nachiket wrote:It is easy for us to "want" war while sitting in our living rooms sipping chai. ...There is a difference in being prepared for war and actually wanting it.
Understood. But something else which should be understood is that if this matter isn't decisively settled this year, the Chinese will be back to repeat this nonsense next year, and the next and the next... each time slicing off a little more salami.If this is allowed to fester, who's to say that their next move (next year) won't be in Depsang, and thereafter the eastern approaches to Siachen. And every time war is contemplated, there will be some "good and sensible reason" to avoid war and go for "more talks". They intrude 1km into Depsang, we can put on a grave and stern look on our face and go for "more talks". Then they spew some nonsense excuse and advance another km, we can really raise our voices loud, throw some dossiers at them and complain to the UN.
What is there to talk about any more, really? The Chinese don't just refuse to spell out precisely what their "perception" of the LAC is, they quite brazenly say that the whole of Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh belong to them. Maybe previously we could hide behind the hope of "talks", but not any more. After this year, we have nowhere to hide our faces any longer.
There is currently an international "correlation of forces" (ha ha, a favourite Commie term from the good old days) in the Himalayan region and in the Indo-China Sea that strongly favours China's opponents and seriously complicates China's life. This year, specifically the next two months, is the time to strike while the iron is hot. At minimum they should be kicked out of the area they are occupying that we claim as our side of the LAC, and their illegal artificial islands in the SCS. That is the minimum we (the anti-PRC grouping) should achieve from all this. If the final outcome of all this huffing and puffing is to simply stare at PLA troops in Ladakh/Tibet and at PLAN ships in the SCS, not actually do a damn thing, and then slink away to our home bases in December with the tail between the legs, what the hell is the point of having military forces?