India's military (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

Last week in an unusual move Indian para-commandos attacked at least one Indian rebel camp, India rarely uses "hot pursuit". One wonders how Islamabad views this, especially if it considers using LeT again to attack India (shades of Mumbai).

The main thread on Indian insurgencies details recent heavy losses from rebel attacks:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2248

Link to a BBC news report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-33074773

Ret'd Major-General Singh said:

India has the capability for surgical strikes across our borders. The political will was missing so far...That may not be the case any more.

From a BBC analyst's commentary:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-33074776

[omarali50]

Pakistani leaders and social media did get the message, and went ballistic in response. The general theme was "Pakistan is not Myanmar". That useless windbag and Bush's old friend, Pervez Musharraf, led the way as usual with bombastic statements about being willing to use nuclear weapons if India tried any "adventurism" (he actually said "we do not have these weapons for use as fireworks on Shab e barat", a night when some illumination and fireworks may happen in Pakistan).
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/47680996.cms

I do not keep up with them, but it is possible that some members of the Anatol Lieven school of Pakistan-analysis may also have stepped in to warn about the dangers posed by Modi's newfound aggressiveness.

Personally, I dont think any clash is imminent. The army has India-specific terrrorists on a short leash (otherwise they would have struck again since Mumbai) and "good GHQ" is not in the mood for any real confrontation with India. "Bad GHQ" may try something if they feel the good guys are about to make a serious dent in the Jihadi apparatus, but apparently that red line has not been crossed...yet.

[omarali50]

Christine Fair (who was once labeled Christine Unfair by Hindutva fanatics because she said something that Pakistani PR people used against India) has an article on this topic:

http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/fal.../?singlepage=1

Her conclusion:

In the wake of India’s hot pursuit of militants into Myanmar, Pakistan has raised numerous alarms about Indian aggression. It has issued various warnings that no such Indian incursion into Pakistan will be tolerated. As often happens in such circumstances, the international media has raised the tocsin of the potential for yet another “Indo-Pakistan” clash. Unfortunately, much of this coverage of the so-called India-Pakistan conflict is deeply problematic in that writers, perhaps with good intentions, seek to impose a false equivalence on both nations’ conduct, giving the impression that India and Pakistan contribute equally to the fraught situation that currently exists.
This is dangerously untrue and feeds into a policy-process that has failed to come to terms with the most serious problem in South Asia: Pakistan. Such coverage also rewards Pakistan for its malfeasance by attributing blame to India in equal share and thus legitimizing Pakistan’s ill-found grievances. The only parties who benefit from such an understanding of the “Indo-Pakistan” dispute are the Pakistan military and its terrorist proxies. One such article was published by the Washington Post on June 11 by Tim Craig and Annie Gowen. In this essay, I seek to provide the necessary historical and empirical background that is required to make sense of the current situation. In doing so I directly challenge such writers as Craig and Gowen, among others, to devote more time to understanding the conflict dynamics before they inadvertently obfuscate the situation more than they illuminate it.

Needless to say, this will "stoke tension" in South Asia..or at least in the Anatol Lieven school of analytics. I look forward to a healthy sparring match

[davidbfpo]

A commentary 'Was India's special-forces raid into Myanmar a signal to China and Pakistan?' by Shashank Joshi, of RUSI (London), via the Australian Lowy Institute:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...Pakistan.aspx?

With my emphasis:

In their book on the subject, retired Lieutenant General PC Katoch and journalist Saikat Datta note that India has over 20,000 special forces but 'one tenth' of US capabilities, as a result of inadequate officer numbers, training, intelligence, language skills, air support, and a lack of centralised command. In another recent paper, George Perkovich and Toby Dalton cite Indian experts, including retired officials, who acknowledge that 'India does not now have the capability to combine special operations in Pakistan with precision air support', notwithstanding highly localised raids across the Line of Control.

[blueblood]

@omarali50,

Christine Fair (who was once labeled Christine Unfair by Hindutva fanatics because she said something that Pakistani PR people used against India) has an article on this topic:

Hindutvawadis are nice that way. If only you knew them better.

Frankly, most Pakistani commenters would have had slept better at night had Dr. Fair mentioned Mukti Bahini, RAW and 1971. So while I agree with it almost completely I also think this was a biased piece.

Clubbing India together with Pakistan does give a lot of leverage to "belligerent" elements. Mr. Ali, I have a few queries if you care to answer.

1) Why did Pakistani media consistently missed the part where firing on LOC from their side "coincidentally" matched with Kashmir elections and Samba and Kathua attacks but kept repeating the ISPR line of India creating distractions wrt Zarb-e-azb. This includes journalists like Najam Sethi who do not tow the Army's official line in general.

2) What part do you think army has played in the rise of Imran Khan and his future? While some say that Imran Khan is army's Plan B, Imran on record keeps or at least kept harping about the dangers that army bring by military operations across the country.

..............................................

https://twitter.com/majorlyp/status/608710075704860672

Something, most of us on this side of the border were thinking. You may find this person amusing, maybe.

As for Mushy, I think people are being too hard on him. From once the only world leader who carried a personal side arm, Mushy has turned into a senile old man whose every rants begins with the ritualistic "We are not ________. We are a nuclear power. India cannot do that to us"

Do Pakistanis ponder over the fact that would have happened had it been Nawaz as PM post 9/11?

[blueblood]

@davidbfpo, while I am fan of Gen. P.C. Katoch, I am also struggling hard to reach a common ground with him lately. Over the years he has made some pretty unwarranted and some times just lame comments.

Having a tenth of US capability is not a bad thing if you realize that you are not US. Tenth of US capability means 1 Supercarrier and 7 nuclear submarines. It can also mean 18 F-22s, 2 B-2s and 20 C-17s. Not bad!!

But most of all it means a 20% increase against the current Indian defence budget. You can have 100% of US SOF capabilities when you can afford to spend as much as US.

For the paper (yet to read) that mentioned Indian SOFs inability to conduct ops in Pak is a very dated outlook. Let me get back to you on this one.

[davidbfpo]

A useful guide to studying India's military by Shashank Joshi (RUSI) via WoTR, with a plethora oif links and recommendations:http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/so-.../?singlepage=1

Formal study of India’s military isn’t at the same stage of maturity as that of the PLA. The most useful Indian sources — which vary greatly in quality — tend to be a small cluster of retired officers rather than scholars with academic training, and much of the Western literature still needs to be grounded in better military understanding. Western military research institutes — parts of RAND, the NDU, the Army War College — that dominate Peter Mattis’ reading list aren’t as interested in India, and Indian research institutes don’t yet have the capacity. But a wave of insightful and important articles and books, many by young scholars, is laying a solid foundation on which to build.