Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

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Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by member_27917 »

India's geopolitics are affected by its 2 neighbours. India has 2 training school specifically train soldier to deal with asymmetrical warfare which i knw is the high altitude warfare centrea and the counter insurgency and guerrila warfare school. correct me if i am wrong? Because i am still new towards india's military.

There is the new university in New Delhi to educate one star general, syallabus which are taught in the university is it more of asymmetrical warfare or conventional warfare?

Asymmtrical warfare is a warfare that exist for a long time. Conventional warfare only comes with the existence of states, for example the mesopotamian civilisation or the roman empire. Previous war are more between tribes and therefore will be more asymmetrical in nature. States now are tend to lean towards conventional warfare which they prefered, because non state actor could not possibly match state actor's military capabilies.

That said, non state actor will definitely not be that naive to conduct conventional warfare with states. Asymmetrical warfare is necessary to possibly have a chance to triumph over state. I would take an example like the air force, a state having air force might not be able to win a war, but a state having no air support will definitely lose the war. Therefore non state actor will always conduct attack asymmetrical in nature to gain an advantage over state actor which prefered conventional warfare.

Has the Indian military a significant asymmetrical warfare capabilities to deal with its neighbours or any insurgency that might be originated domestically?
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by member_20292 »

Not too much , I would think.

Well run democracies do not tend to want to do such things. Especially not one as pusillanimous as India's.

Also, IB4TL
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by JE Menon »

As far as is evident, the capability is non existent. But we are probably learning from the Chinese capability. We are learning a lot from the Chinese nowadays as they are setting global trends in many spheres. Especially in the strategic sphere.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by shiv »

Fighting terrorists at the border and combating maoists is asymmetric warfare by definition.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by member_27917 »

mahadevbhu wrote:Not too much , I would think.

Well run democracies do not tend to want to do such things. Especially not one as pusillanimous as India's.

Also, IB4TL
Hi Mahadevbhu, But in my opinion, democracy would not have anything to do with military capability isnt it? State would only sought national interest, preserving national security, project power beyond borders should they deem those power are necessary to aligned with their national interest. Every states seeks survival and even in democractic states like US, they operate their own covert ops which are asymmetrical in nature. A state like India with huge conventional warfare capabilities need to protect itself from unconventional warfare, there is no way Pakistan can win India conventionally without resorting to nuclear warfare. So a weak party will look for guerrilla tactics to render India's conventional army useless.
JE Menon wrote:As far as is evident, the capability is non existent. But we are probably learning from the Chinese capability. We are learning a lot from the Chinese nowadays as they are setting global trends in many spheres. Especially in the strategic sphere.
But i thought India has such capability? Only not in such a huge scale? They have these guerrila warfare schools right?

Chinese capability in what aspect JE Menon?

And what trend are u refering of the chinese?
shiv wrote:Fighting terrorists at the border and combating maoists is asymmetric warfare by definition.
Yes Shiv, way terrorist operate at the borders at the loc is indeed asymmetrical. Even insurgents adopting guerrila warfare, in fact i would say that asymmetrical warfare is one of the oldest warfare in this history of mankind.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by shiv »

India has excellent asymmetric warfare capability and it has been getting better over the years. But we could still do with better surveillance capability (eg foliage radar) and UACVs - something like Predators.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by JE Menon »

>>But i thought India has such capability? Only not in such a huge scale? They have these guerrila warfare schools right?

As I said, so far as is evident, we have no such capability in my view. In other words, it has not been demonstrated. Does not mean it is not there. Guerrilla warfare schools are precisely the opposite, i.e. training soldiers to fight the asymmetric warriors (namely the guerrillas).

Chinese capability in what aspect JE Menon?

Satellite knock-down capability. No one else has explicitly demonstrated as far as I know. Perhaps I'm misinformed though, it's possible. Also, China has experience in classical asymmetric warfare - the rebellion led by Mao is one such example; and of course, the rulers of China today are all descendants of Mao in that respect, and that sort of warfare under that sort of ideology is attractive to many, even in India.

And what trend are u refering of the chinese?

The aforementioned anti-sat capability demonstration is one; the other trend is the use of the cat's paw at a high level (North Korea & Pakistan) ... both the latter are significant military powers of their own. China is able to manipulate them even at high risk to itself; it is a high-stakes gamble, which as you may know the Chinese like to do, and which has held remarkably well. So far. These approaches are not common in the industrial era, and certainly not in the nuclear era. There are positives, and negatives, that other countries can learn from the Chinese experience and expertise in that regard.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

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shiv wrote:India has excellent asymmetric warfare capability and it has been getting better over the years. But we could still do with better surveillance capability (eg foliage radar) and UACVs - something like Predators.
Interesting remarks. Yes, a lot of ways India still could improve themselves but i see them currently are more occupied building conventional forces to maintain their sphere of influence in the region.

>>>As I said, so far as is evident, we have no such capability in my view. In other words, it has not been demonstrated. Does not mean it is not there. Guerrilla warfare schools are precisely the opposite, i.e. training soldiers to fight the asymmetric warriors (namely the guerrillas).

Okay, i got what you meant.

Yes, China's satellite killer, kinetic weapon and China's famous df41 too, carrier task force killer, hypersonic speed and no defensive weapon that the US has to intercept it, not even with their THAAD. Yes, armed revolution to overthrow regime. It is interesting you noted that Indian people are susceptible maoist ideology?
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by JE Menon »

Indian people are susceptible to every ideology, which is debated, followed, tested, and if anything useful is found, adapted. What is not is discarded. India was the first to elect communists to power and the first to remove them from power, democratically - based on the will of an electorate. It is a subtlety about India that many people, used to order and the observation of precise boundaries, are liable to overlook.

It may be wise to recognize that every human pretty much is susceptible to ideologies like Maoism, given the right circumstances, which can be created.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by TSJones »

According to the all knowing, all seeing wiki, the US and Russia have tested and knocked down satellites. India is also developing this technology according to the head of DRDO, Director General Rupesh.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by JE Menon »

True TSJ but my point was no one is doing it in a public way like china did. The US and Russia are quite advanced in this sphere as far as my basic reading tells me... Probably ahead of china...but who knows these days.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by Rahul M »

given our current level of ABM and space research ASAT is well within existing Indian capability. it can be done from our existing systems.

demonstration is a different thing -- a political decision.

JEM, US did conduct an ASAT test with a USN SM-3 in response to the chinese. I find the laser based ASAT weapons, the ones that degrade performance more interesting though. unlike hardkill options it is less escalatory.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by rohitvats »

I think this asymmetric warfare capability needs to defined in some context. It is not an open ended phenomenon. The only thing IMO common to various cases of application of this form of warfare is to NEGATE the advantage enjoyed by the enemy.

Case 1 - During existence of USSR, China knew it could not match the Red Army in terms of conventional weapons. It also needed to keep the USA away and secure its interests in SE Asia. Similarly, it also knew that it lacked a technological base to develop sophisticated weapons and match the two super-powers.

To compensate for its lack of conventional means, it relied on massive arsenal of nuclear weapons and delivery systems with a clear with first use philosophy to deter any large scale aggression. What it could not match by way of accuracy, it compensated by way of numbers. The PLA 2nd Artillery is for all to see - huge inventory of tactical to strategic missiles.

Case 2 - Today, China still cannot go toe-to-toe with USA because armed forces are in transition mode to newer technology and they need time. So, what does it do? Develop technology for asymmetric warfare to try and hit the USA at those points which can potentially unhinge the American military power. So, we have ASAT weapons, reports of massive cyber-attacks on USA (Defense and Civilian targets), DF-31 to target US Navy Carriers, massive stock of US Debt etc.

Case 3 - Pakistan sponsor of terrorism in Kashmir in particular and India in general. Classic case of a weaker military power trying to hurt a larger military power w/o threat to its existence.

Case 4 - Realizing the nature of terrorism and what asymmetric warfare it involves, American increased the strength of their special operation forces - they started giving great incentives to special operators to not leave service or join back. Similarly, CIA's Special Activities Division - their strike arm with Special Operation Group as tip of the spear - increased momentum of their operations. They started hitting terrorists across the globe.

Case 5 - JIT-X under R&AW causing damage inside Pakistan to force them to cessation of hostile activities in Punjab.

Coming to Indian capability -

- Raising of RR battalions and developing a CI Grid in J&K is a classic case of countering the asymmetric warfare launched by the Pakistan.
- The Sadbhawana mission launched in J&K by IA to win the hearts and mind of people is another strategy.
- Raising dedicated police units like Greyhounds in AP to counter Maoists is another example. As is raising of Salwa-Judum in Chhattisgarh.

However, we can say that as a nation, we lack dedicated focus on USE of asymmetric warfare for offensive purpose at national level. A very simple case in point is lack of any culture of use of Special Forces at strategic level - I mean, apart from the Israelis, we have the perfect case for use of Special Forces in cross border raids or hitting militants sitting in Myanmar or Bangladesh.

We could have used asymmetric warfare (Special Forces+Covert action capabilities) to raise the cost of sponsoring terrorism against India - BUT WE HAVE NOT.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by ramana »

9/11 was an assymetric war by islamist non-state actors backed by states.

It lead to the almost financial collapse of the USA and Western banking system.

The key elements were small non-state actor groups attack symbols of power in US and that leads to amassive response against states in the Middle East leading to the collapse of many regimes and state systems: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, unleashes the Arab spring and changes Egypt and now is running aground in Syria.

Meantime the financial collapse pushes US deeper into debt, causes a new regime to be elected, the Euro is on life support and Germany emerges on top of Europe negating centuries of British balance of power strategy.

Over ten millions homes are foreclosed with no end in sight in US. Causes more displacement/migration than the Dust Bowl era or the great Migration after the Civil War.



I expect the next assymetric attack will be a cyber attack and who knows the consequences?

This would be again non-state actor rendering some key sectors grounded and wont involve any identifiable elements.
What would happen then?
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by brihaspati »

kitcarson wrote:
That said, non state actor will definitely not be that naive to conduct conventional warfare with states. Asymmetrical warfare is necessary to possibly have a chance to triumph over state. I would take an example like the air force, a state having air force might not be able to win a war, but a state having no air support will definitely lose the war. Therefore non state actors will always conduct attack asymmetrical in nature to gain an advantage over state actor which preferred conventional warfare.
Are you implying in your air-force statement - that a state that doe snot have air-support will lose against non-state actors acting against the state in asymmetrical warfare? In that case, the Afghan-state+US+NATO combo failing against the Talebs might show that air-support might not be crucial to winning or losing in any case in certain circumstances.

Reverse question - do you think that air-support can trump asymmetric-war warriors? That India might triumph over possible asymmetric warfare attempts using its air-power?
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by shiv »

There are two aspects to asymmetric warfare 1. Using it where needed and 2. Fighting against an asymmetric warfighting force

Guerilla warfare is asymmetric warfare. Apart from the usual culprits ("freedom fighters"). this form of asymmetric warfare has been employed for low cost and political deniability by colonial powers and the US. The US armed Tibetans in the 1950s and the Taliban in the 1980s. Pakistan has copied US tactics against India.

Commando raids into enemy territory using special forces is asymmetric warfare with open state support. The Osama raid and Entebbe were in this category. The Mumbai raids were balanced on a thin line between open state support and guerilla warfare

For India the problem is more of combating/fighting against asymmetric warriors. For that we need better intel. surveillance and some robotic warfare capability. Asymmetric warfare is increasingly being used against states with very powerful conventional militaries and that includes India.

Pakistan assumed that asymmetric war alone (armed tribals) would bring them Kashmir in 1948. That did not work

In 1965 they tried asymmetric war (Op Gibraltar) backed up by regular forces (Operation Grand Slam)

In 1999 it was asymmetric alone. After that the asymmetric war has continued because of India's relentless efforts at increasing its military capability
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by Sanku »

The question that no one has asked yet -- why would India need asymmetric war fare capabilities ? I.e. what are our potential adversaries that we expect that an open warfare would not work against. These can be for any number of reasons, such as
1. The strength of the adversary outmatches us
2. Open war is not an available option
3. RoI dictates that we use cost effective options than a full war (even if the option exists)
4. Geo-political conditions make it a more attractive option.

If I look at history, India has at least thrice, used assymetric warfare.
1. Support of Mukti bahini
2. Support for Tamil guerrillas
3. Allow US to work with Tibetian freedom movement

So clearly we don't have moral qualms with that approach. However this has been languishing as far as I can tell in current times. With lack of focus on when we would use it, how we would use it, and what structures would support it.

The other question in my mind is -- do we need to have a special and established organisation looking after such work, perhaps covertly?
What are the steps that should be taken towards this?
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

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Yes Je Menon, no one did like how China test their weapons in light of full media coverage. But i think that might be because state like US has had tested these weapons long time ago? Plus having China to always displaying their capability, military wise could initimidate its strategic rivals.

And rohitvats, your statement regarding India's asymmetrical warfare capability is very organised. You views of asymmetrical warfare is in a very objective perspective. I certainly didn't know the existence of like RR battalion, Sadbhawana mission and the Greyhounds. I am very new to the politics of India, but with your enlightenment, pointed me in the correct direction. Thank you very much. I will read more on what you have stated. Cross border raids in Myanmar and Bangladesh are carried out by which unit within the indian military? This is very interesting. Could you enlightened me more on that?

I would absolutely agree with you Ramana, Cyberwarfare is going to be more frequent as our modernisation and globalisation are increasing in a significant pace. Cyberwarfare 9/11 is indeed something need to ne thought of before it happens.

Hi brihaspati, forgive me for i should have made myself clearer. I was just intending to have an analogy created to address the situation wherein insurgents could have used conventional warfare method to fight against the state and they will lose or they could use asymmetrical warfare method in which case they have a possibility of winning though not guaranteed. Therefore to compare it with states having war with states, if they have no air force to fight for them, they will sure to fail but if they have air force supporting them, there will be a possibility of winning though not guarenteed. There is a book with their analysis of air power's role in state military, "the air power decade 1990-2000" in a book called strategy in the contemporary world by james writz, the page of the analysis lands at page174 and onwards.

That said, i am just merely having an analogy for it when i am giving the example. I would absolutely agree with you regarding the talibans in afghanistan, though they have all the military might in the world but US could not even eradicate Talibans. An asymmetrical warfare scholar by the name of Max Boots, he has a book titiled invisible armies which has a long range of history of asymmetrical warfare, a very good read too. He was saying that to triumps over insurgents with brutality needs 3 important aspect, Chehnya in Russia for example. The first is legitimacy of state to carry out such hunting down and killing of insurgents, as in either the state was operating within the boundaries within their territory. Or the killing of insurgents justifiable within the people in the state or not. 2ndly is external support, the insurgents must not received any external support in order for the total eradication of insurgents like Syrian rebels, they have a lot of support from neighbouring arab states. 3hirdly is the media, media blackout is preferred by states when they try to win over insurgency with pure brutality.

These 3 scenario is not always available to the state, but if there is, the state could resolve the insurgency by mobilising their troops to kill every rebels.

Air support too is a crucial role tactically in winning a fight and to sustain less casulaties. US army SOP when they spot an insurgents if they deem it too risky to send in troops will call air support to fire upon the target's location. This is very important to ensure the motivation of troops to carry out their duty knowing full well when they are cornered by insurgents, they could call back HQ to have air support to their location.

Yes, air support could not win war that is with the Taliban but could win fights. Obama promise to get US troops back from Afghanistan, and the Afghan military fear they will not have the air support they usually have. This shows how important air support is. Je Menon said that it is ideological, an ideology just don't die because one of the characteristic of ideology is persistent, even one man is commited to fight in their cause, the war is still on. So yes, Air support could not win between talibans, but tactically what would the US NATO AFGHAN military do without any?

Of course, to win asymmetrical warfare like for example Malaya, Winning the hearts and mind like Rohitvats say is important. Winning the hearts and mind terms actually coined during the communist insurgency in Malaya. Gerald Templar knew that military force will not get them anywhere because native people in Malaya are still supporting the communist, therefore he has a perception where public opinion is very important. Templar always says winning the communist insurgency is 25% bullet and 75% public opinion. Though US spend billions every week in Afghan in their military operations, building infrastructure to gain support still has not win over the war, therefore external support of insurgents does plays crucial factor to determine whether they will win or not.

Regarding your reverse question having to say India having air force will triumps over insurgents, i have pretty much covered the whole thing explaining from my views abobe.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

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Yes Shiv, i would agree states need to arms themselves up with the capability that you mentioned, intel, robotic etc to protect themselves from futute asymmetrical threats which is more possible to happened rather than conventional threats from state.

And Sanku, your arguments of geopolitical factor, Strength Of the adversary outmatching are definitely legitimate claims. I would add one more factor, complex interdependency by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye suggest that states are now very much connected to one another, culturally, societally and more important economically. Rational leaders provided it is not an ethnic war will always prefer prosperity than war which drains economical gains. With complex interdependency, it is impossible to fight a state, or declaring war with a state and fight with conventional armies, the norm existed in the international systems does not promotes it. But they could build up asymmetrical capabilities and used as desire plus they could policy of strategic ambiguity that could deter states further which are not aligned with home country's goal.

I was thinking India has already such unit that carry out covert operations within territory of China?
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by Rahul M »

I am moving this to the mil forum.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by ramana »

Its more about strategy then the tactics of asymmetric warfare. Now that its moved it will get bogged down in tactics of how to go about doing it.
Sanku wrote:
The question that no one has asked yet -- why would India need asymmetric war fare capabilities ? I.e. what are our potential adversaries that we expect that an open warfare would not work against.
Even if they could win in open war one would prefer asymmetric warfare, by hitting an opponent where they least expect in order to ensure certain victory for in war victory is what matters.


Malcolm Gladwell has new book "David and Goliath" which is really about asymmetric warfare in all spheres and not just battlefields.He has an interesting statistic.
In about 70% of the encounters the side with larger numbers won i.e. in about 30% the 'underdog' won!

Now if one examined of the 30% how many times the side not expected to win adopted asymmetric tactics and won?
It comes to about 2/3 of the time the side adopting asymmetric tactics won.
So just being an underdog is not enough but one has to embrace asymmetry and fight.

If you recall Chanakya won against the Nandas by asymmetric tactics.
The mighty Mughals were ground to stalemate and dust by Maratha asymmetric tactics.

East Pakistan was won by asymmetric tactics of bypassing the static formations of the Pakis and driving on to Dhaka.
In Assal Uttar Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh flooded the plains and bogged down the Patton advance.

However on grand scale the next one I see is a non-state hacker group tyeing up state powers in a cyber war and defeat occurring without blood shed.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by JE Menon »

>>Yes Je Menon, no one did like how China test their weapons in light of full media coverage. But i think that might be because state like US has had tested these weapons long time ago? Plus having China to always displaying their capability, military wise could initimidate its strategic rivals.

Kitcarson,

I'm not sure no one liked how China tested their capability in full media glare. Some countries, opposed to the US and under its pressure, might have liked it to the extent that it made the US uncomfortable. I also don't know whether China tested with full media coverage because the US tested a long time ago. China could have tested it quietly too. Those who needed to get the message would have got that message. Testing under media coverage was apparently intended to send a message other than a purely military one. And yes, it might intimidate some strategic rivals.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by ramana »

JEM, In the mid 60s when nuke testing in atmosphere was acceptable, the PRC stated its aim to fly a missile with a nuke warhead to splashdown in Indian Ocean. Earlier in the decade, US had launched their sub based missile thrice and exploded the nukes in an all up systems test. Somehow the PRC did not follow through but it was very scary for us growing up.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by JE Menon »

^This is what I meant by a more than military message, broadly speaking. For china it seems to be a tool of AW so to speak, very little additional investment, impact beyond its weight.
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Re: Indian military's Asymmtrical warfare capability

Post by SaiK »

ramana wrote:Somehow the PRC did not follow through but it was very scary for us growing up.
after that came, (1971) where most cities were asked to keep their streetlights off, windows opaqued during night, to make it pitch dark? the decision was taken once USS enterprise navigated into bay of bengal. task force 74 on hms eagle was having strike a/c to carry nukes.

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