China may or may not go to a war with India, with the kind of geography we have with China at most it can make an aggressive land grabbing fight is in the North East. China India case is such that it cannot just bomb out Indian cities without getting any serious escalation from our side.
Our National Security aim should be -
1. Internal Security - finish off naxals, almost already done. then to solve the 0.5%, that is to kick out Bangladeshis, work on demographics issues and to reeducate gaddars, work on economy andother things to bring national unity and inclusivity. Internal security should be priority; empires are not defeated in war but are defeated by their own internal contradictions, whether you see the Mauryas or Roman empire or the latest USSR.
2. Pakistan and Bangladesh front should be made such that, Bangladesh is done and dusted in 3 days and completely reigned by end of week. And in case of Pakistan it should be 7-10 days of intense fight =, triggering its demise, followed by one or two weeks of campaigns to completely reign it post military defeat, so that we have enough time, energy and resource to fight a passive aggressive war against China.
3. China front should be a defensive posture taking help of geography. Our end goal with China is not to regain land, or for that matter neither it is China's 1000 year old civilisational war against us or us against them. Any fight against China is not going to be one that ends us. China will try to contain us, we will try to outcompete them. A 1000 year old history shows that war against India has never come from the north, it has always come from the west, for two reasons, one colonisation and two for religious conversion, either by Muslims or by Christian europe (now effectively United States). China will most likely help Pakistan, it will most likely whip up our contradictions, but would never have the same hatrade or cunningness as the other 2.
I have always had the same mindset, that we need to have a strong defensive posture against the Northern threat. But lately, I've started thinking that maybe our best defence would be to keep the Chinese on the backfoot. Be aggressive, cultivate a serious offensive ability against the Chinese.
Because in a defensive posture, the Chinese have the peace of mind that any war will be initiated by them and that even if they lose a war, the loss would not mean loss of territory, nor will they take a hit to their strategic targets unlike what we just did to Pakistan. They know that a loss against us merely means that we managed to fight them to a standstill.
We need to rob the Chinese strategic planners of this peace of mind. That is the lesson in deterrence from OpSindoor that must be applied on our Northern Front. And
this is not a tactical or an operational goal. This has the potential to affect the Grand Strategy of the enemy.
But how to do it? Out of the capabilities we can develop:-
>
A Strike Corps leading a ground invasion into China is
the hardest to achieve given our already massive Army size. We can't raise more units. What we have now is barely sufficient for a two front war. So the only way to do that is to decisively defeat Pak enough to be able to do a 2020 I Strike Corps type transfer of formations from Western front to Northern front. And this involves a complete change in equipment and training, not just an air force style pivot between the fronts.
>An offensive air campaign capability. This is medium hardness. PLAAF is better than us in density of AD, EW and AEW&CS. In quality of jets, we are behind but closing the gap. In quantity of jets, we are level in a short war and woefully unprepared in a long war. And we are losing edge due to more numerous Chinese airbases and their improved hardening which is catching up to ours. As long as our CATS and AMCA come online at least, this is a non starter.
>An offensive missile campaign. Lowest hanging fruit, but still has significant challenges. Their AD had weaknesses but they are no Pakistan. The sheer density of their AD assets is much more than our own, look at their orbat. And they have an IADS supplied by an endless capacity of their military industry. In addition to their AD, the number of and distance to targets is also enormous. Most are outside our missile reach. And our missiles are in perpetual trials, lack in magazine capacity, lack in range and lack in aerial strike platforms for launch. And this is the lowest hanging fruit.
Let me clarify, I am not talking about tactical targets, I am talking about strategic ones. Like Chengdu.
And there is the Cyber dimension that I completely neglected because frankly I have very little idea about it.
Overall, achieving what I suggest currently seems difficult if not outright impossible. But in our military
perspective planning of 15 years hence, this must be a major goal. To take peace away from the mind of the Chinese planner. To establish deterrence.