tad inflated if you relate it with your annual defence budget of $ 7 billion or so )

But you can't have it both ways. Either 2002 was not a financial challenge for us because the Pakistan Army redirected WoT terror funds and comfortably dealt with the Indian escalation at no cost to us, until such time as India was forced to withdraw...

OR

Pakistan paid the economic price precisely because there was no redirection of WoT funds and therefore all claims to this effect are nonsense.

Also the Airline impact you mentioned is skewed..If at all PIA was more impacted and had to shut some of its routes..

refer here

The Hindu : Scramble for PIA flight seats

rediff.com: PIA to suspend flights on four routes: Reuters

[/QUOTE]

You've used Indian sources here, both dating back to a time when relations were tense. And rediff in the best of times is an extremely biased source. They provide pulpits to several pretty right wing hate mongers.... but that aside, the fact that PIA was impacted more than India is completely balderdash. Consider: Four routes vs. 200. As by the admission of Indian participants here, prevention of direct access to Afghanistan... the fact that western routes are more travelled and more profitable than eastern routes... add all that up and you can see that there wasn't even a remote comparison between who was affected more negatively by the overflight rights denial.

 

[TechLahore]

How will that benefit Pakistan? If Pakistan responds 'disproportionately', don't you think India can do worse?

These are all ugly scenarios... but Pakistan could respond by taking out airbases from where attacks were launched and attack installations similar to the ones that were targeted in Pakistan.

Then if India responds to the salvo, you have an open shooting war.

All bets are off at that point. This is precisely why the Cold Start Under Nuclear Overhang bull has zero credibility. It just can't be done without either a) not achieving objectives or b) mutual destruction.

Pakistan will not escalate the conflict, they can't afford to, I don't think they'd want to give India an open invitation to invade and start a full scale war all along the eastern front. I'm pretty sure everyone in Pakistan understands that they cannot win a conventional war

This will be a massive miscalculation and if 2002 and post-Mumbai scenarios are anything to go by, I think the Indian military fully understands this.

After the next full fledged Indo Pak war there will be nothing left to invade on either side. Nothing on both sides will survive. The immediate blasts from those 200 odd nuclear weapons will kill the lucky ones and the really really unlucky ones will be left disfigured and praying for death. That is how ugly a full fledged war will be. I don't think either side will risk it.

Pointing a gun to your head and hoping the world will intervene?

That might be your perception. But to us, Cold Start or "Selective Strikes" appear to be no more logical and no less ugly than than self-immolation.

 

[rubyjackass]

Here's why.. Because India was able to inflict significant damage to Pakistan without firing a shot. Cost to India of that deployment was $1.4 billion and for Pakistan was $1.3 billion which for India was less than 0.25% of its GDP but for Pakistan was close to 2% (all figures are 2002). Go figure..

Please post some sources.

 

[MPPK]

Sustain Pak firmly!

 

[Sam_Bajwa]

Pakistan cannot, of course, afford to match India's military build up. Its response will have to be defensive, asymmetrical, innovative, and achieved at much lower cost. Pakistan's forces may need to do some tactical rethinking. For example, an Indian tank force can be more effectively destroyed by drones and missiles rather than a matching tank force. A large surface navy can be seriously damaged by submarines and mobile missile-boats. The eight Indian "battle groups" may be more mobile; but they would also be vulnerable to encirclement and destruction. Rather than spread themselves thin to defend the entire Eastern border, Pakistani forces could adopt an offensive-defensive strategy, focusing a thrust into Kashmir to bottle up half a million Indian troops there.

dear fatman,
The writer has mentioned that a piercing movement of Pakistani army can be adopted to segregate Kashmir or any other command to overcome India's military power how much are the chances that Pakistan succeeds in doing so also i would like to mention that in all the previous battles Pakistani army tried to use this strategy and mostly failed to accomplish it.how do you look upon this matter?

 

[TaimiKhan]

dear fatman,
The writer has mentioned that a piercing movement of Pakistani army can be adopted to segregate Kashmir or any other command to overcome India's military power how much are the chances that Pakistan succeeds in doing so also i would like to mention that in all the previous battles Pakistani army tried to use this strategy and mostly failed to accomplish it.how do you look upon this matter?

Last time, we did not had the proper resources.

This time for Indian ambitions, they have their strike elements or what you call RAPID formations, and we have our Strike formations for the very same purpose. But the writer has said it to be done, no actual plan of such nature exists regarding Kashmir.

 

[Gazzi]

Neither countries have been to a conventional war since 1971 and nearly 40 years are coming. The one for this is, both sides have made catogorically clear, that any new war will be a decisive. Both are preparing for such as the geography of 1971 is not the same. Now it will mainly a border to border war, East on West. Not Pakistan fighting on two sides of India, surrounded on all 4 sides by India in East Pakistan. In a why, 1971 has been a blessing in disguise. Losing East Pakistan has not just given Pakistan a slight kick up the ar5e but also laid much better grounds for conventional battle, opening up many options with a border to border conflict.

 

[fatman17]

dear fatman,
The writer has mentioned that a piercing movement of Pakistani army can be adopted to segregate Kashmir or any other command to overcome India's military power how much are the chances that Pakistan succeeds in doing so also i would like to mention that in all the previous battles Pakistani army tried to use this strategy and mostly failed to accomplish it.how do you look upon this matter?

in 65 we came close but our GHQ had its head up its u know what, and replaced the OC in mid-battle because he was taking self-initiatives, plus if you want to mount such a 'effort' then the strike element needs to be fully backed with resources (ammo, CAS, etc) - in 65 we had ammo for 3 weeks of intense war-fighting, similar situation in 71 but now the situation is different.

generals on both sides were 'risk averse' in 65 and 71 and i think maybe it has changed as mid-level OC's (regiment and bde) are given more and more 'room to manoever'.

 

[Sam_Bajwa]

Dear fatman,
This just goes to prove the old army adage that there are no bad troops only bad officers.the problem in 71 was that they deployed more than required soldiers in the east with the intention to suppress rebellion unaware of the fact that they had insufficient resources
by the way who were you referring to General Tikka khan?
well the only reason why the Co's were replaced was because the number of casualties reported were higher than the actual casualties
that was done by mistake
the risk averseness was true in the case of Pakistanis specially in the chamb sector but you cannot think of victory without sacrifice can you?
must have said it earlier thanks for your reply Sir

 

[DeathGod]

generals on both sides were 'risk averse' in 65 and 71 and i think maybe it has changed as mid-level OC's (regiment and bde) are given more and more 'room to manoever'.

Hi Fatman,

In current scenario do you think Pakistan can follow an "offensive defence " kind of doctrine? Or do you think that Pakistan should wait for India to start the war ( if even there is) , and consolidate its defensive position to bleed India before counter-attacking?

What do you think are Pakistan's prospect in an attritional war. Also looking at the whole theatre , how does Pakistan plan to keep its supplies of oil open?

 

[Sam_Bajwa]

Last time, we did not had the proper resources.

This time for Indian ambitions, they have their strike elements or what you call RAPID formations, and we have our Strike formations for the very same purpose. But the writer has said it to be done, no actual plan of such nature exists regarding Kashmir.

All right taimi tell me out of these three what is it that makes someone victorious
1)number of arms(resources)
2)number of troops
3)A moral cause

 

[TaimiKhan]

All right taimi tell me out of these three what is it that makes someone victorious
1)number of arms(resources)
2)number of troops
3)A moral cause

All threeeee

 

[Sam_Bajwa]

taimi that was not a good answer
I think a moral cause is more than enough to make anyone victorious
anyways best of luck in case we have another war
actually India and Pakistan are like tom and jerry they cannot live together and even cannot live without each other