Ladakh Flash Point
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Not sure if this is widely known at this point, but it looks like India's COVID response is now trending materially worse than it's neighbors (i.e. Bangladesh/Pakistan/Nepal). It's not likely India will be in a position to escalate in Ladakh any further, it may be reasonable to assume that armed forces will have to be pulled for domestic requirements (i.e. reinforcing lockdowns).
Bangladesh/Pakistan will likely have stronger economic recoveries compared to India coming out of the gate. All countries now seem to be testing at reasonable rates.
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Bangladesh already has forecast about 6% growth.
Apparently, the conversation went sideways for a bit regarding the issue of historical claims. A quick point regarding this, before returning to more important issues: "Claims" only matter if they can be enforced, because even the 'countries' making them exist as long as they have the force to exist. The moment that stops being true, that country itself will be no more, let alone any of its 'claims.' Physics may not abhor a vacuum, but geopolitics certainly does. And this universal law applies equally to Kashmir/Taiwan/Tibet/Palestine etc.
Secondly, @Inst , regarding your comment about the Pakistani Army being a "joke." I'm gonna give you some leeway this time... But be careful. For now I will (politely) tell you that Pakistan has already liberated 1/3rd of Kashmir, and India has never been able to get it back. So technically, our army has always been more successful at aggressively enforcing its claim by capturing territory, compared to India. Moreover, the Pakistani Army/Air Force is solely preparing to liberate the rest of Kashmir, while India is just trying to hold on to what it has. That's a big difference in doctrine. India is perpetually wasting a ton of resources (and time) by focusing on COIN and defense. While Pakistan is focusing on improving its combined arms and offensive capabilities. Their media's claims aside, if their military believed the PA/PAF are a "joke", they would've hit us back after we broke their nose last year.
Now, on to more important issues:
A few points here:
1) It was reported here that the PLA spent a lot of time calibrating their weapon systems in these high altitude regions, during drills in the Tibet region, before starting the Ladakh offensive. So I don't expect the PLA to be unprepared with uncalibrated weapon systems (unlike the Indians, who demonstrated a lack of calibration with their attempted 'surgical strikes' last year. It was reported that one possible reason why the IAF's SPICE bombs missed was because they were miscalibrated.)
2) The question of PLAAF air bases was discussed here many pages ago. I think it was @manqiangrexue who pointed out that multiple new air bases are already under construction. However, your point is valid. So we should ask how many air bases would the PLAAF need in this theater?
3) The IAF's susceptibility to EW was exposed last year by the PAF's Blinders squadron. I doubt the IAF has drastically improved in the span of a year. However, we should be asking about the IAF's plan to plug this critical gap. Does it even have a plan? All I've heard from India is talk about their new Rafales. I have heard nothing about them correcting the fundamental problems that were exposed last year, regarding their comms encryption, C4I and radar nets, or improving their ECCM etc. The PAF analyst Kaiser Tufail is the only one who has talked about this, when he said that Rafales/Meteors aren't going to matter if the IAF employs them in the same manner as they did their Flankers/Mirages/Migs last year. So what is the IAF's plan on dealing with this problem?
4) General point: Hypothetically, if a full scale war breaks out today over Ladakh, it would be messy, but India will still lose very badly. Why? Because India only has 2 weeks of ammunition reserves and its supply chain for spare parts is in horrible condition (multiple citations have been provided for this.) So comparing weapon systems is a moot point, because India simply can't sustain conflict even against Pakistan, let alone China+Pakistan, from a logistical standpoint. Now with that said, the reason war is not going to be initiated by China/Pak right now is not because their generals don't think they can win, but because the gameplan (and Pravin Sawhney has talked about this) is to push this possible confrontation further into the future, when the balance of power will shift even further against India. As I said previously, the goal in strategy is to maximize your options while reducing your enemy's options. That's what I think is happening right now.
Secondly, @Inst , regarding your comment about the Pakistani Army being a "joke." I'm gonna give you some leeway this time... But be careful. For now I will (politely) tell you that Pakistan has already liberated 1/3rd of Kashmir, and India has never been able to get it back. So technically, our army has always been more successful at aggressively enforcing its claim by capturing territory, compared to India. Moreover, the Pakistani Army/Air Force is solely preparing to liberate the rest of Kashmir, while India is just trying to hold on to what it has. That's a big difference in doctrine. India is perpetually wasting a ton of resources (and time) by focusing on COIN and defense. While Pakistan is focusing on improving its combined arms and offensive capabilities. Their media's claims aside, if their military believed the PA/PAF are a "joke", they would've hit us back after we broke their nose last year.
Now, on to more important issues:
A few points here:
1) It was reported here that the PLA spent a lot of time calibrating their weapon systems in these high altitude regions, during drills in the Tibet region, before starting the Ladakh offensive. So I don't expect the PLA to be unprepared with uncalibrated weapon systems (unlike the Indians, who demonstrated a lack of calibration with their attempted 'surgical strikes' last year. It was reported that one possible reason why the IAF's SPICE bombs missed was because they were miscalibrated.)
2) The question of PLAAF air bases was discussed here many pages ago. I think it was @manqiangrexue who pointed out that multiple new air bases are already under construction. However, your point is valid. So we should ask how many air bases would the PLAAF need in this theater?
3) The IAF's susceptibility to EW was exposed last year by the PAF's Blinders squadron. I doubt the IAF has drastically improved in the span of a year. However, we should be asking about the IAF's plan to plug this critical gap. Does it even have a plan? All I've heard from India is talk about their new Rafales. I have heard nothing about them correcting the fundamental problems that were exposed last year, regarding their comms encryption, C4I and radar nets, or improving their ECCM etc. The PAF analyst Kaiser Tufail is the only one who has talked about this, when he said that Rafales/Meteors aren't going to matter if the IAF employs them in the same manner as they did their Flankers/Mirages/Migs last year. So what is the IAF's plan on dealing with this problem?
4) General point: Hypothetically, if a full scale war breaks out today over Ladakh, it would be messy, but India will still lose very badly. Why? Because India only has 2 weeks of ammunition reserves and its supply chain for spare parts is in horrible condition (multiple citations have been provided for this.) So comparing weapon systems is a moot point, because India simply can't sustain conflict even against Pakistan, let alone China+Pakistan, from a logistical standpoint. Now with that said, the reason war is not going to be initiated by China/Pak right now is not because their generals don't think they can win, but because the gameplan (and Pravin Sawhney has talked about this) is to push this possible confrontation further into the future, when the balance of power will shift even further against India. As I said previously, the goal in strategy is to maximize your options while reducing your enemy's options. That's what I think is happening right now.
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Just to add, Indian R&D spending is currently at 0.65% of GDP, which is pretty low.
But more importantly, this metric has been steadily declining over the past 12+ years.
This is not an indication of India becoming more hi-tech and moving up the economic value chain.
World Bank / UN graph below.
If Pakistan could had air superiority over the Kashmir Valley, how would you imagine Pakistan Army operations?
Pakistan military is obviously not up to the level of a superpower military, but that doesn't make them pushovers. Even a small army but well trained and equipped can dominate a local conflict. Pakistan has access to training and experience from PLA, which would be especially important when it comes to operating electronic warfare and logistics. India has never proved itself as particularly adept at the "soft" aspects of running an army which is communication and supplies.
Even without China helping, it would be far from clear cut whether the much larger Indian army can actually invade Pakistan successfully. That said, I don't think Pakistan has a high chance of liberating Kashmir by itself without Kashmir also rising up militarily at the same time.
If a war over northern India started, China would be able to deploy it's armor divisions on the Pakistan-India border and roll in without much opposition.
This is the danger which hangs over the Indian government's head, how much can they provoke their neighbors without making China support a Pakistani offensive deep into the north. They believed revoking article 370 wouldn't do it, they were likely correct because China was more busy with USA back then. But these incidents lately might have caused China's opinion to change.
Even without China helping, it would be far from clear cut whether the much larger Indian army can actually invade Pakistan successfully. That said, I don't think Pakistan has a high chance of liberating Kashmir by itself without Kashmir also rising up militarily at the same time.
If a war over northern India started, China would be able to deploy it's armor divisions on the Pakistan-India border and roll in without much opposition.
This is the danger which hangs over the Indian government's head, how much can they provoke their neighbors without making China support a Pakistani offensive deep into the north. They believed revoking article 370 wouldn't do it, they were likely correct because China was more busy with USA back then. But these incidents lately might have caused China's opinion to change.
You've answered one of my questions with your post! Looks like the Indian military doesn’t have a proper chart for ammunitions in high altitude conditions. The justification provided in the video is that it takes tens of thousands of test rounds to calibrate a weapon and since India imports most of its defense equipment, there aren’t enough spare ammunition for calibration.
Pakistan has a decided superiority in SPGs compared to India, albeit less than that of China, which has more advanced and more capable SPGs than the M109s Pakistan uses.
The main problem is the Indian tank force. As I've stated before, the Indians have more T-72s and T-90s in active service than the Russians do. Pakistan, in compensation, has a ton of TOW missiles, but that's 2nd generation wire-guided and the upgraded T-90s the Indians have in service have APS that can shoot down TOWs given that the TOWs aren't top-attack.
Now, in Kashmir, the tanks aren't a major problem given how mountainous the terrain is, but Pakistan has a wide border with India and Indian tank incursions into Pakistan through the desert are going to be hard to stop. Even more problematically, Pakistan's air defense is crap compared to China's. China has a basing problem on its border, but the PL-15s seem to be slightly superior to Meteor and the J-20 is half a generation ahead of the Rafale, and we don't even need to talk about the Su-30MKIs. Pakistan, on the other hand, has a smaller air force than India to begin with, absurdly bad air defense, and its most advanced aircraft are obsolete F-16s; arguably even the upgraded JF-17s would be superior given AESA and PL-15s.
This is a big problem given that, first, the Pakistani SPG advantage can't be utilized because airpower is effective against SPGs. Second, Pakistan could attempt to counter an Indian tank incursion with attack helicopters, but Pakistani attack helicopter inventories are much inferior to India's, first, second, without air superiority the attack helicopters are waiting to get shot down not only by Indian air defense, but by the Indian Air Force.
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The only way Pakistan can really stop an Indian tank invasion would be with nuclear weapons, and thankfully Pakistan, unlike China and India, don't have a no-first-use policy with their nukes. But it'd be horribly destabilizing and Pakistan would give India free reign to use its nuclear weapons to defend Kashmir. On the minus side, the Indians have demonstrated they don't care about Kashmiri lives and happiness given their counter-insurgency and occupation in Kashmir. On the plus side, Kashmir is the watershed for much of South Asia and it'd contaminate Indian water supplies with radiation. On the minus side, Kashmir is more crucial to Pakistani water supplies than it is for Indian water supplies. On the plus side, nuking Pakistan's water supply would be a grave escalation and could result in full nuclear exchanges.
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Theoretically, one option China has with India would be to make it clear to Indian policymakers that if they join the Quad they lose Kashmir in a joint Sino-Pakistani operation. However, for this to be actually viable, China needs to drastically upgrade Pakistani military capabilities. Pakistan needs way more and way more modern anti-tank equipment. It needs imports of J-31s to deal with Rafale and Su-30MKI, which, as we know, are only on the drawing board. It needs an active and strong Kashmiri insurgency for the Pakistanis to "rescue". All of these will take years to put into action and could only be doable in the 2025-2030 timeframe, after which India will no longer be crippled by coronavirus.
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As far as your comment about Indian EW, it's refreshing to know that Indian EW is bad. However, the Rafales are, possibly alongside the Eurofighter, the most capable 4.5th generation fighter in service. The Rafale is known for having excellent EW, it has an IRST to give it capability vs stealth fighters, and it has 11G maneuverability. The current PLAAF 4th generation inventory can defeat almost all InAF aircraft in service utilizing superior missiles and sensors. The Rafale is alone in that J-10s and J-16s can't handle it, and arguably even the Su-35s can't handle it. Versus the J-20s, it'd be a call way too close for comfort, but the J-20 would have a slight edge, especially since the Chinese have way more J-20s in service. The problem is that you'd likely see at least one J-20 shot down and it'd be terrible for PLAAF credibility if they lose a 5th generation fighter to a 4.5th generation fighter.
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