Revamping strategies

-Military strategies based on denial are more useful than strategies based on punishment.

-Military’s standing doctrine calls for deterring adversaries  which did not prevent Chinese incursion but the Indian military’s highwater mark in the crisis was an act of denial — its occupation of the heights on the Kailash Range on its side of the LAC in late August.

-This action served to deny that key terrain to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and gave the Indian Army a stronger defensive position from which it could credibly defend a larger segment of its front line.

-By bolstering India’s defensive position, rather than launching an escalatory response, such a strategy is also more likely than punishment to preserve crisis stability.

-Over time, improved denial capabilities may allow India to reduce the resource drain of the increased militarisation of the LAC.

 Political costs

-China is more likely to be deterred or coerced with the threat of political costs, rather than material costs.

-A permanently hostile India or an accidental escalation to conflict were risks that China, having achieved its tactical goals in the crisis, assessed were an unnecessaryadditional burden while it was contending with the instability of its territorial disputes andpandemic response.

-To the extent that China adjusted its position in the Ladakh crisis, it did so because it was responding to the cumulative effect of multiple pressure points — most of which were out of India’s control.

– Against the rising behemoth, only coordinated or collective action is likely to be effective.

 Indian Ocean Region is key

-India should consider accepting more risk on the LAC in exchange for long term leverage and influence in the Indian Ocean Region.

-At the land border, the difficult terrain and more even balance of military force means that each side could only eke out minor, strategically modest gains at best.

– In contrast, India has traditionally been the dominant power in the Indian Ocean Region and stands to cede significant political influence and security if it fails to answer the dizzyingly rapid expansion of Chinese military power.

– Ladakh crisis prompt India to defer long overdue military modernisation and maritime expansion into the Indian Ocean.

 Way Forward –

• As a result of the Ladakh crisis, India faces a new strategic reality in which China is a clear and abiding adversary.
• For India, the political relationship is now defined by hostility and distrust, and the LAC will remain more heavily militarised and violence-prone.
• Given this new reality, India is likely to further defer military modernisation and maritime expansion into the Indian Ocean.
• In the face of unremitting Chinese naval expansion, India risks losing significant political and military leverage in the Indian Ocean.
• At the same time, China appears to have escaped significant harm. Its better-resourced military could better absorb the material costs of the mobilisation.
• It may have been more concerned by the prospect of an increasingly hostile India, but the disengagement agreement has limited even those modest political costs.