Analysis of India's Ability to Fight a 2-front War 2018
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2017 Dolklam Plateau, Bhutan. The Chinese, who illegally occupy the Northern part of the plateau, start building a road from the western side to reach the northern side of the Jhampheri Ridge. We object, there is a confrontation, Chinese back down, we parade “India forces China to back down” signs. Problem: the Chinese withdraw because they are in no position to fight. Through the fall of 2017 and the winter of 2017-18, the Chinese construct a brigade cantonment and increase infrastructure at three Tibet airfields. Mocking India, they build a road from the eastern side of North Doklam to the Ridge. Thus, they avoid running into Indian troops. Meanwhile, GOI goes extreme huggy-poos with the Chinese, Best Friends Forever and all that. New talks are scheduled. But are the Chinese going to withdraw their positions? No. They have what they wanted, so as per Standing Operating Procedure they pretend nothing happened. Until the next time, they provoke us. India’s credibility has been severely undermined, but so what. According to us, we are in control of the situation. When the enemy advances, we retreat. And retreat. And retreat, starting from1950. Thed other day our prime minister, who looks strong to wrestle three alligators one after the other without breaking a sweat, said India and China have shown maturity because no bullets have been fired in 40-years.[209] Those of who thought this was because we are freightened of the China obviously were ignorant. Sir, can we fire one bullet in the air when we have retreated to Kanyakumari.? Just to show future generated we fought bravely.
9.3 A brief overview of military balances
Please to appreciate the following is highly simplistic. We focus on numbers of formations, but that is only one of several factors that determine the outcome of a war. Leadership, generalship, logistics, intelligence, terrain, weather, training, ability to survive the first shock of contact, transportation networks, communications – this list could be extended. Above all is Murphy’s Law and the whims and fancies of Lady Luck. Numbers, however, provide a straightforward, measurable metric for comparison. In my opinion for anyone to rely on psychological measures such as “one of our is equal to five of theirs,” and dubious measures of hardware capability is misleading. Sometimes men are capable of extreme heroism but equally capable of extreme cowardice. It cannot be foretold which unit does an “Easy Company stands here,” or a “Run for your lives.” Both were in much evidence in 1962. The 1965 War saw many Indian battalions breaking and running, for example, 4th Indian Division in the Kasur battle. And please do not think I am criticizing the Army or its men. It’s not legitimate for those of us who are not soldiers to judge on the matter of bravery. Moreover, each battle is different. In 1965, for example, Pakistan had learned from the US how to centralize artillery fires. When you’re being blown apart by the simultaneous fire of 4-8 regiments of skillfully applied artillery, and you’re on open ground, running is perfectly natural. Also, in our case, the Army had doubled overnight in terms of divisions, many of which were still forming. Hark back to World War II, and you’ll see the US divisions earmarked for the invasion of Europe took 2-years to become battle-ready. True, the US Army expanded by a factor of 40 between 1939 and 1944, from 200,000 to 8-million. Nonetheless, the point is many Indian battalions were just not ready for combat in 1965. In 1971 the Army was ready after a 9-year expansion, and the performance difference was clear. So, back to our numbers. This table’s contents have been already discussed; it is only a reformulation of divisions in one table for ease of comparisons.
China, India, and Pakistan divisions 2018
(for China, three independent brigades are counted as equivalent to 1 division)
India
Pakistan
China
Max against India
3 armored
2 armored
5 armored
10 combined arms
13 mountain
8 partly mechanized
3 partly mechanized
1 mechanized
14 infantry
16 infantry
4 mechanized
24 mot/mech/inf
2 marine
2 airborne
2 airborne
38
25
35
12
As earlier, we’ve taken three Chinese brigades to equal one division.
For Pakistan, Corps Reserves XXX and IV Corps are counted as divisions, which they will become. 17, 37, and 40 are counted as partially mechanized. One infantry division is either raising or will be raised once its brigades have finished raising. I don’t think this is 34th Light Division (Rawalpindi) which is the CPEC protection division. Please note that after the Kargil 1999 affair, the Pakistan Army estimated it needed five more divisions for the defense of Pakistan, the above table accounts for those.
For India, that we’ve succeeded in partly mechanizing just 4 divisions in the 30-years after Brass Tacks shows how utterly incompetent is the GOI.
For the PLA, this estimate accounts for the 2017 PLA reductions and assumes each of 13 army groups will have six brigades, and the PLAAF’s airborne troops and the PLAN’s marine corps have six brigades each for a total of 90 brigades. At three brigades for a division, this equates to 30 divisions. I include six divisions that remain as divisions: 112th and 113th heavy mechanized (Central Command), 4, 6, 8, 11 Divisions in Xinjiang which may or may not be retained.
It is worth noting that the density of Indian land forces is a sparse one division per 200-km of live front.[210] [Though the source is old, we are using it solely to show India’s border lengths.] There are situations where divisions are closely deployed, such as three at Akhnoor-Jammu-Pathankot, where three divisions in peace and four in war protect just 135-km (length of National Highway 44, actual border is more). This means huge swathes of India’s hostile border are protected only by border paramilitary forces. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, if our regular divisions are mobile and focused on strike, and not tasked to hold the border. In which case, even 30 divisions in ten corps (5 mountain and 5 mechanized) would work for us; naturally, they would have to be properly equipped, at a huge cost. A mechanized corps would cost about $25-billion, and a mountain corps about $20-billion because the minimum 500 helicopters needed. With ten corps, we could take back Kashmir and more. Of course, neither is GOI prepared to temporarily give ground, or pay the $50-billion a year for 10-years for the army alone.
From the above table, India has 38 divisions versus Pakistan/China’s 37. In the past, China has employed 8 divisions directly against India excluding internal security and line of communication troops. Very approximately, in 1962 this was 3% of PLA divisions. In 1986-87 eight divisions might have been 6% of all PLA divisions because of reductions. The model used here assumes 33% because the Chinese Army has been severely reduced, and China’s logistic capability has jumped manifold, and it is training its ground forces to operate anywhere in the country.
We’ve already briefly mentioned that India does not have enough divisions for a decisive victory against Pakistan. Given the now prevailing 2-front situation, it follows that it cannot decisively against China either. You can quite rightly say: “but at least we can defend ourselves against both with our 38 divisions against Pakistan/China’s combined 35. Here’s the unfortunate reality. We cannot. The problem arises because of Pakistan; we can defend ourselves China. In 2-front situations, however, we need to pull China-front divisions to the west, which means we can defend against Pakistan only at the cost of weakening the China front. Again, we lack a 2-front capability.
A nominal deployment of divisions in the event of war is as below:
India
Xtra needed
Pakistan
Jammu and Kashmir (minus East Ladakh)
7
4
Srinagar, Jammu-Pathankot CI
2
1
-
Chenab-Sutluj
5
1
6
Multan/Sindh
5
1
6
Strike corps divisions
7
2
8
AHQ Reserves
-
1
26
5
25
India
Xtra needed
China
East Ladakh
1
1
2
Himachal/Uttarakhand
0
2
0
Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal
9
7
Strike corps divisions
2
2
12
3
12 or more
The above is not the actual deployment, just one of many possibilities. The Indian Army is severely constrained by its standing political orders than it cannot lose any ground to Pakistan, even to gain tactical advantages which can be turned into a strategic victory. To protect every bit of territory again Pakistan without weakening defense in the north, we need six more divisions. Pakistan strategy, conversely, plans to temporarily cede ground in the desert, in North Ladakh, and even in the critical north and south Punjab. Below is a reasonable estimate for the deployment of additional divisions if we want to win. The estimate depends on many factors; please treat it as illustrative.
Immediate need
Extra Needed (2022-2024)
Uri-Sonamarg
1 division
1 division
Poonch-Jammu
1 division
1 division
Jammu-Pathankot
1 divisions
2 divisions
Punjab
1 division
1 division
Desert
1 division
1 division
Ladakh, HP, UK
3 divisions
1 division
Mtn Strike
4 divisions
Strategic Reserve
9 divisions
Against Nepal
3 divisions
4th mech strike corps
3 divisions
8 divisions
divisions
Bring total to
46 divisions
72
The right column does not exactly match the deployment for the 72 divisions given as required in the introduction.
9. 4 Pakistan
This is a summary of the Pakistan Army’s formations and peacetime locations. There are now three commands, Northern, Central, Southern.
IIB = Independent Infantry Brigade
IAB = Independent Armored Brigade
MIB = Mechanized Infantry Brigade
Corps
Divisions
Brigades
GHQ Reserve
37th
2 Inf + 1 Armd
X Rawalpindi
Force Command Northern Areas
At least 4, maybe 5
12th
6, may be 7
19th (Corps Reserve)
3
23rd
4-5
Independent corps reserves
2 IIB, 1 IAB
XXX Gujranwala
8th
4
15th
4
Corps reserve (will become division)
2 IAB, 1 MIB
IV Lahore
10th
3
11th
3 + may be 1 IIB
Corps reserve (will become division)
1AB, 2 MIB + 1 IAB
XXXI Bahawalpur
14th
3 Inf
35th
3 Inf
26th Mechanized
2 armored, 1 mechanized bdes
Corps reserve
1 IAB, 2 IIB
V Karachi
16th
3 inf
18th
3 inf
25th Mechanized
2 armored, 1 mechanized bdes
Corps reserve
1 mechanized, 1 inf
II ARS Multan
1st Armored
2 armored, 1 mechanized
40th
1 armored, 2 inf
Corps reserve
1 armored brigade
Artillery Division
3 brigades
I ARN Kharian
6th Armored
2 armored, 1 mechanized
17th
1 armored, 2 infantry
2nd Artillery Division
3
XI
7th
3
9th
3
Corps reserve
2 IIB (may be nucleus of new division)
XII
33rd
3
41st
3
Corps reserve
2 IIB
Other divisions: 3rd and 4th Air Defense (operate in independent brigades); 5th Airborne (all SSG Battalions, not real division); 21st and 22nd Strategic Missile; 34th Light (protect N-forces).
[1] Treat the above with a confidence level of 90%. Divisions are all accounted for, but not necessarily all brigades.
[2] Pakistan now has at three Army Commands, Northern, Central, and Southern. One independent infantry brigade in X and in XII Corps may be Command reserves.
[3] I expect the corps reserves independent armored/mechanized brigades in XXX and IV Corps to be given division numbers; the probable hold-up is acquisition of self-propelled artillery. The division bases for 25 Mechanized and 26 Mechanized Divisions are small because both are composed of independent brigades. According to Mandeep Singh Bajwa, the base is HQ company, two signal companies, one SP artillery battalion, and an engineer company.
[4] Published Pakistan sources claim the following divisions as mechanized, in addition to 25th and 26th: 17th, 37th, 40th, 16th, and 18th. Nonetheless, while they may be mechanized, at present I have no evidence to suggest that 17th and 40th are any different from India’s RAPIDs, i.e., infantry with an integral armored brigade each (2 tank regiments plus 1 mechanized battalion, as opposed to India’s 2+2 structure). It is reasonable to assume that plans are underway to give an armored brigade each to 16th, 18th, and 37th Divisions.
Some additional points. (a) Pakistan has three brigades committed to protect Chinese facilities in Kashmir, NWFP, and Balochistan, and one to protect Karachi. They seem to be organized as security brigades, without artillery and armor; nonetheless, they are regular army; at least three of the brigades are nominally under 34th Light DIvision. In wartime, these will be available for the India front. Presumably insurgents will lie low if not, Chinese PAP units can replace them. (b) Somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 insurgents may volunteer for service in Kashmir. (c) Pakistan has a force of about 20,000 for protection of its N-facilities and missile groups, organized in battalions trained at Pakistan Army regimental centers. Many of these battalions will be available to reinforce the Pakistan Army. (d) Pakistan has regularized its Mujahid force as a regiment of the Pakistan Army. I do not know the strength of the new regiment, but pre-regularization, there were about 25 battalions on duty; of these five served with Pakistan forces in the plains, and the rest in Kashmir. (e) There are also several reserve Mujahid battalions, perhaps as many as 30. Added together, Pakistan could deploy ~65 more infantry battalions not counted as part of its regular forces. In Kashmir, this could turn the balance against India, particularly if insurgents join in. (f) Pakistan has an arrangement to quickly activate new infantry battalions from reservists.
Pakistan Defense Budget 2017-18 [211]
Of the total government budget of PNR 5.246- trillion, 19.4% or PNR 920-billion is for defense. This is 3.2% of GDP, and 21% of government spending, In its 2018-2019 budget, the Government of Pakistan has budgeted $9.6-billion U.S. (Rs. 1,100 billion) for the armed forces[212] – an increase of 18% in PNR (PNR114=USD1).