Key points from the conference:
1. Major Indian military challenges/strategies
a. "Cold start" (near-zero mobilization time) punitive limited ground offensive into Pakistan. Why a "cold start"? Fear of Pakistan nuclear missile attack into Indian mobilization bases.
b. Defense of India's extreme northeast against a surprise Chinese ground attack from Tibet (much of the India-China border remains in dispute). Challenges: lack of strategic warning, logistics support/reinforcement through the narrow "chicken neck" near Nepal.
c. Naval campaign in Bay of Bengal against Chinese naval forces, which might in the future have access to naval bases in Burma, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
d. Domestic Maoist insurgency which Indian police may not be able to contain.
e. Strategic nuclear balance between Pakistan and India could become unstable due to increased warhead count on both sides, increased missile quantity and accuracy, better ISR, and arrival of missile defenses.
2. Problems with Indian military modernization
a. Indian officer corps is highly professional, but
b. India's top civilian leadership has given minimal strategic guidance/grand strategy to the general staff.
c. India's parliament doesn't know and doesn't care about strategic or military issues.
d. India's civilian defense bureaucracy is no better.
e. Military acquisition programs lack any strategic coordination and are not tied to any doctrine or planning. Corruption in acquisition system is a major problem.
f. Indian military staff thinking seems stuck in the 1985 AirLand Battle concept, with little consideration given to indirect strategies, irregular warfare, hybrid techniques, cyber/electronic attack, etc.
3. Bottom line: Indian military modernization is a big story in Asia. India is far behind China both in capacity and its modernization effort. India needs deep political and bureaucratic reform before it will be able to adequately address the challenges and implement the strategies described in point #1.
Comments
Cynicism abounds. To me the the findings as presented require some refuting. As one of the few people who has translated Chinese military history of PLA attacks on Indian forces in 1962, I can't forsee huge attacks on India from China. Both places have huge logistics bottlenecks and require specialist personnel just to survive, let alone operate at those heights. For example, the major road between Tibet and Xinjiang is within range of Indian artillery and is easily blocked.
A Chinese surface fleet operating in the Bay of Bengal would be swamped by India's submarines and air power.
As for strategic guidance I don't think India is any worse or better off than many regional countries India's bureaucracy is notoriously slow and inefficient, and defence acquition has some programs that have attracted corruption claims. An Indian would only have to compare it with the proposed USAF air-to-air refuelling tanker to find a US comparison.
Given their scientific expertise, software and computer expertise, they understand information operations, command and control warfare, and they have been fighting insurgences since partition so have a huge knowledge of irregular warfare.
Finally, as for India being stuck in the 1985 Air-Land Battle concept, this combined arms mechanized staretgy suits erxactly the external threat that India forsees. C2W and IO are tools for their strategy. India's major external threats have huge mechanized armies, and the terrain offers little in the way of manuever warfare at the operational level.
The conclusions, as presented, fail to appreciate the geo-political situation facing India on its northern borders.
Thank you for the article, and please excuse my sarcasm, but I wonder what the sudden emphasis on this issue is?
One need only look back and see India has unresolved border disputes with Pakistan and China, two countries that are allies and that India has fought wars with over those disputes, and lost territory to each, as a result of a lack of military capability.
Historically there has never been much access to the dynastic political parties of India by the Indian military. Has something changed?