Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 16

The Galwan valley in eastern Ladakh has strategic significance because of its proximity to the vital road link to Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO), the world’s highest landing ground that lies close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and serves as an important aerial supply line. This DBO area is known in the Army as Sub-Sector North.

The Darbuk-Shyok-DBO link

• India is building 255-km Darbuk-Shyok-DBO road along LAC
• Will reduce travel time between Leh and DBO from 2 days to 6 hrs
• Control of ridgeline along Galwan allows domination of road
• Control of valley also gives access to Aksai Chin plateau, through which Xinjiang-Tibet highway passes

India is raising border infrastructure in this area, including the all-weather 255-km Darbuk-Shyok-DBO road. This road runs almost parallel and at places very close to the LAC and extends up to the base of the Karakoram pass, which when complete, will reduce the travel time from Leh to DBO from the present two days to just six hours. Road and bridge construction works have recently been speeded up with a large number of labourers being ferried in.

The valley connects with Shyok on the road under construction and lies between DBO and Chushul to the south near Pangon Tso, another hotspot, providing convenient access to Shyok and the areas beyond.

Control of the ridgeline along the valley also allows domination of the road. Looking eastwards, control of the Galwan valley gives access to the Aksai Chin plateau, through which part of the Xinjiang-Tibet highway passes. While the road is highly prone to Chinese interdiction or long-range artillery, it serves a vital peacetime role in maintaining forward posts and building up reserves. An alternative route to DBO is being developed from a different axis in Ladakh that has adequate depth from the LAC.

The Galwan river flows westwards from the disputed Aksai Chin region into Ladakh after originating in Samzungling area on the eastern side of the Karakoram range and joins the Shyok river, one of the tributaries of the Indus. The fast-flowing river runs for about 80 km.

The Galwan river is to the west of China’s 1956 claim line in Aksai Chin. However, in 1960 China advanced its claim line to the west of the river along the mountain ridge adjoining the Shyok river valley. India had established some military posts in this sector. During the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict, Indian posts in the Galwan Sector were attacked by the Chinese, resulting in casualties. After the war, this sector remained dormant till the recent face-offs.

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 16

India today said the clash in Galwan Valley occurred after the Chinese side departed from the consensus to respect the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Both sides suffered casualties that could have been avoided had the agreement at the higher level been scrupulously followed by the Chinese side, said the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava.

He pointed out that the clash happened as a result of an attempt by the Chinese side to unilaterally change the status quo there.

Giving a rundown of the events that led to the violence, MEA said both sides had been discussing through military and diplomatic channels the de-escalation of the situation in the border area in eastern Ladakh.

Senior commanders had a productive meeting on June 6 and agreed on a process for such de-escalation. Subsequently, ground commanders had a series of meetings to implement the consensus reached at a higher level. “While it was our expectation that this would unfold smoothly, Chinese intransigence led to the events taking a different turn,” said Srivastava. “We remain firmly convinced of the need for maintenance of peace and tranquillity in border areas,” he added.

Washington, June 17

The United States is closely monitoring the situation following a fierce clash between Indian and Chinese forces in eastern Ladakh and hopes that the differences will be resolved peacefully, officials said here.

Twenty Indian Army personnel, including a colonel, were killed in the clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday night, the biggest military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff in the region.

“We are closely monitoring the situation between Indian and Chinese forces along the Line of Actual Control,” a State Department spokesperson said.

“We note the Indian military has announced that 20 soldiers have died, and we offer our condolences to their families,” the official said.

Both India and China have expressed their desires to de-escalate and the US supports a peaceful resolution of the current situation, the spokesperson said.

“During their phone call on June 2, 2020, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had discussed the situation along the India-China border,” the official added. PTI

India’s strategic managers face a difficult problem: both China and Pakistan use asymmetric means that are not easy to counter. Pakistan uses terrorism because it ties down India’s stronger conventional military forces. And China has mastered the art of salami-slicing territory that is equally difficult to thwart, not just for India, but for China’s other neighbours and even the US. With the surgical strike and the Balakot attack, India may have found an appropriate response to Pakistan’s asymmetric tactics. But China is a harder nut to crack. New Delhi needs to think of other ways to tackle it.

Asymmetric tactics are difficult to counter. India’s traditional counter has been defence, but this clearly did not work against either Pakistan or China. Of course, defence has to be part of the strategic mix, but by itself, it will not work. 

In dealing with terrorism, defences can never work perfectly every time. If the terrorists fail once, they can try again and again. As is well-known, the terrorist can afford to fail many times but only needs to succeed once, while the defence has to be successful every time.  India’s fight against terrorism is a standing testament to this: however much India tightened its defences, it could never stop the attacks.

Defences are also a poor solution to salami-slicing tactics, as we are witnessing along the Line of Actual Control. The problem is that each individual act is so small that it passes without challenge. It is always tempting to ignore such infractions and to excuse it as a reaction to a mistake that others made. After all, in the South China Sea, other countries had also occupied some portions of the islands and even built ramshackle huts on them. Now we know different, but it is of course too late. Salami-slicing tactics encourage second-guessing by the victims, which further undermine any response.

Another problem with countering such tactics is that it is difficult to defend everywhere, especially in inhospitable terrain or in the waters. But the end result is that China has now asserted control over much of the South China Sea and is repeating the same method in Ladakh. India should be familiar with this: the Chinese used the same method successfully in the run-up to the India-China war in 1962. In trying to defend ‘every inch of land’, India ended up in an unsustainable military position.

Also read: PM Modi’s silence on LAC stand-off is benefiting China. India must change its script

Tackling Pakistan

There are alternatives to a purely defensive response to asymmetric attacks. One can mimic such asymmetric strategies, paying China back in the same coin.  There is an agreeable symmetry to this, but agreeableness is, of course, less important than effectiveness. Doing this requires capacity and political willingness.

For example, Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalled a change on India’s Balochistan policy early on, which was seen as a tit-for-tat response to Pakistan’s terror strategy. But little appears to have actually been done, either because India lacks the intelligence and covert action capability to actually implement such a policy or the government simply lost its nerve. There is also the moral equivalence problem: can democratic India support groups that engage in such actions? India has supported such groups before but does it become problematic when India puts so much stress on international diplomatic action against terrorism?

Capability and political risk-acceptance become even more important if India wants to embark on its own salami-slicing tactics to counter China. Such tactics could quickly escalate: India’s forward policy in the run-up to the 1962 war was attempted without sufficient military capability to deal with escalation and we paid for it. Indian capabilities are far better today but the risks cannot be dismissed.

India may have found at least a partial answer to Pakistan’s asymmetric strategy of using terrorism: escalation. Both the surgical strike and the Balakot attack demonstrated that India had the political will to use its superior military capabilities. The debate about whether Indian bombs hit the target is irrelevant: Pakistan now has to factor the probability of an Indian escalation next time it plans a terror strike, something it did not appear overly concerned with before.

Also read: India has a bigger worry than LAC. China now expanding military footprint in Indian Ocean

Tackling China

The challenge is not over, of course. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent claims about a ‘false-flag’ operation by India and the foiling of a Pulwama-type terror attack a few days later may suggest that Pakistan will continue to use such tactics, which means that India will need to be prepared to escalate and punish again if another such attack takes place.

It is doubtful that such military escalation tactics will work in China’s case. But there are other ways to escalate that could work. New Delhi can signal that continued pressure on the border can have repercussions, such as strengthening Indian strategic partnerships with the US and others. India could also become more vocal about issues such as China’s roadbuilding in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, its role in the coronavirus pandemic, or its behaviour in Hong Kong. These have no intrinsic value to India, but to the extent that China values its narrative, they represent points of vulnerability that India can exploit.

Escalation is undesirable and would hurt both sides. China can surely respond in kind. But asymmetric tactics should not be tolerated either. The alternative to escalation is being repeatedly victimised, as India was for decades by Pakistan’s terrorism.

This is the third fatality in the Pakistani firing and shelling on forward posts and villages in the twin districts of Poonch and Rajouri this month.

The officials said the latest firing and shelling from across the border took place in Shahpur-Kerni sector on Saturday night, drawing strong retaliation by the Indian Army.

They said the casualties suffered by the Pakistani Army in the retaliatory action were not known immediately.

On June 4, havaldar P Mathiazhagan fell to Pakistani firing in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district, while on June 10, Naik Gurcharan Singh lost his life in a similar incident in Rajouri sector.

Speaking at a virtual rally for Jammu and Kashmir, the defence minister assured that national pride will not be compromised under any circumstances.

Speaking at a virtual rally for Jammu and Kashmir, Singh also assured the opposition that the central government will not keep Parliament or anyone in the dark about developments on the border and will share details at an appropriate time.

“I want to assure that we will not compromise with national pride under any circumstance. India is no longer a weak India. Our strength in national security has risen. But this strength is not meant to frighten anyone but to secure our country,” Singh said.

“This is also our effort to defuse the tussle between India and China through military and diplomatic level talks,” he said, noting that the two countries are engaged in military level dialogue.

Also read: India says will hold more diplomatic-level talks with China to resolve border standoff

The nine nuclear-armed countries—the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—together account for an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons as of January 2020.

China and Pakistan possess more nuclear weapons than India, according to a new yearbook released by a leading conflict and armaments think-tank on Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s Yearbook 2020 pegs the number of nuclear warheads in the Chinese arsenal at 320, while the nuclear forces of Pakistan and India are estimated to have 160 and 150 weapons, respectively.

The figures have been updated till January 2020.

India and its neighbours were ranked in the same order by SIPRI last year too when China possessed 290 nuclear warheads, Pakistan 150-160 and India had 130-140 warheads at the start of 2019.

The findings come at a time when India and China are caught in a border confrontation along the contested line of actual control in eastern Ladakh. Also, there is a noticeable military buildup on both sides of the border—stretching from Ladakh to Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

China is carrying out “significant modernisation” of its nuclear arsenal and developing a “so-called nuclear triad for the first time” made up of new land and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable fighter jets, the SIPRI said in a statement announcing the launch of the yearbook.

“India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces,” it said.

The yearbook, which “assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security”, found while there has been an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2019, all nuclear weapon-possessing countries continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals.

With 6,375 and 5,800 warheads, Russia and the United States together possess more than 90% of global nuclear weapons.

The nine nuclear-armed countries—the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—together account for an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons as of January 2020.

“This marked a decrease from the 13,865 nuclear weapons that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2019. Around 3,720 of the nuclear weapons are currently deployed with operational forces and nearly 1,800 of these are kept in a state of high operational alert,” SIPRI’s statement said.

It also highlighted low levels of transparency in reporting on nuclear weapon capabilities.

“China now publicly displays its nuclear forces more frequently than in the past but releases little information about force numbers or future development plans,” the statement said.

“The governments of India and Pakistan make statements about some of their missile tests but provide no information about the status or size of their arsenals,” it added.

India was the third-biggest military spender in the world last year after the US and China, according to a SIPRI report released in April. It was the first time that two Asian countries featured among the top three military spenders.

New Delhi’s defence spending grew by 6.8% to reach $71.1 billion in 2019, said the report on Trends in World in World Military Expenditure.