War Anniversaries: Building Deterrence to Keep the Peace

War anniversaries, whether they end in victory or defeat or stalemate are occasions to remember and honour the memory of the martyrs.  They are also the time to reflect over politico-military lessons learnt in order to help improve deterrence by evaluating the capabilities of one’s military and improve upon them where possible.  Preparing well for combat and displaying national will to use available combat potential helps keep the peace. October 2012 happens to be the 50th anniversary of the beginning of India’s 1962 border war with China as also the 25th anniversary of the IPKF military embroilment with the LTTE in Sri Lanka.

 

A recent statement made by Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne that application of air power would have decisively influenced the outcome of the 1962 war is thus only a statement of fact. This statement is not chest thumping or war mongering as some opinion is doing the rounds, lately.  In fact, use of air power would have resulted in a decisive military defeat for the LTTE as early as 1987 when Operation Pawan began.  But it is to the credit of the IPKF that they continued to pursue a difficult war hugely limited by considerations of not using preponderant fire power leave alone air power.  Not many realise that even in small arms weaponry, IPKF was disadvantaged by Self Loading Rifles against the superior AK-47 series in possession of the LTTE. Talking to those who have served in Sri Lanka, there are many who believe that air power could have been used in the sparsely populated jungles against known LTTE cemented bunkers, particularly in the Vanni jungles with no collateral damage. In the end 1200 Indian soldiers attained martyrdom and helped keep the peace. There can be no arguments that the IPKF did achieve the political aims decreed to them as also severely dented the military capabilities of the LTTE.  

 

There are some myths doing the rounds about our other engagement 50 years ago. Contrary to some views, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was a well trained, well equipped and experienced army.  It had just fought the United States to a stalemate in Korea and its army in 1962 was led by a very able veteran of the Korean war. It certainly was no small action as the PLA deployed its Tibetan 419 Unit comprising the 154th, 155th and 157th regiments and its 130th Division from Sichuan in the eastern sector in NEFA and approximately two divisions in the Western sector. The official Chinese History penned by Jiang Siyi and Li Hui in 1994 calls it ‘zhong yin bianjing ziwei fanji zuozhan shi (An operational History of the China-India Border Counterattack in Self Defence). Approximately 5000 Indian soldiers were martyred or declared missing (many were taken as POWs) in the fighting. People will have a hard time to understand how so many could have died or captured in a ‘raid’ across the Himalayas as some would have us believe it. 

 

War outcomes, too, are important. That is why in national interest one must analyse outcomes. Had the 1962 war outcome been favourable, one really wonders if China would have mobilised troops on our Northern borders during a critical moment in our 1965 war or whether even Pakistan would have attempted the war itself. 

 

A war is certainly not round the corner. But predicting wars, their cause and outcomes are perhaps the most difficult thing to do.  Good trade between countries in today’s world certainly does not prevent relations from plummeting as they have in East Asia where the Pacific Ocean, today, is anything but Pacific, where China enjoys far bigger volumes of trade with ASEAN, with Japan and South Korea, at least three times more than that with India.  And some of these nations like South Korea and Taiwan are imbued with a deep sense of national urgency to spur economic development not only to benefit its peoples but also to boost their national defence budgets with an eye on North Korea and China’s growing military capability, respectively.

 

So let us trade with China and anybody else for that matter. That’s one job to do. But the other is to build deterrence to prevent wars in the first place and not be found wanting if they are thrust upon us.  A food for thought for naysayers – Chinese military spending has increased 30 times in the last 24 years and at its present rate of military spending it will outstrip Indian military spending by trillions of dollars by 2050. Time to focus attention and national will on the Prime Minister’s warning in August 2012 that a weak economic growth will threaten national security.   

 

 

Views expressed are personal