News Desk :
Tensions with China and Pakistan stretch a cash-starved military, while the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban removes a potential ally.
After the deadliest clashes in half a century with China, India’s military has taken emergency measures to reinforce a 500-mile stretch of the border high in the Himalayas.
In the past year, it has tripled the number of troops in the contentious eastern Ladakh region to more than 50,000. It has raced to stock up on food and gear for freezing temperatures and 15,000-foot altitudes before the region is largely cut off for much of the winter. It has announced that an entire strike corps, an offensive force of tens of thousands more soldiers, would be reoriented to the increasingly contentious frontier with China from the long, volatile border with Pakistan.
India’s military is now grappling with a reality that the country has feared for nearly two decades: It is stuck in a two-front conflict with hostile neighbors – and all three are nuclear armed.
And it comes as India increasingly finds itself isolated in its broader neighborhood, part of the global security backdrop to President Biden’s discussions on Friday with the India, Australia and Japan, the group known as the Quad.
China has made investments and inroads from Sri Lanka to Nepal.
The victory in Afghanistan by the Taliban, a movement nurtured and harbored in Pakistan that has increasing ties to China, has essentially shut out India from a country it saw as a natural ally in the regional balance.
Even if all-out war on its borders is unlikely, the sustained posture is sure to bleed India financially. With the coronavirus pandemic exacerbating an economic slowdown, a force that was already stretched on resources and struggling to modernize finds itself in what current and former officials describe as a constant and difficult juggling act.
The breakdown of trust between the giant neighbors is such that a dozen rounds of talks since the deadly clashes last year have contained the tensions, but they have not resulted in de-escalation. Both nations are likely to remain on war footing, even if they never go to war.
China may have the advantage.
While India is adept at high-altitude combat, it is up against a Chinese military that is far better funded and equipped. China, with an economy five times the size of India’s, is also investing heavily in the region, countering Indian influence.
China and Pakistan already share deep ties. Any collaboration to stir trouble would test the Indian military reserves.
Gen. Ved Prakash Malik, a former chief of the Indian army, said the clashes in the Galwan Valley last year, which left at least 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers dead, had fundamentally changed India’s calculation.
“Galwan carried another message: that China was not respecting the agreements it had signed,” General Malik said. “The biggest casualty in Galwan, to my mind, was not that we lost 20 men, but the trust was shattered.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India is trying to expedite stagnant reforms in the military to optimize resources. His government rushed additional emergency funds to the army last year, after the border clashes.
But India’s constraints from the slowing economy were clear by the message in Mr. Modi’s new defense budget: The military simply cannot expect a significant increase in spending. While the budget earmarked more money for equipment purchases, the overall amount allocated for defense continued to decline, as a share of gross domestic product and total government expenditures.
Sustaining such troop presence in the Himalayan region is a mammoth logistical task, albeit one with which India’s military has experience.
The increased costs are bound to further slow investments in modernizing a deeply antiquated force. The borders simply cannot be protected by rushing troops to fill every vulnerability.
India’s military has long lacked resources. About 75 percent of defense expenditure goes to routine costs such as pensions, salaries and sustainment of force. In 2020, India spent about $73 billion on the military, compared with China’s $252 billion.
“The fact is that additional budgetary support is unlikely to come in the next few years,” said D.S. Hooda, a retired lieutenant general who led India’s northern command, which partly covers the Chinese border. “You need better surveillance. You need much better intelligence on the other side. We can’t keep getting surprised every time.”
Since a major war in 1962, India and China have largely contained disputes through talks and treaties. Flare-ups happen, because unlike with Pakistan where the boundary is clearly defined on maps, India and China have not been able to agree on the specific demarcation of the 2,100-mile frontier referred to as the Line of Actual Control. Indian officials say their Chinese counterparts have been reluctant, preferring to keep the border’s uncertainties as a “pressure tactic.”
-Courtesy: The New York Times
