To be fair this is not an easy location to do constructions. Imagine hauling all the concrete and steel up there one truck load at a time. I wonder if they decided to cut corners to speed up the process.
Ladakh Flash Point
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To be fair this is not an easy location to do constructions. Imagine hauling all the concrete and steel up there one truck load at a time. I wonder if they decided to cut corners to speed up the process.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I would go as far as to say that Chinese relations with India are beyond salvation.
India’s hatred of China is deep rooted and near universal, and is born out of two primary causes. Firstly is China’s support of Pakistan and the effective hard limit China will impose on any Indian military campaign against Pakistan, making the much dreamed of total victory against Pakistan an impossibility for India so long as a strong and independent China continue to exist.
The second, and perhaps more fundamental reason is because China is taking what most Indians feel is their ‘rightful‘ place at the world’s economic, military and social pecking order.
Indians are utterly sold on the western liberal democracy kool aid, and feel a near bottomless sense of injustice and hatred, not at the western self aggrandising theorists who fooled the but at China for somehow ‘cheating’ to its current position.
Unsurprisingly, both issues are caused by India itself. At the founding of the PRC, China tried extremely hard to have a good strong relationship with India as equals.
But the Indians looked down on China and wanted to the relationship to be one of Indian supremacy and Chinese subservience, which ultimately poisoned the initial Chinese goodwill, and finally totally collapsed any hope for a health relationship with India’s idiotic decision to trying to ‘put China in its place’ by imposing the British McMahon line on China rather than have an actual discussion about the boarder issue as equals. The whole point was that India felt, even then, that they were the ‘superior’ power and wanted to cement that position.
Indian attitude towards China is very similar to Imperial Japanese towards China. Only unlike the Japanese, the Indians lacked the base competence to be an actual threat to China. That, together with geography and other Chinese priorities to the east had meant India has been largely ignored by China in terms of direct military options. Instead China built up its relationship with Pakistan as a counter and check against India
However, I think China will forever need to keep a weary eye on the Indians, because their poisonous attitude towards China means that they will jump at any opportunity to stab China in the back as hard as they possibly can as soon as a suitable opportunity present itself. If America declared war on China today, India would join the Americans tomorrow.
Beijing knows this, which is why it puts such high emphasis on the high altitude performance of pretty much every piece of major military hardware it fields.
China does not want to get bogged down in a generational project to totally conquer India, which is what it will take to totally solve this Indian attitude problem. Instead it’s long term game plan is to build Pakistan up so that it eventually becomes strong enough to curbstomp India all by itself.
That is a key reason why Pakistan was made such a central part of China’s belt and road next grand plan. With that, China will directly pump vast wealth into Pakistan through investments and infrastructure building, which will in itself yield massive benefits for Pakistan on a scale to make even the rich first world countries envious. However, even that will be dwarfed by the massive wealth Pakistan can expect to share in from the vast trade that will flow through the BRI once it is complete and re-estimate the ancient Silk Road land link between China and Europe.
That kind of wealth together with access to Chinese technology and know how would give Pakistan all the tools and support they need to make themselves the regional superpower of South Asia and totally eclipse India in wealth and power.
That is akin to a doomsday scenario for Indian ultranationalists, which is why I fear a showdown is all but inevitable, as India would seek to strangle BRI in its infancy before it can fulfil it’s potential. That would eventually pit India against the SCO, as pretty much all members stand to benefit directly and massively from the success of BRI, so would be firmly against Indian attempts to sabotage it.
It’s no surprise that Chinese army forces are now seen sporting desert camos so often, as China also sees the route of the BRI as a possible future flashpoint.
China is currently playing for time, as time is on China’s side. The longer it can delay the clash with India, the more powerful and committed to BRI its regional allies would become. Maybe eventually a tipping point will be reached whereby India realised military option is doomed to total failure, and course corrects itself to stop its poisonous teaching of its young to hate China based on lies and misinformation. But that’s very much a hope and not an expectation.
His point is solid though. This isn't impossible for Modi and his crew to have thought up. In fact given their dire situation, it's exactly what they need to implement. Surprised no one realised until now.
Okay, I get the point that it dissipates responsibility, but what does it matter when that gets you into a shooting war in which India gets thrashed even worse?
Well that's exactly it! The assumption by Modi and their parliament or whatever political structure responsible for this move is trying to get the people asking them why Indian army guys weren't armed (allegedly) to get off their backs. Done. And if the IA wants to make moves or even shoot, it will be a military decision clearly and all on the military commanders and generals. So the civilian leadership is basically abandoning their responsibility on both fronts and assuming the shootings won't happen because the military leadership will ensure it won't happen since it'll be their heads on the line. If however this command of "DON'T SHOOT UNLESS YOU CAN TAKE ON THE PLA!" doesn't get heeded down to the lowest jawan, then on their heads be it. The Indians are hiding three digit casualties and well over 20 deaths with distraction tactics and outright censorship (usual methods include taking phones away from soldiers and shutting down internet in India). So how easy would it be to blame the military instead in case a small shooting fight breaks out.
You might be right about the higher death count on the Indian side. I don't know the credibility of Asianage, a website but they were the first to report about the captured Indian colonel and majors and they reported higher casualties on the the Indian side.
vesicles
Colonel
I think one can compare a nation's sports capabilities to its military capabilities. To maintain a large group of elite athletes of all fields, you need vast resources (money, infrastructure, and state of the art science/technology), effective recruiting, efficient training, organization, etc on the part of the government. On the part of the athletes themselves, you will need tremendous discipline, commitment, physical fitness, mental toughness, etc. When everything comes together, you get a nation with a strong sports program that will allow you to win a boatload of medals at the Olympics. If you look at the typical nations with good sports programs, these are the same nations with powerful militaries because building a powerful military requires the same mentality, same capability, same philosophy and same strategies from the government and the individual soldiers.
Let's look at China's Olympic medal haul for the past 20 years. China has a total of 432 medals from 1996 to 2016. India has a total of 14 medals (yes, that's fourteen, as in between 13 and 15) over the same time period. At most of the Olympic games, they've managed to win only 1 medal in total... As a nation of that size, if they can't even be competitive in a game, I honestly don't know how India could manage to even stand toe-to-toe with the Chinese on the battle field, let alone winning, when all your capabilities will be pushed to the limit.
Let's look at China's Olympic medal haul for the past 20 years. China has a total of 432 medals from 1996 to 2016. India has a total of 14 medals (yes, that's fourteen, as in between 13 and 15) over the same time period. At most of the Olympic games, they've managed to win only 1 medal in total... As a nation of that size, if they can't even be competitive in a game, I honestly don't know how India could manage to even stand toe-to-toe with the Chinese on the battle field, let alone winning, when all your capabilities will be pushed to the limit.
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A better way to explain why the military option for India is being avoided by Modi and its military, if not obvious enough, is India's overall power standing. Olympics performance is a decent analogy but there are plenty of countries who are good performers and have poorly funded militaries. More often a result of present situation and context than anything else.
Ray Dalio should need no introduction to the well rounded members of this forum. According to some of his analysis on the overall power of each empire/nation since 600 CE, take a look at this chart. Plotted as a "zero sum game" sort of set up. Btw the reason India's starts 1500 CE is obvious as well.
Don't confuse France's plot with India's even though more or less at the same point at the beginning of the 21st century.
This is a more "zoomed in" view.
Wars usually don't get fought under such heavy gaps. If and when they do, the results become violently obvious very quickly.
For those well versed in world history, this chart is a beautifully decent summary. Notice the rise and decline patterns between certain countries and the history of those nations, especially vis a vis one another e.g. Spain and England.
You can find the full publication here for some further insight and also on the factors embedded. Notice how Russia's is relatively low for the USSR period.
These plots can go in any direction still and India's seem to be on the way up, albeit tapering and certainly with an already lowering gradient. Declines observed throughout have usually been slow while rises have never been as dramatic as China's under the CCP's authority. In fact that gradient seems supernatural. Naysayers will have the usual BS stories and explanations based purely on personal conjecture and internet meme/rumours. India's looks like it may be approaching an inflection point. Given the patterns for the entire set, while future trends are indeed unpredictable, the behaviour patterns are obvious enough. Nothing dramatic over time EXCEPT for the PRC's rise under the CCP. Any more guesses as to why so much hatred to the CCP? Geeeeeee whiz.
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Very interesting graphs.
It would be interesting to know how he is calculating the "relative standings". For instance how is the Ottoman Empire consistently ranked so low (I find that hard to believe)? Also interesting that the U.S. is ranked higher than the height of the British Empire, or that China is somehow more powerful than the height of the USSR...? Unless I am misreading these graphs.
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