India is preparing for a possible `two-front war’ with China and Pakistan, Indian newspaper saying Wednesday. The newspaper said the Indian Army is now revising its five-year-old doctrine to effectively meet the challenges of war with China and Pakistan, deal with asymmetric and fourth-generation warfare, enhance strategic reach and joint operations with IAF and Navy.
In the report it has been concluded that Indian army has started to work with Indian Air force and Navy for optimum achievement of goals and has also launched several joint operations to enhance the precision of the joint team. The report has also mention that the change in Indian army thinking and preparing for such a war is being led by Lt. General A S Lamba who is heading the Shimla-Based Army Training command in India.
The shift in Indian army’s strategy came after the shooting incident on the parliament in the year 2001; in which it took more than a month for the Indian army to mobilize and deploy the troops on its border against Pakistan. Under the new strategy Indian army’s primary motive is to deploy troops in no time, hold and take positions at the earliest and this strategy has been termed as, ‘Cold Start Strategy’.
According to report:
“The plan now is to launch self-contained and highly-mobile `battle groups’, with Russian-origin T-90S tanks and upgraded T-72 M1 tanks at their core, adequately backed by air cover and artillery fire assaults, for rapid thrusts into enemy territory within 96 hours.”
Important to mention here is the new ‘South-Western Army Command’ made specifically for dealing with Pakistan. And similar to the new command Indian army is considering a same command for China; which will work and operate accordingly.
This `cold start strategy’, under a NBC (nuclear-chemical-biological) overhang, emerged from the `harsh lessons’ learnt during Operation Parakram, where it took Army’s strike formations almost a month to mobilise at the `border launch pads’ after the December 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament.
This gave ample opportunity to Pakistan to shore up its defences as well as adequate time to the international community, primarily the US, to intervene. The lack of clear directives from the then NDA government only made matters worse.
“A major leap in our approach to conduct of operations (since then) has been the successful firming-up of the cold start strategy (to be able to go to war promptly),” said Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, at a closed-door seminar on Tuesday.
Gen Kapoor identified five thrust areas that will drive the new doctrine. One, even as the armed forces prepare for their primary task of conventional wars, they must also factor in the eventuality of `a two-front war’ breaking out.
Related posts:
Posted in 
Tags: 
