The Galwan Battle

After 100 days of deep freeze, the world was getting reshaped (un)predictably with mankind coming out battered and bruised, but unfortunately madder and apparently not seeming to have learnt any substantial lessons. On the night of 15-16 June, 20 Indian soldiers got martyred in a bloody gunless eyeball-to-eyeball medieval era hand-combat and confrontation along LAC in Galwan Valley in Eastern Ladhak. It was a fierce physical confrontation, in fact the first one since 1975 when there are casualties in the dispute. So its criticality can’t be missed.

India honors its dead; the PLA keeps their casualty secret. They say that they are not releasing the number of dead on their side lest people of both countries compare the number of fatalities leading to flaring of emotions, thus adding fuel to the fire. Hypothetically the goal appears pretty decent, but can a dictatorial communist regime be expected to be so pure in intention? They say it is a sign of their being ‘responsible’. When does a power-centric dictatorial group, eager to manipulate the lives of millions as per few rigid lines in the red book, behaves ‘responsibly’? So the PLA soldiers who died for the party’s cause will be buried unknown. One can very well imagine the level of secrecy in a dictatorial government by the fact that the Chinese casualties suffered in the 1962 war were inconspicuously shared in internal military history documents in 1990s only. Perhaps they drill it in the minds of their armed cadres that dying unknown serves the cause of the revolution.  

However, even such ‘responsible’ behavior cannot stop people from using their brains to put up conjectures. An American media report says China lost 35 soldiers. We can have our own justifications for systematic, organized dying. Fighting for a democratic nation helps man. The Indian soldiers get tear-eyed farewells with full state honor. There are elaborate funeral processions and ceremonies organized by the grateful nation. The wards of the martyred soldiers are openly rewarded in terms of monetary help and jobs. The highest of the high bow their head in salutation and gratitude.

The fallen PLA soldiers on the contrary get anonymous graves and their wards threatened from opening out to the public on the issue. They die unknown, Indian soldiers die with the entire country singing farewell songs. Well, in my opinion, a soldier in the former case will have more reason to give his all for his beloved country. In the latter, it’s merely an intimidating duty forced down by an authoritarian state.

In India, the news of the Galwan Valley skirmish and the death of soldiers prevailed over all Corona doomsday talk. People just forgot Corona in one swift lot and condemned Chinese aggression. The news media and social media were boiling with the entire country’s common man’s fusillade against the Chinese. Boycot China movement built up. Xi Jinping’s effigies were burnt. People filmed their brave efforts of smashing Chinese products including TV sets. Indians these days are pretty vocal for the cause of the nation, especially if it involves safe, harmless battles on the social media.

Unlike Kargil, the Indian journalists were spared from their frontline duties to cover the daily routine of the war. This time there was no coverage of what actually was happening on the border. It was kept away from the public scrutiny. A direct reporting of the Chinese intrusion into the Indian territory would have been too disturbing to the patriotic audience on the social media. Social media is always a ticking time bomb. It can slay any reputation in seconds. So the image of the keepers of modern India’s nationalism would have been dented. So taking a clue from the communist neighbor, there has been more secrecy in India also this time as journalists were not allowed to take their war front beyond Ladhak. But all in all, a healthy narrative has been build up which is clearly against China and rightly so.   

The sun was setting over the barren tensed up Himalayan heights in the Galwan Valley. The terrain is so inhospitable that there is hardly any life link between the barren stones and the perennial snows. Between 6 and 7 PM, Commanding Officer Santosh Babu led 20 of his soldiers to see the de-escalation process, as agreed in June 6 talks, at a disputed Chinese shelter near Patrol Point 14. The agreements of 1996 and 2005 for the border management between the two countries mandate no use of firearms, blasting operations or hunting with guns or any use of explosives within 2 Km of the LAC. The soldiers were thus unarmed in spirit. The forward troops from both sides patrolling the contentious LAC usually don’t carry guns, and if they do carry weapons, these are slung on their backs and magazines are tucked safely out of reach in pouches instead of being clipped on and thus at the mercy of itching, nervous fingers prone to press the trigger.

All along the rugged Himalayan terrain running for almost 4000 Km between the two Asian giants, there is no clearly demarcated border. The two countries’ claim lines twist and twirl along roughest of mountainous geography. These contested points of friction, so dreary and inhospitable that none of the parties can think of staying there permanently during the winters, are then patrolled by the frontier troops routinely during short Himalayan summer, leaving peace to be enforced by the harsh winters. Status quo is stamped by the snows in winters. And a shift-able status quo is always to the advantage of a predatory dictatorial government in comparison to a democratic one. The former has to push on by instinct because you are not a dictator if you don’t push on principle. All that the democracy can manage is to stand against the push. That’s what China has been doing against all its neighbors.

After the snow-ordained lull in the winters, skirmishes blossom up during the short summers when flowers in the alpine meadows smile and brooks gurgle with pristine snow melts. We humans, however, are looking to seek the last paradisiacal spots on earth to carry the smell of humanity to complete our copyright over mother earth. Before the skirmish, the forward troops keep their hands in pockets as heated verbal power gathers steam. It then creeps to pushing and jostling, and finally fist-fights and stone throwing. Better sense has prevailed over both sides to agree to the no fire use mandate across border because they know there are almost innumerable friction points and the status quo always challenged by the more aggressive party. Again, almost on principle, a communist regime is bound to be more aggressive. In the current scuffle the Chinese took one more step in aggression as they used boulders, stones, barbed wires ties around rocks, and sticks studded with nails. That takes them nearer to the use of bullets itself.  

A nervous dusk was piling up its layers over the ridges defining the highest battlefield in the world. By this time the Chinese soldiers were supposed to have withdrawn from the disputed tent structure. The biggest mistake one can commit is to expect the Chinese communists to keep their words. We have seen Nehruvian blunder in taking their word prior to the attack of 1962. So nothing to feel surprised about it when the Indian verification patrol found the tent and the observation post still there. The PLA soldiers found the lure of the observation post too much to leave it just like that. There definitely was a plan which was beyond the scope of the recent agreement meant for de-escalation. The structure was built within the limits up to which Indian patrol parties did their rounds without any dispute presently. But then as a communist one has to crawl on and on. The ideology thrives as long as the instinct to crawl on thrives. And crawling on always pushes the status quo to a new boundary from where another milestone manifests, thus egging them to crawl still further. Can we have a bigger capitalist idea than this ever-persistent urge to crawl on and on?

Crawling around this particular place in the Galwan Valley allowed them to keep an eye over the Indian troop movement towards the north near the Karakoram Pass. Even more significantly, it would give them an opportunity to lay siege on the army movement on the newly laid DBO road leading to the highest airbase in the world. DBO airstrip where India lands the biggest cargo plane in the world is an eyesore to the Chinese because it’s situated just 10 Km from the multi-billion dollar economic corridor. This cartographic intrusion and aggression is part of their plans to safe-keep and consolidate the logistic route of this CPEC. And there are many more. These but are hidden because the scheming power of a communist regime far more than we can grasp with our democratic conjectures.

The Chinese communists basically perform creeping encroachments thus avoiding a full scale escalation. At least in this region they are trying to gain all the strategic heights necessary to allay their fears about the CPEC. Now CPEC itself is born of their insecurity and sense of danger in the Malacca Straits though which most of their shipping takes places and which can be choked by America because they have naval superiority. Is there any limit to the scale of insecurity? One measure taken to allay one particular insecurity will arrive with another new insecurity needing another measure. They are deploying armed drones to secure the projected 100 billion bilateral trade over the CPEC passing through the remotest corners of the long-disputed region. To gain such strategic advantage they had hardly any issue in laying aside Modi’s peace overtures time and again which turn the great nationalist leader even liable to be a victim of the appeasement policy of the Chinese.

Patrolling Point 14 is also an eyesore to them as it lies on a ridge overlooking the Galwan River Valley. The said river joins the Shyok River a few Kms down west along which the DBO roads moves up north to reach the highest airstrip in the world. As we have said the Daulat Beg Oldie airstrip is just 10 km away from the CPEC corridor running into Pakistan occupied Kashmir. If India allows this observation post, the army supplies to the DBO airbase would directly be at the mercy of the Chinese.  

As the Indian verification patrol found the structure still there in violation of the terms of the agreement, they removed both the tent and the observation post. A brawl and fist fight broke out. Reinforcements from both sides were called in. About 600 troops from both sides were engaged in the bloody brawl and hand-to-hand combat. In the first wave of clashes the brave CO and his 20 troops overpowered the Chinese post keepers. But something was felt missing. The CO realized that these were not those regular patrol troops whom they get acquainted with during their routine sorties. Face-offs between troops, who are used to see each other in the same area, have less likelihood of escalating into bloody brawls. These soldiers had been redeployed from another area. The CO realized this and decided to go and check the PP 14 further up in the valley. He called reinforcements and with his 80 troops went to check out PP14. Here 250 Chinese soldiers had taken vantage positions and had planned an attack with their contrived hand-held weapons. In this round of skirmishes, the CO and two of his soldiers fell to the Chinese attack.

The CO is revered as a father figure and draws immense loyalty from his subordinates. As the Indian troops found their CO Sahib has fallen, whom they take as a godfather, they fought with unheard of spirit in a spirit of revenge. Further reinforcements were called. Given better roads on their side, the Chinese could muster up 400 troops against 200 Indians. Chinese could move more swiftly because they have developed head roads to the heights. Indians have to track along treacherous valley slopes to reach here. No wonder, the Indians were outnumbered 2 to 1 as the scuffle spread to nearby narrow ridges overlooking the river. In addition, the Chinese had subtle additions to their hands this time. They had knuckledusters, lethal batons, spikes and nail-studded baseball bats. The mountain ledge gave up on both sides and caved in resulting in a landslide. Troops from both sides fell into the river. A section of Indian troops were stranded on the other side. In subzero temperatures, drenched in water, at an altitude of above 16000 feet, they stood their guard to stop the Chinese from taking over Patrol Point 14. Many froze to death. In the bloody seven hour standoff, three staggered bloodied melee type clashes took place. 

It is safe to believe that China lost double the number of soldiers despite their numerical superiority. The next day bodies were exchanged. It’s but commendable that both sides refrained from using guns even though they had weapons with them and even in the face of life and death struggle abided by this law. But the Chinese are a bit far from the rules of engagement even here as they used those brutal contrived barbed and nailed batons and rods. India it appears has finally decided to stand up to repeated salami slicing technique of the Chinese through repeated intrusions.  

As details of the bloody scuffle keep percolating from the barren lands of Ladhak, it emerges that our soldiers, although outnumbered in quantity, fought really well. Every Indian platoon has a Ghatak Dasta of young soldiers well trained in martial arts and hand-to-hand fighting. According to reports, they broke the neck of at least 18 Chinese soldiers. China now decides to get their soldiers trained in martial arts. The Indian soldiers will also get riot gear like batons and body protective suits to be better equipped in future brawls. As of now, it’s a show of strength with both sides marshalling thousands of troops along the LAC including tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, missile systems and artillery guns.

In modern warfare, you actually don’t fight. You just try to appear too strong and militarily equipped to puncture any design against you. Posturing and propaganda helps a lot in this. Here again, in both these departments a communist regime uses these elements with better effect given their inherent aggressive nature. Simply through posturing the communist regime in China have grabbed many territories from many countries without firing a single bullet.  

An army operating in a democratic set up is more responsible under a political leadership. However, the face-offs in treacherous slopes are pretty tricky. You just cannot go there with a predetermined set of civilian instructions. It has been a big handicap with the Indian army so far in managing the volatile situation popping up with new claims and renewed efforts at changing the previous status quo. The army has been given “complete freedom of action” to handle the situation along the LAC to manage the emergency at their own level. It may be easily interpreted as a clear signal to the commanders that they may not feel bound by the clause of no use of firearms. 

What makes the scuffle standout from the routine browbeats is that Chinese appeared to have premeditated a bloody attack as they used iron rods and nail-studded clubs. Apart from smashed heads and broken necks many soldiers from both sides fell into the icy river in the dark. A few of the Indian soldiers, who were stranded on the opposite bank of the river after the landslide, were captured by the Chinese but were released after three days of captivity.

As the hostilities erupted around the LAC, the Indian military continued with its bridge construction a couple of Kms down the valley. The Bailey bridge was completed in just three days, allowing India better access to the site of the bloody confrontation. The prefabricated bridge built about 3 Km into the Galwan valley above the Shyok-Galwan confluence allows India to move its troop over the treacherous mountain valley to stop the Chinese from filing into the valley and move towards the 255 Km road from Darbuk to Daulat Beg Oldie, which is India’s last military post far in the north just to the south of Karakoram pass.        

The PLA’s Western Theatre Command has been pretty proactive in its push into India leading to many verbal spats, stone throwing and culminating in the 7 hour long violent standoff. All this is just and just meant to unilaterally alter the status quo on the LAC. They have mastered the craft of assertively crawling ahead along the disputed lines and then pull back only to come back again and all along this time declaring full faith in peaceful negotiations. Not to mention, all along this time, they develop infrastructure which gets shadowed by the talks. In this long and protracted scuffle, they ensure that their cartographic creep turns a de facto reality. Do you still need more proofs how a land mafia state operates? 

These are the first Indian casualties against China since 1975. People of course are up in arms against China. Boycott China chorus builds up. Instead of killing Chinese soldiers we can take economic measures to deny them access to the vast Indian market. Many a Chinese product face anti-dumping action alongside Indian Air force and Navy mulling over contingency measures in skies and the seas to tame the fire-breathing dragon. We need to pause and demarcate a line between the PLA and the political wing of the CCP. There is a broad anti-India understanding across all wings of the CCP. However, even within the same pool of animosity against India, the PLA appears to be more rigid on India than the political leadership.   

China had been pretty assertive in its troop build-up in Ladhak region for the last two months and then they laid claim to entire Galwan Valley. By force first they managed a coup and established military presence in some disputed region, followed by staking claim to the same. They have a roomful of issues to torment India with, including expectation that India must not in any way come in the way of choosing the next Dalai Lama and India’s role in calling for international investigation into the ‘zoonotic source’ of the virus along with the route that led to human infection. They are also wary of India consolidating its position as a responsible democracy in shaping the post-Covid world order. India of course can spare responding strategically instead of being carried over by blind sentimentalism. India has the option of taking a stronger position on Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The partnership with the US is now a necessity not choice anymore. Dilly dallying with unsure mind about QUAD will not help anymore. Operational principles of QUAD need to be turned into a permanent arrangement.

China undoubtedly sees India as a political, economic and military competitor. China has refused to demarcate the LAC after many years of border talks. The issue is kept open to be exploited repeatedly as per the change in situations. Dichotomy is that China is India’s largest trading partner but the biggest challenger to its rise at the world level. It makes it really tricky. India is of course putting many things under a scanner now. Trade deficit appears more unbearable in company with trust deficit. India has swiftly changed foreign investment rules requiring governmental clearance of any investment by any country sharing land border with India. It was done in scared desperation as India got on its knees while fighting the pandemic and China eyed taking over many an Indian company. Thwarted on this front, the Dragon started knocking at the Himalayan borders.      

China usually flummoxes us with its moody swings and we always play it safe and guarded always mulling over the exact reasons for the Dragon’s latest change of mood. So, as it systematically nibbles down little slices of land along the disputed LAC, we are free to use our brains about the reasons for the same in the latest flare up: whether it’s to bully India into a neutral zone regarding international investigation into the origin of the virus, strike back against FDI restrictions, India’s effort to duly curtail the expanding Chinese footprint in its economy, to force India tow its line on the 5G issue, to thwart Modi’s infrastructural boost in mountainous border where it feels threatened of its own, just like a thief gets scared of a new police post in the neighborhood. Is it DSDBO road running along the LAC that has put chili to spoil its mood? We have a long list of speculations because the status quo has opened up a Pandora box of issues that the Red Bastion exploits almost at its free will. Irrespective of all the possible reasons, one thing stands beyond doubt that China is forcing ahead to unilaterally carve out more and more buffer zones, taking over still remaining strategic heights that remain after its heartfelt grab of strategically important heights along the now LAC in 1962.

The battles of 1962 also happened in these very areas where currently the armies are sitting down face to face. In freezing temperatures over the most inhospitable terrain, both armies had to withdraw to their bases as a harsh winter intervened among the hostilities. The Chinese were a bit better placed to keep occupying some strategic heights to serve their purpose. In case of India it was literally like flying to a different planet to defend its claims. There was no political boundary settlement and rounds after rounds of talks continued.

The region concerned bears colonial legacy as the Britishers left the area un-demarcated specifically. One line showed Aksai Chin as part of Jammu and Kashmir. There is another line called Macartney-MacDonald line to its west followed by still another to the west called Foreign Office Line. After 1947, these were left to self-specific interpretation of China, India, Tibet and rulers of Jammu and Kashmir. There are intertwining perceptions which are nice chess pieces for machinations, especially for the communists because they love this kind of bickering. The LAC is left unsurveyed and unmarked on the ground. Patrols and pitching tents can flare up tempers. But this particular tent is unacceptable to India as it allows the enemy to come down the Galwan Valley and choke the vital DBO road leading to the highest airstrip in the world from where they are keeping a watch over the CPEC.    

As India thought of softer versions of punitive strikes against China, they were already waging war at numerous unconventional fronts including Cyber attacks. There were sustained DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks on important Indian websites. DDOS strikes are malicious efforts to overwhelm a particular network by blooding it with “artificially created Internet traffic”. Banking and other essential services are major targets. Chengdu is PLA’s covert cyberfare headquarter from where many professional hacker groups also operate. Indian governments responded by banning 59 Chinese mobile applications including TikTok, SHAREit etc., on safety and privacy grounds as these allowed the Chinese to extract a large amount of users’ personal data.

Australia spoke against the Chinese hegemony quite openly so the dragon took potshots at the continental nation that is situated too far for it to create direct tension for it. Australian PM spoke about a ‘sophisticated state-based cyber actor’ launching comprehensive cyber attacks. So that is China for us, it launches viruses, cyber attacks and has 2000 missiles on its eastern coast to annihilate any military that tries to reach the mainland.

Richard Nixon, who broke the ice with the communist regime allowing it to enter the mainstream of globalization and thus laying the path for it mammoth rise in the following decades, mulled over his choice during his late life reflections that he might have in fact facilitated the path of creating a Frankstein Monster.

We can avoid blaming 'China' for all the recent time suffering world over. Of course, there is Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that is majorly behind what has seen us tumbling down most seriously since the WW second. However, CCP doesn't mean 'China'. China minus CCP leaves us 95% of Chinese who are people like anyone of us in the rest of the world from New York to Timbaktu going through the rest of various nations imbued in various socio cultural milieu. These 95% of the Chinese have suffered the most at the hands of the CCP. They have multigenerational family history of systematic torture. They need individual freedom and democracy. So hate CCP not China. Condemn the brutality of the CCP red-capped thugs not China because China is far bigger than CCP.

We cannot rule out a kind of military lapse before the situation leading to the current flare-up. Engagement with China had turned into appeasement under the present government. PM Modi has been to Beijing 9 times and met Xi Jinping 18 times since he came to power. He has been the leading Indian PM who has invested wholeheartedly in building ties with China. So if 1962 is betrayal of Nehru, Ladhak 2020 stands out as the betrayal of Modi. Nehru built up his poetic illusions of his Chinese outreach on the basis of his ancient history and civilization scholarship, Modi the strict taskmaster has been too vocal about the practicalities of business, bilateralism and peaceful coexistence. Or may be, as a powerful nationalist leader, Modi could feel some affinity with the strongman from China whose aggressive red ideology is itching to challenge the US all over the world.   

In the rarest of the rare slip of tongue, PM Modi erred in his assurance-giving spirit as he declared there has been no intrusion in our territory. A blunder I would say. In one phrase it legalizes the Chinese claims on our territory. Moreover, if there was no intrusion why has all this war kind hoopla going on for so long? Even if the Chinese have build up posts in the Indian patrolling areas, serving as a buffer among the two neighbors, that itself is an intrusion by default because in this case the new buffer will be pushed further West. So clearly it’s an intrusion. India has been very condescending to their persistent push into more and more of Indian territory. So I cannot imagine this type of Indian reaction if the situation is clearly limited to the patrolling areas only. There must be some intrusion clearly into the Indian territory. There is also a possibility that after the Indian upgrade in border infrastructure, our forces are better placed to go for more effective patrolling and this has irked China because it puts a sturdier resistance to their continuous nibbling at the edges like ant bites, piling up claims over a period of time, maintaining status quo in the guise of endless rounds of talks and meanwhile following the only objective of moving further into the Indian territory.     

As Monsoon mustiness builds up and Corona becomes a part of life—a kind of any other disease that kills some people—the only question that is being mulled over in military commander level talks is whether China agrees to the pre standoff position. China claims the entire Galwan Valley. India is quick to junk all these claims. China may take more time than we expect even if it decides to pull back at all. Ladhak is a sort of China’s Achilles heel, not because India can overpower it from here, but because it’s India’s geostrategic pivot point to reach out to Russia, Europe and Central Asia. Usually Achilles heel is about a weakness that can be exploited by the enemy. In case of China, Achilles heel qualifies to be anything that the rival state can use for its own pursuance of interests even without directly affecting or threatening China. Well, so much so for being an antagonistic state.

Both sides are engaged in diplomatic and military commander level talks. The show of strength goes on over both sides of the border. The weapons are flaunted to show what they might do instead of actually doing anything with them to let loose a chain of conjectures on the other side. No wonder, both sides have created a pretty effective theatrical show of military strength to make their audience happy and assuring each other a lot of mutual destruction if things escalate further. Fear of destruction is bigger driver for peace than any other consideration.

Deception is as much effective as a nuclear strike and the Chinese are the masters of the art. In the 1950, the Chinese official maps started showing Indian territories under its jurisdiction. To allay the apprehensions of the insecure Indians, they just casually told them that it has nothing to do with the ground reality. It was merely a hypothetical legacy of the past. But then it sowed the seeds of 1962. They will simply make a claim, intrude to leave a controversial footprint in the area, on a small scale, without creating a big flare up, withdraw for some time, and record the conflict as a kind of proof about their claim in future negotiations. Two steps forward, one step back, teasing the enemy, analyzing the opponent’s response, waiting, intruding again like hyenas, and still again and again, till you either give in or decide to fight. A lot is achieved by appearing to be ready for fight instead of actually fighting. Typical propaganda and posturing.

This time, India has been categorical about its stand of maintaining pre April status quo. It means Chinese army withdrawing troops, remove pillboxes, bunkers and observation posts from Galwan Valley, forward positions occupied by them in Fingers area and a few other friction points where they have sneaked in. The Finger Area is a cluster of strategic ridges along the northern bank of Pangong Tso lake. They have encroached and made permanent shelters in the erstwhile no-man’s land, stretching for 8 Km, between Finger 4 and Finger 8 where earlier the armies of both countries just patrolled to maintain it as a kind of buffer zone. It cuts down the area of Indian patrol parties near the areas that are full time under Indian occupation. The Indian claim Line is up to Finger 8; that of the Chinese is up to Finger 4. Claim and counter claim decide the patrolling points serving as a sort of rugged treacherous zones where there is always a possibility of things going crazy. There are a few such strategic locations along the LAC where they have pushed the ante to change the shape of the LAC. A proactive India under a strong nationalistic government wants to ensure that the days of nibbling over the LAC are over. The PLA has better reach from the plateau side. Their infantry has paved metaled roads to move. On the other hand, the Indian mountain troops get guerrilla warfare at high altitudes. Right now, air defence systems are active on both sides as fighter jets, helicopters and drones tear apart the blue apron of skies with their threat and war mongering curves. Missiles are deployed. India has built up troop deployment in forward positions pretty substantially. Meanwhile, India is furtively busy in building approach roads emanating from the DSDBO road to far off patrol posts in tougher reaches. This has irked China because regular Indian patrols lessen the chances of Salami slicing which is their favorite recipe in the ever-alive kitchen of cartographic intrusions.    

The US was surely expected to take India’s part and that too unequivocally which they have done not to disappoint a billion plus Indians who expect a lot now post Howdy Modi and Howdy Trump. The US secretary of state has termed CCP as a rogue actor that has threatened “the world’s most popular-populous democracy.” The US has pulled out 25000 troops from their German base to deploy them in the volatile east surrounding China. As far as Russia is concerned our massive arms purchases from Putin can at the most buy their neutrality in the current scenario. More the insecurities and tensions between China and India, the better for Russia because that means a boost to their weapons industry.

The US naval deployment changes the contours of the game from blue depths of off shore waters. The super carriers of the US Indo-Pacific Command manage far more than it appears on the surface with its forward marching submarines. There is every reason for China to be worried about what these naval assets can do. It’s not necessary that they will actually do something. Modern warfare is more about posturing with proven military assets, not necessarily using them. Almost all countries have such nasty weapons that it is agreed to just keep skirmishes within containment zones, otherwise mutual destruction is assured. The USS Theodore Roosevelt can choke the Chinese in Malacca Straits and the Bay of Bengal. The behemoth is three times larger than any other carrier and moves like an independent entity accompanied by its cruisers, submarines and destroyer squadrons. This and nuclear submarines can flex military muscles literally anywhere on the planet. After all, you don’t simply inherit the superpower status. One has to fight for it and fight even more to maintain it. The US drones have access to every square inch on earth, the drone spots the target, relays the message to a plane of the caliber of F-35, which in turn either shoots it or further passes on the message to some island based long-range missiles of the Marine Corps. China feels safe because it has deployed around 2000 long-range missiles along its cost. But to emerge as a superpower it has to rest assured on its attacking prowess also instead of just feeling secure at home. Even a lion sitting holed up inside the safety of its cave is no better than a cat that roams freely. Here the US is not only a lion, it moves freely also. The Chinese are cats and that too holed up in their cave.   

In our rat race to forge deadlier weapons, we have ensured that an all out war is the last option, however serious the issue is. So currently tedious rounds of military and diplomatic level talks are going to set up a process of disengagement. Notwithstanding claims and counterclaims, the exact position in the Finger area and Dapsang plains warrant concrete steps from the Chinese side because adhocism here can’t be digested by India. The Finger Area is a set of 8 cliffs jutting outward from the Sirijap range overlooking the lake. The PLA has erected pillboxes, tented camps, solid bunkers and many observation posts between Finger 4 and 8 which was earlier the buffer zone with Indian soldiers patrolling up to Finger 8 and the Chinese up to Finger 4. So the status quo was 8 Km of buffer zone. As per the de-escalation process, the Chinese will surely push the buffer zone into the Indian side. While we have been thinking, even at the cost of sounding appeasing the Chinese, along the lines of avoiding a full blown confrontation with China, their salami slicing techniques have fetched them gains over decades which a full blown war won’t have. They have made territorial gains, and in the guise of these small time clandestine missions they have achieved little by little and gaining what would have been impossible in one go. Shifting claim lines and crawling assertiveness, shameless exhibition of expansionism, maximalist territorial dreams are basically presented through innocuous salami slicing through military jingoism. Al this while they would talk of peaceful resolution of disputes. It has kept Sino-India relations at a level where they could eat the major chunk of consumerism offered by the massive Indian market also.

The Dapsang Plains lie south of the strategic DBO road near Karakoram Pass. It’s the local soft spot for the highest airstrip in the world at 16614 feet (taking India’s airplanes as near as mere 8 Km from the LAC) and the newly constructed road linking it to Leh down south. The Chinese consider the DBO forward base a threat to their own ambitious CPEC in which they have invested billions of dollars. So the PLA has mobilized a lot of troops in the forward areas to disrupt Indian armmy’s patrolling patterns in the region. When multi-pronged self-interests clash they create many points of friction, leading to fears, phobias and insecurities which in turn pump the arms race. The weapons pile up, without any real chance of doing the destruction. The swanky rhetoric and posturing covers almost 90% of the modern day war. And to excel in posturing and propaganda one needs more and more deadly weapons.

So there is pretty solid posturing on both sides at the moment. It is entertaining the respective audience through news channels. India has to make its posturing tangible and douse the flared passion of its domestic audience to make them feel victorious even though we have been at receiving end in the current controversy. India has moved three divisions to the forward posts, many squadrons of frontline tanks, mechanized infantry squads and making plenty of jingoistic noise through Sukhoi-30s, upgraded Mig-29 fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters, power-lifter Chinooks, super-lifter C-17 Globemaster, C-130J Super Hercules special operations aircraft, Ilyushin-76 heavy-lift planes, An-32 transport planes, Mi-17 utility helicopters, P-8I surveillance aircraft, M-777 ultra-light howitzers (sling-loaded to helicopters and set up on hitherto unreachable ridges and fire up to 30 Km), T-72/T-90 tanks and BMP-2/2K infantry combat vehicles. The air-defense system including supersonic Akash missiles has been activated in the region. High-end precision guided munitions have been ordered from the USA. Further, India is pushing Russia to deliver S-400 Triumf air defense missile system (which they have already sold to the Chinese). Validating their proactive approach to counter the ever-persistent Chinese nibbling at Himalayan borders like termites, India has ordered Rupees 40000 crore worth war materials including 33 new Mig-29s and Sukhoi-30s and Israeli surface to air missile system to deal with the contingency. India is trying its level best to acquire Predator B-drone from America that can do surveillance as well as target with laser-guided bombs and missiles. (Americans are although wary that their technology might be leaked to the Russians who have deep defense cooperation with the Indians.) All this posturing has helped primarily Russia because both China and India are running to pour more money in their pockets to buy the latest weapons.

Chinese are doing the same across the LAC. And amidst all this, the talks for disengagement are going on. One has to appear strong enough to make the opponent feel that the costs of undue aggression will be heavy to stop any misadventure. So weapons are better left unused and tried just for posturing and psychological push-backs. Meanwhile, firing another salvo from its expansionist cannon, China has claimed another chunk of land from the Bhutanese territory. The peaceful little kingdom is caught unawares as this new claim was never a point of contention.

Both the Chinese and the Indians are aware of the costs of the persistence of the stalemate. Apart from the deadly weapons that make it almost impossible for the two sides to go into even a limited war, they are wary of the impending winters if the stalemate persists even after September. The harsh winters leave hardly any scope for the two sides to maintain their forward deployment.

Apart from positioning its armed might along the border to send a message to the Chinese that no more nibbling at the border will be tolerated anymore, India has started some kind of economic offensive also. Chinese firms will be kept out of the highway projects, imports will be systematically discouraged, Chinese investments in MSMEs not allowed, upgradation of 4G telecom tenders to be kept out of the Dragon’s reach, etc. All this is going on as both sides are aiming for “expeditious, phased and step-wise de-escalation.”

Amidst all this, PM Modi visited a forward army post in the region and declared that the era of expansionism is over, while China still tries—and will continue, irrespective of come what may—its level best to change the status quo by intruding into the Indian side and changing claim lines to expand its territorial claims. PM is loved by majority of Indians and his word is taken on its face value. But even at the optimistic best his strategic messaging against the predatory tactics, which are basically aimed at eating little slices slowly without firing a single bullet, appears helpless in the face of the single-minded Chinese focus for more and more land.

People now say in jest that now we know why PM Modi has been so proactive in hugging Trump even though the latter appeared reserved in this brotherly gesture. Trump has proved that he considers Modi a dear friend as he says so many times. To tweak the Chinese ears, the US navy has deployed two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to hold intimidating exercises in the South China Sea. Well, their vulnerability at sea. The US knows it. The Malacca soft spot turns the dragon jittery. The pressure appears to be paying back also as in the second week of July the Chinese have taken concrete steps towards disengagement by moving back 1.5 Km from the Galwan friction point. It serves as a sort of precursor to a kind of mild de-escalation. They are hesitant in moving back and have extended claim lines that lie inside the Indian territory as per the status prior to May 5. India is insisting that the status quo of May 5 should be maintained. The Chinese want to shift the buffer zone to the west along natural features and thus acquire the still remaining strategic ridges that they think make India in advantageous position.

Hours and hours of talks are intended to carry out a phased de-escalation by creating a 4 Km buffer zone at major friction points. For a few weeks there won’t be any patrolling by any troops from any side in the buzzer zone to avoid another face off. But again, China may already have succeeded in achieving its goals of pushing the buffer zone further west and thus maintain the new status quo. So it’s unlikely that Indian troops will be able to patrol in the areas where they had reach before April. And China will fight diplomatically tooth and nail to maintain this new status quo. Geographical features define patrolling points where rival troops patrol up to their lines of perception. It’s very easy for any side to blame the other’s patrol party as intrusion along the contested border. Meanwhile, to help the Chinese keep their mind focused on disengagement with a bit lesser gains than they thought while starting all this, the Indian Air Force is putting up a brave show of posturing by presenting its combat worthiness through all-weather, day-night combat flights in Ladhak. An assortment of frontline attack helicopters, fighter jets, multi-mission choppers are carrying out sorties to show their battle worthiness.

Now all the issues are melting into the boring and snaily talks of pulling back troops from the face-off friction points, a well verified retreat of both sides followed by withdrawing weapons and machinery to a consensual distance from the LAC, leading to the status quo. Chinese will be fools to have put us all this show (and further dent its international reputation) for nothing if the status quo was restored. They will have something as per their diehard principles of territorial revisionism. They remember the disastrous defeat suffered during Vietnam invasion in 1979 and hardly believe in an all out war to achieve their geographical ambitions. The goals that are conventionally taken to be achieved through outright fighting are achieved through trickery, disguise and clandestine surprise intrusions and justifying them through blank lies. For instance, they have literally changed the entire narrative in the South China Sea without using a single bullet. They have already got away with many illegalities even in the current situation. They ambushed an Indian patrol that had gone visiting the area to verify whether they had retreated as per a recent disengagement agreement. PM Modi may have used the Ladhak speech to create a hollow sense of jingoism and euphoria among the domestic audience to justify the disengagement process and portray it as something done from a position of strength. China will somehow salvage the revised status quo. At many friction points, the new buffer zones lie to the Indian side of border. Through long and protracted talks they will just play the irritating game of attrition, haggle, weigh down to finally keep sitting where they are according to the Chinese dictum “possession is nine-tenths of the law.” We should know, despite what went off in the Indian media, they have achieved what they wanted in Doklam plateau.