Lt Gen SK Sinha (Retd)
Mar 13, 2012
India and China are the two most populous countries with the two most ancient civilisations of the world. They share a common border in the Himalayas. For centuries there had been close interaction between them in educational and religious fields. All those thousands of years India and China never clashed, until 1962. On the 50th anniversary of that border war, it is necessary to recall the past and assess the present.
India became Independent in 1947 and soon thereafter Chinese communists emerged victorious after a long-drawn civil war. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, got carried away by the long history of conflict-free cordial relations between the two countries. Sardar Patel saw the threat posed by China’s occupation of Tibet and he wrote a letter to Nehru in 1950, a couple of weeks before he passed away, warning him and advising suitable measures. Nehru ignored his warning. Gen. K.M. Cariappa, the then Army Chief, raised this issue with Nehru but was told not to worry about defence of the North and concentrate on Pakistan. Nehru went out of his way to befriend China. India withdrew all military and consular presence from Tibet, including its personnel manning post and telegraph there. India was one of the first countries to recognise the new regime in China. India even declined the offer of a permanent seat in the Security Council replacing Nationalist China, saying that it should rightfully go to China.
But India, lulled by the euphoria of the “Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai” slogan, was rudely woken by Chinese perfidy when China surreptitiously occupied 3,500 sq km of Indian territory in Aksai Chin. We bungled in dealing with China and this resulted in the debacle of 1962. We then set about improving our military strength. In 1965, we foiled the grandiose dream of Ayub Khan, of his tanks rolling down the plains of Panipat to Delhi, and remained undeterred by the ultimatum issued by China in that war.
Unlike her father, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi handled national security adroitly. In 1967, when China started unprovoked heavy shelling in Sikkim, India retaliated with counter-bombardment and got the better of China in the artillery duel. In 1971, India used geography and diplomacy to its advantage, preventing China from rescuing Pakistan. In 1975, Delhi acted swiftly and merged Sikkim, ignoring protests by China.
In 1979, China was taught a lesson by Vietnam. Deng Xiaoping, leader of the Communist Party of China, realised the need to develop economic and military power and for this China had to be at peace with its neighbours and the rest of the world. He introduced market economy in a socialist polity while we in India nursed a socialist economy in a democratic polity. Two decades after China, India also liberalised its economy and started emerging as one of the leading economies of the world. But China is far ahead of us in economic and military power.
While developing its economic and military power, China adopted an affable stance, lulling us into complacency. It opened Nathu La for trade and recognised Sikkim as part of India, which it had not done for over two decades.
Border dialogue started but settlement was avoided. It assured that populated areas would not be disturbed while delineating the border. It remained neutral during the Kargil War, to the great disappointment of its close ally. While sending out such friendly signals, China continued to build its military strength in Tibet. This process had started in 1975, with the construction of the Gormo Lhasa oil pipeline and railway link. Strategic road and rail communication, several airfields, missile bases and logistic dumps were developed. China now maintains 24 divisions for operations in Tibet. It is trying to encircle India with the “string of pearls” strategy. Ports are being developed at Cocos Island (Burma), Hambantola (Sri Lanka) and Gwadar (Pakistan). The grand design is to make the Indian Ocean a Chinese lake.
Having achieved considerable economic and military superiority over India since 2007 China has turned aggressive. It stridently claims Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese territory and protests against the Indian Prime Minister and defence minister visiting Arunachal Pradesh. Stapled visas are now being issued to officials from Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh. And, in December 2011, it declined to discuss its border with Kashmir because it is disputed territory requiring Pakistan’s participation.
We have belatedly woken up. We have reached out to Afghanistan in the west and to Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam in the east. We are developing strategic consensus with the US, Australia and Japan. And we are now speeding up acquisition of medium guns. As many as 122 fighter jets, an aircraft carrier and submarines are being acquired. Roads and airfields are being improved. We also plan to raise a corps and four divisions for the mountains, but only two divisions have been raised so far.
We do not need to enter into an arms race with China like the Soviets did with the US during the Cold War. We must build sufficient strength to deter Chinese military adventurism. In the present global world, the possibility of a nuclear or long-drawn conventional war is remote. Mountains provide an inbuilt advantage to the defender. The attacker requires much greater capabilities to overcome well-prepared defensive positions on the mountains than on the plains. Even while on the defensive, we must have the capability to hit back.
During the late Sixties China was actively supporting insurgency in Nagaland and Manipur. With Paresh Barua, the Assamese insurgent commander, now operating from China, the latter may intensify low-intensity conflict in the Northeast. Should that happen we must not only contain it but also pay back China in its own coin. There are more Tibetans in adjoining provinces than in Tibet.
It will be disastrous for us to be pusillanimous and act like a soft state while dealing with an aggressive China. We must deal with our adversary from a position of strength, not weakness.
The writer, a retired lieutenant-general, was Vice-Chief of Army Staff and has served as governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
ISRAEL-UNITED STATES: DIFFERING PERCEPTIONS ON MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRAN ANALYZED
By Dr Subhash Kapila 9/3/2012
Introductory Observations
Israel and the United States stand united in the belief that Iran at no cost should be permitted to emerge as a nuclear weapons power- there are no divergent perceptions there. But differing perceptions exist between Israel and the United States in terms of the political and military decision as to the timing of military strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations. This emerged significantly in the public domain during the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States this week.
Significant was the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister to Washington as besides a summit meeting with US President Obama, it coincided with the Annual Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the very powerful Jewish organization which enjoys tremendous leverages over United States foreign policy formulations, especially on matters pertaining to the Middle East and Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu made an impassioned address to 13,000 delegates at the AIPAC Conference on March 06 2021 in which he forcefully asserted that Iran was not amenable to diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions to desist from its nuclear weaponization path and that the ‘military option’ was the only strategy available to stop Iran.
In other words, Israel did not subscribe to the US President’s current approach of first applying diplomatic pressures and stringent economic pressures and only if these failed the United States would consider exercising the ‘military option’ against Iranian nuclear installations.
The Israeli Prime Minister also interacted with the US Congress and made similar impassioned pleas that Israel’s security and survival were at stake and the United States should stand by Israel in preventing Iran from the acquisition of nuclear weapons capabilities. Bipartisan assertions of support were expressed in the US Congress for Israel.
Israel’s Prime Minister sensed that this was the most propitious moment to extract significant pledges from the US President with presidential elections underway and the power of the Jewish vote in US elections. Israel it seems perceived the present US policies on Iran of diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions as ‘containment strategy’ as opposed to pre-emptive strikes. Israel also perceived that the US President in deference to strong US public opinion against any further US military interventions in the Middle East may be shying away from the ‘military option’.
The US President under electoral pressures seemed to have given-in and committed that the ‘military option’ against Iran continued to be on the US table and that containment was not an option. But President Obama seems to have qualified US commitments presently given as becoming operative only when diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions against Iran fail. But in terms of connotation values I believe that the US and its Western allies current strategy is nothing but a containment strategy of Iran by political pressures and economic sanctions. For Israel, the connotation of containment is a perception that the US may presumably feel confident that by its overwhelming military superiority it can contain Iran should it even slip away with possessing a nuclear weapon.
Needless to state that US President Obama finds support from Western Allies like Britain and France for the present strategy that he has adopted. Contextually, Russia’s multiple warnings against military strikes on Iran and China’s cautionary advisory cannot be overlooked as both these UN Security Council Members have significant stakes in Iran.
Consistent analysis on the effectiveness of joint US-Israeli military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities or unilateral military strikes by Israel has taken place, including in my Papers on this issue, even recently. The aim in this Paper is not to repeat the same but to focus on the divergent perceptions that separate the United States and Israel on Iran’s nuclear program and whether Israel would be prompted to undertake unilateral military strikes against Iran as a result of the differing perceptions.
With the above in view, this Paper attempts to analyse the differing perceptions that separate the United States and Israel in terms of the timing of military strikes against Iran’s nuclear capabilities under the following heads:
United States Assessment on Iran’s Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons
United States and Israel’s Differing Perceptions on Military Strikes Against Iran Strategy: Pre-emptive Strikes or Diplomatic and Economic Containment Strategy
Israel Prime Minister’s Iran-Centric Visit to Washington
Israel’s Unilateral Military Strikes against Iran: The Likelihood?
United States Assessment on Iran’s Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons
Pertinent to note initially itself, is the US assessment on the acquisition of Nuclear Weapons capability by Iran. Well publicised also is the fact that Iran has been consistently denying that its nuclear program is geared towards acquisition of nuclear weapons. US assessments on the time-frame of acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran acquires significance in terms of options available to the US President in arriving at the fateful decision as to when the ‘military option’ still retained on the table should be made operative.
Israeli PM Netanyahu may have extracted from the US president a declaration that the military option against Iran’s nuclear program is still on the table but it can be observed that the US President as far as public commitments made in March 2012 does not seem to have given any commitment on when the United States can be expected to strike militarily against Iran or whether the United States endorses a unilateral Israeli military strikes against Iran.
In terms of US assessments on Iran’s nuclear weapons program the following reports may be pertinent:
Director US National Intelligence in a testimony before US Congress in January 2012 stated that he believed that Iran had yet not decided whether or not to build a nuclear bomb.
A recent New York Times article is reported to have stated that “Recent assessments by American spy agencies have reaffirmed intelligence findings in 2007 and 2010 that concluded Iran has abandoned the nuclear weapons program.”
More significantly is a reported statement by US President Obama which states: “Our assessment, which is shared by te Israelis, is that Iran does not have yet a nuclear weapon and not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making the attempt.”
Obviously, such assessments as officially stated above would have an impact on US military decisions in terms of US military strikes against Iran and especially the timing of the US military option.
United States and Israel’s Differing Perceptions on Military Strikes against Iran Strategy: Pre-emptive Strikes or Diplomatic and Economic Containment Strategy?
The US President’s statement above highlights the fact that Israel shares the US assessment that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and that a pretty long lead time would be available to discern if Iran is attempting the same. Implicit in the above is the US strategy that in the interim time should be given for diplomacy and economic sanctions to work and dissuade Iran from the nuclear weapons path. Implicit in this also is the fact that the ‘military option’ should be the option of last resort when diplomatic and economic sanctions fail.
However it is from here that the Israeli perceptions differ from the United States significantly. Israel is growing impatient by the day as it strongly feels that each day spent by the United States on diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions to be effective makes Iran that much closer to achieving nuclear weapons capability.
The most significant divergence in Israeli and United States perceptions is that Israel is pushing for pre-emptive strikes against Iran’s potential nuclear weapons capability while the United States wishes to follow the diplomatic and economic containment strategy against Iran confident presumably that even in the worst case scenario the United States has massive military power to contain a nuclearized Iran.
The significant divergence in Israel and United States strategic approaches are well illustrated in the words of David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and he states:
“The United States has put its focus on Iran actually gaining a nuclear weapon, while Israel—more vulnerable to Iranian missiles due to its geographical proximity---views the threshold as the Iranian regime’s acquisition of enough low-enriched uranium to build a bomb, pending a political decision to convert it to weapon-grade fuel”
Another analyst, Caroline Glick makes Israel’s’ strong preference for pre-emptive strikes against Iran more lucidly explainable. She states:
"From Israel’s perspective, Iran’s nuclear program becomes unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move sufficient enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to Fordow nuclear installation by Qom. Since Israel reportedly lacks the ability to destroy this facility, Israel’s time-lines for attacking Iran will likely end within weeks. The United States reportedly has the capacity to successfully bomb Fordow and so its time-lines for attacking Iran is longer than Iran.”
More briefly put, Israel’s strategy focuses not only on stopping Iran from producing nuclear weapons but more importantly to prevent Iran from reaching anywhere close to acquiring the capability to produce nuclear weapons, and hence Israel’s stress on pre-emptive military strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Israeli Prime Minister’s Iran-Centric Visit to Washington
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Washington visit can be squarely termed as an Iran-Centric visit and he gave the impression of being combative on the issue of Israeli urgency for military strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations. All his speeches in Washington underscored Israel’s determination to halt Iran’s nuclear program and dissatisfaction with United States emphasis on diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions against Iran.
Obviously, the focus of the Israeli PM visit to Washington was solely to make the US President to commit that the ‘military option’ against Iran continued to be securely fastened on the United States table and make out a case forcefully that Israel may be pushed into adopting unilateral military strikes against Israel as Israel could not afford Iran getting temptingly close to acquiring nuclear weapons production capability.
The speech of PM Netanyahu at the AIPAC Annual Conference to 13,000 Jewish audience was impassioned and laid stress on the following salient points; (1) Israel was determined to prevent Iran from production of nuclear weapons (2) Israel will not live in the shadow of annihilation (3) Israel will not tolerate Ayatollahs having atomic bombs (4) Israel will always retain capability to defend itself, by itself against any threat (5) Israel will always remain the master of its own future.
The fifth point seemingly alludes to Israel’s right to devise strategies against Iran independent of US strategic readings on the Iranian nuclear program including launching Israel launching unilateral strikes against Iran.
The Israeli Prime Minister drew bipartisan support in his visit and discussions with the US Congress where he sought to convey that the United States could have different strategic responses to the Iranian threat as America has global interests to think off. But Israel in close proximity to Iran felt more vulnerable and has to think of tactical military solutions against Iran. House Speaker Boehner stressed that in response that the US Congress will never allow Israel to stand alone and that now is the time for USA and Israel to stand together and the US Congress would like to assure the Israeli PM of US support. House Minority Leader Pelosi went a step further by statement that containment of Iran was not an option and it was in the interests of United States, Israel and the region that Iran’s nuclear program be stopped.
President Obama had a three hour discussion with the visiting Israeli PM. Reports suggest that the issue of military strikes against Iran was the main topic of discussion. Both sides reiterated their respective positions. US analyses suggest that the US president refused to draw ‘redlines’ as to when could the US order military strikes against Iran The maximum that the Israeli PM could extract from the US was that US retained the ‘military option ‘on the table to be used as a weapon of last resort should the current US strategy fails to produce the desired results. Also that containment of Iran as perceived by Israel was not part of US strategy.
However the endorsement by the US President of Israel’s right to decide its own future needs to be noted once again as significant. Does it imply that the United States would not stop Israel from unilateral strikes against Iran knowing fully well that once Israeli unilateral strikes are unleashed and Iranian and Islamic street react in consequence against Israel and US, the United States would invariably be drawn-in in any case.
Israel’s Unilateral Military Strikes against Iran: The Likelihood?
Since divergences exist in United States and Israel in their perceptions and assessments of the Iranian nuclear program heading towards weaponization, an uncertainty hangs on the crucial question whether Israel consequently is prompted into unilateral military strikes against Iranian nuclear complexes.
Two points need to be analysed in this connection. The first being whether Israel has substantial military capabilities to destroy Iranian nuclear installations or Israel’s military capabilities can at best inflict a temporary crippling effect on Iran’s nuclear installations? The second point is whether Israel can ignore the US President’s advice to let diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions to work before the ‘military option against Iran is applied?
The objective answer to the first point is that Israel does not possess substantial military capabilities to deliver a knock-out blow against Iranian nuclear installations. Only the United States possesses such military capabilities.
The answer to the second point lies in the statements made by the Israeli Prime Minister to US Congress leaders as reported in The Jerusalem Post: “Citing historical precedents in which US and Israel did not see eye to eye and Israel acted according to its own perceptions of interests he cited Ben Guiron declaring independence against advice of US; Levi Eshkol launched pre-emptive attacks in 1967 against US advice and Menachim Begin bombing Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 against US advice”
If such pointed statements were made by the Israeli Prime Minister on Capitol Hill, then again these can be interpreted in two ways. The first interpretation being that it was an Israeli pressure tactic to hasten the US decision to apply the ‘military option’ against Iran.
The second and more ominous interpretation is that Israel is determined not to wait-out US current strategy to yield results but launch Israeli unilateral military strikes against Iran irrespective of cost and consequences and then let the United States to pick-up and manage the debris that would follow Israeli unilateral strikes
Since Israeli pre-emptive military strikes against Iran are directly linked to its current military capabilities, however short of full destruction, it can be said that Israeli unilateral strikes against Iran are quite likely.
In this connection, one would like to quote a The Telegraph, UK, report citing a senior retired Israeli Defence Ministry official as: “Israelis are psychologically such that they prefer to rely on themselves and not on others, given their history. We feel that we have relied on others in the past, and they have failed us.”
While on the question of Israeli unilateral military strikes on Iran apprehensions have been expressed in some quarters that Israel may be egged on this course by Saudi Arabia which could possibly extend to provide Israeli Air Force staging facilities for their military strikes. On the face of it, such apprehensions can be dismissed as speculative or conspiracy theories, but it must be remembered that in the field of international relations everything is possible, especially when Saudi Arabia has a strategic convergence with Israel in foiling of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Concluding Observations
The Israeli Prime Minister’s combative visit to Washington this week was Iran-Centric, in that exploiting the contextual political environment, he did manage the US President to commit that the US had still the ‘military option’ against Iran on the table and that containment was not an option. However, the United States does not seem to have been swayed away from its strategy of letting diplomatic pressures and stringent economic sanctions to work and reserve the ‘military option’ as a weapon of last resort.
On the crucial question of Israeli unilateral military strikes against Iran, the determining point seems to be only weeks away as per Israeli threat perceptions. If that be so then a real possibility exists of Israel ignoring its own public opinion, international opinion and the US President’s unstated hopes that Israel would pend its decision until after the November Presidential Elections in USA.
That the United States and its Western Allies have indicated their readiness to resume talks with Iran, after Iran made such an offer, to discuss the controversial Iranian nuclear program indicates that for the moment the United States does not subscribe to the Israeli demand for pre-emptive strikes against Iran.
Warm Regards
sanjeev nayyar
Introductory Observations
Israel and the United States stand united in the belief that Iran at no cost should be permitted to emerge as a nuclear weapons power- there are no divergent perceptions there. But differing perceptions exist between Israel and the United States in terms of the political and military decision as to the timing of military strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations. This emerged significantly in the public domain during the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States this week.
Significant was the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister to Washington as besides a summit meeting with US President Obama, it coincided with the Annual Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the very powerful Jewish organization which enjoys tremendous leverages over United States foreign policy formulations, especially on matters pertaining to the Middle East and Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu made an impassioned address to 13,000 delegates at the AIPAC Conference on March 06 2021 in which he forcefully asserted that Iran was not amenable to diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions to desist from its nuclear weaponization path and that the ‘military option’ was the only strategy available to stop Iran.
In other words, Israel did not subscribe to the US President’s current approach of first applying diplomatic pressures and stringent economic pressures and only if these failed the United States would consider exercising the ‘military option’ against Iranian nuclear installations.
The Israeli Prime Minister also interacted with the US Congress and made similar impassioned pleas that Israel’s security and survival were at stake and the United States should stand by Israel in preventing Iran from the acquisition of nuclear weapons capabilities. Bipartisan assertions of support were expressed in the US Congress for Israel.
Israel’s Prime Minister sensed that this was the most propitious moment to extract significant pledges from the US President with presidential elections underway and the power of the Jewish vote in US elections. Israel it seems perceived the present US policies on Iran of diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions as ‘containment strategy’ as opposed to pre-emptive strikes. Israel also perceived that the US President in deference to strong US public opinion against any further US military interventions in the Middle East may be shying away from the ‘military option’.
The US President under electoral pressures seemed to have given-in and committed that the ‘military option’ against Iran continued to be on the US table and that containment was not an option. But President Obama seems to have qualified US commitments presently given as becoming operative only when diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions against Iran fail. But in terms of connotation values I believe that the US and its Western allies current strategy is nothing but a containment strategy of Iran by political pressures and economic sanctions. For Israel, the connotation of containment is a perception that the US may presumably feel confident that by its overwhelming military superiority it can contain Iran should it even slip away with possessing a nuclear weapon.
Needless to state that US President Obama finds support from Western Allies like Britain and France for the present strategy that he has adopted. Contextually, Russia’s multiple warnings against military strikes on Iran and China’s cautionary advisory cannot be overlooked as both these UN Security Council Members have significant stakes in Iran.
Consistent analysis on the effectiveness of joint US-Israeli military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities or unilateral military strikes by Israel has taken place, including in my Papers on this issue, even recently. The aim in this Paper is not to repeat the same but to focus on the divergent perceptions that separate the United States and Israel on Iran’s nuclear program and whether Israel would be prompted to undertake unilateral military strikes against Iran as a result of the differing perceptions.
With the above in view, this Paper attempts to analyse the differing perceptions that separate the United States and Israel in terms of the timing of military strikes against Iran’s nuclear capabilities under the following heads:
United States Assessment on Iran’s Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons
United States and Israel’s Differing Perceptions on Military Strikes Against Iran Strategy: Pre-emptive Strikes or Diplomatic and Economic Containment Strategy
Israel Prime Minister’s Iran-Centric Visit to Washington
Israel’s Unilateral Military Strikes against Iran: The Likelihood?
United States Assessment on Iran’s Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons
Pertinent to note initially itself, is the US assessment on the acquisition of Nuclear Weapons capability by Iran. Well publicised also is the fact that Iran has been consistently denying that its nuclear program is geared towards acquisition of nuclear weapons. US assessments on the time-frame of acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran acquires significance in terms of options available to the US President in arriving at the fateful decision as to when the ‘military option’ still retained on the table should be made operative.
Israeli PM Netanyahu may have extracted from the US president a declaration that the military option against Iran’s nuclear program is still on the table but it can be observed that the US President as far as public commitments made in March 2012 does not seem to have given any commitment on when the United States can be expected to strike militarily against Iran or whether the United States endorses a unilateral Israeli military strikes against Iran.
In terms of US assessments on Iran’s nuclear weapons program the following reports may be pertinent:
Director US National Intelligence in a testimony before US Congress in January 2012 stated that he believed that Iran had yet not decided whether or not to build a nuclear bomb.
A recent New York Times article is reported to have stated that “Recent assessments by American spy agencies have reaffirmed intelligence findings in 2007 and 2010 that concluded Iran has abandoned the nuclear weapons program.”
More significantly is a reported statement by US President Obama which states: “Our assessment, which is shared by te Israelis, is that Iran does not have yet a nuclear weapon and not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making the attempt.”
Obviously, such assessments as officially stated above would have an impact on US military decisions in terms of US military strikes against Iran and especially the timing of the US military option.
United States and Israel’s Differing Perceptions on Military Strikes against Iran Strategy: Pre-emptive Strikes or Diplomatic and Economic Containment Strategy?
The US President’s statement above highlights the fact that Israel shares the US assessment that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and that a pretty long lead time would be available to discern if Iran is attempting the same. Implicit in the above is the US strategy that in the interim time should be given for diplomacy and economic sanctions to work and dissuade Iran from the nuclear weapons path. Implicit in this also is the fact that the ‘military option’ should be the option of last resort when diplomatic and economic sanctions fail.
However it is from here that the Israeli perceptions differ from the United States significantly. Israel is growing impatient by the day as it strongly feels that each day spent by the United States on diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions to be effective makes Iran that much closer to achieving nuclear weapons capability.
The most significant divergence in Israeli and United States perceptions is that Israel is pushing for pre-emptive strikes against Iran’s potential nuclear weapons capability while the United States wishes to follow the diplomatic and economic containment strategy against Iran confident presumably that even in the worst case scenario the United States has massive military power to contain a nuclearized Iran.
The significant divergence in Israel and United States strategic approaches are well illustrated in the words of David Makovsky, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and he states:
“The United States has put its focus on Iran actually gaining a nuclear weapon, while Israel—more vulnerable to Iranian missiles due to its geographical proximity---views the threshold as the Iranian regime’s acquisition of enough low-enriched uranium to build a bomb, pending a political decision to convert it to weapon-grade fuel”
Another analyst, Caroline Glick makes Israel’s’ strong preference for pre-emptive strikes against Iran more lucidly explainable. She states:
"From Israel’s perspective, Iran’s nuclear program becomes unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move sufficient enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to Fordow nuclear installation by Qom. Since Israel reportedly lacks the ability to destroy this facility, Israel’s time-lines for attacking Iran will likely end within weeks. The United States reportedly has the capacity to successfully bomb Fordow and so its time-lines for attacking Iran is longer than Iran.”
More briefly put, Israel’s strategy focuses not only on stopping Iran from producing nuclear weapons but more importantly to prevent Iran from reaching anywhere close to acquiring the capability to produce nuclear weapons, and hence Israel’s stress on pre-emptive military strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Israeli Prime Minister’s Iran-Centric Visit to Washington
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Washington visit can be squarely termed as an Iran-Centric visit and he gave the impression of being combative on the issue of Israeli urgency for military strikes against Iran’s nuclear installations. All his speeches in Washington underscored Israel’s determination to halt Iran’s nuclear program and dissatisfaction with United States emphasis on diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions against Iran.
Obviously, the focus of the Israeli PM visit to Washington was solely to make the US President to commit that the ‘military option’ against Iran continued to be securely fastened on the United States table and make out a case forcefully that Israel may be pushed into adopting unilateral military strikes against Israel as Israel could not afford Iran getting temptingly close to acquiring nuclear weapons production capability.
The speech of PM Netanyahu at the AIPAC Annual Conference to 13,000 Jewish audience was impassioned and laid stress on the following salient points; (1) Israel was determined to prevent Iran from production of nuclear weapons (2) Israel will not live in the shadow of annihilation (3) Israel will not tolerate Ayatollahs having atomic bombs (4) Israel will always retain capability to defend itself, by itself against any threat (5) Israel will always remain the master of its own future.
The fifth point seemingly alludes to Israel’s right to devise strategies against Iran independent of US strategic readings on the Iranian nuclear program including launching Israel launching unilateral strikes against Iran.
The Israeli Prime Minister drew bipartisan support in his visit and discussions with the US Congress where he sought to convey that the United States could have different strategic responses to the Iranian threat as America has global interests to think off. But Israel in close proximity to Iran felt more vulnerable and has to think of tactical military solutions against Iran. House Speaker Boehner stressed that in response that the US Congress will never allow Israel to stand alone and that now is the time for USA and Israel to stand together and the US Congress would like to assure the Israeli PM of US support. House Minority Leader Pelosi went a step further by statement that containment of Iran was not an option and it was in the interests of United States, Israel and the region that Iran’s nuclear program be stopped.
President Obama had a three hour discussion with the visiting Israeli PM. Reports suggest that the issue of military strikes against Iran was the main topic of discussion. Both sides reiterated their respective positions. US analyses suggest that the US president refused to draw ‘redlines’ as to when could the US order military strikes against Iran The maximum that the Israeli PM could extract from the US was that US retained the ‘military option ‘on the table to be used as a weapon of last resort should the current US strategy fails to produce the desired results. Also that containment of Iran as perceived by Israel was not part of US strategy.
However the endorsement by the US President of Israel’s right to decide its own future needs to be noted once again as significant. Does it imply that the United States would not stop Israel from unilateral strikes against Iran knowing fully well that once Israeli unilateral strikes are unleashed and Iranian and Islamic street react in consequence against Israel and US, the United States would invariably be drawn-in in any case.
Israel’s Unilateral Military Strikes against Iran: The Likelihood?
Since divergences exist in United States and Israel in their perceptions and assessments of the Iranian nuclear program heading towards weaponization, an uncertainty hangs on the crucial question whether Israel consequently is prompted into unilateral military strikes against Iranian nuclear complexes.
Two points need to be analysed in this connection. The first being whether Israel has substantial military capabilities to destroy Iranian nuclear installations or Israel’s military capabilities can at best inflict a temporary crippling effect on Iran’s nuclear installations? The second point is whether Israel can ignore the US President’s advice to let diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions to work before the ‘military option against Iran is applied?
The objective answer to the first point is that Israel does not possess substantial military capabilities to deliver a knock-out blow against Iranian nuclear installations. Only the United States possesses such military capabilities.
The answer to the second point lies in the statements made by the Israeli Prime Minister to US Congress leaders as reported in The Jerusalem Post: “Citing historical precedents in which US and Israel did not see eye to eye and Israel acted according to its own perceptions of interests he cited Ben Guiron declaring independence against advice of US; Levi Eshkol launched pre-emptive attacks in 1967 against US advice and Menachim Begin bombing Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 against US advice”
If such pointed statements were made by the Israeli Prime Minister on Capitol Hill, then again these can be interpreted in two ways. The first interpretation being that it was an Israeli pressure tactic to hasten the US decision to apply the ‘military option’ against Iran.
The second and more ominous interpretation is that Israel is determined not to wait-out US current strategy to yield results but launch Israeli unilateral military strikes against Iran irrespective of cost and consequences and then let the United States to pick-up and manage the debris that would follow Israeli unilateral strikes
Since Israeli pre-emptive military strikes against Iran are directly linked to its current military capabilities, however short of full destruction, it can be said that Israeli unilateral strikes against Iran are quite likely.
In this connection, one would like to quote a The Telegraph, UK, report citing a senior retired Israeli Defence Ministry official as: “Israelis are psychologically such that they prefer to rely on themselves and not on others, given their history. We feel that we have relied on others in the past, and they have failed us.”
While on the question of Israeli unilateral military strikes on Iran apprehensions have been expressed in some quarters that Israel may be egged on this course by Saudi Arabia which could possibly extend to provide Israeli Air Force staging facilities for their military strikes. On the face of it, such apprehensions can be dismissed as speculative or conspiracy theories, but it must be remembered that in the field of international relations everything is possible, especially when Saudi Arabia has a strategic convergence with Israel in foiling of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Concluding Observations
The Israeli Prime Minister’s combative visit to Washington this week was Iran-Centric, in that exploiting the contextual political environment, he did manage the US President to commit that the US had still the ‘military option’ against Iran on the table and that containment was not an option. However, the United States does not seem to have been swayed away from its strategy of letting diplomatic pressures and stringent economic sanctions to work and reserve the ‘military option’ as a weapon of last resort.
On the crucial question of Israeli unilateral military strikes against Iran, the determining point seems to be only weeks away as per Israeli threat perceptions. If that be so then a real possibility exists of Israel ignoring its own public opinion, international opinion and the US President’s unstated hopes that Israel would pend its decision until after the November Presidential Elections in USA.
That the United States and its Western Allies have indicated their readiness to resume talks with Iran, after Iran made such an offer, to discuss the controversial Iranian nuclear program indicates that for the moment the United States does not subscribe to the Israeli demand for pre-emptive strikes against Iran.
Warm Regards
sanjeev nayyar
CHINA'S FORCE MULTIPLIERS by Commodore R. S. Vasan 13/3/2012
China’s penchant for breaching technological barriers has been in the news and is frequently being discussed in many forums. It is obvious that China’s “Peaceful Development” has more to do with preparing for higher levels of war in many theatres while declaring to the world that it means peace. Unfortunately for China there are not many takers for this declaration amongst the comity of nations, where China seems to have more adversaries than friends.
There has been plenty of speculation about whether some of the critical technologies would indeed be game changers in any future conflict. This paper seeks to examine some of the critical technologies where there is demonstrated potential to be game changers. The hype and overestimation of how this would tilt the balance of power in favour of China is largely due to a lack of understanding of the present state of such developments, gestation period prior to operationalisation and the limitations thereof. Let us look at them one by one.
First, ASAT. China shot down its own weather satellite Feng Yun 1 C on January 11,2007 by using a ballistic missile. The test conveyed that China has the capability to engage spying satellites, remote sensors, guidance and navigation satellites and communication satellites of its adversaries as and when the need arises. All the satellite systems as described above with specific roles are required for conducting ISR missions which increasingly are being structured to be enablers of net centric operations and net centric warfare. While such a capability is not beyond the reach of the advanced technologies, one should not forget that any accidental or intentional shooting down of a satellite of another nation would lead to not just space wars but could spill in to other domains over land, air, sea and cyber space.
The demonstration of such a capability by China five years ago indicates that it is willing to take the future wars to the next level when space wars would precede wars in other domains. The recent report that China would be launching more than 30 satellites annually for both civil and military applications is indicative also of the vulnerability /criticality of its own satellites in space. The demonstration of ASAT therefore is more to convey to the world that it would not be left behind in an emerging space war should someone target its satellites.
Second, ASBM. With the disclosure initially by US Admiral Robert Willard, head of Pacific Command and confirmed by Chinese General Chen Bengde in July last year, China appears well on its way to develop a capability to hit a carrier at ranges up to 2600 kilometers by DF 21 missile. Analysts have been busy trying to see how and under what conditions this would be a threat to forces intent on intervening in South China Sea or Taiwan straits or in any other areas of interest including the Indian Ocean. The analysis thus far indicates that this is an access denial weapon with potential to set others thinking before they commit their expeditionary forces.
What is not much talked about is the fact that the success of ASBM is dependent on many vulnerable links. These are the satellites, over the horizon radars (OHR), UAVs, data links all of which should work in real time to provide the missile flying at Mach 10 guidance to hit a moving target at sea after identification beyond doubts. The ‘tools and techniques’ would need to work without failure to ensure that innocent large merchant ships are not shot down and there is no collateral damage and escalation of war inviting new players in a developing world war IV scenario.
For a technological super power US, it would be foolhardy to assume that they have not figured out as to how to neutralize the threat. Simply put, this is done by having plans in place for removal of one or many of the links that are crucial for the successful attack on a fast moving target. The carrier itself would be altering its course frequently and would also be creating electronic and real decoys for misleading the missile. Just as in the first case, the ASBM attack would not be the end of an attack but the beginning of a full fledged war. China is not yet a match to the US in terms of technology or in terms of fire power that would be brought to bear on the mainland of China and its surface assets at sea, a prospect that China would not be ready to face for a few more years if not decades.
Third, Aircraft Carrier. The Chinese carrier has been in the news since PLA-N acquired Varyag from Ukraine more than a decade ago and embarked on understanding the nuances of carrier construction by refitting/rebuilding the carrier to provide it a blue water capability centered on the Carrier Battle Group fashioned on the same lines as the US. It would be premature and impractical to assume that a few sea trials has equipped the Chinese carrier with the ability to break out from South China Sea and suddenly, it has transformed itself in to Carrier Battle Group (CBG) equipped navy that has interventionist capability.
While the idiom ‘one swallow does not make a summer’ holds good, the truth is that China is slowly but steadily building a capability to operate a carrier to break out of the shackles of the first and second chain of defence. One carrier is not enough as India has found out and it is obvious that more numbers are required for developing a carrier based concept of war. The integration of a carrier in to the fleet would be many years away as the Indian experience has illustrated. Also the integral air component that is on the carrier is not a gen five aircraft but a Russian Sukhoy 27 (and Chinese modifications based on Russian aircraft) which has the ability to operate from the carrier. Other fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft would be required for meeting the requirements of Airborne Early Warning, Search and Rescue, Troop lift, logistic support, etc.,. The induction of the carrier in the PLA-N would come with the challenges of inducting both surface and air units as well as developing the concept of operations that in future would be centered on a CBG. This is something that requires decades of dedicated work up sessions, training of air and deck crew, command teams, planning and proving of concepts in various scenarios in Indo Pacific theatre an emerging center of gravity.
Fourth, Stealth Aircraft. A lot of publicity was given both by the west and China itself to the successful flight undertaken by the stealth aircraft. Despite the denials by the top leadership, it is clear that China followed an old practice of timing events to convey messages.The demonstration flight was undertaken to coincide with the visit of the Defence Secretary Mr Gates.
This like some of the other capabilities discussed would require considerable time and effort for integration in to the war plans. The process involves raising an operational squadron with complete trained crew and Standard Operating Procedures for integration with the missions in mind.
Fifth, Deep Sea capability. The Chinese submersible jiaolong demonstrated its capability to dive up to 5.1 kilometers in the Pacific in July 2011. The intention is to reach a record depth of 7ooo meters this year. China has signaled that it has the means to reach some seventy percent of the world’s ocean depths and mastered the technology of operating deep sea vessels. It may be recalled that the same submersible was used to plant the Chinese flag in the South China Sea to assert its claims over the entire sea bed of South China Sea.
The future applications are both civil and military. The civil use involves the exploration of the deep seabed for mineral wealth as and when the land resources start drying up. The present technology is not yet economical to drill at such depths to obtain huge stocks of minerals and bring up them for commercial use. The success is obviously a result of research in the fields of metallurgy, hydrodynamics, underwater medicine, and other disciplines that need to be integrated for achieving this success. The R&D efforts would also provide inputs on designing future deep sea combat vessels (both manned and remote controlled). The military applications for such a vessel are enormous and could include covert operations, sabotage, mining, clandestine survey, stealth application for weapon launches and such like.
Sixth, Space Station. The Chinese have invested heavily in space explorations including manned space flights and are now embarking on a space station that would provide them vital inputs on the challenges in outer space. While at one level the intention is to demonstrate its ability for manned missions and space stations, at another, it is to keep abreast of the space technology that has spin off benefits for other applications both in civil and military fields. By and large all the missions including manned missions and space walks have been successful and in the long run, China aims to acquire a space capability similar to what US possesses today.
Seventh, Cyber Space. Last but the most important is the Cyber space. This is one area that has assumed increasing importance due to the nature of warfare in the cyber domain. In modern day warfare every activity is intrinsically linked to the cyber space and the vulnerability of information and intelligence systems would prove to be the Achilles heel of a war fighting machinery.
The reported sophisticated cyber attacks by Chinese groups have alarmed the nations around the world as it provides the State with a capability that would provide the needed edge in attacking critical control systems, information nodes, command and control stations, power stations including nuclear power stations, transportation hubs and even everyday activities that depend on robust information and control systems.
In the light of the above discussions, there should be no doubt that China in its long term plans has embarked on acquiring enabling technologies in all the four dimensions including cyber that would be at the fore front of its armour in both civil and military applications . The question to ask therefore is that should the west and rest be worried? The answer is a definitive yes but with a caveat that nothing earth shaking is going to happen in the next five to ten years or so which is the minimum time required to operationalise any concept and prove the system and sub systems prior to integration in the battle plans. By the same yardstick, If China has five to ten years for developing some of these concepts; US and others have the same kind of time that is available to refine their responses. There hardly need be any doubt that some of the counters already exist in the inventory of US forces.
(The author is presently the Head, Strategy and Security Studies at the Center for Asia Studies at Chennai and can be contacted at rsvasan2010@gmail.com)
Warm Regards
sanjeev nayyar
There has been plenty of speculation about whether some of the critical technologies would indeed be game changers in any future conflict. This paper seeks to examine some of the critical technologies where there is demonstrated potential to be game changers. The hype and overestimation of how this would tilt the balance of power in favour of China is largely due to a lack of understanding of the present state of such developments, gestation period prior to operationalisation and the limitations thereof. Let us look at them one by one.
First, ASAT. China shot down its own weather satellite Feng Yun 1 C on January 11,2007 by using a ballistic missile. The test conveyed that China has the capability to engage spying satellites, remote sensors, guidance and navigation satellites and communication satellites of its adversaries as and when the need arises. All the satellite systems as described above with specific roles are required for conducting ISR missions which increasingly are being structured to be enablers of net centric operations and net centric warfare. While such a capability is not beyond the reach of the advanced technologies, one should not forget that any accidental or intentional shooting down of a satellite of another nation would lead to not just space wars but could spill in to other domains over land, air, sea and cyber space.
The demonstration of such a capability by China five years ago indicates that it is willing to take the future wars to the next level when space wars would precede wars in other domains. The recent report that China would be launching more than 30 satellites annually for both civil and military applications is indicative also of the vulnerability /criticality of its own satellites in space. The demonstration of ASAT therefore is more to convey to the world that it would not be left behind in an emerging space war should someone target its satellites.
Second, ASBM. With the disclosure initially by US Admiral Robert Willard, head of Pacific Command and confirmed by Chinese General Chen Bengde in July last year, China appears well on its way to develop a capability to hit a carrier at ranges up to 2600 kilometers by DF 21 missile. Analysts have been busy trying to see how and under what conditions this would be a threat to forces intent on intervening in South China Sea or Taiwan straits or in any other areas of interest including the Indian Ocean. The analysis thus far indicates that this is an access denial weapon with potential to set others thinking before they commit their expeditionary forces.
What is not much talked about is the fact that the success of ASBM is dependent on many vulnerable links. These are the satellites, over the horizon radars (OHR), UAVs, data links all of which should work in real time to provide the missile flying at Mach 10 guidance to hit a moving target at sea after identification beyond doubts. The ‘tools and techniques’ would need to work without failure to ensure that innocent large merchant ships are not shot down and there is no collateral damage and escalation of war inviting new players in a developing world war IV scenario.
For a technological super power US, it would be foolhardy to assume that they have not figured out as to how to neutralize the threat. Simply put, this is done by having plans in place for removal of one or many of the links that are crucial for the successful attack on a fast moving target. The carrier itself would be altering its course frequently and would also be creating electronic and real decoys for misleading the missile. Just as in the first case, the ASBM attack would not be the end of an attack but the beginning of a full fledged war. China is not yet a match to the US in terms of technology or in terms of fire power that would be brought to bear on the mainland of China and its surface assets at sea, a prospect that China would not be ready to face for a few more years if not decades.
Third, Aircraft Carrier. The Chinese carrier has been in the news since PLA-N acquired Varyag from Ukraine more than a decade ago and embarked on understanding the nuances of carrier construction by refitting/rebuilding the carrier to provide it a blue water capability centered on the Carrier Battle Group fashioned on the same lines as the US. It would be premature and impractical to assume that a few sea trials has equipped the Chinese carrier with the ability to break out from South China Sea and suddenly, it has transformed itself in to Carrier Battle Group (CBG) equipped navy that has interventionist capability.
While the idiom ‘one swallow does not make a summer’ holds good, the truth is that China is slowly but steadily building a capability to operate a carrier to break out of the shackles of the first and second chain of defence. One carrier is not enough as India has found out and it is obvious that more numbers are required for developing a carrier based concept of war. The integration of a carrier in to the fleet would be many years away as the Indian experience has illustrated. Also the integral air component that is on the carrier is not a gen five aircraft but a Russian Sukhoy 27 (and Chinese modifications based on Russian aircraft) which has the ability to operate from the carrier. Other fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft would be required for meeting the requirements of Airborne Early Warning, Search and Rescue, Troop lift, logistic support, etc.,. The induction of the carrier in the PLA-N would come with the challenges of inducting both surface and air units as well as developing the concept of operations that in future would be centered on a CBG. This is something that requires decades of dedicated work up sessions, training of air and deck crew, command teams, planning and proving of concepts in various scenarios in Indo Pacific theatre an emerging center of gravity.
Fourth, Stealth Aircraft. A lot of publicity was given both by the west and China itself to the successful flight undertaken by the stealth aircraft. Despite the denials by the top leadership, it is clear that China followed an old practice of timing events to convey messages.The demonstration flight was undertaken to coincide with the visit of the Defence Secretary Mr Gates.
This like some of the other capabilities discussed would require considerable time and effort for integration in to the war plans. The process involves raising an operational squadron with complete trained crew and Standard Operating Procedures for integration with the missions in mind.
Fifth, Deep Sea capability. The Chinese submersible jiaolong demonstrated its capability to dive up to 5.1 kilometers in the Pacific in July 2011. The intention is to reach a record depth of 7ooo meters this year. China has signaled that it has the means to reach some seventy percent of the world’s ocean depths and mastered the technology of operating deep sea vessels. It may be recalled that the same submersible was used to plant the Chinese flag in the South China Sea to assert its claims over the entire sea bed of South China Sea.
The future applications are both civil and military. The civil use involves the exploration of the deep seabed for mineral wealth as and when the land resources start drying up. The present technology is not yet economical to drill at such depths to obtain huge stocks of minerals and bring up them for commercial use. The success is obviously a result of research in the fields of metallurgy, hydrodynamics, underwater medicine, and other disciplines that need to be integrated for achieving this success. The R&D efforts would also provide inputs on designing future deep sea combat vessels (both manned and remote controlled). The military applications for such a vessel are enormous and could include covert operations, sabotage, mining, clandestine survey, stealth application for weapon launches and such like.
Sixth, Space Station. The Chinese have invested heavily in space explorations including manned space flights and are now embarking on a space station that would provide them vital inputs on the challenges in outer space. While at one level the intention is to demonstrate its ability for manned missions and space stations, at another, it is to keep abreast of the space technology that has spin off benefits for other applications both in civil and military fields. By and large all the missions including manned missions and space walks have been successful and in the long run, China aims to acquire a space capability similar to what US possesses today.
Seventh, Cyber Space. Last but the most important is the Cyber space. This is one area that has assumed increasing importance due to the nature of warfare in the cyber domain. In modern day warfare every activity is intrinsically linked to the cyber space and the vulnerability of information and intelligence systems would prove to be the Achilles heel of a war fighting machinery.
The reported sophisticated cyber attacks by Chinese groups have alarmed the nations around the world as it provides the State with a capability that would provide the needed edge in attacking critical control systems, information nodes, command and control stations, power stations including nuclear power stations, transportation hubs and even everyday activities that depend on robust information and control systems.
In the light of the above discussions, there should be no doubt that China in its long term plans has embarked on acquiring enabling technologies in all the four dimensions including cyber that would be at the fore front of its armour in both civil and military applications . The question to ask therefore is that should the west and rest be worried? The answer is a definitive yes but with a caveat that nothing earth shaking is going to happen in the next five to ten years or so which is the minimum time required to operationalise any concept and prove the system and sub systems prior to integration in the battle plans. By the same yardstick, If China has five to ten years for developing some of these concepts; US and others have the same kind of time that is available to refine their responses. There hardly need be any doubt that some of the counters already exist in the inventory of US forces.
(The author is presently the Head, Strategy and Security Studies at the Center for Asia Studies at Chennai and can be contacted at rsvasan2010@gmail.com)
Warm Regards
sanjeev nayyar
Monday, February 6, 2012
Chinese Signals to India
Battle of Se-La and Bomdi-La by Maj Gen PJS Sandhu (Retd)
Esteemed Friends,
Maj Gen PJS Sandhu (Retd) has written a very well researched and thought provoking article "Battle of Se-La and Bomdi-La" in the latest (Oct-Dec) Issue of the prestigious USI Journal.
The article throws fresh light on 1962 War with China based on Chinese documents and reports recently translated in to English. The Chinese planning and its execution to speedily overwhelm the Indian Army defences at Se-La and Bombdi-La are very well explained indeed..
In addition, the Author has carried out a very interesting comparison of Chinese attack on Se-La and Bomdi-La with the battle of CHOSIN RESERVOIR (located in North Korea) during the Korean War. In that battle in Nov 1950, the Chinese Forces attacked America led UN Forces (1st US Marine Division and some other nationality troops) and the dispositions of the UN Forces in CHOSIN RESORVOIR and those of the Indian Army in Se-La and Bomdi-La area in 1962 are comparable.
What is also very interesting is the last part of the article in which Gen Sandhu has analysed the Politico-Diplomatic Interactions prior to the 1962 War, between India and China. He has brought out how the Chinese sent signals to Indian leadership which were not interpreted correctly and taken note of.
Further, he has suggested that in the present context of our not so calm relationship with China, we should analyze the Chinese signals pragmatically in the light of what transpired between the two governments in 1962 prior to the active hostilities breaking out. As an example, Indian naval ships are sailing in to the South China Sea at times and there have been some reactions by the Chinese as also their out bursts regarding Indian companies carrying out oil exploration activities in the area need to be analysed.
You may like to lay your hands on the latest issue of the USI Journal and read the article in full. The article will be put on line only in April once the next Issue is out.
Best wishes.
Harbhajan Singh
Esteemed Friends,
Maj Gen PJS Sandhu (Retd) has written a very well researched and thought provoking article "Battle of Se-La and Bomdi-La" in the latest (Oct-Dec) Issue of the prestigious USI Journal.
The article throws fresh light on 1962 War with China based on Chinese documents and reports recently translated in to English. The Chinese planning and its execution to speedily overwhelm the Indian Army defences at Se-La and Bombdi-La are very well explained indeed..
In addition, the Author has carried out a very interesting comparison of Chinese attack on Se-La and Bomdi-La with the battle of CHOSIN RESERVOIR (located in North Korea) during the Korean War. In that battle in Nov 1950, the Chinese Forces attacked America led UN Forces (1st US Marine Division and some other nationality troops) and the dispositions of the UN Forces in CHOSIN RESORVOIR and those of the Indian Army in Se-La and Bomdi-La area in 1962 are comparable.
What is also very interesting is the last part of the article in which Gen Sandhu has analysed the Politico-Diplomatic Interactions prior to the 1962 War, between India and China. He has brought out how the Chinese sent signals to Indian leadership which were not interpreted correctly and taken note of.
Further, he has suggested that in the present context of our not so calm relationship with China, we should analyze the Chinese signals pragmatically in the light of what transpired between the two governments in 1962 prior to the active hostilities breaking out. As an example, Indian naval ships are sailing in to the South China Sea at times and there have been some reactions by the Chinese as also their out bursts regarding Indian companies carrying out oil exploration activities in the area need to be analysed.
You may like to lay your hands on the latest issue of the USI Journal and read the article in full. The article will be put on line only in April once the next Issue is out.
Best wishes.
Harbhajan Singh
Why India chose Rafale
The Telegraph, Clacutta Monday , February 6 , 2012 by K.P. NAYAR
Washington, Feb. 5: When Pratibha Patil travelled to Europe last October, she and others in her entourage had a pleasant surprise in the sky. At one point along the air space that the President’s flight was using, half a squadron of Eurofighters appeared on both sides of her Air India plane.
In the graceful style of these sleek war machines, they escorted the presidential aircraft to its safe landing at Patil’s next destination. Even so, those manning the Eurofighters could not resist showing off.
When the Eurofighters displayed the prowess of this advanced new-generation, multi-role combat aircraft to the President, members of Parliament and senior officials accompanying her, New Delhi’s quest for 126 planes of its kind could not have been far from the minds of their pilots.
The competition for the biggest military aviation deal in history, which began 11 years ago when the defence ministry initiated its “request for information” or RFI, had just entered its final and decisive phase.
But the impromptu decision to send the Eurofighters across European skies to impress the President was typical of what cost some rivals of Dassault Aviation — last week’s winners — the lucrative Indian Air Force contract.
It was somewhat reminiscent of Henry Kissinger’s disastrous invitation to defence minister Jagjivan Ram to visit Washington in 1971 as the sub-continent was heading into war, as recounted by Rukmini Menon, who was then joint secretary for the US in South Block.
“Why should I visit Washington?” Ram asked a non-plussed Kissinger and proceeded to tell him how American arms supplies had emboldened Pakistan to ruthlessly suppress East Pakistanis.
Partly, it was a similar approach that resulted in Boeing’s F-18E and Lockheed Martin’s F-16E being turfed out of the competition for the IAF deal earlier in the race. Not solely with the multi-role combat aircraft deal in mind, the Obama administration had made too much noise bereft of substance about the first state visit of his administration and Barack Obama’s first state dinner in honour of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
There was a time when India’s rulers could solely be influenced by gimmicks. But theatrics and atmospherics can no longer substitute hard policy options. This is one lesson New Delhi has hopefully absorbed firsthand from intense, albeit under the radar interaction with Israelis — especially in defence matters — in the last 20 years.
Then there was A.K. Antony, whom the losers in the bid for the IAF deal had not reckoned with. Antony, by nature, is averse to being the public face of decision-making. This has been the case throughout his tenure as defence minister, especially during scandals such as the Adarsh housing scam that rocked the army. Each time it was clear that the defence minister had made up his mind, but the decisions were put out as if they were taken elsewhere, along the proper channel.
Such an approach came through clearly in his most detailed statement on January 31 on the controversy about the army chief’s age. Ending months of virtual silence in the matter, Antony blamed the army for sitting on the problem for 36 years and then dealing with it in its own wisdom. So much so the army chief Gen. V.K. Singh had to agree with the minister.
Antony has maintained in public throughout that the multi-role combat aircraft acquisition process is a technical matter that would be decided by professionals in uniform. But such a public position overlooks the reality that Antony’s core support team in his ministry is much more ideological than in any other wing of the present government. Like civil servants, men in uniform are not immune from ministerial winds blowing in a particular direction.
Ideological considerations have prevented Antony from visiting Israel and from signing at least three defence agreements with the Americans which his core team views as compromising India’s strategic autonomy.
If the Russian plane on offer, MiG-35, had not clearly failed the tests, it was conceivable that it would very much have been in the reckoning. With the Russians out of the way, it did weigh with the political leadership in the defence ministry that France favours a multi-polar world and that India is a beneficiary of such an approach.
France won the bid for the entire order because it supplemented the requirements of the global tender with sweeteners that in the real world of strategic engagement, only three countries can offer India: Russia and Israel, in addition to France itself.
Washington, Feb. 5: When Pratibha Patil travelled to Europe last October, she and others in her entourage had a pleasant surprise in the sky. At one point along the air space that the President’s flight was using, half a squadron of Eurofighters appeared on both sides of her Air India plane.
In the graceful style of these sleek war machines, they escorted the presidential aircraft to its safe landing at Patil’s next destination. Even so, those manning the Eurofighters could not resist showing off.
When the Eurofighters displayed the prowess of this advanced new-generation, multi-role combat aircraft to the President, members of Parliament and senior officials accompanying her, New Delhi’s quest for 126 planes of its kind could not have been far from the minds of their pilots.
The competition for the biggest military aviation deal in history, which began 11 years ago when the defence ministry initiated its “request for information” or RFI, had just entered its final and decisive phase.
But the impromptu decision to send the Eurofighters across European skies to impress the President was typical of what cost some rivals of Dassault Aviation — last week’s winners — the lucrative Indian Air Force contract.
It was somewhat reminiscent of Henry Kissinger’s disastrous invitation to defence minister Jagjivan Ram to visit Washington in 1971 as the sub-continent was heading into war, as recounted by Rukmini Menon, who was then joint secretary for the US in South Block.
“Why should I visit Washington?” Ram asked a non-plussed Kissinger and proceeded to tell him how American arms supplies had emboldened Pakistan to ruthlessly suppress East Pakistanis.
Partly, it was a similar approach that resulted in Boeing’s F-18E and Lockheed Martin’s F-16E being turfed out of the competition for the IAF deal earlier in the race. Not solely with the multi-role combat aircraft deal in mind, the Obama administration had made too much noise bereft of substance about the first state visit of his administration and Barack Obama’s first state dinner in honour of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
There was a time when India’s rulers could solely be influenced by gimmicks. But theatrics and atmospherics can no longer substitute hard policy options. This is one lesson New Delhi has hopefully absorbed firsthand from intense, albeit under the radar interaction with Israelis — especially in defence matters — in the last 20 years.
Then there was A.K. Antony, whom the losers in the bid for the IAF deal had not reckoned with. Antony, by nature, is averse to being the public face of decision-making. This has been the case throughout his tenure as defence minister, especially during scandals such as the Adarsh housing scam that rocked the army. Each time it was clear that the defence minister had made up his mind, but the decisions were put out as if they were taken elsewhere, along the proper channel.
Such an approach came through clearly in his most detailed statement on January 31 on the controversy about the army chief’s age. Ending months of virtual silence in the matter, Antony blamed the army for sitting on the problem for 36 years and then dealing with it in its own wisdom. So much so the army chief Gen. V.K. Singh had to agree with the minister.
Antony has maintained in public throughout that the multi-role combat aircraft acquisition process is a technical matter that would be decided by professionals in uniform. But such a public position overlooks the reality that Antony’s core support team in his ministry is much more ideological than in any other wing of the present government. Like civil servants, men in uniform are not immune from ministerial winds blowing in a particular direction.
Ideological considerations have prevented Antony from visiting Israel and from signing at least three defence agreements with the Americans which his core team views as compromising India’s strategic autonomy.
If the Russian plane on offer, MiG-35, had not clearly failed the tests, it was conceivable that it would very much have been in the reckoning. With the Russians out of the way, it did weigh with the political leadership in the defence ministry that France favours a multi-polar world and that India is a beneficiary of such an approach.
France won the bid for the entire order because it supplemented the requirements of the global tender with sweeteners that in the real world of strategic engagement, only three countries can offer India: Russia and Israel, in addition to France itself.
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Financial War Against Iran
The Financial War Against Iran
By James Rickards January 30, 2012
In March, 2009, I joined a group of sixty officials from the armed forces, intelligence community, U.S. Treasury, think tanks and Wall Street at a top-secret weapons laboratory near Washington, D.C., to conduct the first ever war game in which the weapons were not missiles and bombs but stocks, bonds, and currencies.
The Pentagon wanted to understand how adversaries could inflict harm on the United States and expand their own power using financial weapons. My mission was to play for the China team, although I had recruited allies on the Russian and Swiss teams also. Over two days of moves and countermoves the Chinese and Russians played a gambit in which a new gold-backed currency created by them would replace the dollar as the medium of exchange for Russian natural resources and Chinese manufactured goods. Many of the established academic economists in the war room were appalled at the audacity of the move to gold and some ridiculed it openly. That was then.
As a global-macro analyst, I am frequently asked if war with Iran will come and, if so, when. My answer is the war has already begun. It's not a shooting war—yet. What the United States and Israel are now waging with Iran is what experts call unrestricted warfare. This is warfare that consists of sabotage, assassination, special operations, psychological operations, attacks on critical infrastructure, cyber warfare, and—the most recent addition to the arsenal—financial warfare.
The United States has applied financial and economic sanctions to Iran for over 30 years—sanctions are nothing new. But a few weeks ago President Obama moved to choke off Iran's oxygen supply by imposing sanctions on the central bank of Iran. International banks were told if they did business with Iran's central bank, they would be barred from doing business in the global dollar payments system controlled by the United States. Of course, the banks complied.
The result was an immediate isolation of Iran from the dollar system and an acute shortage of dollars in Iran. The Iranian currency, the rial, crashed in value 40 percent against the dollar in a few days. Since many goods in Iran are imported, local prices doubled as merchants demanded more rials in order to acquire whatever dollars might be available on the black market to buy imported goods. Iranian banks responded by raising local interest rates to over 20 percent in order to keep rials from flooding out of the Iranian banking system.
In a matter of days, the United States had isolated Iran from the world banking system, destroyed the exchange value of Iran's currency, injected hyperinflation into the local economy and caused a stratospheric increase in interest rates. That this happened just weeks ahead of Iranian elections at a time when the United States is promoting regime change in Iran is no coincidence.
What came next was surprising to many but not to those who gathered at the financial war game in 2009. India is one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil, which it needs to fuel its own economic growth. Reports from Israel indicated that India and Iran have worked out an "oil-for-gold" swap in which India would pay for Iranian oil exports with gold. At today's prices, the swap would equate to 17 barrels of oil per ounce of gold. Other reports suggested that China would also continue its Iranian oil imports but would work on alternative non-dollar payment mechanisms possibly including gold but also making use of Chinese, Russian, Central Asian and other non-Western banking systems, currencies and commodities.
In these and other developments we may be witnessing the end of the dollar standard that has prevailed since the collapse of the gold standard in 1971. Any monetary standard—be it gold or dollars—only works so long as the participants trust that the leading parties will maintain the value of the unit on which the standard is based. A strong dollar can be the basis for a global dollar standard. When the U.S. Federal Reserve debases the dollar—as it has over the past three years with $2 trillion created from thin air—it comes as no surprise that global and regional powers such as Russia, China, India, and Iran take steps, however fitfully, to exit the dollar system once and for all.
What began as an exercise in financial warfare against Iran using dollars as a weapon may end in a dollar defeat because the Fed has abused the trust placed in it by dollar holders everywhere. It is ironic that the U.S. national security community has come to appreciate the role of finance as warfare at exactly the time the Fed has allowed the dollar weapon to degrade due to debasement and derogation of trust. A strong national security posture cannot be pursued with a weak currency. Let's hope someone reminds the Fed before it's too late.
The Financial War Against Iran
By James Rickards January 30, 2012
In March, 2009, I joined a group of sixty officials from the armed forces, intelligence community, U.S. Treasury, think tanks and Wall Street at a top-secret weapons laboratory near Washington, D.C., to conduct the first ever war game in which the weapons were not missiles and bombs but stocks, bonds, and currencies.
The Pentagon wanted to understand how adversaries could inflict harm on the United States and expand their own power using financial weapons. My mission was to play for the China team, although I had recruited allies on the Russian and Swiss teams also. Over two days of moves and countermoves the Chinese and Russians played a gambit in which a new gold-backed currency created by them would replace the dollar as the medium of exchange for Russian natural resources and Chinese manufactured goods. Many of the established academic economists in the war room were appalled at the audacity of the move to gold and some ridiculed it openly. That was then.
As a global-macro analyst, I am frequently asked if war with Iran will come and, if so, when. My answer is the war has already begun. It's not a shooting war—yet. What the United States and Israel are now waging with Iran is what experts call unrestricted warfare. This is warfare that consists of sabotage, assassination, special operations, psychological operations, attacks on critical infrastructure, cyber warfare, and—the most recent addition to the arsenal—financial warfare.
The United States has applied financial and economic sanctions to Iran for over 30 years—sanctions are nothing new. But a few weeks ago President Obama moved to choke off Iran's oxygen supply by imposing sanctions on the central bank of Iran. International banks were told if they did business with Iran's central bank, they would be barred from doing business in the global dollar payments system controlled by the United States. Of course, the banks complied.
The result was an immediate isolation of Iran from the dollar system and an acute shortage of dollars in Iran. The Iranian currency, the rial, crashed in value 40 percent against the dollar in a few days. Since many goods in Iran are imported, local prices doubled as merchants demanded more rials in order to acquire whatever dollars might be available on the black market to buy imported goods. Iranian banks responded by raising local interest rates to over 20 percent in order to keep rials from flooding out of the Iranian banking system.
In a matter of days, the United States had isolated Iran from the world banking system, destroyed the exchange value of Iran's currency, injected hyperinflation into the local economy and caused a stratospheric increase in interest rates. That this happened just weeks ahead of Iranian elections at a time when the United States is promoting regime change in Iran is no coincidence.
What came next was surprising to many but not to those who gathered at the financial war game in 2009. India is one of the largest buyers of Iranian oil, which it needs to fuel its own economic growth. Reports from Israel indicated that India and Iran have worked out an "oil-for-gold" swap in which India would pay for Iranian oil exports with gold. At today's prices, the swap would equate to 17 barrels of oil per ounce of gold. Other reports suggested that China would also continue its Iranian oil imports but would work on alternative non-dollar payment mechanisms possibly including gold but also making use of Chinese, Russian, Central Asian and other non-Western banking systems, currencies and commodities.
In these and other developments we may be witnessing the end of the dollar standard that has prevailed since the collapse of the gold standard in 1971. Any monetary standard—be it gold or dollars—only works so long as the participants trust that the leading parties will maintain the value of the unit on which the standard is based. A strong dollar can be the basis for a global dollar standard. When the U.S. Federal Reserve debases the dollar—as it has over the past three years with $2 trillion created from thin air—it comes as no surprise that global and regional powers such as Russia, China, India, and Iran take steps, however fitfully, to exit the dollar system once and for all.
What began as an exercise in financial warfare against Iran using dollars as a weapon may end in a dollar defeat because the Fed has abused the trust placed in it by dollar holders everywhere. It is ironic that the U.S. national security community has come to appreciate the role of finance as warfare at exactly the time the Fed has allowed the dollar weapon to degrade due to debasement and derogation of trust. A strong national security posture cannot be pursued with a weak currency. Let's hope someone reminds the Fed before it's too late.
The Financial War Against Iran
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Iran threatens U.S. Navy as sanctions hit economy
(Reuters) - Iran threatened on Tuesday to take action if the U.S. Navy moves an aircraft carrier into the Gulf, Tehran's most aggressive statement yet after weeks of saber-rattling as new U.S. and EU financial sanctions take a toll on its economy.
The United States dismissed the Iranian threat, saying it was proof that sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program were working. The Pentagon said it would keep sending carrier strike groups through the Gulf regardless.
The prospect of sanctions targeting the oil sector in a serious way for the first time has hit Iran's rial currency, which reached a record low on Tuesday and has fallen by 40 percent against the dollar in the past month.
Queues formed at Tehran banks and some currency exchange offices shut their doors as Iranians scrambled to buy dollars to protect their savings. World oil prices jumped more than 4 percent.
Army chief Ataollah Salehi said the United States had moved an aircraft carrier out of the Gulf because of Iran's naval exercises, and Iran would take action if the ship returned.
"Iran will not repeat its warning ... the enemy's carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf....we are not in the habit of warning more than once," he said.
The Pentagon appeared to walk a delicate line, assuring more "regularly scheduled movements" of aircraft carrier strike groups into the Gulf, but stopping short of announcing any special activity in response to the Iranian threat.
"The deployment of U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region will continue as it has for decades," the Pentagon said.
The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis leads a U.S. Navy task force in the region. It is now outside the Gulf in the Arabian Sea, providing air support for the war in Afghanistan, said Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, spokeswoman for the 5th Fleet.
The carrier left the Gulf on December 27 on a planned routine transit through the Strait of Hormuz, she said.
Forty percent of the world's traded oil flows through that narrow straight - which Iran threatened last month to shut if sanctions halted its oil exports.
Brent crude futures were up more than $4 in late Tuesday afternoon trade in London, pushing above $111 a barrel.
Asked at the Pentagon whether there was any U.S. military plan to bolster its presence in the Gulf or test the Iranian threat, spokesman George Little said: "No one in this government seeks confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz."
"It is important to lower the temperature," he said.
Tehran's latest threat comes at a time when sanctions are having an impact on its economy, and the country faces political uncertainty with an election in March, its first since a 2009 vote that triggered countrywide demonstrations.
The West has imposed the increasingly tight sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is strictly peaceful but Western countries believe aims to build an atomic bomb.
After years of measures that had little impact, the new sanctions are the first that could have a serious effect on Iran's oil trade, which is 60 percent of its economy.
Sanctions signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve would cut financial institutions that work with Iran's central bank off from the U.S. financial system, blocking the main path for Iran to receive payments for its crude.
The EU is expected to impose new sanctions by the end of this month, possibly including a ban on oil imports and a freeze of central bank assets.
Even Iran's top trading partner China - which has refused to back new global sanctions against Iran - is demanding discounts to buy Iranian oil as Tehran's options narrow. Beijing has cut its imports of Iranian crude by more than half for January.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the latest Iranian threat "reflects the fact that Iran is in a position of weakness." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said it showed international pressure was "beginning to bite."
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will visit his counterpart in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss Iran's nuclear program and developments in Iraq and Syria.
THREATS
Iran has responded to the tighter measures with belligerent rhetoric, spooking oil markets briefly when it announced last month it could prevent shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
It then held 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf, test firing missiles that could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East. Tuesday's apparent threat to take action against the U.S. Navy in international waters takes the rhetoric to a new level.
Experts still say they do not expect Tehran to charge headlong into an act of war - the U.S. Navy is overwhelmingly more powerful than Iran's sea forces - but Iran is running out of diplomatic room to avert a confrontation.
"I think we should be very worried because the diplomacy that should accompany this rise in tension seems to be lacking on both sides," said Richard Dalton, former British ambassador to Iran and now an associate fellow at Chatham House think tank.
Iran threatens U.S. Navy as sanctions hit economy
The United States dismissed the Iranian threat, saying it was proof that sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program were working. The Pentagon said it would keep sending carrier strike groups through the Gulf regardless.
The prospect of sanctions targeting the oil sector in a serious way for the first time has hit Iran's rial currency, which reached a record low on Tuesday and has fallen by 40 percent against the dollar in the past month.
Queues formed at Tehran banks and some currency exchange offices shut their doors as Iranians scrambled to buy dollars to protect their savings. World oil prices jumped more than 4 percent.
Army chief Ataollah Salehi said the United States had moved an aircraft carrier out of the Gulf because of Iran's naval exercises, and Iran would take action if the ship returned.
"Iran will not repeat its warning ... the enemy's carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf....we are not in the habit of warning more than once," he said.
The Pentagon appeared to walk a delicate line, assuring more "regularly scheduled movements" of aircraft carrier strike groups into the Gulf, but stopping short of announcing any special activity in response to the Iranian threat.
"The deployment of U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region will continue as it has for decades," the Pentagon said.
The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis leads a U.S. Navy task force in the region. It is now outside the Gulf in the Arabian Sea, providing air support for the war in Afghanistan, said Lieutenant Rebecca Rebarich, spokeswoman for the 5th Fleet.
The carrier left the Gulf on December 27 on a planned routine transit through the Strait of Hormuz, she said.
Forty percent of the world's traded oil flows through that narrow straight - which Iran threatened last month to shut if sanctions halted its oil exports.
Brent crude futures were up more than $4 in late Tuesday afternoon trade in London, pushing above $111 a barrel.
Asked at the Pentagon whether there was any U.S. military plan to bolster its presence in the Gulf or test the Iranian threat, spokesman George Little said: "No one in this government seeks confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz."
"It is important to lower the temperature," he said.
Tehran's latest threat comes at a time when sanctions are having an impact on its economy, and the country faces political uncertainty with an election in March, its first since a 2009 vote that triggered countrywide demonstrations.
The West has imposed the increasingly tight sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is strictly peaceful but Western countries believe aims to build an atomic bomb.
After years of measures that had little impact, the new sanctions are the first that could have a serious effect on Iran's oil trade, which is 60 percent of its economy.
Sanctions signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve would cut financial institutions that work with Iran's central bank off from the U.S. financial system, blocking the main path for Iran to receive payments for its crude.
The EU is expected to impose new sanctions by the end of this month, possibly including a ban on oil imports and a freeze of central bank assets.
Even Iran's top trading partner China - which has refused to back new global sanctions against Iran - is demanding discounts to buy Iranian oil as Tehran's options narrow. Beijing has cut its imports of Iranian crude by more than half for January.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the latest Iranian threat "reflects the fact that Iran is in a position of weakness." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said it showed international pressure was "beginning to bite."
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will visit his counterpart in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss Iran's nuclear program and developments in Iraq and Syria.
THREATS
Iran has responded to the tighter measures with belligerent rhetoric, spooking oil markets briefly when it announced last month it could prevent shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
It then held 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf, test firing missiles that could hit U.S. bases in the Middle East. Tuesday's apparent threat to take action against the U.S. Navy in international waters takes the rhetoric to a new level.
Experts still say they do not expect Tehran to charge headlong into an act of war - the U.S. Navy is overwhelmingly more powerful than Iran's sea forces - but Iran is running out of diplomatic room to avert a confrontation.
"I think we should be very worried because the diplomacy that should accompany this rise in tension seems to be lacking on both sides," said Richard Dalton, former British ambassador to Iran and now an associate fellow at Chatham House think tank.
Iran threatens U.S. Navy as sanctions hit economy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)