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The Congress after many many years of talking and talking and talking, with a defense budget that represents a mere 1.8% of GDP 2103--2014, have finally create a Mountain Strike Force Corp of 2-3 divisions, at a cost of $19 billion and ready by 2017 to defend India's mountainous border related to China.
Besides the provocative Anglicized name, if and when you have 500,000 troops pouring towards you with 30+ divisions, and reserves of 3--4,000,000 men, backing them up, than a tiny corps like strike force in that overall scenario is a bit IRRELEVANT, and will not affect the final outcome in the battlefield. What on earth is the Strike Force going to do in such a scenario, occupying a bit of land in Tibet.......not unlike the meaningless maneuver by the Pakistan armored regiment into Longewala in 1971, or the strikes by Pakistanis into the Rann of Kutch in 1965.
Formations small and big must be used in a much bigger plan, that involves an overall CO-ORDINATED defensive strategy, for India.
The problem is that the Indian military have had relative success and experience in three engagements with the worst military on earth, the Punjab Pakistan "military" which through its colonial heritage "acha saab Gunga Din, Acha saab Gunga Din", and British created ISI has mostly been busy killing its own unarmed citizens to the tune of a couple of million people.
Pakistan is the last sparring partner to fine tune your battlefield skills.
China is the biggest industrial power, with an Industrial base worth $5.5 trillion, and produces 800 million tons of steel, the primarily material for war...and has 200--300 million people at military age.
For that Kind of a country, with that Kind of resources, India needs a lot more than a mere mountain strike force corp.
As I have suggested what India really needs is about 30 mountain divisions at about 21,000 personnel each....that is 630,000 + 100,000 smaller specialized mountain brigades, battalions...backed by reserves of 1,000,000...just for the mountain theater, where nearly ALL India's big wars have been fought. India therefore needs to plan strategically, expenditure of anything between $200--$300 billion in the next 10 years. There is no need to give fancy, provocative Anglicized names to cheer up the RSS/BJP in India.
$20-30 billion a year creating the expanded capacity is not going to strain the Indian economy----its a mere 1--1.5% of GDP, and will be a much smaller % of GDP by 2023. But it will be worth the investment.
Of course the overall objective is to avoid war....war is costly especially for Third World countries, destructive and unpredictable. But there is nothing wrong signalling to the RSS type elements in China that India is seriously ready in defensive war........the cost to China will be too high.
A mere Mountain Strike Force Corp is never going to do that job either psychologically or in a real scenario of full scale conventional mass warfare.
But as stated in previous posts:
1. Indian governments must avoid chest beating unnecessarily and concede the primacy of China in Asia, and eventually the world. India should not compete with that. India cannot.
2. India must maintain strong economic ties and diplomatic ties with China. China is India's biggest trading partner.
3. India must avoid the mischievous advice of Washington to enter into an anti-China alliance. The bizarre advice of Hilary Clinton that the USA will make India into a great power must be disowned....only idiot BJP elements will be tickled by it.
4. India must build up her military, especially the army and airforce to be a credible power that can effectively defend her borders.
5. Indian governments must fight a war against corruption, poor government/governance, poverty, illiteracy, a more modern agricultural sector, better education...8500 universities, but how many in the top global 100? Better health care, a better police force, more INDUSTRIALIZATION and Greater INFRASTRUCTURE....and so on. Indian governments must SPEND ITS way out of trouble, and boost economic development just like China.
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CCS nod for raising mountain strike corps along China border
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The cabinet committee on security (CCS) on Wednesday gave its approval for raising a mountain strike corps along the China border. This would be India's fourth strike corps, meant chiefly for offensive operations into enemy land, as well as India's first dedicated corps for offensive mountain warfare.
Sources said, the CCS, chaired by the PM, gave its final nod for the ambitious plan that requires over Rs 64,000 crore and spread over the next seven years.
The proposal has been hanging fire for the last several years, and had been delayed primarily because of financial considerations. CCS is not believed to have discussed Army proposal for two other independent infantry brigades and two independent armoured brigades to plug its operational gaps along the entire Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China. If all the proposals are approved it would result in a total financial outlay of over Rs 81,000 crore during the 12th Plan (2012-17) period.
By the time India woke up in the late 90s to China's modern infrastructure across the LAC, as well as rapidly modernizing military, it was too late to even play a catch-up game. Now, India is trying to build several strategic road links to the border, and to create a formidable military capability that can match up with the Chinese side. Many observers have said that it would take India several years before there is any parity with the Chinese PLA along the border.
The proposed mountain strike corps would be headquartered at Panagarh in West Bengal. It would, for the first time, give India the capability to also launch offensive action into the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). The corps will have two high-altitude divisions for rapid reaction.
India has already raised two new infantry divisions at Lekhapani and Missamari in Assam in 2009-10. They are operationally tasked to defend Arunachal Pradesh. India is also beefing up its missile and fighter capabilities along the China border in its effort to catch up with a burgeoning China's military capabilities and developed infrastructure along the border.
Even as India plays the catch-up game, China has created aggressive military and infrastructure capabilities. It has at least five fully-operational airbases, an extensive rail network and over 58,000-km of roads along the Indian border. This would allow China to move over 30 divisions — each with over 15,000 soldiers — to the LAC, outnumbering Indian forces by at least 3:1 there. China has deployed 13 border defence regiments with around 300,000 PLA troops close to Indian border.
