War is not a military option until no other option exists except war.
Militaries are existent for protection of peace. The days of campaigning armies are over. War cannot be defined only by the application of contact warfare. The non contact means are more lethal, unseen, unattributable and do not bring in body bags home. Let me try and define how this canvas of war will be played out by our Northern adversary.
1st stage of war - getting into the minds of the people. Propaganda warfare. Claiming unpropotional strengths and disturbing technology. Showing powers possible and making them visible through a huge information campaign. Reaching your gadget and fixing you into a belief system that he is strong and you are weak. Using AI and the deep fake to antagonise your selected governments and Militaries.
2nd stage - Display of the power to get into your systems. Dismantling your electric grid through a cyber attack. Implosion of your banking network. Playing with your avionics and flight schedules. Interfering in your railway automated systems. Harnessing your stock exchange etc. Causing floods and destruction of huge tracts of land. Showing you the reach and the effect.
3rd stage - Military display of deployment in the areas closer to land and sea borders. Huge amount of men and material in the form of training exercises. Showcasing the plausible explanation that if we go to war, this is what you will face. Propagating videos and pictures and allowing your eyes in the sky (satellites and drones) to pick up the military might. Psychologically dominating opposing leadership and embedding a defeatist attitude in the rank and file. Everyone has access to a smart phone. Ensuring your phone plays carefully embedded clips, that make them invincible and leaves you feeling useless. Carefully flying unmanned aerial vehicles into your air space, or submarines into your waters in the visible domain. Putting you into a dilemma, whether to be instigated and react, or hold your cool and protest. Here they will hit on the military - political disconnect, exploiting the same to their advantage.
Stage 4 - Skirmish like actions, once again below the threshold of war. Played up as a powerful show of strength by the media and in the cyber domain. A few calculated attacks, where the reasons can be justified in disputed areas. Some trrrorists attack in the hinterland. A few body bags that will enrage people and politicians and get the emotional quotient on a high. Some aircraft’s dropped by interfering in their avionics, some ships waylaid by pirates into a neutral country. Insurrections in states that have militant parties against nationalism. Creating a political chaos and a military dilemma at the same time.
Stage 5 - If war is imminent, use long range vectors, missiles and artillery to destroy rear areas, roads, tracks, ammunition dumps, logistics and cut off forward areas by causing landslides etc. make the cost of war most expensive. Meanwhile build up military strength and posture in the seas. Use aircraft to fly as close to the borders as possible as a show of strength. Make the opposing military deploy and keep the time, place, means, method and intent ambiguous. The ambiguity will bring in huge economic drain (deployment of a large body of troops and assets ever prepared in the air and sea costs lots of money). Try and negotiate in this stage from a position of strength. Dictate terms, set the narrative for a contact battle as a just war.
Stage 6 - Contact war. This is what most modern armies would try to avoid if their opposition is strong. Cause war today is not singular but a complex amalgamation of the plurals (allies and world bodies that think alike). In the contact battle there are actually no timelines for ending of same. No one knows how and who will control the escalatory continuum. The results can never be predicted. World against war, political dynamics at home, economical prudence and emotion will dictate the longevity of war. This will be played with a mechanism to allow chances for perceived peace at every stage. But in terms and conditions that are totally at the mercy of the aggressor.
While I have elaborated on the stages of war that might pan out with the northern adversary. These can also be interlinked, simultaneous or maybe a stage even shortened due to the need and objectivity visible on ground.
Cyber, unmanned war machines, drones, satellites, terrorism, IW, are tools other than war, that I believe are already being played in the Sino- Indian context. If we even believe we are not already at war, we might be caught napping. The Chinese constantly have probed into our systems. They have deployed in neutral territory. They have amassed armies in the areas south of the Tsangpo. Theybhave improved logistics and high class roads and rails. Their border living habitats are all weather and accessible. They can’t be trusted. The political scenario in China and the existential crisis president Xi faces is well known. US is far out of military reach presently.
He has two options, South China Sea or his southern borders with India. In the South China Sea the US, Japan and the others are available readily to respond. With the Indian’s, the response is graduated, well selected and the quotient of presumed victory or the window of victory for the Chinese in his thought process might be possible, due to him still holding on to the victory of 1962.
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