The point the Gipper was making.Trust and verify are two sides of the same coin.Unfortunately,the Sovs/Russians didn't learn from Reagan.They never verified or put down on parchment that NATO would not extend its membership/boundaries by poaching ex-Warsaw Pact states!
I said this before,and say it again.
Doklam caught us by complete surprise. We just about managed to save the situ.This was particularly trick becos the territory in Q is Bhutanese who have no dpl. relations with China.The Chins have been trying for ages to armtwist the Bhutanese to do so and cut India out of the equation.They well know the dpl. and mil. gains that would immediately follow. Being caught by surprise and quite unprepared for a long war,our ammo. stocks and shortages of spares, poor border infrastructure,etc., are too well known,
India had to buy time. Therefore a defused crisis was necessary for us. Fortunately,the NoKo crisis erupted,gravely impinging upon China as any US war with NoKo would inevitably drag China into it,plus the ignominy of an Indian boycott of the BRICS summit would mean huge loss of face from China and demands by its other members as to why the issue couldn't be peacefully resolved through diplomacy,India's stand always.As Gen.Rawat has just said,e need to prepare for the worst,a Sino_Pak JV.
An arc of crisis has thus been created by the Chinese and Pakis stretching from the Arabian Sea,through Af-Pak and the Himalayan/Tibetan region through to the NEast . There is a corresponding maritime arc south of the mainland in the IOR too,stretching from Djibouti,Gwadar,the Maldives,Sri Lanka,to Burma and the Malacca Straits.Dealing with these two arcs requires a combination of diplomacy,military preparedness and economic aid/investment (to our smaller neighbours),and this prevent China's OBOR from making any real headway,unless India is aboard too as an equal partner.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... d-pakistan
India army chief: we must prepare for simultaneous war with China and Pakistan
General says Himalayan standoff could become larger conflict with China, which Pakistan would then use to its advantage
The flags of China and India are displayed at a conference room used for meetings between military commanders on the Indo-China border. India’s army chief the country should be ready in case of war. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Associated Press
Thursday 7 September 2017
India’s army chief said on Wednesday the country should be prepared for a potential two-front war given China is flexing its muscles and there is little hope for reconciliation with Pakistan.
General Bipin Rawat referred to a recent 10-week standoff with the Chinese army in the Himalayas that ended last week. He said the situation could gradually snowball into a larger conflict on India’s northern border. Rawat said Pakistan on the western front could take advantage of such a situation.
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The Press Trust of India news agency quoted Rawat’s remarks at a seminar organised by the Center for Land Warfare Studies, a thinktank in New Delhi.
India fought a war with China in 1962 and three wars with Pakistan, two of them over control of Kashmir, since securing independence from Britain in 1947. All three countries are nuclear powers.
Rawat said credible deterrence did not take away the threat of war. “Nuclear weapons are weapons of deterrence. Yes, they are. But to say that they can deter war or they will not allow nations to go to war, in our context that may also not be true,” the news agency quoted him as saying.
India last week agreed to pull troops from the disputed Doklam plateau high in the Himalayas (? Get your facts right Guardian!), where Chinese troops had started building a road. The 10-week standoff was the two nations’ most protracted in decades, and added to their longstanding strategic rivalry.
Warfare lies within the realm of reality.
Bipin Rawat, Indian general
“We have to be prepared. In our context, therefore, warfare lies within the realm of reality,” Rawat said.
His comments came a day after India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, agreed on a “forward-looking” approach to Sino-India ties, putting behind the Doklam standoff.
Xi and Modi met on the sidelines of a summit of the Brics emerging economies in the south-eastern Chinese port city of Xiamen. The Brics nations are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.