Can India recover territories it has lost by history to China and PakistanIJ Air Chief Marshal Raha appears to at believe it should make a serious effort. But the ground realities make the task difficult in more ways than one
I am dumbfounded and yet to recover from what the reticent Chief of Air Staff said recently in Bangalore in full view of the media. No Service chief has ever made such a daring statement. While delivering the annual lM Katre lecture, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha declared: “India has no territorial ambition, except for recovering the territories that we lost because of the history that we had to our neighbours. So we might like to recover those.” He was referring to Aksai Chin with China and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir with Pakistan.
ACM Raha’s pronouncement is not a politician’s rhetoric, but a Service chief’s intent. He knows what it involves winning a two-front war against nuclear-armed China and Pakistan decisively. In military terminology, he was talking of ‘tactical defence and strategic offence against a nuclear backdrop’, which is a far cry from the defensive posture that the other two Services — the Army and the Navy — have adopted on the land and coastal borders. His doctrinal thinking is based on the Air Force’s belief that it can achieve strategic outcome by shaping the battlefield for early results.
Because ACM Raha is also the Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee — the tri-Service conclave that decides by consensus — it is presumed that he would have the confidence of the other two chiefs on what eventual capabilities they should need to wrest, when desired, Aksai Chin and PoK. It is also in order to believe that the Government — considering Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets the three chiefs once every month — would have given an indication, if not outright direction, of what it desires from military power. To stretch the point, the Prime Minister may have shared with him (as the CCOSC) his vision of foreign defence and military cooperation, especially with the US where strategic convergence is possible. All odds, however, at this point are loaded against India is this ‘mission impossible’.
As ACM Raha is the Air Force chief who understands aerospace power, let’s do a macro-assessment of what the adversaries have and we have. I will restrict myself to conventional capabilities and not dwell upon nuclear aspects which will have a clinching role in this suicidal endeavour, the reason being that unlike the adversaries, ACM Raha is unaware of the nuclear weapons’ yields known in our skewed scheme of things to scientists alone. I will also confine myself to China, as space prevents me from expostulating Pakistan’s capabilities, which are formidable owing to the awesome nexus between China and Pakistan.
In terms of combat aircraft which will do the fighting, the People’s liberation Army Air Force has about 1,500 aircraft against 700 (35 squadrons with 20 aircraft each) with the Indian Air Force. The comparing numbers do not show the actual strengths because the PlAAF has a large number of support aircraft and force multipliers. Moreover, its aircraft are indigenous, while the IAF aircraft are procured from outside and assembled in India. Thus, in a crisis, while China can ramp up its production lines, India will be running around the globe for assemblies, spares and weapons to keep its air assets war-worthy. China is already working on an indigenous jet combat engine, where it invested $25 billion in 2010. A breakthrough by 2020 (as claimed) would see China challenging the US in combat aircraft exports.
Through a mix of excellent reverse engineering, indigenous design, good materials and production capabilities, besides industrial espionage and stealing, China’s aircraft industry has created cheaper yet competent clones of world class aircraft. Its J-10 aircraft is based on Israeli lavi; the J-16 is the indigenous version of Russian Su-30MKK; it has developed FC-1/ JF-17 for itself and the Pakistan Air Force; and its stealth J-20 and J-31 match the US F-35 and even F-22.
The bean counting of assets and industrial capabilities which show glaring disparities is not the real worry. The actual problems are in areas where China is giving sleepless nights even to the US. Take space first. China’s Anti-Satellite capability demonstrated in 2009 and Satellite Co-orbiting prowess shown in 2010 are a grave danger to IAF’s space-based communication, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and metrological assets. How secure would be the ISRO’s IRNSS project which is expected to be an Indian GPS meant to provide IAF with Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) signalsIJ The IAF, which is increasingly dependent on these assets, will be blinded in combat with PlAAF.
The next is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. China, today, has an impressive array and probably the largest numbers of UAVs (more than the US) in the world. It is also developing hypersonic UAVs and UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles) for near-space, earth orbit missions. All this is meant to give real-time battlefield transparency to the PlAAF with serious implications for Indian military planners. In cyber warfare, China, with amazing offensive capabilities, has got the US seeking bilateral transparency with PlA. India has taken a few baby steps in this war domain which will affect air operations the most.
On ballistic and cruise missile, the gap between the IAF and the PlAAF is so large that Air Headquarters is at its wits’ end about this operational challenge. Not a single senior air force officer that I have spoken with, including air chiefs, has a clue as how to confront this PlAAF capability. The issue becomes more difficult given that PlA has these missiles with long ranges, good accuracy and in huge numbers. Worse, the PlAAF doctrine makes it clear that missiles will be used like combat aircraft with tighter control.
Consider a scenario where China decides to go to war with India. It will first unleash its offensive space and cyber capabilities which will destroy/ blind Indian military’s ISR assets. The PlAAF will simultaneously use its plethora of UAVs and UCAVs to identify and destroy communication nodes and command and control hubs. Next, PlAAF will use its mobile ballistic and cruise missiles (with conventional warheads) according to its ‘Active Defence’ doctrine, where the rear and front of the battlefield will be attacked together. The battle space, thus, could be hundreds or thousands kilometres. The whole idea of the three-pronged assault will be to nearly paralyse the IAF. If not complete air dominance, the PlAAF has the capability to achieve large swathes of air superiority quickly to then turn its gaze towards the land battles.
The land battles will be equally spectacular allowing little advantage to the Indian Army. Destruction of enemy forces or attrition battles which the IA is hoping for by raising of its new 17 mountain corps may not even happen. PlAAF will have numerous options to shock if not upstage the Indian air-land battles. For example, PlAAF could do long-range raids by dropping its Special Forces directly in the Brahmaputra Valley. The PlAAF medium range aviation, operating out of Yunnan province, could interdict the Brahmaputra valley, or when operating out of Xinjiang, it could interdict the Indus Valley. Closer to the battle-fields, PlA has the capability to capture and occupy the IAF’s Advanced landing Grounds.
The PlAAF can do all this and more because it trains regularly in three modes. One, it does trans-Military Region exercises. For example, lanzhou and Xinjiang MRs’ PlAAF can operate together. Two, the PlA and PlAAF exercise in a MR both separately to sharpen their core competencies and together as well under a single commander. And, most importantly, the PlAAF has been exercising with Pakistan Air Force since 2009 in the series called ‘Stride’ and ‘Sheen’ over PoK.
Given all this, can ACM Raha recover territories lost by history from China and PakistanIJ
(The writer is editor, FORCE newsmagazine, and can be reached at pravin@forceindia.net)