vivek_ahuja wrote:
hi everybody
I hope i am not barging in too badly into Shankar's posts...
looking forward to your reviews...
hey vivek... intresting scenario... plz do carry on with your post... looking forward to it... it will be double fun to read INDIA - CHINA War game in your posts and INDIA - Pakistan in Shankar's
thanks for the positive resonse nits.
here's the next post. its a big one because of the necessity to build up the characters and the storyline in depth. i also have a detailed 1cm:10000m military map (Nothing confidential, i assure you
)from which i am making the calculations. if you have a similar map of the region, you can do the same and follow the story more properly. not that its required of course, but it sure makes the reading more fun...
for all the others who have not read my earlier post, please be kind enough to read it to follow the storyline more appropriately...
CRISIS RESPONSE CENTER, INDIAN ARMY HQ
NEW DELHI, INDIA
PRESENT DAY
0600 HRS THURSDAY
The people at the crisis response centre, a part of the Directorate of Military Operations or DGMO, at the Indian army HQ had been awake for the last forty-eight hours and it was visible on their faces. All of a sudden everyone had wanted to know what in hell was happening in Myanmar or Burma, as it was still known in some military circles. This had been compounded on Tuesday when the first piece of information regarding Chinese involvement had surfaced from RAW sources. As usual nobody had bothered asking or informing the Indian army about anything substantial, with the notable exception of the Defence Minister who made it his job to keep the army chiefs involved in the decision making processes. This was the Defence Minister who, for the first time in decades, had come from defence background and was liked by the army generals for the simple reason that when they talked, he actually listened. He also had a good sense of all things strategic, and had been instrumental in getting the approval of the government for the sale of the SS-250 SSBM, known in India as the ‘Prithvi’ to Vietnam in exchange for greater access to their naval ports for the Indian navy. That had turned out to be a good deal, with the Vietnamese extremely happy with a counterforce weapon with which to threaten the Chinese. The threat wasn’t going to be much of a headache for the Chinese, given the restricted range of the SS-250, and the relatively small numbers of these missiles deployed, but it was only an appetizer. It had taken the Chinese a very small time to find out about the deal and soon thereafter the first imagery from their satellites had shown the clearly visible deployments around Hanoi. The Indians had released the details of the deal in public and the Vietnamese had arranged the photo-op. All in all, it had infuriated the Chinese, in turn pleasing the Indian PM and the Vietnamese head of state and increasing their popularity in their respective countries.
The defence minister had also endorsed the setting up of the maintenance facility for the Malaysian Su-30MKMs in India under HAL in exchange for greater cooperation on all matters military and also to stabilize that region from similar Chinese initiatives. The underlying consideration in all these agreements had been to control the expansion of the Chinese sphere of influence in the Southeast Asian region. The recent trade negotiations with the generals of the military junta in Myanmar had been the cornerstone of this initiative.
At the same time he realised the Myanmar government for what it was, a military dictatorship in cahoots with China, and had cautioned the Prime Minister on publicly extending the hand of friendship. He had suggested using Myanmar to stamp out the ULFA once and for all, and then trying to bring Myanmar under the Indian sphere of influence, but always adding that should things go wrong, India should not get actively involved as it had in Sri-Lanka. The Indian army had agreed with this plan since it was already involved with the control of the infiltration in Kashmir and the border tensions with Pakistan and China and had wanted to end its operations against ULFA once and for all, thereby relieving the stress on it. The army had been willing to even arm the Myanmar armed forces with equipment that was in storage or about to be decommissioned. This equipment was obsolete as far as the Indian army was concerned, but was still a hell of a lot better than what the Myanmar army had. It was also something they could not have possibly afforded with their annual budget. The Defence Minister had approved the army’s list of equipment that it had wanted to be handed over to the Myanmar army. That list included the now obsolete Cheetah Light Helicopters, Light, towed field artillery of the now worthless 105mm Calibre, the assorted ammunition and thousands of world war II era steel helmets along with some other infantry equipment. Also on the deal had been T-55 tanks, Trucks and jeeps and contracts to upgrade the Myanmar army with Indian built equipment. The unwritten part of the contract, as far as the Defence Minister had been concerned, was that, taking into consideration the tensions between Thailand and Myanmar, who had already fought skirmishes before, the usage of ammunition and spares, attrition, and increasing dependency on Indian equipment, they were creating a maintenance and upgrades vacuum that could only be filled with Indian companies.
This was going to include the HAL Cheetal Helicopter upgrade from the baseline Cheetah Helicopter, maintenance for the trucks and T-55 tank spares, ammunition, replacements tools, components etcetera, the list went on. The bottom line was that the Myanmar government would have been forced into the Indian sphere of influence without significant active participation on India’s part, wrenching the strategic initiative from China, who was also trying to do the same with J-8II and J-7 fighter aircrafts for the Myanmar air force. It was like a basketball match between two players, with Myanmar being the basketball, and India and China the two players trying to steal the basketball from each other. Among one of the definite losers of this strategic game was Thailand, who would be at the wrong receiving end of all these armaments, but that was a matter of little concern to either India or China, already involved as they were, in their own survival. But as with most strategic issues, this one had been a long game, extending over years, where patience is a very critical characteristic to possess. It was here that the Defence Minister’s great Indian expansion plan had become undone.
As with every human, the Defence Minister had his flaws, the major one being his lack of knowledge on most things political, which included political backstabbing, and this meant that the people at the National Security Council or NSC, often had their own way by bypassing the Defence Minister’s chain of command and authority, without his knowing, of course. Some of these members had the ear of the Prime Minister, who had been known to be an impulsive operator. The NSC had convinced the PM that the plan being executed for Myanmar was too hesitant and covert, and that the Chinese were way ahead of the Indians simply because they were more active in their approach to Myanmar. As a result, India should reciprocate. Call the Generals of the military junta over for trade negotiations, bilateral talks, call it anything you want, they had told the PM. We can then create a stable border on our east and give China serious headaches on its southern border, forcing them to move their troops from the border with us to that with Myanmar and relieve the stress on our own army, and oh, by the way, get rid of ULFA once and for all. With this plan we can achieve in as many months as what the Defence minister is promising in years, they promised the Indian head of state.
In theory the plan was somewhat sound, but vague in all major areas, highly exaggerated in its timeline and overlooked several issues, the major one being the Chinese response to the Indian political probes. Already the Chinese news agency Xinhua had begun to create an anti-India atmosphere in china as a result of the missile sales to Vietnam and the deals with Myanmar and Malaysia. Nobody at NSC seemed to have considered the extent of the Chinese response. It might anyway have been ridiculed if someone would have suggested even a month back that the Chinese response would involve toppling the entire military junta in Rangoon to set a precedent and display to the world as to what happens to politicians/ Generals who start to go against the Chinese interests by joining India. And yet, the incidents in the last four days had shown exactly that. It certainly looked as if the Indians weren’t the only ones short on patience. All indications from RAW, DIPAC, DIA and ARC showed that the Chinese had impatient and impulsive leaders too.
The Defence Minister removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes for a bit, silently cursing the career politicians on the planet as he summed up in his head as to what was wrong with the world today, and specifically the Asia region. He had not slept for some time now and had absolutely no idea of the time until he looked at the wall on which hung clocks showing the local times in all areas of importance at the moment, including Beijing, New-Delhi, Rangoon and Kolkata among others. Unlike the members of NSC, who had taken the first opportunity to return to their beds for at least a few hours, the Defence Minster had stayed. As Defence Minister, he could have ordered them to stay, but he had deliberately not opposed their departure. At least now they had some rational people in the room, most of who were in uniforms of one sort or another, and all of them wide awake. The room had a big oval conference table and the Minister sat at one end of the table while the army, air force and navy officers sat on either side. It was indeed a big table, the minister realised, cursing himself for delving into irrelevancy. Littered on the table was a bunch of papers piling on top of itself since Monday. Some were satellite imagery from the Defence Image Processing and Analysis or DIPAC; others detailed the Order of battle or ORBAT of the Indian, Malaysian, Chinese, Pakistani and every other regional armed force in the region.
A whole bunch of papers on his end of the table were concerned with intelligence analyses and situation reports, also piling up since Monday because of the quarter-daily updates made to them. The walls around the room were filled with computer screens showing the colour-coded digital maps of Northeast India, the Myanmar border with India, the Eastern India China border region from Sikkim to Arunachal Pradesh and the Bay of Bengal region. These showed the military deployments and specifically the projected areas of conflict and deployments of the rebel and loyalist forces on the map detailing Myanmar.
Technically the prime minister should have been present in the room, but he had a separate job at the moment, involving showing his face to the media and to calm public fears and to replace it with confidence. It was a big enough job as it was, and as a result he had deputed the Defence minister and other members of the NSC to work out the details at the crisis response centre in South Block. Instead the Defence Minister had shifted the meeting to the Army HQ for reasons known only to him. The army people weren’t objecting, of course, since it only made their job of getting the information and passing the orders easier and more efficient. Many officers suspected that this might have been the reason for the sudden change in location of the meeting, with the added effect of bringing discomfort to the politicians. All of this was enough to bring a tired smile on their faces for the first time in the last forty-eight hours. The smiles vanished as the meeting was brought to order by the Def-Min, as the Minister was now known in military circles, more as a sign of affection and respect than anything else.
The room was heavily crowded even when only the chiefs of the various army and governmental organizations were present. The people sitting on the conference table included the Defence Minister, the Chief Of Army Staff or COAS, the vice-chief or VCOAS, General Officer Commanding, or GOC, of all the three army corps of eastern command that were involved in the area of operations, Chiefs of RAW, IB and NSC, the lieutenant generals in charge of DIA, DIPAC, JCEWS, Army Special Operations command, the Air-Chief Marshal of the Indian air force, his eastern air command AOC, the Air-Marshal commanding the formidable Strategic Forces Command and the Chief of Naval staff and his eastern fleet commander. Among those standing were the ADC or aides to all the seated chiefs and some other staff officers from the DGMO and DGPS. In addition, on the wall at the opposite end of where the Def-Min sat, was a large screen on which any other required commander could be summoned to attend the conference or answer the questions via the video link. At the moment it was switched off. In all, it was a formidable presence of the commanding officers of the Indian armed forces and their dominating effect on the politicians in the room was recognised by both the politicians as well as the officers themselves. The only ‘politician’ not affected by this show of force was the Defence Minister. To him, it was what he had done throughout his life. Only now, the stakes were higher, as his country stood poised to fight a major war in the Indian subcontinent.
“Gentlemen, as of exactly seven hours ago, we are directly involved in this crisis. The prime minister has told the world that India is on the side of the ‘Loyalists’, while China has decided to bet its money on the ‘rebels’. Gentlemen, the political ramifications of this decision on our part are severe. Our regional dominance in the entire Southeast Asia region, which had started booming only from the last few years, is under threat. If we fail to support Myanmar, then Vietnam will be lost and then so will the other smaller nations. For those of you, who haven’t grasped the political model that we are seeing here, let me point it out to you. What we are fighting for the last decade is a scaled down model of the cold war. There also it was against the communists, so it is here. If there it was a bipolar world during the cold war, then there is a regional bipolarity in this region today. The Americans entered the Vietnam War under Lyndon Johnson under the exact conditions that we find ourselves today. But there are two major differences between these two situations; the first one is that at no point was America directly threatened other than by its own citizens. In our case, we are not so lucky. We share a border with the enemy. If we lose Myanmar, we will face another enemy by the name of General Hoa. If Myanmar is lost, we are then geographically surrounded, and then the internal pressure on us will mount from all sides. The internal violence will flourish and the country will collapse. We are fighting today, not for the sake of a world or even a regional dominance, but for our own survival. That being the first point, the second is this: we will learn from the American model. We will not make the same mistakes. Which is why you all are here now. I have been asked to brief the PM on what our response to the situation in Myanmar will be and what will be the political consequences of that action on us. But before I can make an analysis of the political consequences, I need to know what our military responses can or should be.â€