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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Taiwan

Does India Have An Israel Policy?

10 Wed Jan 2018

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Opinion and Response, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Does India Have An Israel Policy?

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anti-Semitism, Arab, BDS, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions, China, foreign policy, INC, India, Indian National Congress, Israel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jerusalem, Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, Kargil, Mohandas Gandhi, Muslims, Narendra Modi, Palestine, Rafael, Richard Nixon, Spike, Taiwan, Zionism

There will be nothing but bonhomie for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is expected to arrive in India in a couple of days for a three-day state visit. The Israeli delegation will begin their visit from Ahmedabad, visit Sabarmati Ashram and hold a roadshow in Gujarat, and perhaps visit Agra and Bombay. While in India’s financial capital, Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the Chabad House which was targeted by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists in a horrific attack in November 2008. The diplomatic agenda, predictably, will revolve around agriculture, water management, cyber security, innovation, and defence.

While there is no question about the Indian public’s warmth for Israel, there have been some whispers of doubt recently about its government’s intentions. Indians, by and large, admire much about the Jewish state and even those who do not are indifferent rather than hostile. Israeli diplomats do not have to waste their time countering anti-Semitism or Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions sort of political movements in the South Asian country. That said, India’s recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly essentially condemning the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel followed by its sudden cancellation of a $500 million deal to purchase Spike anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) from the Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defence Systems has raised eyebrows in Jerusalem and among observers. The deal is apparently moving forward, according to latest media reports. Are good relations between India and Israel to be limited to Modi’s occasional charming tweets to his Israeli counterpart?

Such misgivings from Jerusalem are not only perfectly understandable but justified; yet the compulsions of India’s own domestic political chaos are also an important set of inputs to policy and must at least be understood if not tolerated for a fuller picture of the intentions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party administration.

When Modi swept into office in 2014 in an election that was just short of a landslide, policy wonks warned his euphoric supporters that the nature of government policies is continuity and incremental change rather than the desired abrupt departure from the “idea of India” espoused by the Indian National Congress. This warning has been borne out to some extent – the economy, which Modi has correctly prioritised, has seen several small yet critical positive reforms but many of the more emotive (and less dry) issues that Modi’s core supporters care about such as education and culture have so far received short shrift; other matters such as terrorism and defence have seen some movement but will take a longer time to reveal the lasting impact of the new regime in Delhi.

Foreign policy, in so far as it does not pertain to the economy, appears to have been largely relegated to the boondocks. The immediate reason for this is the global experience of democracies that there are few votes in foreign affairs. India has yet to cultivate a large and vibrant foreign policy circle as might be observed older and more developed democracies and the community as it exists now has several foci and plenty of challenges regarding access to decision makers, policy documentation, a bureaucratic hostility to transparency, career opportunities, and funds. India’s foreign ministry has rarely been blessed with the sort of polymath ideal for the job, either in its politicians or its bureaucrats, even when the portfolio has remained with the prime minister. With insufficient attention from elected officials, governance slips into maintenance mode administered by the civil service and the policies of earlier decades continue unabated.

This is visible from India’s insistence on clinging to expired motifs such as strategic autonomy, a fancy 21st century upgraded phrase for non-alignment. For example, India recently courted Australia, Japan, and the United States in a security quadrilateral (Quad) that observers understand is designed to balance an increasingly aggressive China and in the same week participated in a trilateral forum with Russia and China. Similarly, India’s approach to the Palestinian question is based on Mohandas Gandhi’s fundamental ignorance of Jewish history that was supplemented by Jawaharlal Nehru’s own political inclinations; the policy was maintained as a hagiographic monument to the two men well after it had proven to be detrimental to Indian national interests.

It is no secret that India’s foreign ministry is understaffed, and the same is true of the ruling political party when it comes to policy formulation. Besides the core issues its supporters would like addressed, foreign policy remains a step-child of the BJP’s internal thinkers. The party seems to have forgotten that to replace an ideology, an alternative is needed. In essence, the BJP has tinkered with the edifice of the Nehruvian state and such incomplete measures occasionally fall short of the hopes of not just the citizens but even the party’s own lofty rhetoric.

It is often argued that India’s policy towards Israel must be tempered by the strategic considerations of its relations with other countries that may be hostile to the Jewish state. Domestic calculations regarding India’s large Muslim minority must also influence how close India can drift towards Israel. The problem with this argument is two-fold: first, it implicitly suspects all Indian Muslims of treason in that they would put the well-being of Palestine and Islam above Indian interests. Second, it cannot explain the tacit Arab acceptance of not just Israel in the face of a rising Iranian threat but even Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state: there were few protests in Arab streets after Donald Trump’s recognition of the Holy City as the capital of Israel. This flimsy argument, in addition to the bogey of seven million Indians returning from the Persian Gulf and the loss of $35 billion in remittances as Arab retaliation against India’s warming ties with Israel, are unfortunately treated as gospel by an intellectually anaemic coterie in the BJP and outside. While India may not strive to become Israel’s closest ally, there is plenty of room for it to move closer to the Middle Eastern democracy if it so wishes.

To repeat dozens of articles already, there are plenty of reasons for Delhi to desire closer ties. Beyond transactional considerations of trade and security, it is also important to remember that the tiny country has been among the more reliable suppliers of know-how and equipment. After the nuclear tests at Pokhran II when no one was willing to supply arms to India, Israel remained one of the very few markets still open. Similarly, the important role Israel played during Kargil is also undisputed.

Optimistic assessments of India’s recent uptick in relations with Israel opine that a change in policy cannot be abrupt, especially when drastic. This is simply not true: in one of the greatest about-turns in recent diplomatic history, the United States de-recognised Taiwan and recognised Communist China in its stead in 1979. The entire process took seven years from Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972 until the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations in January 1979. Such events are admittedly rare and challenging but pursuing a wrong policy for the sake of continuity is insanity. As mentioned earlier, the lack of political interest or vision within the BJP coupled with an understaffed foreign service does not allow for a nimble policy environment capable of quickly and thoroughly assessing the ramification of ideas on allies, security, economics, and international obligations.

A clear-eyed view of friends, enemies, and interests has the immediate benefit of signalling to partners that you are worth investing in; a bonus is that it gives others confidence in your national purpose and dependability in forging trade and security alliances. India’s waffling – sorry, strategic autonomy – will only ensure that it trails behind its rivals and fights its battles alone. France, despite being a member of NATO, has a far better track record of strategic autonomy than India ever had as a perennial “leading member” of the have-nots.

Nowadays, scholars hesitate to describe foreign systems or people as irrational. This is partly to avoid imposing the observer’s perspective and values on the subject and to allow for a potential alien framework in which things might make perfect sense. However, Indian foreign policy has long veered dangerously towards that word which must not be spoken. American leadership is defined in schools of thought – Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian; in India, there is only the cult of Congress and no opposition party, despite the political cacophony, has come remotely close to offering a complete and alternate weltanshauung comprising economic, security, social, and cultural programmes. Diplomacy suffers the same fate. The real question is not if India has an Israel policy but if the BJP actually has a foreign policy.

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In Search of Great Power

07 Sat Jan 2017

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Book Review

≈ 1 Comment

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Agalegas, Ayni, Bharat Karnad, China, city upon a hill, Farkhor, foreign policy, George Tanham, Great Power, India, Indian Ocean, Japan, Jawaharlal Nehru, John Winthrop, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of External Affairs, Monroe Doctrine, Nha Trang, Nine-Dash Line, nuclear, Pakistan, Shivshankar Menon, soft power, strategy, Taiwan, United States, Vietnam

Why India is not a Great Power.jpgKarnad, Bharat. Why India Is Not A Great Power (Yet). New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015. 564 pp.

If India were to ever look for a Kautilya in the 21st century, Bharat Karnad would undoubtedly be at the top of a very short list. Some have compared him to Niccolo Machiavelli, the Renaissance Florentine political thinker, but that would be a grave injustice to Karnad, whose majestic breadth of national ambition in Why India Is Not A Great Power (Yet) surpasses even the wildest interpretation of The Prince. In his latest book, now marginally over a year old (but reviewed again because it simply has not got the attention it deserves), Karnad asks the question a whole new generation of young Indians are also wondering – why is their country not counted as among the major powers of the world?

The question is not the fatuous pretension of a strategist born in the wrong country or era, but a potent one. Consider, for example, that India has detonated nuclear devices, sent missions to the Earth’s closest neighbours, the moon and Mars, developed missiles that can strike anywhere from Japan to Austria, built nuclear-powered submarines, satellites, and once the first jet fighter outside the West, and has an advanced nuclear energy programme that includes an indigenously designed and built a fast breeder nuclear reactor that is about to go critical as well as a thorium reactor in the wings. Yet Delhi also appears to lack the power to dissuade its tiny South Asian neighbours such as the Maldives, Nepal, or Sri Lanka from  adopting policies that potentially put Indian national security in jeopardy; India has generally shied away from ever taking a clear stance on world issues, even when its own interests are at stake, such as over Iran or joint training operations in the Indian Ocean and its environs with friendly navies; and Delhi just cannot learn to use its increasing economic clout to influence bilateral trade terms or global commercial regimes in its favour.

The root of this problem, Karnad argues, is that the Indian republic’s leaders have never thought strategically. This echoes RAND analyst George Tanham’s famous 1992 report, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay, a much reviled essay in many Indian circles but with more truth than they care to admit: after all, if one has to think back 2,300 years to recall the last great strategic thinker in one’s culture, it might be prudent to concede the point. Karnad cites several public intellectuals and officials – Nobel laureate and economist Amartya Sen, historian Ramachandra Guha, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former national security advisors MK Narayanan and Shivshankar Menon, Congress minister Shashi Tharoor – explicitly stating that India should not even attempt to become a great power in the traditional sense of the term. What makes India great, the argument runs, is its soft power and ancient civilisational values imbued with rich diversity that have much to offer the world by way of example – in essence, an Indian version of Puritan John Winthrop’s city upon a hill. In this Nehruvian strand of thinking, India is already great merely by dint of its long existence and the world must only be reminded of this. What little progress India has made in recent years in asserting itself on behalf of its national interests seems to be primarily at the urging of friendly powers invested in the idea of a normal India, with hard and soft power commensurate with its geographic size, location, population, and economy.

Karnad lays the genesis of such woolly thinking – bovine pacifism, he calls it – at the feet of Jawaharlal Nehru. Interestingly, his is not the simplistic assault on India’s first prime minister that one has become so accustomed to from the Indian “Right” in recent years, but a more nuanced understanding of the man. Karnad’s Nehru is an intellectual giant but a practical pygmy: according to Karnad, Nehru rightly saw the latent threat from China, envisioned a world order that would not leave three quarters of the world torn between American capitalism and Soviet communism, and articulated an important place for India and her interests on the world stage. Unfortunately, this was coupled with abject incompetence in implementation: Nehru abandoned his idea of an Asian Monroe Doctrine with India at its helm for fear of upsetting other newly independent third-world countries who only remembered the Indian military as agents of British imperialism, did not embrace the countries flanking China’s southern rim in a geopolitical and defensive association in an arrogant condescension towards geopolitics, rejected a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council over ideological vacuity, and failed to cross the nuclear Rubicon when the opportunity first presented itself in February 1964. Future leaders ossified Nehru’s vacillations much to India’s detriment.

Over seven chapters, Karnad discusses what it means to be a great power, India’s options in developing a coalition of littoral or rimland states to moderate Chinese aggression, Indian relations with the major powers – Russia and the United States – as well important countries in its near abroad – Israel, the Gulf states, Iran, the Central Asian Republics, the ASEAN, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan, the over-cautious, risk-averse nature of the Indian administration and its failure of strategic imagination, the shortcomings of the Indian military services in terms of procurement, silly and detrimental turf wars, silo-based decision-making, slow absorption of the latest technology, preference for short-term, tactical thinking over long-term, strategic planning, and organisational inelasticity, the weakness of Indian industry in not just developing but even assimilating technology, poor governmental policies favouring non-performing defence public sector undertakings, and the low motivation and budget for research and development, and finally the internal factors such as caste-driven politics, illiteracy, centre-state tensions, corrupt civil service, and socialist perpetuation of poverty.

Karnad regales the reader with ample anecdotes of stunted ambition, missed opportunities, and poor planning by Indian politicians, civil servants, and military brass that would make even the most committed teetotaler reach for a generous helping of liquid courage. The failure to become a founding member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the short-sightedness in not taking Vietnam up on developing a naval base at Nha Trang, the docile surrender of Indian national interests to American priorities in Iran, the absence of the armed forces in any higher echelon governmental decision-making, the turf wars between the Ministry of External Affairs and the military, the impossible logistics of the Indian Air Force, the exuberance over soft power in isolation, and the irresponsible comment repeated by senior bureaucrats that nuclear weapons are not weapons of war all make an appearance in this excoriation of seven decades of Indian policy. While it is not difficult to agree with the author’s simpler premise that India must shrug off its timidity and become a Great Power, it is the audacious road map offered to Great Power status that makes this book truly interesting.

Anyone who knows Karnad would not hesitate to peg him for a security hawk. Even those who have heard of him for the first time in this review would have by now probably come to agree with that sentiment. Fascinatingly, unlike most security hawks in India, Karnad suggests a reorientation of Indian military policy away from Pakistan and towards the real bête noire, China. His argument is simple – anything that can dissuade China from having its way with India will likely deter Pakistan too but not vice versa. With 60 percent of the Indian army and 90 percent of its armour deployed against Pakistan, India finds it difficult to come up with the resources for the urgently needed mountain regiments and other requirements along the Line of Actual Control. Karnad even goes so far as to suggest the removal of the nuclear-tipped short-range ballistic missiles pointed at Pakistan as a unilateral gesture of goodwill. In times of war, they are easy targets for the Pakistani air force and the break-away state is anyway amply covered by the Agni family of missiles deployed deeper and more safely in the hinterland. These measures would reassure Islamabad and allow the Pakistani army to save face in following the Indian example. Furthermore, India should incentivise its immediate neighbours, including Pakistan, with generous economic terms to plug into Indian markets and thereby cement the country’s role as a regional security provider as well as economic engine.

Putting China in India’s crosshairs has several layers in Karnad’s grand design, each to be initiated simultaneously. Delhi must reorient its military  towards China and order it to prepare for several scenarios, including pushing across the Himalayas and fighting China in Tibet, bombing the fragile ecology of the Tibetan plains and other high value targets such as the Three Gorges Dam, and setting up atomic demolition munitions in the Himalayan passes. Delhi should amplify its capability to prosecute expeditionary missions anywhere from Subic Bay to the Persian Gulf by establishing foreign military bases at Nha Trang, Agalegas, Farkhor, Ayni, Garden Island, and other important locations. This could be achieved in concert with other states of the Indian Ocean Region littoral, dissipating any resentment at India’s rise, increasing confidence in Delhi’s intentions, and forging a partnership for an Indian-led Asian Monroe Doctrine first envisioned by Nehru.

Yet to give its potential partners any confidence in India’s abilities, Delhi must actively seek to set up a defence-industrial complex led by the private sector that would initially absorb technology transfers and later further its own R&D. Defence independence would not only be good for India’s pocket book but it would also improve the Indian military’s operational readiness and psychologically nudge Southeast Asia towards betting on Delhi to balance China. If India emerges as an arms supplier to the Indian Ocean Region littoral, it would build long-term relations with the militaries Delhi hopes to partner with to contain China.

In its international relations, Karnad argues that India jettison the loaded vocabulary of non-alignment but actually behave in a manner Nehru had intended that term to describe. To this end, Delhi should side with the United States, Russia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Australia against China when it comes to curbing Beijing’s adventurism in the Himalayas or the Nine-Dash Line. However, India should also align with Iran, Russia, and China against the United States and its Western allies in matters of international trade pacts, environmental norms, labour agreements, and other structural treaties that prop up the status quo favouring the victors of World War II. As part of both groupings, India would become the balancer.

Finally, in what will certainly be considered the most outrageous policy recommendations, Karnad suggests that India resume nuclear testing to attain the thermonuclear grail as well as to make credible its fission designs. Further optimisation on existing designs to yield weapons of various payloads, from tactical to megaton-strategic would give India a richer nuclear palette of responses to an incoming attack. Furthermore, most egregious to prevailing nuclear morality, the author also advocates that Delhi arm Vietnam with nuclear weapons in a tit-for-tat policy to pay China back for supplying Pakistan with nuclear weapons and missile technology.

Karnad considers the argument that India’s best foreign and defence policy for the next two decades is nine percent annual economic growth as foolishly naïve. As he points out, past Great Powers did not become so once they became the industrial engines of their times but their military and economic trajectories complemented each other. Elizabethan England, Bismarckian Germany, and one might add the Soviet Union, Catherinian Russia, the Ottoman Empire, or Rome did not become empires after attaining economic hegemony but their military muscle supported their economic wherewithal and vice versa. Even China, though its rise has been noticed by the West only since Deng Xiaoping, was a military power not of little consequence before it embarked on a programme of economic rejuvenation.

Sometimes, however, Karnad appears to contradict himself. For example, he lambasts the set of treaties the United States has been pressuring India to sign, known as the Foundational Agreements, for coercing India into an American military geopolitical as well as operational order but at the same time admits to India’s own individual abysmal failure in these respects. Not only is communication between the different branches of the Indian military difficult, Karnad tells us, but even within the same service! Different procurement policies, short-term fixes, and the tendency of the different branches to exist in isolation from its sister services has necessitated several jugaads to make possible joint operations. India has also failed to take up offers to establish military supply stations on foreign soil on its on and working with Washington provides a medium-term fix. Similarly, Karnad is leery of the United States as a provider of military technology. Yet he also admits that Indian DPSUs and industry have been spectacularly unsuccessful at indigenous development of required equipment in quality or quantity. The Americans offer a route to plug the gaps in Indian defence more immediately that bringing domestic capability up to speed and then doing so indigenously.

While Karnad is undoubtedly correct about the necessity for credibility of the Indian nuclear deterrent, he does not consider the ramifications of renewed nuclear testing. India will most likely come under sanctions from at least some of its major economic and military partners – the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia – and that could effectively scuttle military modernisation and retard economic growth. Again, the lesson to learn here comes from China – economic indispensability provides a great cover for many sins.

Moreover, arming Vietnam with nuclear weapons is easier said than done – true nuclearisation of Vietnamese defence would require indigenous thinking on technical as well as geopolitical and strategic aspects of nuclear weapons, something  Hanoi will need time to develop. In addition, nuclear arms are financially unviable for Vietnam in its current status. It is not even clear if Vietnam perceives any need for its own nuclear arsenal. A case in point is Japan – despite its proximity to China and the regularity of anti-Japanese rhetoric in the Middle Kingdom, Tokyo feels comfortable even under an unsure American nuclear umbrella. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has had an uphill battle in convincing his countrymen to make even the smallest of amendments to the constitution to allow a healthier defence outlook and there is great public opposition to all things nuclear.

Similarly, the author is completely correct in emphasising China over Pakistan as the greater security concern for India. One may even agree with Karnad’s logical assertion that preparing a security contingency against China would automatically enable India to curb Pakistan’s periodic tantrums. However, his sanguine views on incorporating Pakistan into an Indian co-prosperity sphere in South Asia would do well to get a reality check from the works of scholars and practitioners of diplomacy such as former Pakistani ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani and Georgetown professor Christine Fair who warn that the troubles India has with its western neighbour are not over territorial disputes but part of the Islamic republic’s very raison d’etre. Such deep-rooted hostility cannot be coopted by rationality, economic goodies, and unilateral nostalgia.

It is not the purpose of Why India Is Not A Great Power (Yet) to explore every policy option – for example, terrorism and cyber security are given short shrift – but to emphasise the lack of ambition in the Indian ruling elite, whence all other problems arise. Karnad’s heartwarming embrace of amoral machtpolitik is not for everyone, and for all his pessimism about the state of India’s affairs, he remains hopeful as the parenthetical part of the title indicates. Notwithstanding the provocations, disagreements, and the quibbles, the import of his argument should not be lost. This is a most important book anyone interested in Indian security policy should read; in fact, were the Indian prime minister, defence minister, and foreign minister to consider just one book in their entire term, this ought to be it.

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China’s Latest War Manual

27 Wed May 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Security

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anti-access/area denial, China, Communist Party of China, CPC, cyber, Defence White Paper, Indian Ocean, Japan, Line of Actual Control, LoAC, military, NFU, No First Use, Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT, nuclear, nuclear weapons state, NWS, People's Liberation Army, People's Liberation Army Air Force, People's Liberation Army Navy, People's Liberation Army Second Artillery Force, PLA, PLAAF, PLAN, PLASAF, Revolution in Military Affairs, RMA, sea lines of communication, Senkaku Islands, SLOC, South China Sea, space, Taiwan, Tibet, Uighur, United States, Xinjiang

On May 26 this year, China released its latest Defence White Paper in which it outlined the direction and scope of its military modernisation efforts. As with the release of every such document, the immediate question is, ‘What’s new?’ The honest answer is, ‘Not much.’ The White Paper has never been the vehicle through which Beijing announces its policy changes; usually, these documents, about nine of them since 1998, reiterate already announced policies and tweak old policies a little to factor in the Communist Party of China’s latest threat perception. This means that the White Papers are fairly useless to strategists or Sinologists but may be of some use to political leaders who tend to have diverse demands on their attention.

China Defence White Paper 2015The 2015 White Paper starts typically with a brief assessment of the security situation China faces and the changes it expects in the proximate future. It repeats the standard rhetoric from Beijing of seeking only cooperation and peaceful coexistence. Beijing perceives the international environment to be fairly peaceful and stable with little risk of a major war in the foreseeable future. However, the CPC is concerned about threats arising from hegemonism, power politics, and neo-interventionism which may encourage terrorist activities, ethnic, border, and territorial disputes; local wars, therefore, remain a threat.

Not surprisingly, China’s political and military confidence of recent years comes from its conviction that the world’s economic centre of gravity is shifting rapidly back to Asia. Its primary concern is the US in the western Pacific but Japan’s even gradual militarisation has alarmed Beijing. In perhaps a veiled reference to India, the White Paper also mentions foreign countries interfering in South China Sea affairs. Vietnam and the Philippines get a similar mention for the Senkakus and China rounds off its list of potential threats with a mention of Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.

Interestingly, the last two did not merit a mention in the previous white paper two years ago. Several incidents by Uighurs in recent months makes the addition of Xinjiang an understandable addition but Tibet is a little surprising. The paper mentions the United States and Japan by name less number of times than earlier years, indicating that China has become more confident of its anti-access/area denial tactics.

The CPC has not altered its views on the role of the military – defending Chinese interests, participating in relief operations, international security cooperation, and preserving the stability of the state. Beijing’s paranoia about outside powers trying to foment a revolution, though much reduced since the days of Mao Zedong, has still not gone away completely.

China soldiersBut what can we expect to see in China’s defence spending and its areas of interests? Unlike the 2013 white paper, there are no mentions of units, military districts, or strength of the various branches of the Chinese military. However, the general outlook appears similar – the Revolution in Military Affairs has an inherent and irresistible push, according to Beijing, towards the development of long-range weapons systems, stealth, unmanned platforms, precision weapons, and the use of cyber and outer space. The focus on cyber and space-based assets for communications, reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, and surveillance, is clear from the mention – fear? – of the modern “informationized” battlefield 22 times in a short, 5,500-word document.

Operationally, the People’s Liberation Army will reorient its mission from merely theatre defence to trans-theatre mobility. This sounds a little like India’s much-vaunted Cold Start doctrine but something the Chinese might actually be able to pull off given their superior infrastructure. The PLA intends to develop specially-skilled units for different terrains and tasks and train them for closely coordinated operations. The multi-functional, modular units allows the PLA greater operational flexibility for small-scale operations in localised conflicts of the kind the CPC perceives China to be occupied with in the foreseeable future. The smaller, more mobile units would be perfect for “warning exercises” opposite the Japanese or Taiwanese coast or for adventures along the Line of Actual Control.

China navyThe PLA Navy’s role has been expanded from offshore waters defence to include open seas protection. This likely means the defence of new Chinese maritime claims and the assets Beijing might place in disputed waters. To this end, Beijing’s interest in acquiring additional aircraft carriers makes perfect sense – the envelope around a carrier group will be able to create little mobile pockets of Chinese sovereignty. This expanded role is of great concern not just for China’s immediate neighbours but also Indonesia and Australia. Fielding a blue-water navy has long been a Chinese ambition but open seas protection moves beyond that to some serious force projection.

Until now, China has relied on the international system to keep its sea lines of communication safe; henceforth, the PLAN will take a direct interest in ensuring their security. A legitimate security concern, defending its SLOCs gives the PLAN an excuse to sail more regularly and in greater strength into the Indian Ocean, a move sure to alarm Delhi.

The PLA Air Force will maintain its current role of early warning, air defence and offence, and force projection while modernising itself. A small but crucial addition to its role from 2013 will be “information countermeasures.” In essence, China’s military strategists have observed over the past quarter century how the United States fights its wars – the reliance upon aerial assets for positioning, reconnaissance, communications, targeting, and electronic countermeasures is a huge force multiplier for ground forces and is something the Chinese are interested in replicating. To this end, the PLAAF’s jurisdiction will extend into space as well.

China’s use of space must worry India greatly. The successful demonstration of an anti-satellite missile in 2007 and the development of other weapons systems for “soft kills” in space puts India’s own communications with its nuclear submarines and other military units in jeopardy. As the Chinese race after the United States to achieve parity in C5ISR, sooner or later, India will be inadvertently dragged in its wake. Sooner would be better.

Of particular concern to India is the profile of the PLA Second Artillery Force, the units in charge of China’s nuclear arsenal. Beijing has always adhered to a no first use nuclear policy ever since its first nuclear test in October 1964 but in 2013, the manner in which this assurance was worded became ambiguous. That ambiguity remains in this latest edition of Beijing’s white paper too – the document reads, “China has always pursued the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons and adhered to a self-defensive nuclear strategy…. China will unconditionally not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states…” Again, it is not clear if Beijing’s NFU posture applies to nuclear weapons states or not.

One might argue that Beijing does not view India as a nuclear weapons state as per the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and therefore the NFU policy applies to India. Yet China has shown the ability to be surprisingly pragmatic when it serves them and the possession of nuclear weapons might confer NWS status for military purposes. Beijing’s no first use declaration, which critics, with some justification, have always considered empty words, in all likelihood does not apply to India. Delhi must take this into consideration when it next updates its own nuclear posture.

Besides this significant reorientation, the PLASAF will modernise its delivery systems and warheads and work on technologies to improve its deterrence, early warning, survivability, and counterattack capabilities as well as medium and long-range precision strikes.

The rest of the document lays out the PLA’s goals to streamline its and modernise logistics, augment its war reserves, improve rules and standards, and innovate modes of support. Officers will be given more opportunities to study military strategy and operations so that they may be able to introduce more effective principles and methods in their units. Troops will be given more “realistic” combat training and will strive for a high degree of combat readiness and alertness. The reserve force will be expanded and given better training to integrate them better with the regular military.

The PLA has stepped back from participating in the construction of civilian infrastructure but retains a focus on better integration of civilian and military infrastructure, education, manufacturing, and logistics. These personnel goals are less glamorous than the development of space-based military assets or a reorientation of operational strategy but remain nonetheless vital to the PLA’s well-being. As several US analysts have observed over the years, the PLA lacks the support of a professional non-commissioned officer corps or recent combat experience. The latter has led to China participating in UN peacekeeping missions but these human and experiential factors hamper the process of modernisation.

It would be an interesting exercise for those with Mandarin language skills to compare the English and Mandarin versions of China’s Defence White Paper. In any case, the white paper does not explain how the laundry list of goals will be achieved or make any assessments of the utility of developing certain capabilities; nor does it get into evaluations of present capabilities as a point of reference. This should be of no surprise as the primary goal of the document is to deter its foreign audience rather than provide an academic study of Chinese military thought.

On a concluding note, it is worrisome for countries vested in the Pax Americana to see how anti-status quo states like Russia and China are rapidly catching up with the United States in force-on-force warfare in terms of material as well as technology. All the while, the United States has been occupied with learning to fight a different kind of war in the Middle East and Central Asia and has had little time to dedicate to the strategic shifts in the western Pacific, space, and other theatres. India has only a secondary role to play in this imminent clash between powers but how Delhi plays its part in this game over the next twenty years will be very interesting to watch.


This post appeared on FirstPost on June 05, 2015.

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