A once-in-a-decade military strategy document released by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) leading think tank in 2013 offers some clues to China’s border moves, as it called for putting a stop to “nibbling” of territory as well as warned of India’s expanding maritime reach as it looked to stabilise its land borders, a development it viewed as a threat to China’s security interests.
“The Science of Military Strategy” released in 2013 by the Academy of Military Sciences was the third edition of the text, following previous versions in 1987 and 2001. A full-English translation of the 276-page Chinese document, which was first released a year into Xi Jinping’s tenure in October 2013, was published, on 8 February 2021, by the United States-based China Aerospace Studies Institute at Air University, based at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
Here are the extracts related to India’s Military Strategy.
“India is a regional power in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, and is also an emerging major country that is in the midst of arising, and so its international status is improving every day. Understanding and analyzing trends in its military strategy have an important significance for understanding and grasping the world and regional strategic setup, and even its security situation.
“From India’s independence in 1947 to the end of the Cold War, India’s military strategy largely underwent three stages of development.
“The first stage was a period of limited offensive strategy (from India’s independence to the beginning of the 1960s). At the start of Indian independence, its domestic economy was backward and its military power was weak; externally, it formed a confrontation with Pakistan, and it also faced an intense competition between the United States and the Soviet Union as they struggled to dominate the South Asian region. Under these circumstances, the [Jawaharlal] Nehru government adopted a policy of “non-alliance” with the outside, it dealt with both the U.S. and the Soviet blocs, while internally, it adopted a policy of “first the economy and then national defense;” it struggled for time, it developed the economy, it deepened and accumulated national power, and it strove to achieve the strategic goals of preserving India, developing India, and strengthening India. Militarily, it promoted a strategy of “limited offense,” viewed Pakistan as its most direct threat, put its strategic focus on the west, and continually improved its deployment for operations against Pakistan. At the same time, India intensified its military penetration into areas that it had yet to occupy south of the McMahon Line, in order to achieve the goals of territorial expansion and long-term control over contested areas along the Sino- Indian border; by 1958 it had seized a large area of Chinese territory north of the traditional and customary lines south of the McMahon Line, and had established the socalled “Himalayan security system” in India’s north, aimed at China.
The second stage was the period of a strategy of “expansion on two fronts” (the 1960s to the early 1970s). [India’s] defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian border conflict had a major impact on India’s military strategy. India reevaluated its security environment, rethought its military policies, and summarized its experiences and lessons.
“First, it gave priority to military buildup; starting in 1964, it implemented its first five-year plan for national defense, spending 50 billion rupees, and expanding its armaments on a large scale.
“Second, given the situation that it was difficult for [India’s] national power to contend with China, it adopted an in-depth defense program against the PRC for a given period of time.
“Third, it actively prepared for operations against Pakistan in the west and against the PRC in the north. In the late 1960s, India received a great deal of aid from the United States, and it formed a de facto alliance with the Soviet Union; in addition to this, its domestic economic situation improved somewhat, there was some strengthening of its overall national power, its military expansionist thinking accordingly looked up, and it adopted a strategy of “expansion on two fronts” where it had China and Pakistan as simultaneous targets of major operations and prepared for simultaneous operations along both the western and northern battle lines. It adopted a program of “attack to the west and defend to the north,” where the western front would be primarily for offense and the northern front would be primarily for defense, and it directly aimed the spearhead of its expansion toward the western border, in an effort to weaken Pakistan strategically. In November 1971, India launched a large-scale assault against Pakistan, in order to dismember Pakistan at one blow.
“The third stage was the period of a strategy of “maintain the land and control the sea” (1970s to the late 1980s). After the third India-Pakistan War, the setup where India dominated South Asia basically took shape. US-Indian relations and Sino-Indian relations, which had been tense for a time, tended to ameliorate; the United Kingdom withdrew its troops from the Indian Ocean because of a lack of financial and military strength; the Soviet Union gradually reduced its interference in the South Asian region after the mid-1980s; and this resulted in a major change in the South Asian strategic situation that benefited India and provided strategic opportunity and conditions for it to expand into the Indian Ocean region. Under these conditions, based on [the fact that] India’s strategic intentions on land had fundamentally been achieved, it gradually shifted the focus of its strategy from the South Asian subcontinent to the Indian Ocean, it proposed the military strategic idea of “maintain the land and control the sea,” and it comprehensively sought superiority at sea over the northern Indian Ocean.
“After the end of the Cold War, there was a major adjustment to India’s military strategy, where it shifted from a strategy of “regional offense” to a strategy of “regional deterrence.” India believed that the traditional concept of war in the Cold War period, where you annihilated the enemy country’s military strengths, plundered its territory, and conquered its will through warfare, was no longer suitable to the international strategic setup and the South Asian subcontinent situation, which had developed and changed, and that it should “put its stress on emphasizing the role of deterrence and not emphasize conquest and occupation of territory.” Based on this idea, India began in the early 1990s to execute the military strategy of “regional deterrence.” What was called the “region” included a broad scope that started with the Himalayan range in the north and went south to the Indian Ocean, and started in the west with Iran and went east to Burma. What was called “deterrence” was based on making worst-case preparations for major fighting, using powerful military strengths as a backup, and carrying out shock and awe that had effective military force against various targets of operations, including deterrence at sea and nuclear deterrence. Throughout the entire 1990s, the core of India’s strategy of “regional deterrence” was “denial” {juzhi}, and it emphasized maintaining absolute military superiority over the countries within the South Asian subcontinent, deterring these from engaging in military adventures that would threaten India, and achieving such goals as ensuring the security of the nation’s seacoasts and territorial waters and preventing major countries from infiltrating [the subcontinent].
“Upon entering the 21st century, as India’s economy quickly developed and its overall national power continually strengthened, its economic and military power exceeded the sum total of the various other countries in South Asia, and the other South Asian countries in actuality had no power to pose a major threat against India. India believed that the possibility of a large-scale total war breaking out between Pakistan and India in the future because of border disputes was small; it was more likely that there would be small- and medium-scale limited and conventional wars on the border. At the same time, the threats of terrorism, splittism, and transnational organized crime were increasing daily, and non-traditional security threats and traditional security threats were similarly serious and interwoven. Therefore, the Indian military gave the strategy of “regional deterrence” new details, and transformed the passive defense-type thinking of “denial deterrence” into a preemptive strike-type idea of “disciplinary deterrence;” it emphasized taking the initiative to attack, acting before the enemy does, and doing its best to win a high-tech “limited conventional war” under conditions of nuclear deterrence. The main details included [the following]. As regards strategic targets, it stressed having military matters subordinate to political ones; not seeking to threaten the existence of an enemy country; and influencing or impelling an enemy country to modify its anti-Indian policies through the flexible use of military means in a restrained way, while at the same time, it itself was prepared to make necessary compromises in exchange for the enemy’s concessions. As regards preparations for war, it shifted from being prepared to fight a total war, as in the past, to being based on fighting a high-tech limited conventional war under conditions of nuclear deterrence. As regards strategic guidance, it discarded the passive defensive concept of “waiting for the enemy to arrive within [India’s] borders and then getting rid of him” and adopted a guiding program of actively taking the initiative and of preemptive strikes, blocking the enemy in advance from large-scale attacks, so that the war would be waged on the enemy’s territory, forcing the opponent to be trapped on the defensive and in an opportune situation. As regards guidance of operations, there was a stress on joint operations by the three services, and an emphasis on “seamlessly mobilizing all resources in attacking, routing, and defeating the enemy,” and “concentrating all operational strengths for use at a single decisive point, and thus producing maximum effect.” As regards guidance of deterrence, it emphasized the use of both nuclear and conventional deterrence, using nuclear deterrence to ensure that India basically avoided invasions in war, that it was effective in keeping opponents from using nuclear weapons against India, that it limited warfare to the scope of a limited conventional war, that it developed reliable and powerful conventional means of deterrence, that it formed deterrent strengths at multiple levels, and that it used conventional military forces as the “spearhead” of the attack, that it used nuclear strengths as the “shield” of defense, and that it strengthened the flexibility and selectivity of military deterrence.
“Taking an overall look at developments in India’s military strategy since independence, it is possible to see four interrelated basic characteristics.
“First is a strong geopolitical nature. Since the day of its independence, India has determined its national interests through geopolitical thought, to plan its national security and draft military strategy. It has stressed that India is the heart of Asia and that the Indian Ocean is India’s ocean, it has treated the South Asian subcontinent as its sphere of influence, and it has regarded some neighboring countries as the main obstacles blocking it from achieving its geopolitical interests. India’s military strategy has treated protecting its geopolitical interests and eliminating geopolitical obstacles as its starting point and end point. After the end of the Cold War, the international security environment underwent major changes, but India still treated geopolitics as a basic factor that was the source for considering and designing military strategy, and it still determined the direction of its strategy, the means of its strategy, and the targets of its operations from the angle of a geostrategic competition, as it attempted to build the South Asian subcontinent into a strategic foundation with itself as the center, and to thus manage and control the Indian Ocean.
“Second is that it has comprehensively carried on with what it has inherited. After India’s independence, at the same time that [India] received intact the United Kingdom’s colonial political borders, it fully carried on with the United Kingdom’s imperial expansionist military strategic thought; the most important part of this was the idea of socalled “Indocentrism.” The core of this was to treat Kashmir, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Assam as “the internal lines of India’s defense;” to incorporate Tibet into its sphere of influence as a “buffer state;” and to treat the illegally concocted McMahon Line and the Johnson-Ardagh Line as its “security inner ring.” Nehru viewed the South Asian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean as a “security ring,” and pursued a regional security policy that had India as its main body. In addition, India also absorbed local traditional ideas of strategy. For example, it treated peripheral countries as its main opponents to be guarded against and as the targets of its operations; it was deeply affected by the traditional ideas of its historically famous strategist Chanakya, “that treated neighbors as enemies and that dealt with those who were far away and attacked those who were near,” and the “law of fish.”
“Third is limited offensives. India has proposed the national strategic objectives of “dominating South Asia, controlling the Indian Ocean, and striving to be a first-rate power in the world;” this inevitably has determined that its military strategy will have a fairly strong offensive tint. Although India insists that it pursues a “defensive” strategy, a series of military actions that it took after its independence , including three India- Pakistan wars and its armed annexation of the kingdom of Sikkim, its instigation of the Sino-Indian border conflict, and its sending troops to Sri Lanka have all fully proven that its strategy has a distinctly offensive nature. In recent years, with the rapid rise of India’s national power and military power, this offensive nature has been increasing. At the same time, because its national power and military power are limited by not being strong enough yet, the offensive nature of this strategy is restricted to the South Asian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean situation, and it temporarily has no way to fully prevent major countries outside this region from infiltrating and controlling the South Asian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean. As regards its strategy against the PRC, India has adopted a defensive posture overall, but at the same time has also used offense as a defense to actively seek local superiority, and has also used its unremitting nibbling away in peacetime to create conditions for switching from defense to offense in wartime.
“Fourth is deterrence in all directions. In order to resolve the contradiction between its ambition for dominance and its limited national power and military strength, India has proposed carrying out deterrence in all directions in various spheres. After the end of the Cold War, India strengthened its relations with such great powers as the United States and Japan, adjusted its previous emphasis on actual war to an emphasis on deterrence, and has emphasized carrying out deterrence that differed in nature against differing targets and along differing strategic directions. In regard to China, it has carried out “dissuasive” deterrence, to deter China from using troops against India, and has restrained China from entering its sphere of influence. In regard to the small countries along the South Asian periphery, it has carried out “punitive” deterrence, to ensure that they do not dare go against India’s interests and to force them to humbly heed India’s control. In regards to the United States, China, and India, it carries out “nuclear symmetry” deterrence; its nuclear strategic concept is to “discourage” the United States, “deter” China, and “deal with” Pakistan. Of these, “deterring” China is its focus, because it thinks that only by “deterring” China will it be able to “deal with” Pakistan and have the possibility of “discouraging” the United States.
“As India’s consciousness [of itself] as a great power grows stronger and as its overall national power and military strength continually grow, clues to the future developmental trends of its military strategy will gradually be revealed. The orientation of India’s strategic objectives may advance from regional dominance toward global participation, its strategic guidance will put more emphasis on active offense, its strategic deployments will be reflected more in its intentions to control the South Asian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean, and it will give more stress to paying attention to both the land and the sea, and to stabilizing the western front, strengthening the northern front, advancing to the east and expanding to the south, and to developing toward the sea; its forms of operations will pay more attention to joint air-land operations, mobile operations, and information warfare by the various services and service arms; the building of its military strengths will change from being inward toward being outward “trans-border operational strengths;” and it will vigorously develop a new type of system of operations that will have as their backbone aircraft carriers, fourth-generation fighters, nuclear submarines, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles as well as anti-missile systems and outer space military systems.”
