The Putin Interview; Stoking of a Nuclear War

Posted on by
4

By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar (To be Published)

Putin’s History Lesson

On 06 February, 2024, Vladimir Putin breached his self-imposed hiatus on the Western media and offered a sitting to a Mr Tucker Carlson.  The reason and timing of the interview, the Western media will have the world believe, was an attempt to influence the forthcoming American presidential elections. ‘Naked and provocative propaganda against President Joe Biden’s Ukraine Policy,  claimed the detractors which included the so called “liberal” media. And yet, the session comes at a time when NATO is suffering from pangs of ‘Ukraine Fatigue’, burden of the conflict has globally stressed economies, drain on military resources of the West hollowing out their own preparedness, anxiety of nuclear escalation and indeed the third year of war and loss of lives has left the Ukrainian citizenry with fading appetite for the conflict.

In the meantime Putin, in his inimitably sardonic style, set about delivering a primer to Tucker on Russian history. Beginning with the first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus, that arose in the 9th century; through the influence of the Byzantine Church that gave to the state Orthodox Christianity, he arrived at the rule of Oleg the Wise (879 CE), a Varangian Prince who founded an empire which  over three centuries spread to cover the modern State of Belarus, Slavonic-Norse Russia and significantly, Ukraine. Putin appeared to emphasize that the unit of historical understanding was neither nations nor epochs but societies such as that which bound the Orthodox Christians together. This historical narrative, to Putin, established the civilizational connect with Ukraine and set the stage for Tucker’s and obliquely the West’s discernment of Russia’s title to territories inhabited by cultural brethren.

In dragging Tucker through the common attributes of shared civilizational institutions, what really was Putin’s aim? Was it to educate his viewers through Mr Carlson or was it to show conviction that the West and NATO could do little to alter the new reality of Ukraine other than to accept it. Intervention, as Putin warned recently, would lead to nuclear war.

The Perilous Balance of Terror

Even after the many threats of nuclear escalation during the course of conflict, few in the West subscribe to the view that Mr Putin will make an irrational decision to attack NATO states with nuclear weapons in retaliation for support to Ukraine. And yet, everything about this conflict whether it was the abrogation of the Minsk Agreements, President Yanukovych’s ouster, Zelensky’s bid to enter NATO, the purposeless sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, the self-blow to Western economies or even the stubborn support to a proxy war; are irrational in character and illogical in progression. The final astonishing contradiction is what the Western allies consider likely; Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons. Yet, they persist with supporting the war with munitions and training in the entrenched strategic belief that tactical nuclear weapons are far less damaging than city-destroying high-yield nuclear weapons and therefore (outrageously), more “usable.” In this disordered ambience, is there mass insanity in the belief that the risk of escalation by Western allies is not a certainty?

The hostile detonation of a nuclear weapon, of any yield, would be an unprecedented denial of the dogma of deterrence, a theory that has underwritten military policy for the past 75 years. The idea stipulates that adversaries are deterred from launching a nuclear attack because by doing so they risk an overwhelming counterattack. Possessing nuclear weapons isn’t about winning a nuclear war, the theory goes, it is about preventing one. It hinges, perilously, upon a balance of terror. But, one is at a loss to explain the brinkmanship that has persistently stimulated this line of thinking that the provocation for nuclear use in some absurd way advances the war-aims. The danger of nuclear use in Ukraine fluctuates. It waned after Ukraine’s counter offensive of the summer of 2023 proved a fizzle. But, if Kremlin feels threatened by increased NATO intervention or conflict losses, it could create more dependency on Russia’s nuclear arsenal; the threat could rise exponentially.

Back to the Putin Hearing; Mounting Logic for Nuclear War

Coming to the central issue of termination of the war in Ukraine, Putin made a revelation. A few weeks into the conflict, he disclosed that Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia during peace talks in Istanbul (April 2022), until Western powers, led by the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ordered Kyiv to scrap the deal. Negotiators had tentatively agreed on the outlines of an interim settlement: “Russia would withdraw to its position on 23 February 2022, when it controlled part of the Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk), and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.” Putin then highlighted the impact of Boris Johnson’s surprise visit to Kiev on 09 April 2022; its purpose, he alleged, was to break off from talks and scuttle the deal for two key reasons “Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West was not ready for the war to end.”

Efforts to obtain authentic facts on details of the Johnson-Zelensky meeting through Britain’s “Freedom of Information Act 2000” have thus far met with bureaucratic chicanery. While on ground, the British government has encouraged the continuation of the war through huge arms shipments and incendiary rhetoric. When read in conjunction with the US Secretary for Defence statement of the same period; that the Biden administration’s objective in arming Ukrainian forces is to “see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”; lends credence to Putin’s revelation. In the meantime, the European Union goes into strategic dither as France turns Hawk from a Dovish posture of the past. French President Macron’s stance toward the war in Ukraine is at best, inconsistent. He has argued that Europe “must get prepared for a long war” in order to put Ukraine in the best possible position for negotiations. He also defended his decision to keep talking with Putin, arguing that “we must do everything to make a negotiated peace possible.” Differences over the response to the war have deepened between Paris and Berlin in recent weeks, after the German chancellor said long-range Taurus missiles would need German soldiers on the ground in Ukraine to look after them and that was a limit that he was not prepared to cross. President Macron has angered his NATO partners by suggesting that sending Western troops could not be ruled out. In this ambience of contrariety what may be deduced is the absence of resolve to either fuel the conflict towards a decision point or to sue for a negotiated peace. Macron’s logic for peace appears skewed when he warned that Russia was seeking to extend its power and would not stop now: “if we let Ukraine lose this war, then for sure Russia will threaten Romania, Poland and Moldavia;” forgetting that NATO is bound to defend the former two being members, while public opinion in Moldavia (over 60%) is against NATO membership.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, further muddied the waters when he warned recently that Ukrainians were “not running out of courage, they are running out of ammunition”. He said the shortage was one of the reasons why Russia had made recent advances on the battlefield, and he called on the allies to provide Ukraine with what it needed. He even suggested the possibility of deploying troops in Ukraine much to the astonishment of some allies. In the backdrop, the Trump-Biden tangle in the looming American general elections, has put on notice the (hither to) trusty US security umbrella.

What is becoming increasingly apparent is the lack of strategic solidarity in NATO’s approach to the conflict; but more importantly the inability to note that it is to the Kremlin’s advantage to make this a conflict against NATO; for it frees Putin’s strategic options. As the veil on the West’s proxy war falls away, the West’s rhetoric and discordant postures suggest the possibility of a  mounting logic for a full blown nuclear clash.  

Reopening Peace Talks

Putin’s exposé is the cause for several misgivings: Why did Western leaders want to stop Kyiv from signing a seemingly reasonable deal with Moscow? Did they consider the conflict a proxy war whose aim was the emaciation of Kremlin’s power? Why is the NATO rhetoric suggesting a more robust intervention in the war? And, most importantly, what would it take to get back to the table?

To restore peace talks is, debatably, very challenging. Particularly so, given that both Ukraine and Russia have (at least publicly) hardened their negotiating positions significantly in recent months. But there are some indications that could help in piecing together a deal. One possible track back to the negotiating table is to resurrect the “Black Sea Grain Agreement” of July 2022, in which Kyiv, Moscow, Turkiye and the UN agreed to restart wheat exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The deal had held strong despite continued hostilities, allowing more than one million metric tons of grain to enter the world’s “insecure food markets”. This accord broke down in July 2023. Today it is replaced by a precarious under-the-counter shipping corridor. The passageway is guaranteed by no nation other than a notional humanitarian acceptance by both belligerents of the embarrassing impact of the war on deprived neutrals. This common position if enlarged provides an opening to a more all-embracing peace talks.

The second track to a detente is centred on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex that continues to be threatened by artillery shelling from both sides. A monitoring committee of the IAEA has been tasked to ensure that the plant remains safe condition. Kyiv and Moscow have both shown by this concession that they want to diminish the co-lateral impact of the conflict, and are amenable to negotiate on this score. But, as long as this conflict does not find a truce, the spectre of a catastrophic event — whether through an unintended strike on the Zaporizhzhia complex or a deliberate escalation to nuclear war — will continue to loom. It’s time for Russia, Ukraine, and the West to recognize that there’s only one way to put an end to these risks; come to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, Putin is in no mood to make the first move ever since Boris Johnson’s ill-advised ‘April visit’.

The state of the conflict and loss of lives and resources, economic fatigue of western donors, the ebbing enthusiasm coupled with frustration of the Proxy and crucially, the looming danger of an unintended nuclear clash, all add up to and seem to advocate an urgent return to the Table.

Ramification on Nuclear Arms Control Structures as a Conclusion

Russia blocked a UN agreement aimed at shoring up the much delayed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in August 2022, citing concerns about clauses related to the situation at the Zaporizhzhia. The move highlights the negative effect that the conflict has had on the non-proliferation cause. But despite the failure of the NPT Review there is a glimmer of hope in the endorsement of a framework for strategic arms limitation: “The framework for a U.S.-Russian arms control arrangement is not perfect and will require concessions from both Washington and Moscow. But this is part of the arms control bargain, and the benefits, like the non-use of nuclear weapons in warfare since 1945, have consistently outweighed the perceived costs” and indeed, geopolitical markdowns.

 The awkward strategic irony in all this is the status of Russian Uranium exports to The USA. A program, ironically, dubbed Megatons to Megawatts was part of a raft of non-proliferation efforts undertaken ‘cooperatively’ at one time by Moscow and Washington to sequester and dilute stocks of nuclear weapons and materials. The Program continues unabated, conflict or no conflict. 

From Outpost to Springboard

Posted on by
2

By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar. Published in the March 2024 edition of the DSA available at the following links:

Click to access DSA_March-24_Vice_Admiral_%28retd%29_Vijay_Shankar.pdf

Click to access DSA_March-24.pdf

Determinants of Security and Development

     In his opening address to the Seminar on “Security and Development of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands” held at Port Blair under the aegis of the Andaman and Nicobar Command on 04 – 05 September 2009, the then  Commander-in-Chief of the Islands, flagged four annotative perspectives for the assembly. Counseling that Security and Development were two sides of the same coin, he stated “We are aware that thus far the outlook of successive governments towards these Islands has been that of an Outpost, this to me is a strategic flaw. Rather we need to convert the Outpost to a Springboard for not just our economic but also for security aspirations” for indeed, “development without security makes the former vulnerable while security sans development is vacuous”. The second perspective was the persistent mismatch between the nation’s very obvious potential versus delivered reality. The third and fourth standpoints related directly or obliquely to the challenge posed by China’s Indo-Pacific game plan, namely, it’s “Island Chain” and “String of Pearls” strategies while all the time promoting “small groups with disproportionate powers to subvert and sabotage”.

A Quirk of History  

              Edward Penderel Moon, a former Indian Civil Service administrator in colonial India, wrote a book on the Partition of India titled “Divide and Quit” much of its contents were gleaned from a document put together under the patronage of the British India Office and edited by Moon. It was labelled ‘India: The Transfer of Power 1942-47’ and was published in 11 Volumes.  Of particular interest are the confabulations of the British Cabinet, the imperial Chiefs of Staff Committee, Cripps Mission of 1946 tasked with the transfer of power and the concomitant “Mountbatten Plan” of 1947 that outlined the Partition of India.

                 Amongst the many tangled, artful, and often contentious issues associated with decisions leading to Partition was the fate of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Possession of the Isles had, through the Second World War, changed hands between the British and the Japanese. And yet, at no time had Whitehall lost sight of the geo strategic value of the Islands. In July of 1946, the British Chiefs of Staff in India declared that “India was so internally rife with divisions that the Transfer of Power would, inevitably, lead to the intercession of the Soviets” in their quest for ‘Warm Water Access’ (ala Czar Peter!) This became a fundamental assumption for a grand strategic appreciation by the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

    The Committee argued that at stake were the lines of communication between Great Britain and its Imperial interests in the Far East. While the British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT) provided stepping stones that spanned half the Indian Ocean, there was an unbridgeable gap to Malaya and further East to Australia and the other possessions. They rued the fact that Partition will breach the grand global network of maritime communications, which in time would lead to the collapse of Imperial Control. The Committee came to the conclusion that should the ‘Transfer of Power’ occur and strategic basing and logistics denied in mainland India, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands provided the only alternative. This became the case for decoupling the Islands from the transfer of power.

           Whitehall was quick to endorse this appreciation. The Secretary for Defence Mr Alexander and the Imperial Chiefs of Staff Committee exhorted the Government to retain sovereignty of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As a result of these urgings the draft of the ‘India Independence Bill’, which made its appearance in May 1947, simply contained no reference to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands when the document came to the section on transfer of territories. The matter was leaked to the Press (source of the leak was never quite established) which on 11 June 1947 took note of the glaring omission and warned of the Bill’s imminent rejection. Mountbatten, now the Viceroy, unyieldingly cautioned London of the country-wide uncontrollable and violent ramifications of such a move.

   The Cabinet, on 17June 1947, uneasy at the already simmering reaction to Partition on mainland India, decided eventually not to progress the proposal despite the vigorous protestations of Mr Alexander, the ‘grave anxiety’ of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the rather dilatory and specious claim by Jinnah on the Islands based on the vulnerability of the sea line of communication between East and West Pakistan.

    Britain as late as 05 July 1947 could have adamantly persisted with their original decision; the Imperial Chiefs of Staff could have dug in their heels and the Cabinet could have mulishly bulldozed their verdict, but they did not through a sheer quirk of history. They had, most unexpectedly, blanched at the thought of further exasperating the very delicate nature of the Partition award and ceded the transfer of the Island territories of Andaman and Nicobar to India.

The ‘Mummified’ Outpost

           An outpost, in the military lexicon, is a far flung remote station located on or near a nation’s  frontier that is lightly garrisoned for purposes of providing a surveillance post, an armed perimeter or a ‘trip-wire’ to raise the alarm of hostile or uncharacteristic activity. During the years post-independence, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands despite its location, decidedly, did not serve India as a military outpost. On the contrary the local administration and the Central Government in their policy making and implementation were more concerned with “mummifying” its environment, which in a way was a policy of doing very little.  

    The author in 1973 commanded an inshore patrol vessel INS Panaji (ex-Soviet Poluchat Class, commissioned in 1967) based at Port Blair. She was one of three of class that were notionally deployed for coastal defence. However rarely was there an occasion when even two were available at a time. Port facilities were restricted to a rickety commercial wharf (equipped with steam cranage) on Chatham Island which was also home to a 19th century colonial saw mill and the Western India Match Company’s pulp factory. The Haddo Wharf (concrete on piles) was still under construction. No other port in the Islands had any significant infrastructure. Inter-island passenger movement was primarily by small ferries restricted to the fair weather season. Practically all logistics would come from the mainland on a monthly basis. Road infrastructure was restricted to the South Andaman much of which had been built by the Japanese during their occupation 1942-45; other inhabited islands (37 of 572) had rudimentary roads very few of which were black-topped. Two airfields existed one at Port Blair and the Air force base at Car Nicobar. Port Blair would handle a weekly commercial flight from the mainland in the fair weather season while the Air Force had a fortnightly courier. There were no commercial refrigeration plants and power outages were common. In short there was no industry, no commerce, poor connectivity, very basic post and telecom facilities, little security and even less development.  

     Life ashore in 1973 was about survival and continuance. Sunken ships, listing derelict trawlers impounded in some distant past moored as flotsam and hulks of shipwrecks strewn across Phoenix Bay and Ranger Flat in Port Blair were reminiscent of some cast-off colonial roadstead out of the pages of a Conrad or Maugham novel! There were very few public utilities and most of the buildings and offices were log tenements sorely in need of repair. Evenings were spent at the Colonial Andaman Club where stories were traded of the wild beauty of the islands and escapades involving the indigenous tribes, while the billiards marker cum bartender, the timeworn ‘Sher Khan’, a shrivelled Pathan who had been incarcerated for serial honour killings, wafted silently in the shadows.

Formulation of a Strategy for Security and Development  

           Through the years of the Island Development Authority (1985) and the Look East Policy (1991 aimed to foster political, economic and security co-operation with ASEAN nations) there was inappreciable growth or progress to suggest a cohesive and long term blue print for the transformation of the Islands to a strategic economic and security asset, it remained about continuance and a contrary posture towards change.   

            The Security and Development Seminar of September 2009 (the former President Kalam and other national luminaries in attendance) was rounded off by a strategy statement. This Declaration (moved to the PM’s office by the Special Secretary to the PM, himself a participant) was keenly sensitive to the demands of three overarching considerations. First, interests and vulnerabilities of indigenous communities; second, climate change; and lastly the safeguard and conservation of the fragile ecology of the Islands. The approach was for building infrastructure through a combination of government investment, private entrepreneurship and establishment supervision. The sectors to be targeted were: eco-tourism, education, maritime and fishing industries, infrastructure development and security enhancements. The last included three dimensional surveillance; precision strike capabilities; intelligence sharing; capacity building for amphibious power projection in the Far East and failsafe cyber security. While each of these sectors became a subject of much greater study and discreet implementation, it is the matter of “the one big ticket project” central to the ‘strategy statement’ that will engage the remaining part of our scrutiny.

Container Trans-Shipment Port at Galatea Bay

              Great Nicobar is the southernmost and largest of the Nicobar group of islands. The land area covers 1044 sq.km but is scantily populated. The terrain is undulating and covered by rainforest and is known for its diverse wildlife. The island has four significant rivers whose course conforms to the orientation of the main range that slopes from North to South. Mount Thullier in the North is the highest peak in the Nicobar group, altitude 642 metres. The Island is home to the Great Nicobar Biosphere, Campbell Bay National Park, Galatea National Wildlife Sanctuary and Megapode Island Sanctuary. The non-Biosphere portions of the island are utilized for agriculture, forestry and settlements and are confined to the south-western and south-eastern coastal reaches.  Galatea River originates in the central region of the island and runs 25 kms southward till it drains into the Bay that carries its name. Indira Point, at the western extremity of the Bay defines the southernmost geographic point of India. The Bay is about 8 kilometres in extent in the South-North direction and 5 kms at its mouth. The Bay has navigable soundings (depths) in excess of 21 metres and is naturally protected from the south-westerly as well as the north-easterly monsoon winds that affect the region.

                What makes Galatea Bay strategically significant is its location, proximity to the one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and the nature of harbourage it can potentially provide. It is situated within 60 nautical miles (nm) from the approaches to the Malacca Straits and 40nm north of the 6 degree Channel, one of the densest shipping arteries in the world. The Channel connects the shipping routes emanating from the Persian Gulf the Red Sea and around the Cape of Good Hope transiting via the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal to the Malacca Straits and on to the South China Sea and Western Pacific Ocean. This narrow and vulnerable Waterway is crucial to the flow of global energy and trade, and is strategically and commercially significant for more than a third of humanity. It is also the shortest sea route between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean and over one-third shorter than the closest alternative sea-based route. It also accounts for 60% of global trade. In 2021 on an average over 200 hulls passed every day through the 6 Degree Channel. The average per day composition was 44 tankers, 6 Very Large Container Ships/Ultra Large Container Vessel (VLCS/ULCV), 60 cargo ships, 86 passenger ships and 4 support ships.                   

              Hitherto, containers bound for India and exported out embarked on-board VLCS/ULCVs had to be transhipped to Colombo, Singapore or Klang since no container terminal in India can handle VLCS/ ULCV’s of draught in excess of 17 feet. Currently, these very ports outside India handle roughly 75% of the transhipped cargo from India. According to the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, more than 85% of this cargo is handled at Colombo, Singapore, and Port Klang, with 45% of it handled at the Colombo Port. The transit and turn around at the ‘Relay-Port’ adds substantial costs to the tune of $500 to $1000 per Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU load 28 tons) standard container. Relay-Port turn around tariffs and other services further hike-up costs.

               From the economic perspective, construction of Galatea Bay Port is expected to provide savings, foreign direct investment, higher economic activity at other Indian ports, improved logistical infrastructure, job creation, and increased revenue share. Handling transhipment goods from all the nearby ports, including domestic ones, are expected to make the Port a significant hub for Asia-African and Asia-US/European container traffic.  

The Geopolitical Impact

              The term ‘geopolitics’ has historically been employed in reference to a nation’s interests and stratagems adopted to secure them. This understanding is subjective; for it does not account for the full significance of the term and even bears negative connotations. In the run-up to the Second World War, both Germany and Japan’s expansionist policies were justified using the ‘geopolitical’ argument garbed in bizarre concepts of Lebensraum and the Greater East Co-prosperity Sphere and today it is China with its unrelenting strategic urge towards “Rejuvenation”. The study of the relationship between a nation’s geography and its politics and how the former is leveraged to advance its national interests diplomatically is a far more elegant understanding of the term.

               However, the reality of the international system is the place that power enjoys in the scheme of assuring stability in relations between nations. In the absence of a security oriented cooperative impulse, the problem with competitive and often combative national interests is blindness to recognize that, we are in fact dealing with diverse regions, fast depleting resources and sea spaces that are the busiest of all the “vast commons”. The reluctance for collaboration on mutually acceptable terms makes the potential for friction high and the only consideration that could bring about change is the ability to attain a strategic posture that serves to deter, stabilize and preserve.

The Spring Board as a Conclusion

                 Strategic interests of India and leading democracies of the world converge on many aspects in the Indo-Pacific. At its core lies maritime security. India’s Act East Policy, in addition to having economic, cultural and commercial goals, includes strategic interests. The quadrilateral security dialogue (QUAD), the Australia-UK-US alliance and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific aim at maintaining prosperity, security and order in the Indo-Pacific.

                The large scale advancement of security measures in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and  development of Galatea Bay as a major hub for the management of container traffic, and indeed, strategic control; is a signal to China that attempts to side-line the existing rules based order and dislocate the status-quo will have consequences.     

Strategic Deception, the Chinese Way of Warfare

Posted on by
Reply

By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar (To be Published)

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
                          ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The Aberrant Articulation

In a recent editorial in the Global Times a rare viewpoint was published, by a director of South Asian studies at the Fudan University, expounding eloquently the merits of the current Indian trajectory  available at https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202401/1304656.shtml titled “what I feel of the Bharat Narrative in India“. Its main theme was how India had achieved outstanding results in economic development, social governance and the manner in which its ‘great’ power strategy was rapidly progressing towards fruition. From any perspective this was odd for the extent of acclaim being heaped on India, and that, coming from a mouth piece of the Chinese Communist Party.   

In another press release China’s assertion of India’s “domineering diplomacy” appeared in the Global Times in quick succession to the earlier viewpoint. The latter could erringly be mistaken for strategic envy of the “Indian way” of establishing a hegemonic sphere of influence in South-Asia. The question arises why did these two aberrant articulations make their unprecedented appearance? Was it the opening move on the chess board to project the Indian State as a worthy rival? Or was to lull New Delhi to complacency?

The Soporific Jingle

 Hindi Chini bhai-bhai was a jingle popularised by Nehru after his first meeting with Zhou-Enlai in the run-up to the summit with Mao Zedong. It had a delusional quality that was further exacerbated after Mao met Nehru in Beijing in October 1954. China, having just fought the United States to a stalemate in the Korean War, was upbeat about the future. Mao perceived imperialism, at least the American brand of it, to be weak and in retreat. “Historically, all of us, people of the East, have been bullied by western imperialist powers,” he told Nehru. “The imperialist still looks down upon us,” this declaration was intended to forge an “instinctive feeling of solidarity” between the two; it did not fail. China and India, the two leaders seemed to be saying, would lead the developing world to a brighter future. Nehru went on to suggest that “big power status could well be handed over to the two” (!). The air during their summit was suffused, on the one side, by utopian thoughts such as “war was no longer a useable instrument for achieving policy goals”; while on the other were realpolitik assertions “that tension awakens people to revolution;” and that “war had a numbing and enervating effect on growth and progress.” But, “relations between China and India were sans tension “almost as if to allay any fears that India may have of China’s intentions (all the while not only had Tibet been invaded but the Aksai Chin region of northern Ladakh was being gnawed away).

The facts did not deter Nehru in his pursuit of an alternative bloc to the ‘cold warriors’ led by principles rather than power. He set about on a quest to band together like minded Afro-Asian nations that culminated in the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the Sino-Indian declaration of the Panchsheel Agreement, (Premier Zhou proposed Panchsheel and its principles of peaceful co-existence and mutual non-interference in 1953).

India nurtured a misshapen hope that non-alignment would bloom into a pan Afro-Asian movement based on common experience of colonialism. Moral power, spear-headed by the two most populace and indeed impoverished nations, it was hoped would reshape the international system where righteousness would overpower the balance of terror. However, Mao and Nehru had very different ideas about what that future might bring. Nehru wanted the developing nations to follow India’s lead in staying out of the ideological quarrels of the Cold War. Mao, by contrast, perceived the Third World as central to the coming global revolution, which China would stimulate and eventually lead. From start, China and India were engaged on “parallel tracks” for influence.

Rude Awakening

Following China’s invasion of Tibet in 1951 and the sustained injustices inflicted on the Tibetan people leading to the brutal suppression of an uprising in 1959, thousands of Tibetans, and their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, sought asylum in India. From there, the Chinese government alleged, the expatriates continued to instigate rebellion, moving across the border to carry out subversion and sabotage. The Chinese responded by increasing their military presence in the border area, which in August and October 1959 led to a series of escalating armed skirmishes along the erstwhile Indo-Tibetan border.

As China and India faced off across the Himalayas, India made a startling but cruel discovery that they had an armed conflict brewing over territory, which to this day remains unresolved. It did not take long before the dreamy vision of Sino-Indian solidarity and resurgence gave way to loss and great rancour.

Price of Complacency

The lack of either nuclear capability or significant conventional power exposed India’s status as a minor power of little strategic importance. China sensing the moment of India’s despondency and vulnerabilities to have arrived, leveraged these frailties in the 1962 war. In the ensuing conflict an ill prepared India suffered a humiliating drubbing; leadership was found wanting in resolve and morale of the nation was broken. China on her part was successful in achieving three objectives; firstly delegitimizing the McMahon Line, secondly consolidating their sovereignty over Tibet and lastly to establish that the great Asian resurgence had space for only one and that was not for an ideologically muddled India. China had so comprehensively lulled the Indian leadership into a strategic torpor that the war was lost before the fighting began.

Deception as the Key Principle of ‘War-with-Chinese-Characteristics’

In Chinese strategic parlance to attain shi, is to bring about the alignment of opportunities and manipulate forces such that they stimulate favourable circumstances to strike or make the potential adversary bend to ones will. In short it is to “shape a strategic situation” through patience, deception, intelligence and intuitive-acumen of impending events. Clearly Beijing attained shi in their war against the USA in Korea when they waited till American forces crossed the Yalu river before they struck; they attained it before the border war with India; and in the 1970s they manipulated Nixon and the USA to counter balance the USSR and feed their dazzling growth, four decades later they put themselves in a position to challenge America for global leadership. Chairman Mao was known to be fond of not just citing shi but invoking it in his international dealings.

 We began on a note of consternation over the view point of the Chinese scholar Dr Zhiang Jiadong expressed in his article on the “Bharat Narrative”. While it may have just been an academic’s feature of acclaim, it may also be false encomium as a first step in attaining shi for intentions that can only be mala fide. Planners will do well to analyse such opinions for cognizable patterns, for is there a shi zealot lurking in Premier Xi?

After all, it was Sun Tzu who suggested that “all warfare was based on deception”.