A time must come when we have to decide what to do w.r.t. TSP. No nation can hope to live happily and freely and exert a role in the international arena if they are boxed in physically in their own neighborhood. Stategists call this "Tyranny of the neighborhood". Evey nation has to first break that tyranny before it can step out. Britain achieved this by getting a nation that was an island from God almighty. They they made sure that Continental Europe never is united or powerful to box it in. USA first slowly worked its way out the "neighborhood", slowly and steadily make others exit the scene before it could expand out. Cuba, was the last threat by a foreign hostile power to barge into the neighborhood, and it was resisted by the full might of the country.shiv wrote: In short we need to have overwhelming force in every theater. It is possible - ... Taking PoK and leaving Pakistan intact is like Nehru stopping the war in 1949 at the LoC when Paki forces were already in retreat and disarray.
What we should aim for is not the PoK consolation prize and hope that what survives of Pakistan will be a good boy. We need to settle the Pakistan issue in the long term. If we are going to fight a war to do that - better to fight one that does the whole job. Not a half job.
PRC, has been slowly and steadily trying to get out of the neighborhood. It's primary boxing in from the East, and US doing a lot of that boxing in. But it has slowly and steadily making inroads into clearing it. The latest move was the announcement of that missile to destroy air-craft carriers, which is a direct hit at curtailing US power in the region.
India since 1947 has already been firmly boxed in the subcontinent by TSP. 1971 was a major attempt to break it, a very successful one, if at that. But India has not been able to manage to keep that momentum. Then PRC has actively filled in, wherever TSP has weakened.
So, I totally aggree with your point that simply taking POK cannot be the end goal. These "legal" arguments are really pseudo arguments. Which law? Whose courts?
Nations need to decide how to break the encirclement. If the nation is strong, they go for the main prime mover to break his back. If the nation is relatively less strong, it should punish the smaller nations first so that collaborations are not easily obtained. In that regard, Sri Lanka, BD, Burma, Nepal must be dragged through gravel for offering any support to PRC. Once assured of that, we must take down TSP. With that, we are ready to face the only real competitor in the sub-continent, the PRC. It is likely that by the time we take down TSP, PRC would conclude game over.
But whatever ratio of attack is required, none of these ratios should be unattainable. India is 7x the size of TSP. So all things equal, we should at least be able to put 7:1 advantage on the ground. That should be more than enough to get us Pakjab, Sindh plains easily. When that is done, then we would already be at the 10:1 ratio and POK should fall too.