The power of a King lies in his mighty arms

mission
Chanakya

Security of the citizens at peace time is very important because State is the only saviour of the men and women who get affected only because of the negligence of the State.

editor-in-chief

The country comes rst always and every time.

he conundrum of China was once again painfully highlighted to us just before the visit of the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang. Chinese troops carefully selected an area in Ladakh where Indians had only two approach routes. One took 12-15 days by foot and the better one around a week.

The Chinese in contrast could bring up an Armoured / Motorised Division to the area from Lanzhou MR within just a day. Having carefully selected the area for a showdown, the Chinese launched a deliberate provocation in the DBO sector. That highlights the painful differential in Border roads and infrastructure that has persisted from the 1950s to date. This glaring failure to build infrastructure severely constrains Indias response options and our Foreign Ofce has in consequence, developed kowtowing into a ne art.

interior lines vis a vis China. Our railheads are within 200-300 km of the borders. Earlier the Chinese railhead in Gormo was almost 2,000 km from the border. The Chinese utilised the period of peace and tranquillity negotiated by us in the late 1980s and 1990s to push up their railways to Lhasa and even beyond. Eight Standard Gauge trains per day now come to Lhasa and enable China to build upto 30 divisions or more within the space of just one month. This marks a paradigm shift in capabilities. Earlier it used to take the Chinese two seasons to build a maximum force level of 22 divisions in Tibet. The scale and speed of the Chinese mobilisation capacity has been sharply enhanced. We have singularly failed to build roads in the last 200-300 km of the Himalayan borders. Earlier we had an amazing policy premised on cowardice. We wanted to keep the last 50-60 km of our Himalayan borders absolutely undeveloped so as not to give avenues of advance to the Chinese! This also implied that we just could not launch any counter attacks / counter strokes into Tibet in response to any Chinese invasion. This was an amazingly defensive stance. In the 1980s Gen KV Krishna Rao had tried to change this nonsensical posture and push our infrastructure and deployments forward. The Sumdorong Chu incident ensued and Gen K Sundarji launched Op Chequerboard to give a rm response. It had shaken the Chinese. They backed down temporarily and sought peace but utilised the period of peace to upgrade their infrastructure while we conveniently went to sleep.

Logistical interior lines: The paradox is that in overall terms, India is on logistical

Resource differential: The infrastructure differential is compounded by the resource differential. By US estimates China

spends upwards of US$ 160 billion a year on its defence modernisation. India spends a paltry 37 billion dollars per year in comparison. No one is making a case for dollar to dollar parity. However a safe ratio has perforce to be maintained. That is not being done at all.

Defence modernisation differential: Far more worrying is the pace of our defence modernisation that has been reduced to a crawl by the series of never ending scams in our defence acquisition process. Unmindful of the dire threats spelt by our Honourable Raksha Mantri, the customary rent collectors thrive on the inbuilt delays in the defence import process. The result is a disaster about to happen. Our medium artillery, air defence equipment and army aviation eets have not been modernised for the last 30 years. There is no sign of replacements materialising. The Chinese Air Force and Navy have made huge strides not just quantitatively but also qualitatively. Our air force strength is declining ominously as old aircraft are phased out and new ones fail to come. Same is the case with the submarine arm of our navy and we could soon be without an effective aircraft carrier even as China aunts her rst and readies to launch the second and third. We are tragically short of ammunition to sustain the ght. Who is responsible? Who will be held accountable if we suffer another military reverse? Our Finance Ministry has little funds to spare for defence. Last year it cut Rs 10,000 crore from our defence budget. It is busy dishing out doles to the tune of Rs 1,40,000 crore for schemes like MGNAREGA, 50 per cent of which have been siphoned off as per media reports. These leakages amount to US$ 14 billion and could have plugged some of the glaring gaps in our defence. China has completed the rst phase of its military modernisation (that was scheduled for 2020). This was to make it capable of dealing with any power in Asia. China is ready and hence is being stridently assertive and aggressive on all fronts concurrently. The seminal question we must answer is Are we ready? Sadly the answer is a rm negative. Cooperation-Competition-or Conict with China? That is the theme of our current issue. We may try for cooperation (The foreign ministry is bending over backwards in its efforts to appease Beijing). The sad truth is we may not want war with China, but we will get peace only if we are strong enough to deter China from any adventurism across the Himalayas. As the doyen of our Foreign service, Ambassador Rajan said, we may not want war with China but we simply cannot afford to lose the next conict with China whenever it comes. By our glaring lack of preparation, by the very tardiness of our response, we are precisely inviting such an outcome. Nations that fail to learn from their own history are condemned to repeat it.

Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi SM, VSM (Retd)

July 2013 DEFENCE AND SECURITY ALERT

publisher's view

founding editor

Time for Chanakyan realpolitik

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Vo l u m e 4 I s s u e 1 0 J u l y 2 0 1 3
Chairman Shyam Sunder Publisher and CEO Pawan Agrawal Founding editor Manvendra Singh Editor-in-chief Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi SM, VSM (Retd) Director Shishir Bhushan Corporate consultant KJ Singh Art consultant Divya Gupta Central Saint Martins College Of Art & Design, University Of Arts, London Business development Shaifali Sachdeva PR and communications Arpita Dutta Creative Prem Singh Giri Representative (USA) Steve Melito Correspondent (Europe) Dominika Cosic Representative (J and K) Salil Sharma Administration Devendra Pillani Production Dilshad and Dabeer Webmaster Sundar Rawat System administrator Mehar Dogra Photographer Subhash Circulation and distribution Anup Kumar E-mail: ( rst name)@dsalert.org info: info@dsalert.org articles: articles@dsalert.org subscription: subscription@dsalert.org online edition: online@dsalert.org advertisement: advt@dsalert.org Editorial and corporate o ce 4/19 Asaf Ali Road New Delhi-110002 (India) t: +91-011-23243999, 23287999, 9958382999 e: info@dsalert.org www.dsalert.org
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ndias greatest geostrategic thinker and the ideal and inspiration of the Defence and Security Alert (DSA) team Chanakya has only one contemporary legend Sun Tzu of China whose treatise Art of War is of perennial contemporary relevance. How many Indians know about them? I am sure not even 5 per cent of the total population knows about Chanakya and may be hardly 1 per cent is aware about Sun Tzu in our country. Our people are ignorant about these world famous great thinkers who changed the entire gamut of the socio-political situations of their times with their thoughts and their edicts and we can see that their thoughts are perhaps even more relevant to the geopolitics of today. We see the situation in our immediate vicinity as one in which all the neighbouring countries be they small Nepal and Sri Lanka or the bigger China and Pakistan exerting a negative inuence on Indias geopolitical interests and all that we see ourselves doing is compromising with them on their terms. The aggressiveness of China towards India and other South East Asian countries is increasing day by day. We see how it has been bullying Japan and Vietnam on issues of suzereignty over offshore resources; and how it has been supporting Pakistan by providing it nuclear and conventional weaponry and encouraging it in the use of Islamist jihadi terrorism to try and delink the Kashmir Valley from the rest of India. The way China has constructed road and rail networks leading to the Line of Actual Control all along the Himalayas and its involvement in Gilgit and Baltistan in the name of supporting Pakistans infrastructure development is a real India-specic threat. The most recent intrusion across the Line of Actual Control in the Daulat Beg Oldi sector of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir coming as it did on the very eve of the visit of the newly elected Prime Minister of China to India had raised grave doubts about Beijings intentions vis--vis India. It appeared to be a threat to warn India to keep out of Pacic Ocean littoral geopolitics. But New Delhi was unfazed and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made it a point to visit Japan as part of a Look East policy that has acquired a defence and security content involving Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea and Mongolia. India is holding military exercises with all of them on land and sea over the years. If this is construed to be an anti-China phalanx by Beijing it has only itself to blame for its hectoring and hegemonistic attitude. Hopefully, the Chinese Premiers visit to India soon after the intrusion episode will dispel such interpretations. Nonetheless, we appear to have taken a leaf out of Chanakyas Neetishastra and his sage advice that Never trust your enemies, be alert on all their moves even if they pose to be friendly with you. In July 2011 I proudly informed you of DSA becoming the rst and the only ISO certied magazine in India in the defence and security domain. Now in July 2013 I have another great news for DSA lovers and our friends in the defence and security fraternity worldwide. DSA has once again become the premier defence and security magazine available on the Intranet of Indian Air Force. Now DSA is at the ngertips of and reaches each and every ofcer and soldier of the Indian Air Force. This will be a great incentive for all companies in the defence and security arena doing business in India or planning to foray into the burgeoning Indian market. I take it as an honour for all our contributors, advertisers and of course the entire team at DSA for their excellent support which has made this possible. The quality of the content and the presentation of DSA has proved to be the best in the past and now its outreach has also been acknowledged in the public domain. It is another feather in the cap of DSA which we will wear with great pride! To commemorate the 75th raising day of CRPF, our premier paramilitary force team DSA has researched and compiled a comprehensive feature highlighting the eventful journey of the force in the service of the nation and the challenges it faces unfolding in the internal security environment. Team DSA greets and salutes the ofcers and jawans of CRPF. Jai Hind!

"Never trust your enemies, be alert on all their moves even if they pose to be friendly with you".

DSA is as much yours, as it is ours!

hina is an enigma that continues to defy conventional analyses. It has in fact always been an enigma. From the time it came to regard itself as the Middle Kingdom, till the current era, there has been something about China that doesn't quite gel. It dees conventional wisdom on account of its many extraordinary achievements and simultaneous contradictions. The economic growth story is the envy of many in the world and an unparalleled success in human history. The largest number of human beings lifted out of poverty in the shortest span of time in an extraordinary achievement. But not all of China's achievements are worth emulating. Because at the same time as the growth story are wretched tales of environmental degradation, denial of basic human rights to its people, brutalities in Tibet and Xinjiang and ourishing corruption like there wasn't a tomorrow. It remains an enigma, therefore, because it displays extraordinary contradictions. In many ways it remains beyond scrutiny even in a networked age and information overkill. China does not like scrutiny because that entails, nay demands, transparency. And an absence of transparency is the greatest psychological weapon employed by China. The world doesn't know where China is headed. Is the direction benign, or is it more sinister, is the fundamental question raising eyebrows and nerves around the world. Nerves because China tends to overdo its territorial claims and displays some quite pathetic images of itself. Two soldiers holding the Chinese ag in knee deep waters on Scarborough Reef make for a terrible sight, even if the xenophobic laud the effort on the mainland. It was an overkill and like all such efforts it bombed. That is why the world needs to know where China is headed, so such pathetic scenes don't lead to scare scenarios that get out of hand. In the recent past there have been ample doses of that with its neighbours to the east, or the one to the west. Japan, Vietnam and Philippines can testify to Chinese edginess when it comes to border or boundary management. The East Sea, as the Vietnamese call it, or the West Philippines Sea as Manila calls it and the South China Sea, as the world refers to it, is the current focus of territorial claims by all; but in which China is pitted against them all. To the west China unilaterally sought to impose an alignment of the Line of Actual Control that took everyone by surprise. There was no reason to be surprised, because it was the culmination of an internal Chinese politico-military exercise that seeks to test responses. They learned their lessons, but have the Indian authorities learnt those that they are meant to? India and China are the only neighbours in the world that had never fought until well into the 20th century. Throughout their extensive and rich histories the Asian giants maintained peaceful relations. Something changed in the two post-colonial societies in the last century that created bad blood. And that has still to be resolved. Its resolution will be the greatest diplomatic, political and military success story in human history. But it can only be resolved provided both sides want it badly enough. One-way tickets in international relations are fraught with dangers. Of which China seems to have caused enough to ample number of countries.

All rights reserved. Reproduction and translation in any language in whole or in part by any means without permission from defence and security alert is prohibited. Opinions expressed are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily reect those of the publisher and / or editors. All disputes are subject to jurisdiction of Delhi Courts.
Defence and Security Alert is printed, published and owned by Pawan Agrawal and printed at Graphic World, 1686, Kucha Dakhini Rai, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002 and published at 4/19 Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi (India). Editor: Maj Gen (Dr) GD Bakshi (Retd).

Manvendra Singh Pawan Agrawal

July 2013 DEFENCE AND SECURITY ALERT

July 2013 DEFENCE AND SECURITY ALERT

Contents

An assertive China: Cooperation, competition or conict?

CRPF: A committed force for internal security
Agni-

SPECIAL ISSUE JULY 2013

46
F E A T U R E S B Raman: Ace Spymaster A tribute Book Review 1962 and the McMahon Line Saga Claude Arpi

TM

A R T I C L E S The Anatomy of an Intrusion Lt Gen Gautam Banerjee PVSM, AVSM, YSM (Retd) Evolution of Chinas Ballistic Missile Programme and its Deployment: Implications for Indias National Security Prof Arvind Kumar Commentary on Chinas Eighth White Paper on National Defence-2013 Maj Gen PK Chakravorty VSM (Retd) Sino-Indian Relations: Shifting Sands or an Enduring Mirage? Lt Gen Sudhir Sharma (Retd) PVSM, AVSM, YSM, VSM Chinas Maritime Strategy in the Indo-Pacific: Competition for Indias Navy Cmde Ranjit Bhawnani Rai (Retd) The Chinese Incursion of April 2013: An Assessment Air Marshal Dhiraj Kukreja (Retd) PVSM, AVSM, VSM, ADC Smart Strategies for Staying Ahead of China Brig Rahul Bhonsle (Retd) Central Reserve Police Force: Staunch Sentinels Pankaj Kumar Singh IPS Paramilitary: Positional Uncertainty Redefined Dr Rupali Jeswal / Damien Martin The Rise of an Assertive China: An Australian View Ian Hall Chinese Aviation Programmes: AWACS Air Vice Marshal AK Tiwary VSM (Retd) Indias Submarine Fleet: A Dwindling Force Cmde S Govind (Retd) India China Stand-off in Ladakh: Emerging Lessons Brig Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd) India's Emerging Pragmatic Approach Towards China Anand V 6 12

Vo l u m e 4 I s s u e 1 0 J U LY 2 0 1 3

An ISO 9001:2008 Certified Magazine

Agni-

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Team DSA

CRPF: THE MULTIPURPOSE FORCE

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36 40 46 60 64 66 70 72

Post the Kargil conict, the Indian government designated CRPF as the lead Internal Security and Counter Insurgency Force of the country. Even before this designation, the CRPF has always been in action. The CRPF is already the worlds largest paramilitary force. There is a realisation in the government that the CRPF needs to be augmented to provide an adequate backup to its general role and responsibilities. To that end it is intended to raise its strength from the current three lakh personnel by the induction over the next ve years of 22 new General Duty (Male) battalions (an addition of more than 25,000 ofcers and jawans) and one more Mahila battalion bringing the total to four with about 4,500 women personnel overall.

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July 2013 DEFENCE AND SECURITY ALERT

July 2013 DEFENCE AND SECURITY ALERT