I am genuinely scared about what is happening in Doklam. This is a battle that India needs to win; but this is also a battle in which the odds are stacked against India.
In today’s day and age, very few military conflicts are fought for military reasons — almost always, there is a strategic geo-political or economic goal in pursuit of which countries mobilize their armies. In such a situation, victory and defeat should not be judged based on the performance of the countries’ respective militaries, but rather on the basis of the overall benefit the country gets from the resolution of the conflict. That’s the main reason why, for example, the USA is considered to have lost the Vietnam War, though there were “only” 50,000 American casualties versus more than a million North Vietnamese ones: the USA could not prevent Vietnam from turning communist. The story is not vastly different in Afghanistan and Iraq either. The Americans may have killed a lot of people; but a country does not have a military today in order to kill a lot of people. Not any more.
Many jingoists in the Indian media think that India will “win” the standoff at Doklam on the basis that India is in a better position to defend their forward positions for a longer period of time. I’ve seen many analyses of the situation that claim that China will not be able to advance beyond their current position, India will not retreat unilaterally, and in a few months, out of the public glare, both sides will de-escalate the border situation. I’ve also seen a number of answers here on Quora comparing the Indian and Chinese armies: everyone agrees that China is the stronger army in general, but many people believe that for the particular terrain, context and conditions, India may be likely to win (or at least hold their own) even if the bullets start flying.
But it is foolishness to think of this military advantage (if any) as victory for India. The real question in this scenario is, what is China’s gameplay here? Why are they so invested in this conflict?
If you go by what the Indian government says, the Chinese intention is to build a road into a disputed territory that will let them cut off India’s North-East “chicken neck” at will. The Indian government keeps talking about a “change in status quo” and a change in the “balance of power” - the danger they foresee is that in case of a war (sometime in the future), China will be able to make a decisive move against India by cutting off the North-East.
I do not buy this argument for a very simple reason: the “chicken neck” is a bottle-neck only if we have a hostile government in Bangladesh. If you look at the map of India, even if the Chinese occupy the Siliguri corridor, there is a huge access corridor to the North-East through Bangladesh (and a less viable one through Nepal and Sikkim). Only if the Chinese ally with Bangladesh and Nepal in attacking India will they be able to cut off the North-East.
The Chinese media has been in overdrive demonizing India’s act of sending troops “across the border” into China. The first reaction is that China sees this as a boundary issue and is therefore posturing hawkishly. However, if you read Chinese media reports carefully, you’ll see a constant second chord of refrain, and that is: India has no right interfering in a dispute between Bhutan and China. This is repeated in the Chinese media again (Infographic: Under the pretext of "protecting Bhutan", India attempts to create disputes in Doklam) and again (China accuses India legitimizing border incursion in name of protecting Bhutan) and again (Spotlight: Video on China-India border issue sparks heated discussion among netizens). The last article is particularly interesting: Xinhua, reporting (with a highly propagandist tone) on the social media reactions to a video they produced on Doklam, makes the claim that India is intervening in Bhutan-China disputed territory without the consent of the Bhutanese.
Given that India’s own stance is that it is not protecting Indian territory but has been invited by Bhutan to protect Bhutanese territory, there is an air of mystery around who stands to gain what from this dispute. But as I see it, the root of this dispute is not about the relationship between India and China; it is about the relationship between India and Bhutan, and Bhutan and China. Bhutan is central to the entire episode.
The relationship between India and Bhutan is one of the most peculiar bilateral agreements in the world. Until 2007, India exercised a very broad level of influence on foreign and defense policy of Bhutan, to the extent that Bhutan was considered a “protected state” of India. The treaty that granted India this high level of influence was an artifact of the events in Tibet in the 1950s, and a deep suspicion in Bhutan that China would one day seek to annex Bhutan the way they annexed Tibet. In the 1970s and 80s, as those fears receded, Bhutan began exercising more freedom in its foreign relations; and in 2007, a newly negotiated treaty allowed Bhutan much greater liberty in both foreign policy and defence, including granting Bhutan the right to import arms from other countries. However, India has consistently followed a policy of propping up pro-India elements within the Bhutanese political spectrum. In 2013, Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigme Thinley, following a policy of expanding the number of countries that Bhutan had diplomatic relations with, had a meeting with the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao. India immediately panicked — perhaps imagining parallels with Nepal — and interfered in the 2014 Bhutanese election to depose Thinley. As a result, Bhutan, even today, has no formal diplomatic relations with China, despite them being neighbors and sharing a 470 km border, much of which is disputed.
Bhutan has no formal diplomatic relations with China: we should take a minute to let that sink in. Of all of China’s neighors, Bhutan is the only country in this peculiar position. For China, a country that is trying to assert its influence in Asia, this is not just an anomaly, but a serious threat - perhaps even a security hazard. Bhutan alone stood with India in boycotting China’s OBOR summit earlier this year. At least China has some level of leverage over India, given the volume of trade ties and a large Chinese diplomatic and commercial presence in the country. But Bhutan presents 470 km of blackness on the Chinese border over which China has no visibility, let alone control. A third country could place nuclear weapons in Bhutan on the Chinese border tomorrow, and China would know nothing about it.
I am of the firm belief that China’s play in Doklam is not a territorial dispute at all, but rather, a way to build leverage in Bhutan. My prediction is this. The Chinese will stand down from Doklam this time, as will the Indians; and Indian media will go overboard in projecting that as an Indian victory. The situation will repeat in a couple of years, and every couple of years thereafter; it will be accompanied with many other carrot-and-stick gestures towards Bhutan. The message China will send to Bhutan is very clear: you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by having deeper diplomatic relationships with us. What China can promise Bhutan is a huge amount of investment (far greater than what India can afford); a high level of connectivity to trade networks that China is building; and crucially, a promise to resolve boundary disputes much more effectively and favorably than if Bhutan let India be its proxy in such negotiations. Perhaps even giving Doklam to the Bhutanese in exchange for trade and diplomatic ties.
Since 2013 there have been rumblings in Bhutan about India’s refusal to let Bhutan consider some of these offers from China. Doklam will be a catalyst in hastening Bhutan’s desire to take advantage of its neighbor status with China for commercial and diplomatic gain.
Thus, the war is India’s to lose: Indian bureaucrats have defined “victory” for themselves in the Indo-Bhutanese relationship as preventing the germination of a Bhutan-China relationship. I do not see a way to postpone this beyond a few years: 5 - maybe 10 - not more than 20 years. We should accept, as an eventuality, that this will happen, regardless of what happens in Doklam. We should, instead, redefine “victory” as getting Bhutan to align with India economically, culturally and militarily, even if they have the free choice to do so with China.
The scary part for me is that in overplaying our hand, and that too in a particularly roughshod manner, we may not only hasten Bhutanese alignment with China, but even manage to turn our last all-weather friend in the neighborhood into a “frenemy” as we have with Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Given that Bhutan is now a democracy, it is not inconceivable that Bhutan’s friendship with India may depend on the party in power in Bhutan. That would be disastrous. But it would only be a continuation of a long history of India mismanaging its relationships with its smaller neighbors. A thoroughly incompetent Ministry of Foreign Affairs in India has seen India’s neighbors only through the lens of “with us / against us”. In our actions in Nepal (where we disagreed with the Nepalese constitution) to Sri Lanka (where we actively worked to get rid of Rajapakse) to Bangladesh (where we openly support Sheikh Hasina over Khaleda Zia), we have demonstrated a singular lack of long-term strategic thinking. Contrast these incredibly short-sighted, transactional relationships that we have with our smaller neighbors, with the kind of relationship that the USA has with Canada: without infringing each other’s sovereignty, the two countries have managed to create people-to-people bonds, economic ties, Defence partnerships and cultural relationships, that insulate their alliance from politics as well as accusations of “big brother” treatment.
The crisis in Doklam and its eventual resolution are footnotes in a much bigger problem that India faces, just a few years down the road. I hope against hope that the people who manage the foreign affairs of our country will learn to be more sensible and strategic in our relationships with our smaller neighbors, rather than viewing everyone through a monochrome, anti-China lens. That alone will constitute a victory for India in this crisis and others down the road.
What are you thinking , the war will happen or not ....
I once read an answer on quora like “What were the differences and the similiarities between the Axis and the Allies in WWII?”
A very good answer was that the Allied nations worked closely together and shared their knowledge. At least the Western Allies did. And even thinking of the USSR, they were not only sent massive supplies and lorries and tanks to Russia, they coordinated their attacks on Germany and Japan.
Nothing like that happened among the Axis forces. Hitler told Mussolini some two weeks before that he was going to invade France. Join in or leave it. Imperial Japan was informed that the USSR would have been attacked two days before the war started. That was even more ridicoulus, because a strong Japanese force invading Siberia would have helped the German Reich a lot.
So, to make a not so long answer even shorter: They did not learn from each other. The Axis countries fought their own war.
As this blog is related with economy and economic growth I should write about relationship between war and economics -
How does war affect the economy positively
War has a positive effect on the economy of your country if you sail to foreign lands, take the gold, silver, money and valuables of the foreign land you invade, and then sail back home with the loot after sustaining few or zero casualties. This is what the Vikings did. They had to fight a small war when they were appropriating the valuables of others, but there wasn’t too much blood shed if they had a good war plan. Scandinavian farm kids could make more money in one raid than they could make in a lifetime of farming. If you are interested in this method of improving your economy, you should read From Farm to Fame & Riches by Olaf “The Lucky” Knudsen, who went from rags to riches.
How does war affect economy negatively
War can affect an economy negatively in several ways. The first, and most obvious, is that enemy action can result in the destruction of infrastructure, factories, and the killing of workers. The US and British bombing campaigns against Germany placed a tremendous strain on the German economy. Likewise, the US firebombing of Japan devastated large areas of Japan's cities destroying their ability to produce goods.
War forces a nation to cease producing domestic goods. During World War II every industry that could produce items for the military in the United States did. The United States did not produce any cars for the domestic markets during the war. It produced plenty of jeeps, but no cars for the civilian market.
Civilians are not allowed to purchase as much food, gasoline, or anything deemed essential to the war effort, and individuals were encouraged to raise their own gardens to supplement the food they bought from farmers so that the military could feed our troops and those of our allies. Ration coupons for sugar, coffee, gasoline, meat, and other items were issued.
The civilian work force is affected as men are drafted into the military. In the case of the US where women traditionally still stayed at home and raised their families, this was less a problem, because the US could move the women into the factories, wile the men fought. In nations like Soviet Russia or Great Britain where both men and women already worked, the war meant a loss of workers as they were killed off.
All these factors affect a nation's economy when it is in a total war.
War forces a nation to cease producing domestic goods. During World War II every industry that could produce items for the military in the United States did. The United States did not produce any cars for the domestic markets during the war. It produced plenty of jeeps, but no cars for the civilian market.
Civilians are not allowed to purchase as much food, gasoline, or anything deemed essential to the war effort, and individuals were encouraged to raise their own gardens to supplement the food they bought from farmers so that the military could feed our troops and those of our allies. Ration coupons for sugar, coffee, gasoline, meat, and other items were issued.
The civilian work force is affected as men are drafted into the military. In the case of the US where women traditionally still stayed at home and raised their families, this was less a problem, because the US could move the women into the factories, wile the men fought. In nations like Soviet Russia or Great Britain where both men and women already worked, the war meant a loss of workers as they were killed off.
All these factors affect a nation's economy when it is in a total war.
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