How to avoid threat of a two-front war

The government is pursuing an aberrant security policy of focusing militarily on Pakistan while appeasing China.

Raja Menon

Starting with a stellar cricketing career as the opening batsman of India’s match-winning test team, and then a jump to being an anchor in a not so cultured TV show, followed ultimately by a political career, Navjot Singh Sidhu is a man who has courted controversy. This, he has managed to do by not infrequently opening his mouth, only to put his foot into it. But lately, his statement on relations with Pakistan and the emphasis on the importance of trade, which his critics have vociferously condemned, is perhaps near to the truth.

This endorsement coming from a security analyst may seem strange, but what is more bizarre – and frightening – are those security analysts in India who blithely talk of fighting a two-front war, as though that is a desirable outcome.

Is making peace with Pakistan – so as to confront the terrible danger from the north – not a sensible step? If reducing the threat of a two-front war is sound strategy, what is so bizarre about renewing trade with Islamabad? After all, those are the only two statements he has made – to improve relations with Pakistan, and to renew trade. Interestingly, after Galwan and the brutal killing of 21 Indian soldiers, trade with China has soared and is set to increase to $100 billion.

What appears to be fostering enmity with Pakistan – and appeasing China, if that indeed is government policy – are some bizarre miscalculations by the Union government’s policymaking institutions.

Almost four decades ago, when this author’s job was to write strategic papers, there was a universal feeling that once we had established a National Security Council, decision making on security matters would be more far-sighted and wiser. But alas, these new institutions have yet to produce a single open-source document, white paper, or policy statement. Even a dictatorial, autocratic, authoritarian government like China has continuously turned out strategy documents and white papers despite accusations of their functioning being opaque.

The wide discrepancy within the government on the state of the world in 2030 or 2035 results in policies that don’t give the impression of any coherence emanating from New Delhi. On the one hand, we had the aggression in Galwan, and yet, the MEA refuses to take even baby steps to leverage the Quad in the security space, retaining it as a diplomatic talk shop. The recent Quad summit does little to alter its passive nature. The government’s reticence is presumably aimed at appeasing Beijing into peacefully negotiating on the line of actual control (LAC), assuming that Beijing respects appeasement. On the other hand, the financial constraints on budgeting for defence expenditure are forgotten by many in the armed forces who talk blithely of engaging in a two-front war, no matter the cost.

The American strategic thinker Andrew Marshal who virtually died in office at the age of 92 left a legacy in strategic planning. Writing strategy was not to be embarked upon until every ministry was on the same page on what the near future looks like.

Even today, there are senior foreign office practitioners who believe that China will become a benign power, while the world is largely convinced that Beijing has hostile hegemonic ambitions. Most major governments in the West produce a periodic open source document stating what they think the world will look like, strategically, economically and technologically, a decade or two from now. But as stated earlier, the government of India has produced no open source strategic evaluation in the last quarter of a century.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are rapidly taking concrete steps towards becoming a world military power, pursuing bases in the UAE and in the Pacific Islands. They have already overtaken the US in net wealth in 2020, as predicted by Arvind Subramaniam, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India. This they are doing by producing an aircraft carrier every four years, introducing hypersonic glide vehicle bombs and doubling their nuclear arsenal. All this while India has its main offensive component – the three army strike corps – facing west against an increasingly bankrupt Pakistan.

The only weakness China has is its maritime geography. Its sea coast abutting the Pacific Ocean does nothing to benefit the protection of 40% of its GDP, which is its foreign trade, in the Indian Ocean. The Pacific Ocean only enables the US Navy to operate off its doorstep. The Indian Navy, which has a foot on the Chinese jugular in the Malacca Straits, is crippled by a minute budget and a weak industrial infrastructure, that builds an aircraft carrier every 14 years.

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