Bipin Rawat warns of two-front war with China and Pakistan: India must be vigilant and upgrade its defences at the earliest

Delivering the keynote address at a seminar on Future Contours and Trends in Warfare at New Delhi on 6 September, army chief General Bipin Rawat categorically stated that despite nuclear deterrence, the possibility of  a war on two fronts cannot be ruled out.

His statement was timely indeed, coming amidst enthusiasm over the ‘ expeditious disengagement’ from both sides at Doka La , the recent BRICS Summit at Xiamen and the belief among certain sections that the days of ‘conventional conflict’ were over.

However, little do they realise that conventional warfare is still very much part of hybrid warfare even as chances of ‘all out’ war may have diminished. General Rawat highlighted a few major issues:

1. Differences with our western neighbor (Pakistan) appear “irreconcilable” even as the country continues to wage a proxy war against India.

2. China, our neighbour to the north, will continue to encroach upon our territory, testing the limits of our patience and creating situations that could develop into conflicts.

3. If India is occupied with the Chinese problem, Pakistan could turn such a situation to its advantage.

4.   Assuming democracies and nuclear armed powers do not go to war is a dangerous myth. Nuclear arms may be weapons of deterrence, but to say they can prevent war may not be accurate in this context.

5. Whether the conflicts will remain limited or expand into an all-out battle remains to be seen, but the prospect of war remains very much in the realm of reality.

6. India must be ever vigilant. It cannot afford to let its guard down on either front.

China undoubtedly agreed to mutual disengagement at Doka La because it found no support for its aggression from any country, not even Pakistan, its ‘all-weather’ friend. However, Doka La also tested the India-US strategic partnership, albeit indirectly.

While Japan openly sided with India, the US restricted its official statement to saying both sides needed to resolve the issue through dialogue. According to Thomas F Lynch III, a distinguished scholar at the National Defence University , Washington DC, the US failure to join Japan in a clear-throated rebuke of China’s Doka La activities hurts US credibility with its two most significant security partners in the Asia-Pacific region: India and Japan.

According to Lynch, “The Trump administration can still make good on the clear US national interests in calling out China for unilateral, coercive action in territorial disputes”. But will it?

Walter Lohman, director of Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Centre, says that the India-US partnership goes beyond Afghanistan and calls for the United States and India to work together to the quadrilateral security dialogue (US-India-Japan-Australia), known as ‘quad’.

The failure of the United States to condemn China’s actions over Doka La only strengthens China’s resolve to continue her aggression along the Himalayas.

But the army chief has only spoken the truth. Even as the Pakistani foreign minister prepares to rush to Beijing after admitting his country must crack down on terror groups , we must realise that China’s proxy is unlikely to end its battle against us any time soon.

The process of giving terrorist organisations a ‘political face’ is already underway. Besides, Pakistan is far too strategically important to China. In her pursuit of the Chinese Dream, Beijing wants two things: The US and NATO out of Afghanistan and India strategically boxed in.

China has militarised islands and reefs in the East and South China Sea and is guiding her protégé North Korea on how to test the resolve of the US and its allies. Obviously, conflict cannot be discounted.

China’s aim is to drive a wedge between the US and its allies in that region and ensure that the US reduces its presence.

But should China remain constrained in Western Pacific, she may attempt to create a similar situation through her western proxy: Pakistan.

The way China has conducted itself on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and its border with Bhutan is in line with the Communist Party of China’s history of excelling in fictitious historic claims, perhaps the Chinese version of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.

In the case of Doka La, despite Chinese president Xi Jinping’s assurances, a repeat performance cannot be ruled out.

China’s assurances can change with the way the wind blows: After all, she breached the 1998 status quo agreement with Bhutan and can do so again, not having given up its illegal claim.

Rawat’s statement — that India must be prepared to fight on both fronts — implies that the defence sector has remained neglected over the past decade and is currently on life support.

At the border, we have poor infrastructure and a lack of unity of command. Soldiers are ill-equipped. We must fill out our ‘hollow’ defences on an urgent basis. A revolution must take place in military affairs, which must include reorganising higher defence management and the Ministry of Defence,  synergising the military, optimising cyber security, information warfare, electromagnetic warfare, implementing modern systems using state-of-the-art-technology, introducing robotics, artificial intelligence, stealth warfare, sub-conventional warfare and improving our weapons’ capability to allow us to strike at an adversary deep in the heart of enemy territory.

We must also acknowledge that we are, and will be, perpetually at odds with Pakistan and China. This hybrid war, is being fought on many levels: Information, operation, political, through insurgencies, terrorist organisations based in India and those from across the border.

Technology remains important in hybrid warfare, but it is people that are essential.

It is the populace that is likely to provide the asymmetric edge, if we invest in them and empower them through decentralisation.

But at the same time, the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) threat from both state and non-state actors cannot be ruled out.

Success in conflict, especially against adaptive and agile adversaries, must have a mix of kinetic and influence activity.

Hybrid wars are dirty wars. They are without rules and regulations that use total comprehensive national power (CNP).

Exercising strategic restraint in hybrid warfare is detrimental to our national interests.

But how can we figure out application of CNP at the national level?

We haven’t even been able to define a cohesive national security strategy (NSS) and undertake a comprehensive defence review (CDR).

An easy example is the successive train derailments and accidents that are being brushed under the table, with nary a thought to repair or management.

Have we ever considered how easy it would be to ‘orchestrate’ just such an accident through bribes, coercion, blackmail and radicalisation?

Many months ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly stated that the Kanpur train accident was a ‘conspiracy’  and pointed across the border (to Nepal).

Has there been any follow up on the prime minister’s statement?

Or are we simply content to only look for Honeypreet Insan in Nepal?

The author is a retired lieutenant-general of the Indian Army