The Writing is on the Wall

Why the Himalayan conflict will be a ‘no-win’ for India and China. An extract

Ground Forces and Air Balance

Since the primary theatre of active military confrontation between India and China is the border, it is best to begin with the army and air balance. At last count, in 2020, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, India’s armed forces personnel numbered roughly 1.4 million as against China’s 2 million. Of these, their armies accounted for 1.237 million and 975,000, respectively, the Chinese having downsized dramatically in a modernization drive. Backing up the troops will be artillery and, to a lesser extent, armour (primarily tanks). In 2020, India had 10,913 artillery pieces where China had 9196. In the case of tanks, the imbalance was reversed: India had 3565 tanks while China had 5850 tanks. In 1962, neither India nor China used their combat aircraft. That kind of restraint is unlikely in the future. As for air power, in 2020, India was outnumbered by a factor of three: 850 aircraft against 2921 aircraft.

What do these numbers tell us about the ground and air balance between the two militaries? India has slightly more ground forces and artillery pieces but is behind in the number of tanks. This suggests that quantitatively the two forces are in rough balance along the border. However, not all troops serve on the India-China border. India deploys large numbers against Pakistan and on internal security in counter-insurgency missions as well. China has fourteen land neighbours (along with Russia, the largest number of neighbours in the world), and it cannot therefore devote them all to the border with India. It too needs forces for internal security. No easy conclusion about the balance in ground forces can be derived from the numbers, though the disparity in tanks is glaring. The air balance is distinctly lopsided, and since aircraft can be moved around quickly in case of war, the gap in numbers in significant. Admittedly, this is pure ‘bean counting’—just going by the numbers of weapons and not their quality—but it gives us a snapshot of the military relationship.

If the quality of weapons on both sides as well as the quality of manpower, leadership, and fighting spirit on both sides are more or less equivalent, the crucial factors in case of actual combat will be strategy and logistics. The word strategy has many connotations, but here it simply refers to the application of force at various levels against an opponent, from basic decisions about whether to go on offence or emphasize defence, to more tactical