The author Ex- Major Agha H Amin, Pakistan Army and is well reputed military historian from PAKISTAN who left the Army as a major and is settled in USA. He has done extensive research on ₹1857 Mutiny and his output is produced in Defence Journal-( Pakistan).
The article is an extreme view but not unrealistic. In nutshell, Pakistan will remain a thorn in our side for ever and ever.
Harbhajan Singh
Friday, November 25, 2011
Can India and Pakistan make Peace ! By Major (Retired)Agha .H. Amin, Pakistan Army.
Utopians in India are jubilant that Pakistan has made peace with India. Nothing in reality can be farther from the truth. The recent sudden angelic desire on part of the Pakistani establishment to make peace with India has nothing to do with any major shift in Pakistan's foreign policy written in the Pakistani military headquarters popularly known as the GHQ.
Click here to read more
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
India China Relationship
Excellent article indeed. Well articulated except that not much has been said about economic relations/interests. Harbhajan Singh
CHINA –INDIA RELATIONS HEADING TOWARDS DEEP FREEZE
By Dr Subhash Kapila 28/11/2011
Introductory Observations
Concurrent with winter freeze setting in on the Himalayan heights separating India from China-Occupied Tibet, gathering trends over the last year or so strongly suggest that in end 2011 China-India relations are headed towards a deep freeze.
China-India relations were always in a freeze over the last six decades despite the veneer that both China and India gave by rhetorical flourishes that China and India were committed to peace and tranquility on the contested border between India and China-Occupied Tibet.
Regrettably, it was India and the Indian policy establishment only that gave credence to China’s peaceful protestations. China succeeded like in the run-up to 1962 to induce a sense of complacency in Indian war-preparedness against China’s not so benign intentions against India.
China craftily utilized these two decades - 1990s and 2000s under cover of this veneer for a massive militarization of China-Occupied Tibet including India-specific targeting of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons on the Tibetan Plateau.
China could achieve this being encouraged by two factors. First the complacency it succeeded in inducing in the Indian policy establishment which led to political de-emphasizing of the China Threat against India and as a consequence a tardy war preparedness against the China Threat not by the Indian Armed Forces but by the political leadership. Secondly, China correctly counted on the strategic timidity and feeble responses of the Indian political leadership to Chinese political and military coercion. The Indian military hierarchy as part of the ‘China Appeasement’ policy was made to mouth statements rationalizing Chinese armed intrusions into Indian Territory as arising from the undemarcated borders.
China thus stands encouraged to adopt haughty, strategically arrogant attitudes bordering on imperial condescension towards India as recent events indicate.
The above finds reflection in commentaries in China’s official and tightly controlled media. Sampling of such attitudes this month is briefly quoted below:
“India jitters at the sight of China gaining prestige in Asia, South Asia and South East Asia”
“In a nutshell to grow up to be a real power and stand up as a competitor, (against China) India needs to first and foremost break through its psychological fences.”
“India must well bear in mind: to build up real power, neither self-satisfaction nor Self-inferiority is a mature and constructive mindset”
Original post: Click here to Read the full article
CHINA –INDIA RELATIONS HEADING TOWARDS DEEP FREEZE
By Dr Subhash Kapila 28/11/2011
Introductory Observations
Concurrent with winter freeze setting in on the Himalayan heights separating India from China-Occupied Tibet, gathering trends over the last year or so strongly suggest that in end 2011 China-India relations are headed towards a deep freeze.
China-India relations were always in a freeze over the last six decades despite the veneer that both China and India gave by rhetorical flourishes that China and India were committed to peace and tranquility on the contested border between India and China-Occupied Tibet.
Regrettably, it was India and the Indian policy establishment only that gave credence to China’s peaceful protestations. China succeeded like in the run-up to 1962 to induce a sense of complacency in Indian war-preparedness against China’s not so benign intentions against India.
China craftily utilized these two decades - 1990s and 2000s under cover of this veneer for a massive militarization of China-Occupied Tibet including India-specific targeting of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons on the Tibetan Plateau.
China could achieve this being encouraged by two factors. First the complacency it succeeded in inducing in the Indian policy establishment which led to political de-emphasizing of the China Threat against India and as a consequence a tardy war preparedness against the China Threat not by the Indian Armed Forces but by the political leadership. Secondly, China correctly counted on the strategic timidity and feeble responses of the Indian political leadership to Chinese political and military coercion. The Indian military hierarchy as part of the ‘China Appeasement’ policy was made to mouth statements rationalizing Chinese armed intrusions into Indian Territory as arising from the undemarcated borders.
China thus stands encouraged to adopt haughty, strategically arrogant attitudes bordering on imperial condescension towards India as recent events indicate.
The above finds reflection in commentaries in China’s official and tightly controlled media. Sampling of such attitudes this month is briefly quoted below:
Original post: Click here to Read the full article
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Will World War III be between the U.S. and China?
The Daily Mail Online UK By Max Hastings
Last updated at 1:11 AM on 26th November 2011
China's vast military machine grows by the day. America's sending troops to Australia in response. As tension between the two superpowers escalates, Max Hastings warns of a terrifying threat to world peace.
Mass hysteria: The armies of Mao Tse-tung stunned the world by intervening in the Korean War
On the evening of November 1, 1950, 22-year-old Private Carl Simon of the U.S. 8th Cavalry lay shivering with his comrades in the icy mountains of North Korea.
A patrol had just reported itself ‘under attack from unidentified troops’, which bemused and dismayed the Americans, because their campaign to occupy North Korea seemed all but complete.
Suddenly, through the darkness came sounds of bugle calls, gunfire, shouts in a language that the 8th Cavalry’s Korean interpreters could not understand. A few minutes later, waves of attackers charged into the American positions, screaming, firing and throwing grenades.
‘There was just mass hysteria,’ Simon told me long afterwards. ‘It was every man for himself. I didn’t know which way to go. In the end, I just ran with the crowd. We ran and ran until the bugles grew fainter.’
This was the moment, of course, when the armies of Mao Tse-tung stunned the world by intervening in the Korean War. It had begun in June, when Communist North Korean forces invaded the South.
U.S. and British forces repelled the communists, fighting in the name of the United Nations, then pushed deep into North Korea. Seeing their ally on the brink of defeat, the Chinese determined to take a hand.
In barren mountains just a few miles south of their own border, in the winter of 1950 their troops achieved a stunning surprise. The Chinese drove the American interlopers hundreds of miles south before they themselves were pushed back. Eventually a front was stabilised and the situation sank into stalemate.
Three years later, the United States was thankful to get out of its unwanted war with China by accepting a compromise peace, along the armistice line which still divides the two Koreas today.
For most of the succeeding 58 years the U.S., even while suffering defeat in Vietnam, has sustained strategic dominance of the Indo-Pacific region, home to half the world’s population.
Yet suddenly, everything is changing. China’s new economic power is being matched by a military build-up which deeply alarms its Asian neighbours, and Washington. The spectre of armed conflict between the superpowers, unknown since the Korean War ended in 1953, looms once more.
American strategy guru Paul Stares says: ‘If past experience is any guide, the United States and China will find themselves embroiled in a serious crisis at some point in the future.’
The Chinese navy is growing fast, acquiring aircraft-carriers and sophisticated missile systems. Beijing makes no secret of its determination to rule the oil-rich South China Sea, heedless of the claims of others such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
Read more:Will World War III be between the U.S. and China?
Last updated at 1:11 AM on 26th November 2011
China's vast military machine grows by the day. America's sending troops to Australia in response. As tension between the two superpowers escalates, Max Hastings warns of a terrifying threat to world peace.
Mass hysteria: The armies of Mao Tse-tung stunned the world by intervening in the Korean War
On the evening of November 1, 1950, 22-year-old Private Carl Simon of the U.S. 8th Cavalry lay shivering with his comrades in the icy mountains of North Korea.
A patrol had just reported itself ‘under attack from unidentified troops’, which bemused and dismayed the Americans, because their campaign to occupy North Korea seemed all but complete.
Suddenly, through the darkness came sounds of bugle calls, gunfire, shouts in a language that the 8th Cavalry’s Korean interpreters could not understand. A few minutes later, waves of attackers charged into the American positions, screaming, firing and throwing grenades.
‘There was just mass hysteria,’ Simon told me long afterwards. ‘It was every man for himself. I didn’t know which way to go. In the end, I just ran with the crowd. We ran and ran until the bugles grew fainter.’
This was the moment, of course, when the armies of Mao Tse-tung stunned the world by intervening in the Korean War. It had begun in June, when Communist North Korean forces invaded the South.
U.S. and British forces repelled the communists, fighting in the name of the United Nations, then pushed deep into North Korea. Seeing their ally on the brink of defeat, the Chinese determined to take a hand.
In barren mountains just a few miles south of their own border, in the winter of 1950 their troops achieved a stunning surprise. The Chinese drove the American interlopers hundreds of miles south before they themselves were pushed back. Eventually a front was stabilised and the situation sank into stalemate.
Three years later, the United States was thankful to get out of its unwanted war with China by accepting a compromise peace, along the armistice line which still divides the two Koreas today.
For most of the succeeding 58 years the U.S., even while suffering defeat in Vietnam, has sustained strategic dominance of the Indo-Pacific region, home to half the world’s population.
Yet suddenly, everything is changing. China’s new economic power is being matched by a military build-up which deeply alarms its Asian neighbours, and Washington. The spectre of armed conflict between the superpowers, unknown since the Korean War ended in 1953, looms once more.
American strategy guru Paul Stares says: ‘If past experience is any guide, the United States and China will find themselves embroiled in a serious crisis at some point in the future.’
The Chinese navy is growing fast, acquiring aircraft-carriers and sophisticated missile systems. Beijing makes no secret of its determination to rule the oil-rich South China Sea, heedless of the claims of others such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
Read more:Will World War III be between the U.S. and China?
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Where India overlaps with China
China has become too powerful economically and militarily and quite fast. Under such circumstances, any nation would become arrogant turning to a bully and China is and will NOT be an exception. They are like a python and whose appetite is insatiable. When they feel like striking and against whom will be decided by them as per their thinking.
As for India, it has to speed up its economic growth and building military strength and modernisation otherwise the gap between China and India will keep increasing to our disadvantage. Sadly our politicians are busy in petty politics and the bureaucracy does not have nation building as prime agenda and focus. Therefore one does not see a bright light on the horizon.
Lt Gen Harbhajan Singh (Retd)
Where India overlaps with China
Mon Nov 21 2011
“Building Bridges”, the theme of the recently concluded 17th SAARC summit in the Maldives, is an evocative one. There is no denying its relevance, both for enhanced physical connectivity as well as for the prospects for improved political dialogue in the South Asian region. But the infrastructure metaphor is perhaps most apt for China, and in more ways than one. In the coming months, the regional organisation, with eight members and nine observers, is set to seriously undertake a comprehensive review of all matters relating to its engagement with observers. As China seeks to upgrade its engagement with South Asia, what will be worth watching is if it can play a role in bridging differences in the region.
This will depend on how China’s public diplomacy tackles three critical challenges. The primary challenge will be to see the kind of normative choices it is likely to make in the region. As a rising power, the ideas, norms and values it will come to represent will be key to China’s self-image. For some time now, China has been advocating the “new security concept”, structured around the values of accommodation and cooperative security. For instance, will China find it in its national interest to play a divisive or an integrative role in the South Asian region? Will it be tempted to tap the politics of resentment and allow South Asian states to play the China card to counter India’s influence? Or alternately, will it forsake such behaviour, raising the chances of regional peace, and in the process shoring up its own acceptability as a responsible and mature power? The interplay of ideas, interests and institutions will be a compelling one, and its trade-offs as yet complex and uncertain.
Where India overlaps with China
Article of Interest: Arms sale
November 20, 2011 Juggernaut Arabia By David Ignatius
As for India, it has to speed up its economic growth and building military strength and modernisation otherwise the gap between China and India will keep increasing to our disadvantage. Sadly our politicians are busy in petty politics and the bureaucracy does not have nation building as prime agenda and focus. Therefore one does not see a bright light on the horizon.
Lt Gen Harbhajan Singh (Retd)
Where India overlaps with China
Mon Nov 21 2011
“Building Bridges”, the theme of the recently concluded 17th SAARC summit in the Maldives, is an evocative one. There is no denying its relevance, both for enhanced physical connectivity as well as for the prospects for improved political dialogue in the South Asian region. But the infrastructure metaphor is perhaps most apt for China, and in more ways than one. In the coming months, the regional organisation, with eight members and nine observers, is set to seriously undertake a comprehensive review of all matters relating to its engagement with observers. As China seeks to upgrade its engagement with South Asia, what will be worth watching is if it can play a role in bridging differences in the region.
This will depend on how China’s public diplomacy tackles three critical challenges. The primary challenge will be to see the kind of normative choices it is likely to make in the region. As a rising power, the ideas, norms and values it will come to represent will be key to China’s self-image. For some time now, China has been advocating the “new security concept”, structured around the values of accommodation and cooperative security. For instance, will China find it in its national interest to play a divisive or an integrative role in the South Asian region? Will it be tempted to tap the politics of resentment and allow South Asian states to play the China card to counter India’s influence? Or alternately, will it forsake such behaviour, raising the chances of regional peace, and in the process shoring up its own acceptability as a responsible and mature power? The interplay of ideas, interests and institutions will be a compelling one, and its trade-offs as yet complex and uncertain.
Where India overlaps with China
Article of Interest: Arms sale
November 20, 2011 Juggernaut Arabia By David Ignatius
Saturday, November 12, 2011
If Iran Gets the Bomb
The International Atomic Energy Agency this week released its most detailed assessment to date about Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, and if "Paranormal Activity 3" wasn't enough to keep you awake at night, the report's 14-page annex detailing the state of Iran's weapons work should do the trick. It lays to rest the fantasies that an Iranian bomb is many years off, or that the intelligence is riddled with holes and doubts, or that the regime's intentions can't be guessed by their activities.
So much, then, for the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which asserted "with high confidence" that Iran had abandoned its nuclear-weapons work in 2003 and ended any chance that the Bush Administration would take action against Iran. So much, too, for the Obama Administration's attempts to move Iran away from its nuclear course, first with diplomatic offers and then with sanctions and covert operations.
Matt Kaminski on the International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's nuclear development and Mitt Romney's plan on dealing with Iran.
.The serious choice now before the Administration is between military strikes and more of the same. As the IAEA report makes painfully clear, more of the same means a nuclear Iran, possibly within a year.
It's time, then, to consider carefully what that choice means for the United States. In the run-up to the war in Iraq, we wrote that "the law of unintended consequences hasn't been repealed," and that "no war ever goes precisely as planned." That was obviously true of a boots-on-the-ground invasion, but it would also be true of an aerial campaign to demolish or substantially degrade Iran's nuclear facilities.
Planes could be shot down and airmen taken prisoner. Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz, sending energy prices upward. It could conduct a campaign of terror throughout the world, or attack shipping in the Persian Gulf, or fire missiles against U.S. military installations in the region, or spark a war with Israel or another insurgency in Iraq. These are among the contingencies that military planners would have to anticipate, though Iranian leaders would also have to think twice before responding to a strike with attacks that could mean further escalation.
Click here to read the full article
So much, then, for the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which asserted "with high confidence" that Iran had abandoned its nuclear-weapons work in 2003 and ended any chance that the Bush Administration would take action against Iran. So much, too, for the Obama Administration's attempts to move Iran away from its nuclear course, first with diplomatic offers and then with sanctions and covert operations.
Matt Kaminski on the International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's nuclear development and Mitt Romney's plan on dealing with Iran.
.The serious choice now before the Administration is between military strikes and more of the same. As the IAEA report makes painfully clear, more of the same means a nuclear Iran, possibly within a year.
It's time, then, to consider carefully what that choice means for the United States. In the run-up to the war in Iraq, we wrote that "the law of unintended consequences hasn't been repealed," and that "no war ever goes precisely as planned." That was obviously true of a boots-on-the-ground invasion, but it would also be true of an aerial campaign to demolish or substantially degrade Iran's nuclear facilities.
Planes could be shot down and airmen taken prisoner. Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz, sending energy prices upward. It could conduct a campaign of terror throughout the world, or attack shipping in the Persian Gulf, or fire missiles against U.S. military installations in the region, or spark a war with Israel or another insurgency in Iraq. These are among the contingencies that military planners would have to anticipate, though Iranian leaders would also have to think twice before responding to a strike with attacks that could mean further escalation.
Click here to read the full article
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