Analysis of India's Ability to Fight a 2-front War 2018

by Ravi Rikhye

  A technical person cannot take seriously a paper titled “Military Budgets in India and Pakistan: Trajectories, Priorities, and Risks.” This is a fine title, and quite meaningless. I should know, being an academic all my life and writing endless papers. One objection – there are many - the word “risks” injects a political element into something that should be purely a technical work. Why should not this young scholar discuss political issues? Because then the paper is about international relations, not defense spending.

  The quote is by another scholar, from the preface. It is a good summary of the paper.

  Nonetheless, Pakistan will feel increasingly uncomfortable with growing defense budget differentials over time. The tradeoffs between spending for conventional and internal security capabilities on the one hand, and for nuclear capabilities on the other, are likely to grow as US military assistance, Coalition Support Funds, and subsidized financing for arms sales diminish. Growing support from China is unlikely to cover these shortfalls. Absent a reconsideration of the military utility of nuclear weapons in Pakistan’s overall defense posture, and absent reconciliation with India, Rawalpindi’s discomfort with growing conventional force disparities could lead to increased reliance on nuclear weapons.” (p. 3.)

  Let us break this down in detail: “growing defense budget differentials over time.” Pakistan has always had to live with a huge differential from independence because it has a much smaller economy. India’s defense spending as a percentage of GDP has halved over the last 30-years or so. The differential has lessened, not grown. “tradeoffs.” The US has provided little assistance for weapons, and though initially Pakistan overbilled the US for the Afghan war, the US caught on and reduced that. The US wasn’t paying much, to begin with. “China is unlikely to cover these shortfalls”: how is this judgement reached? In the absence of hard information, this becomes a throwaway catch phrase so beloved of American journalists. Indications are that China has become increasingly involved in Pakistani defense, a point elaborated at multiple points in this analysis. “Discomfort with growing conventional force disparities”: Except for 1954-62, these disparities have always been there. Even then, they existed because of India’s refusal to spend on defense until 1963. “Increased reliance on nuclear weapons.” In the worst-case scenario, total war declared by India and prosecuted to the end, Pakistan has never had an effective defense until nuclear weapons. Except this is meaningless because India accepts the legitimacy of Pakistan and does not want to erase it. If Pakistan wasn’t always trying to get Indian Kashmir and would accept the ceasefire line, there would be no conflict with Pakistan. It is wholly understandable a smaller power, one that has been reduced in size by its much bigger neighbor would constantly worry about India. Indians, however, would hardly spend any thought on Pakistan but for the Kashmir insurgency.

  To say SIPRI in 2015 said Pakistan is spending 40% more than its announced budget is also meaningless because it assumes SIPRI knows Pakistan’s real defense budget. Unless the think-tank has access to classified documents, which seems unlikely, it cannot know how much the additional spending amounts to. This is false precision. Given SIPRI’s high reputation and the frequency with which its data appears in academic studies, it should not be doing this. Pakistan does not include pensions in its defense budget, and this is perfectly legitimate. The US, for example, does not include Veterans Administration spending in the defense budget. This one budget head alone adds almost 25% to the US defense budget. Through in Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons spending, and that part of Homeland Security that relates to difficulties at home caused by America’s endless wars abroad, and the US is “hiding” a lot more than 40%. There is evidence that big ticket weapons purchased by Pakistan are funded under other budget heads. Not having gone into this in depth, I cannot give figures. Gulf partners may give Pakistan some money. As for China, for long Beijing did not make arms grants and still may not. But considering China is putting in $110-billion worth of economic investment under its one-belt-one-road initiative, it is probably reasonable to assume that China is subsidizing arms purchases if only because it is cheaper to do this than for China to offset India’s defense spending. For example, the eight Hangor II submarine and four frigate deal with China is for $5-billion. We can reasonably assume there is a subsidy in that deal.

  Regarding Coalition Support Funds, which are reimbursement for Pakistan counterinsurgency operations conducted on the US’s behalf, Pakistan has gotten $14-billion since 2002. This looks like a huge figure. But it is less than $800-million a year. For example, that is the figure for US Fiscal Year 2018, and it amounts to 10% of Pakistan’s announced defense budget. If the US was to stop this reimbursement, Pakistan would respond by halting counterinsurgency done on the US behalf. The loss would be in the range of $200-million/year, assuming 25% fiddling despite enhanced US audit. This is insignificant. FMF 2002-2018 is $4.186-billion.[424] This has three categories: Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Financing, Excess Defense Articles. Sorting out the categories for Pakistan will not further the purpose of this analysis, but the important thing to note is that while it has a grant component, mostly Pakistan must pay. For example, the eight F-16s held up involves only subsidized financing and is not a grant. I haven’t calculated Pakistan FMF sonce 2002 in 2018 dollars, but likely it is around $6-billion. Is that a lot? Well, it’s enough to buy 20 F-16s (life-cycle), which for 16 years of alliance with the US seems quite pathetic.

  There is no basis for saying the reduction of US aid may lead Pakistan to a greater reliance on nuclear-weapons. Difficult as it may be for US academics to accept, America is not the center of Pakistan’s universe, China is. In its quest to win over India, the US has necessarily had to reduce its involvement in Pakistan. The Pakistan Navy has just one US warship, used for training, and in very poor shape. Its air force of 19 fighter squadrons has four squadrons on US aircraft. Its air transport fleet is primarily American. In its army, Pakistan’s self-propelled howitzers are American, as are now obsolete attack helicopters and 15 new on order. Against that, it appears Pakistan is inducting 30 Turkish attack helicopter, plus some from Russia. Pakistan uses the US Harpoon surface-to-surface missile, replaceable by at least 4-6 types from other countries. Pakistan has a large number of armored personnel carriers of US origin, mainly second-hand from Europe or built in Pakistan; there is no complex technology to be replaced should the relationship with the US ends. Mason says:

  “Absent a reevaluation of the utility of nuclear weapons and a reconciliation process with India, the role of nuclear weapons in Pakistan’s defense posture is likely to increase, heightening national security dilemmas. India’s relative resource advantage will continue to feed Pakistan’s worst-case perceptions of the conventional military balance. It is unlikely that Rawalpindi will be persuaded by arguments that India’s conventional warfighting advantages are not as great as they appear on paper.” (p. 8)

  “Absent a reevaluation…”. How does increased reliance on nuclear weapons heighten Pakistan’s national security dilemmas? A dilemma arises when there is no good choice between alternatives. Given India’s 10x greater GDP, Pakistan has no alternatives to discuss: nuclear weapons are critical to its survival. Whether there are ten warheads of one hundred, they are Pakistan’s ultimate defense against an Indian attempt to defeat, disarm, and dismember Pakistan. There is no increased reliance; indeed, Pakistan is conventionally stronger than it has ever been, and for the first time matches India along their border. Reliance is reduced. “It is unlikely that Rawalpindi will be persuaded…”. This is perceptive, but also pointless. Who is trying to persuade Pakistan not to rely on nuclear weapons? India has no interest in doing this, and neither does China. Perhaps the US has a stake.

  17.4 Overinsuring based on exaggerated evaluation

  17.4.1 US continental air defense 1960 [425]

  Consider the orbat of the US’s continental air defense network to protect against Soviet bombers.

  44 Fighte
r Squadrons [down from a peak of 169 active/reserve squadrons)

  102 Fighter Squadron equivalents on call from Tactical Air Command

  8 Bomarc long range SAM squadrons, batteries, TO 56 missiles each, 7-10-KT warheads, solid fuel version 700-km range at Mach 2.5+. The plan was for 52 squadrons each with 120 missiles, but development delays plus threat shifting from bombers to ICBM rendered missile obsolete.

  274 Nike Ajax/Hercules SAM batteries (Hercules[426]: 140-km range, warheads 2 KT, 20 KT, 40 KT or 600- to 1000-lb 1000-lb HE; battery 16 launchers, appears that reloads were available from underground bunkers. 25,000 Hercules were manufactured, or 91 missiles per battery. This would seem adequate for 3 missiles/launcher plus as many more for firing and readiness testing.

  182 radar warning and control stations (1957)

  13 Airborne Warning & Control squadrons

  Semi-Automatic Ground Environment

  This adds up to ~3000 fighters and 4000 missile launchers. The threat? A Soviet heavy bomber force of 100-200 bombers and tankers.[427] In any case, a US first strike would have wiped out most Soviet bombers before they got airborne. A secondary problem was that after about 1954 or so, the Soviets could retaliate against Western Europe. One cannot imagine Changez Khan worrying about his allies in the event of blowback from his conquests, or communists if they had had the opportunity.

  § Until the British Empire, Changez held the record for the largest world empire, reaching 24-million/km2 at its 1309 AD peak. Admittedly, a lot of that was lightly populated grassland; still, one must give the man his due. The Russian Empire, in the sense of territory controlled by a king, equaled that of the Mongols. The British were in a class of their own: 38-million/km2. In terms of alliance systems, the US world empire 2018 was probably 67-million/km2, including the Americas, Western Europe, Australasia, the Middle East/North Africa (minus Libya)/West Africa, and the East Asian periphery.

  North America

  25

  Central/South America

  19

  Western Europe

  4

  Middle East/Africa

  ~10

  East Asia

  ~3 Japan, ROC, Philippines, Thailand, ROK

  Australasia

  8

  Incorrect assessment of why the US did not use N-weapons in Korea

  It may be noted that when China directly fought the US in Korea, it had no nuclear weapons. This was taking a big risk which, in the event, paid off as the US did not use N-weapons. Robert Farley[428] gives three factors to explain US restraint: (a) moral; (b) need to conserve the then small N-arsenal; and (c) the possibility of Chinese escalation and of massive Soviet intervention on China’s behalf. The first is plausible; the others are not. This is discussed in more detail because it helps the discussion of how N-nations behave in war, and as an example to the young defense analyst on how analysis is conducted.

  1. At its peak, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army in Korea consisted of about 26 army corps; of which seven were committed to the defense of the two coasts, to counter a possible US amphibious invasion. This is 78 divisions and possibly more, as some corps had four divisions instead of the standard three. Since the PLA consisted of 253 divisions, the assumption it had massive uncommitted reserves is understandable. That does not, however, translate into a large number of divisions capable of taking the field and fighting a first-class enemy with absolute control of the air and the sea. China’s five Field Armies (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and North China) had 70 corps with 210 divisions in 1950. Many of the corps were assigned to pacification, particularly in Tibet and Sinkiang; of course, some corps did rotate through Korea. Many other divisions were on internal security. The Civil War had, after all, ended only months before the Korean War. Especially in a very large army, many divisions will not be at 100% readiness. In World War II, the Soviets had 800 divisions at peak, but divisions in combat averaged 5-6,000 men, half of the authorized strength. Further, as happened with US 7th Army Europe during the Vietnam War, specialists are always in short supply. The constant withdrawals to keep the eight Army divisions in Vietnam to strength severely degraded US 7th Army and Continental US strategic reserve formations. The US Army increased from 16 to 20 divisions to meet the increased demands of the combat theatre. With five in Europe, 13 of the 20 divisions were forward deployed. Had two more divisions been required, it is doubtful they could have been arranged other than mobilizing the National Guard, which was politically inexpedient. Non-deployed divisions become a reserve for training and providing fillers for the front. China used its non-deployed divisions to rotate, relieving exhausted or destroyed formations. The war was 30-months, but a lot of the time it was very high intensity for the Chinese because of the US’s firepower. You cannot keep divisions on the line for all 30-months.

  2. Just because you have available troops, does not mean you can deploy them. At the 38th Parallel, Korea’s land width is 250-km. With 78 divisions plus armor, artillery, engineer, railroad construction, line of communication troops, that is one division per 3-kilometers. In other words, the Chinese were probably at a limit in terms of deployable and supportable troops. Otherwise, logically they would have been expected to deploy more to get an advantage over the US/ROK. Incidentally, a Chinese military source says PRC’s 1950 GDP was $10-billion,[429] but then claims that just 3% of the national income of 200-billion Yuan ($33-billion at exchange rate of Yuan 6 = USD) for the period of the war was spent on the war. Plus it borrowed $1.6-billion from the USSR and repaid half. That totals $1.8-billion for the year, which seems most unlikely. India’s 1950 GDP was $23-billion, double PRC. [430] This is unsurprising because China had spent 20-years at war in its territory. The poorer a nation, the greater the GDP devoted to individual sustenance and the smaller the GDP percentage the government can take. China was very poor at that time. Countries have spent 40-60% of GDP on defense. For example, in 1943 Germany spent 61%, UK spent 63%.[431] Indian readers of British young adult books written in the 1940s and 1950s may remember the characters’ never-ending obsession with food. Though the British were never short of calories during the war years, in terms of meat, eggs, and sugar, they were starved. The extreme high percentage is sustainable if a nation’s survivable is at stake, but not for a limited war. The same constraint, to a lesser degree, affected the US. From its World War II peak of 41% of GDP, by 1948 the US cut spending to 7.2%. [432] Because of the Cold War and Korean War, spending went up to 15%. Increasing more would likely have created political problems: the American people looked forward to the fruits of peace, and the stakes were not core ones.

  3. The assumption that the Soviets could have sent massive armies to help China is an attribution error:

  The Soviet Union and China are communist states

  China is engaged in a military struggle with the US

  Therefore, the Soviets will go any length to help China

  Indeed, the Soviets and Chinese were communists, but of different creeds. Protestants and Catholics are both Christian, yet they suffered many schisms starting 400-years after the death of Jesus which resulted in their killing each other. Before the 16th Century schism, there were wars against sects declared heretical by Rome, such as the Cathars and the Hus. With the US ideology gets mixed up with the national interest and makes it harder to expect rational behavior. These days, of course, “democracy promotion” is considered a key national interest. What next? If US going to start invading other nations because women are being badly treated? For the Soviets, who “inherited” North Korea from the destroyed Japanese Empire in 1945, creating trouble for the US in 1950-53 was certainly a desirable goal. But Korea was a non-core interest for the Soviet Union. Helping China required a favorable cost-benefit ratio. Sending arms, advisors, pilots was inexpensive. Sending its own divisions – assuming China asked – would have sharply reduced the benefit. And for what purpose? To help a friend who was already ideologically wobbly? And the Soviets, faced with rebuilding their country destroyed from the Polish
border to the line Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad-Crimea, plus recovering from the loss of 20+ million soldiers and civilians – most due to their own stupidities, was now to remobilize to fight seven thousand kilometers from Moscow? This seems implausible. Further, Korea’s terrain forces channeling of forces along a few axes, highly vulnerable to US air interdiction.

  4. The US could not afford to use its limited stockpile of N-weapons. With no disrespect meant to anyone, this statement that the US N-weapon stockpile was too small to risk use in Korea is flat wrong. The clue was my recollection of having read somewhere that as of August 1945, the US had the capability of building one bomb a month but ramping up to three a month for the amphibious invasion of Japan in 1946. That led me to question the figure of a US stockpile of three hundred bombs. Even then, not even the communists with their conscript armies could have continued fighting after – say – 50 bombs were dropped on them, if only because they would know Chinese cities would be next. The Japanese generals would, yes, have continued fighting to the last person in Japan, to satisfy their warrior code. But their code was not the Chinese code, and it violated several percepts of both Mao and Sun Tzu, including the one on preserving your forces by withdrawing in the face of an overwhelmingly strong enemy. India too could have done better had it followed Mao/Sun Tzu in 1962, but that is a different story. And to imagine the Soviets invading Western Europe in case the US N-bombed China is to depart the realms of reality for the seas of fantasy. Fifty bombs against China would have left 200 for the Soviet Union, and fifty in reserve. Second, the point is moot because the US had significantly more than more than 300 weapons. To summarize, in the period 1950-1953, the US arsenal had: [433]