Analysis of India's Ability to Fight a 2-front War 2018
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Bomb
Number
Yield in KT
In service
Mk. 3
120
18 -45
Produced 1947-48, out 1950
Mk. 4
550
1 to 31
Produced 1949-51, out 1953
Mk. 5 [1]
140
6 to 120
1952-63
Mk. 5 [2]
72 given to RAF
As above
Mk. 6
1100
8 to 160
1951-55
Mk. 7
1700
8 to 61
Produced 1952-63, out 1967
Mk. 8
40
25 – 30
1952-53
Mk. 9
80
15
Produced 1952-53
Two points. Mark 3 was hard to handle, but presumably, it was available, though decommissioned. The variable yields given are the range available, a range had multiple yields. Mk. 9 was fired from 280mm cannon, only 20 guns made.
The table suggests that at some point in the Korean War, the US had all or some of the different bombs, to the amount of perhaps 2000. There thus was no shortage of bombs: plenty to destroy the Soviet Union and China, as well as Chinese forces in Korea. Some may raise the point about Korea’s mountain terrain and the consequent mitigation effect. That is countered by using more bombs.
The McNamara Fallacy
Given that the Indian military seems to have fallen in love with the American system of higher war management, this is a good time to discuss the McNamara Fallacy as enunciated by Daniel Yankelovitch:[434]
Measure whatever can be easily measured.
Disregard that which cannot be measured easily.
Presume that which cannot be measured easily is not important.
Presume that which cannot be measured easily does not exist.
Applied to the Second Indochina War, history informs us how the McNamara approached worked. To state the results delicately, it was a complete, utter failure. Just as the fall of Singapore 1941 opened the eyes of the non-white British Empire to the realization a colored race could ignominiously defeat the white man, thus unraveling four hundred years of British invincibility and prestige, the US defeat in Second China showed the Third World small men in black pajamas could defeat the Number One world power and has created endless problems since then. Now, the Third World narrative takeaway from Vietnam is completely wrong. Guerillas did not defeat the US. The PAVN was a regular crack army, which the US twice destroyed, in 1968 and 1972. The real lesson was that in a war of limited objectives, the political is at least as important as the military, perhaps more. In true McNamara style, the US approached the war as a pure production exercise. Kill enough of the enemy that he realizes he cannot win on the battlefield and force him to the negotiating table. The problem: Hanoi knew it could not militarily defeat the US. It aimed to do to the Americans what it did to the French: sufficiently demoralize them so that that departing becomes a preferred option. The North Vietnamese error, for which they suffered grievously, was that the Americans were not the French. The US was fighting in Vietnam for none of the traditional reasons nations have gone to war: money, in the form of land and loot. Even the War of the American Revolution was about money; specifically, taxes and access to British home markets. Money and markets were the biggest factorss in the US Civil War. This is a controversial assertion because the North insists it fought for the freedom and equality of oppressed slaves. The southern economy, as dependent on slave labor. Free the slaves, and you destroy the wealth of their owners.
The Cold War, however, was for the US a total war of ideology. There was nothing material to be gained; indeed, the US was determined the Europeans should not get to retain their colonies after the war. The US approach to the Cold War as an existential fight for God and Democracy, in fact, turned the US from its revolutionary roots and became the most reactionary power of the modern era. But Ho Chi Minh became a communist after he failed seven times to be heard by the League of Nations on his plea that the League owed it to the Indochinese to force France out. US President Woodrow Wilson, the father of the League of Nations, introduced the concept of self-determination, but at the time it was not accepted by the colonial powers. Once Ho became a communist, and once even as the Second World War was in progress, Russia in the clothing of the Soviet Union showed its imperialism, Ho’s fate was sealed with guilt by association.
It is folkloric to believe Ho and Giap were military geniuses. The truth is they were unbelievably stupid. Had they done in 1968 after the Tet defeat, what they did in 1972, i.e., appear to give the US an “honorable” exit, and then taken over the South, they would have achieved their objectives at a fraction of the price. They needlessly prolonged the war and made their people suffer bitterly for no reason. Instead of following Sun Tzu and Mao, they went headlong into all-out conventional war twice and were smashed twice.
Fortunately for India, our senior leaders, military and political, get severe headaches when asked to do data-based thinking. Because war is a human endeavor, not a technical problem like building a mission to Mars, India will not suffer the damage that the US did because of McNamara. Incidentally, he was a brilliant manager, a patriot who loved his country above all, who realized by 1965 military victory was impossible. As president of Ford Motors, he proved the worth of his analytical approach. And to give the man credit, using his data analysis, wrong as it was in depicting reality, he quickly understood the US was not going to win.
18. Thoughts on the next war
18.1 Only Pakistan gains from another war
18.2 Two scenarios for the next war
18.1 Except for Pakistan, India and China have little to gain by means of war
Right from the start I must state that unless China, India, or Pakistan makes a mistake, it’s difficult to see a new general war. India will “adjust” to the Dragon’s sulfurous red embrace, we’re not about to take on a Great Power which soon will become a super-power. That’s not our style, and from my basic understanding of Indian history, this has never been our style. Our past empires have been constructed within the geographical boundaries of India, which I define as South Asia. The Cholas were the only ones to cross the Black Water, and that might have been because they couldn’t expand northwards. Indians have never had a great desire to venture outside their neighborhood or any wish to conquer the world. There could be many reasons for this. We are a live-and-let-live culture. Hinduism has no wish to convert anyone. Until the Europeans invaded us with their superior technology starting around 1600, India was a fabulously rich land that did not covet anyone’s natural resources or their land. Our mind-set is defensive. Yes, for an allegedly non-violent and peaceful people we sure had an amazing number of wars at least since about 1000 BC, but the wars were internecine, amongst ourselves. I offer these explanations only based on observed Indian history; they are intuitive speculations, no more.
As for Pakistan, as I have said earlier and repeat, please to note that from 1999 onward, we’ve left it to the US to deal with Pakistan: 1999, 2001-02, 2008, the Kashmir insurgency 1987-continuing. We are not about to recover POK or East Ladakh, so we’re not going to start a war. But: while I am reasonably confident we will be logical, it’s possible Pakistan and/or China might not be logical, and we get a war we did not start. What then?
Well, our unofficial doctrine is that foreign intervention will become effective in 7-10 days, I’ve even heard as few as 5-days. The minute shooting starts, Uncle Sam will come hotfooting it to South Asia and take credit for stopping another war and feeling very pleased with himself. Why Uncle should hot-foot it anywhere considering the problems Americans have at home is beyond me. I suppose everyone wants to feel important, and Uncle is no exception. Currently no one wants to get into trouble with Uncle by attacking India. This will change as China rises to superpower status because
it considers South Asia as part of its direct sphere of influence, and at some point, it will fight to keep the US out. Until then, coming up with realistic scenarios for the next war is difficult. But: this is all based on the assumption India continues holding together internally. If we start having severe trouble within, then all bets are off.
This said, who acts logically? The classic modern example is the onset of World War I which no one wanted, even Austria-Hungary and Serbia, which inadvertently lit the flames. Then came Versailles 1919. Those warning the onerous peace imposed would inevitably lead to war were ignored. That led to World War II which started out with a logical objective, the reunification of German majority territories detached by Versailles. But then Britain illogically gave a security guarantee to Poland over German plans to reincorporate Danzig, and we got the world war. Rationally Hitler could not win against the USSR and Japan against the US. Yet they had their own reasons which seemed rational to them and the war expanded. Rationally, the Soviets and the Chinese should have known they could not push the US out of South Korea. That did not deter them. The entire US war in Indochina was fought irrationally. The 1967 Arab-Israeli War was somewhat akin to 1914: Egypt started an escalation chain which it should have known would lead to its defeat. Of course, Soviet disinformation that Israel was about to attack played a key role, but in every crisis one side or the other can be counted on to make a wrong assessment. The 1973 War came about because the Israelis rationally assumed Egypt would not attack. They missed the point that Cairo’s objectives were limited. No India-Pakistan war had been rational; Pakistan cannot defeat India because of the disparity in size, but that hasn’t stopped Pakistan from trying. And so on.
The epitome of irrationality in the 21st Century is the US. For example, for some reason, it has decided Shia Iran is its enemy in the Mideast, whereas the real enemy are the terrorism-sponsoring Sunni states. Since 2001 the US has been fighting the Taliban, who were never America’s enemy and to this day have not retaliated against the US invasion by attacking America. What seems logical at the time may be viewed quite differently latter. For example, in 1914 why did Britain change its centuries old policy of not allying with foreign states except for expediency in wartime, and why did it allow itself to be dragged into a disastrous war by guaranteeing Belgian neutrality? Why did France support Britain in September 1939 when its treaty with Britain was never authorized by the British cabinet? Today we say the rise of Germany violated Britain’s rule that no one power should dominate western Europe. But Germany was not Britain or France’s enemy. It wanted to expand to the east, reducing the rise of communist USSR, which was the real enemy of the capitalist west. Hitler did his absolute best not to fight with Britain, but after London stupidly guaranteed Poland’s neutrality, Hitler became Britain’s enemy, because Poland was a road stop on the route to Moscow. Even after Poland, Hitler tried desperately to avoid war with Britain. Was it rational for Hitler to declare war on the USSR? It seemed to him at the time he had no choice, but what if he had declared war on Japan instead, his nominal ally that did not lift a finger to help him when he invaded Russia? And so on. We should focus less on expecting logical actions from other nations, including our own, and choose to be ready to meet all threats even if they appear to be illogical. Especially since we prided ourselves on belonging to no bloc. Now, we’ve ended up enmeshed as a very junior partner in an alliance with the US.
Of our two major adversaries, China is reasonably logical. It became irrational in 1979 and was defeated by the Vietnamese, though the Chinese insist they won. Nonetheless, its policy is to intimidate by threatening force, not by using force. Still, as China grows more powerful, it seems to be become more impatient. It is conceivable that a situation arises where we cannot back down, say if China insists we give up our claim to East Ladakh and sign a treaty demarcating the border as it sees fit. That could result in a war at some future point.
Next, Pakistan has never acted logically. In 1947-48 it captured all North Kashmir and a significant part of West Kashmir. It could have accepted India’s offers to settle based on the 1948 cease-fire line. But irrationally – from our viewpoint – it has steadily refused. There may be rational reasons from its side; for example, if there is peace, the Pakistan military cannot rule the roost. But when a country’s leaders take it along a wrong path for their narrow interests, is this rational? Further, there was no logic in any of the big wars of the 20th Century, including World War I and II, Korea, and Vietnam. I can make a case that none of the US’s wars since the start of the 21st Century have been logical. So why do people go to war in the first place? Because we convince ourselves: “this time it will be different”. Because humans are not particularly logical, it becomes difficult to come up with some reasonably logical casus belli.
Logic/Illogic Matrix India-Pakistan-China
War
India
Pakistan
China
1947-48
Illogically assumes India will not counter
1959-62
Illogically assumes China will not fight
Logically assumes it
will beat India in
limited war
1965
Illogically assumes India will not cross IB
Logically assumes it can panic India
1971
Logically assumes it can intervene in East Pakistan
Illogically assumes it can hold both fronts
Logically decides it cannot intervene
1979
Illogically assumes it can win against Vietnam
1984
Logically assumes it can seize Northern Areas
1987
Logically assumes it can seize Northern Areas
1987-90
Illogically assumes it can pacify Sri Lanka
1988
Logically assumes it can defeat Maldives coup
1999
Illogically assumes it can seize territory Kargil
2001-02
Illogically assumes it can punish Pakistan for terror attack
2008
Logically assumes it can do to retaliate against Mumbai attack
2008-18
Logically assumes it can keep encroaching on India
2016
Illogically assumes it can punish Pakistan for terrorist support by launching micro-size raid
2017
Thinks it has stopped China at Doklam
Speculative scenarios for a future casus belli
2018-onward
India finds it cannot back down in the face of a Chinese and/or Pakistan provocation
Pakistan uses 60,000-100,000 jihadis to take Kashmir
China feels so disrespected by India it decides to teach India a lesson
2025-onward
India, fearful of facing China on its own becomes a tight ally of the US
Pakistan military initiates war with India after India joins with Pakistan civil government to cut the power of the military
China feels it must break the Indo-US alliance by attacking the weaker partner, India
2030-onward
India is forced to react to a major exodus of Pakistan as Islamists look to take over the country
China, impatient we won’t settle the border issue on its terms, uses force to make us comply
2035-onward
India now has 50% of China’s GDP and refuses to back down
Pakistan is ruled by jihadis, and decides to go to war to “take back” northwest India as properly belonging to Islamic rulers
Because of severe Indian instability, Pakistan/China see opportunity to grab Kashmir/Arunachal Pradesh
2040-onward
Thanks to the Artificial Intelligence revolution, the US is resurgent and demands India, if it wants continued US protection, pull its weight in the Quadrilateral Agreement
2045-onward
Chinese aggression against Australia forces India to join Japan-US in defending Australia
China moves to incorporate Australia’s natural resources, Australia invokes the Quadrilateral charter
2050-onward
India allies with Japan after US turns isolationist, Tokyo asks for Indian help following severe clashes in China’s Near Seas
2070-onward
India now has 100% of China’s GDP and decides it wants to be a superpower too, colliding with China in the Indian Ocean, South Asia, South East Asia, and China west of the 2nd Island Chain
There will be a common thread that runs through the illogical actions, which can in today’s terms be named the Cold Start Syndrome: the flawed idea that one side can start and stop war as if it controls the stage. Folks forget the adage “the enemy also has a vote.” The US has made the same mistake since Somalia 1993, and assuming because it is so powerful it need not consider the enemy. Russia made the mistake in Chechnya and Ukraine. The Chinese made the mistake in 1979 with Vietnam and did not learn its lesson because now it thinks it can force India to do what it wants. Ditto India and Cold Start, which is unworkable from the word go. The Saudis, with all their high-tech weapons, thought they’d quickly defeat the Yemen rebels. Now they’re running out of targets, the population is starving with massive outbreaks of disease, but the rebels still refuse to yield.