On the Op Sindoor anniversary, much is made rightly of India’s air power prowess that laid Pakistan low a year ago. The standout performance of the Integrated Air Command and Control System — a complex of airborne and landbased radars and other sensors linked to ballistic and cruise missile batteries, drone systems and even the old time anti-aircraft guns, worked beautifully, in providing excellent situational awareness, and both an effective defensive shield and a base for the offensive punch, and ought justly to be celebrated.
The record of the Indian Air Force per se, however, was wanting on May 7, 2025 — when it flew blindly into an Erieye-J10-P15 ambush and lost 3 high value combat aircraft — a Rafale, a Mig-29 and a Su-30, dimming the performance of the Brahmos striking terrorist markazes in Muridke and Bahawalpur, but was stellar when on May 10th early morning missiles launched from standoff range and various platforms hit their mark. It made nonsense of Pakistan’s less than credible warnings over the past three decades of a nuclear strike in case India conventionally struck anything in its Punjab heartland.
But the occasion could have done with some serious pondering of the extraordinary missed opportunity on May 10th when, with air dominance achieved, the army could have, and should have, swung swiftly into action. Special Forces should have sliced off the Haji Pir Salient on the Uri-Poonch line, permitting infantry units, supported by armour and artillery, from the garrisons in Uri, Poonch and Mandi to converge on the Bulge to destroy Pakistani forces in the cauldron, and capture this piece of territory for good. It would have instantly shut down the main ISI channel for infiltrating terrorists into the Srinagar Valley, and shortened the Uri-Poonch link to just 60 kms (not the 260 km detour and lots of time it takes to go around the Salient).
The LOC’s ceasefire line status would, moreover, have endowed the Indian action with absolute legality and, more significantly, laid down a policy — and a warning to GHQ, Rawalpindi, habited by “Field Marshal” Asim Munir and his cohort, that any terrorist event that LeT or other jihadi elements staged in J&K or anywhere else in India would result — as certain as day follows night — in the cleaving off of large portions of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and their assimilation into the Indian Union, until nothing remained of POK but the name! It would have incentivised Islamabad to give up terrorism as an asymmetric means of wafare, and to formalise the international border on the new LOC.
But the army, CDS, Defence Ministry, GOI, whatever else they planned, they did not for cashing in on any opportunity to capture large parts of POK territory. So, in terms of planning a decisive war in the fortnight between April 22 — the day of the Pahalgam massacre and May 7, 2025 — D-Day for Op Sindoor, it was a wash. Instead, India jumped to comply with the first Pakistani request for a ceasefire that came its way on May 9th, when Indian forces were in a position to do virtually anything they wanted with regard to rearranging the Line of Control!
Incidentally, while the Indian armed forces planned for no contingency to take Haji Pir or anything else for that matter, just such an operation was outlined in my April 30, 2025 post — Capture of Haji Pir Salient and Skardu — eminently doable, is what the Indian military’s goals ought to be for the retaliatory actions — a whole week before the onset of Sindoor!! In its aftermath, the Defence Ministry and the military were left (and still are) justifying their reluctance to score really big by singing the virtues of “restraint” and “responsible” behaviour, and Rajnath Singh by issuing warnings of India doing more the next time around!
The Indian military’s intent on hewing strictly to the political directive, was fine. But surely, should it not, as self-respecting armed services, have nevertheless planned, prepared, and gotten the garrisons in Uri, Poonch and Mandi and other proximally situated forward units on the LOC ready to exploit any opportunity and, at a moment’s notice, to initiate a lightning fast operation to take Haji Pir, which was there for the taking?
Is it anybody’s case that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have upbraided the military and hauled up a general or two for DISOBEYING his express instructions and capturing Haji Pir? Few political leaders are Winston Churchills. They know less than nothing about military matters but will happily feast politically on any military successes that come their way. After all, when is an election not round the corner?! This basic fact of life is apparently not appreciated by the Indian military, which once again strove manfully to do little, and succeeded!
[MC Chagla with Senator John F Kennedy, likely 1958-59]
Today’s Hindustan Times story about the appointment of the BJP politician Dinesh Trivedi as High Commissioner to Bangladesh mentioned several interesting things of import to the conduct of Indian foreign policy in the future. It “sends a message of accountability” to Foreign Service officers, the report said, adding that Trivedi’s is only the first of such postings of “heavy weights to the neighbourhood”, indicating that “the era of an ambassador for good times is over”.
It is hard to read this story and not see it as a severe indictment of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), whose members, per this report, are manifestly not political or otherwise “heavyweights”, act as if not “accountable” to the political executive, and are in a diplomatic career mostly for “the good times”, in other words, to make whoopee!
But first the man: Trivedi is a workaday politician — of no great stature or accomplishment. But he was useful to the ruling party because of his past connections to Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamul Congress in West Bengal, and appointing him was a way of needling her. Met Trivedi once at a usual Delhi dinner party and all I heard, when I was within earshot, was of his glorious achievements as Railways Minister in Manmohan Singh’s government, when actually his greater success lies in jumping from party to political party, being yet another “Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram” of Indian politics. He doubtless speaks Bangla bhasha, and has an appetite for Hilsa fish to match. But that’s not why Indian diplomacy may be looking up!
Trivedi’s prospective High Commissionership suggests the Modi dispensation is finally becoming more imaginative in its diplomatic outlook and practice. It was reported somewhere that the veteran journalist, M.J. Akbar, was also in the running for this job. It’s a pity he didn’t make it. As a dyed-in-the-wool Bihari, an eloquent Bangla speaker, and an ardent Indian nationalist, Akbar would have opened up lines of communications among other sections of the Bangladeshi society, to the mostly Bihar-origin Muslims labelled “Pakistani” — victims of a double Partition, who eke out an existence on the margins, and would have made for a more effective plenipotentiary. You never know whom India might need in a crisis on our eastern flank!
I venture the view, entirely without evidence, that this positive turn in Indian diplomatic method happened despite, and not because, of a retired Foreign Secretary as External Affairs Minister (EAM).
But this is not so much an innovation as a return to the early days after Independence when Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister and concurrently EAM, barring the nepotistic appointments of his sister Vijayalakshmi Pandit as ambassador successively in Washington, London, and Moscow, none of the public figures heading the embassy in Washington, MC Chagla during Nehru’s time, and later Nani Palkivala during the Morarji interregnum apart, were particularly distinguished or shone as India’s representative. But Nehru established the principle of Indian diplomatic presence in major countries being helmed by political appointees. However, he failed to sustain this policy because the first Director-General of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Girija Shankar Bajpai, prevailed on the Prime Minister to permit ICS/IFS to occupy the ambassadorial posts.
Political appointees are politically connected and personally known to the Prime Minister appointing them, as career diplomats are not. This makes a difference in how and with what commitment the PM’s agenda is furthered — something careerist diplomats schooled in hierarchical interaction and bureaucratic processes, cannot do. This is, perhaps, what is referred to in the news story as lack of “accountability” of the IFS. The political appointee knows that his job is co-terminus with the PM’s — a tremendous incentive to realise as much of the PM’s policy as possible in as small a period of time as possible.
The careerist, however, feels no urgency because the next posting awaits, may be as, Foreign Secretary! Jaishankar did it! Of late, this direction has been reversed; the trend now being to install a retiring Foreign Secretary as ambassador in Washington. Presently, Vinay Kwatra is holding fort who, the talk is, will be replaced by his successor and current FS, Vikram Misri. But if Kwatra has apparently disappointed because he was unable to trigger a Trump rapprochement with Modi, can Misri be expected to fare any better? After all, what inducements can be offered a person who made it to FS, and then ambassador to the US to excel? And more, it is not as if any careerist IFS officer has any intimate knowledge or familiarity of the social milieu he is operating in, in Washington, or that the Indian ambassador has any special reach to the top echelons of the “plum book” political appointees in any given Administration. And there’s the rub!
On the other hand, a Chagla or a Palivala did have a social reach into the American policy Establishment, into the rarefied Georgetown circles. The IFS man, KS Bajpai, in the mid-1980s did to an extent too because he successfully mined his schoolboy past in the elite St Alban’s school in Washington when his father, Girija Shankar Bajpai, of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), was Churchill’s “political agent” in the wartime Washington of the 1940s and, as such, advanced the British PM’s agenda of blunting the pressure by US President Franklin Roosevelt on London to immediately confer independence on India. Roosevelt felt that an independent India would more enthusiastically partake of the Allied war effort. In the event, Churchill, thanks to Bajpai, won out!
Not to go into that controversial part of MEA history (which is detailed in the book I am writing), but in major Indian embassies, this is the score of political appointees as ambassadors compared to ICS/IFS types who have hogged all significant ambassadorial posts. In the US, of the 29 Indian ambassadors so far, only 7 were non-careerists; in the Soviet Union/Russia of the 25 ambassadors, only 6; in China of the 27, only 2; in the UK of the 30 High Commisioners, 12; in France all ambassadors were ICS/IFS; and of the 27 High Commissioners/Chargé d’affaires to-date in Pakistan only 2-3 were non-careerists.
No country has proven the positives of political appointees as ambassadors than the United States. Of the 37 US ambassadors/Chargé d’affaires in Delhi since April 1947, 18 were/are political appointees. Notable among them being Chester Bowles, Congressman & Governor of Connecticut; Sherman Cooper — US senator; Ellsworth Bunker, businessman & US President Truman’s confidante; the economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the sociologist, Daniel Moynihan, both Harvard professors; Kenneth Keating US Senator; William Saxbe US Attorney General; Robert Goheen president of Princeton University; John Hubbard, president of the University of Southern California, Frank Celeste, Governor of Ohio, Robert Blackwill Senior adviser to President George W Bush, David Mulford — investment banker and international president of Credit Suisse, Tim Roemer Member of the 9/11 Commission, Richard Verma, assistant secretary of state, Kevin Juster, international head of global investment firm Warburg Pincus, Eric Garcetti – Mayor of Los Angeles (2nd largest city in the US), and now, Sergei Gore — senior adviser to President Trump.
Little wonder the Indian government has been awed, even overwhelmed when dealing with such politically well connected US ambassadors, and why America has always had an out-sized impact and influence on Indian foreign policy and the government’s decisionmaking generally! Because as political appointees they can and often do make end-runs around the US State Department, and speed things up by talking directly with the US President.
It was because politial appointees are in a position to get things done with access to the boss back home in mind that I recall pleading with political bigwigs in Delhi in the 1980s for the appointment of Nusli Wadia as the Indian ambassador to Washington. The Pakistani embassy in the US then, as always, had success with its narrative, what with its special line to the Pentagon and the White House. Islamabad profited hugely from trumpeting, among other things, the alleged mistreatment by the Indian government of the Muslim minority in the country, etc.
My point simply was this: Appoint Nusli Wadia, head of Bombay Dyeing Company and, incidentally, the grandson of the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, as the Indian ambassador in Washington, and instantly see the Pakistani embassy shrink and the ambassador shut up. Wadia installed in the embassy at Massachusetts Avenue would have dampened the Pakistan embassy’s ardour for creating a ruckus, affording India the diplomatic edge it has never had in dealings with the US.
Naturally, my pleas went in one ear and out the other!
Admiral Arun Prakash is among the more thoughtful military Chiefs of Staff the country has had. The other day he addressed the problem created by Iran asserting its leverage and setting up what’s virtually a toll booth in the Hormuz Strait. He posed the issue correctly, in an op-ed (“The strait of high stakes, where law and leverage collide”, Indian Express, April 11, 2026), as involving a clash between maritime history, convention and law supporting freedom of navigation (and hence international trade and commerce, etc.) and a coastal state’s imperative to close a strategic waterway in war and attendant crisis. Given the economic stakes for India — the potential pinching of its “jugular vein”, and its good relations with all the protagonists in this edition of the Gulf War — US, Israel, and Iran, he voiced his incomprehension at the Modi government avoiding a mediator role that Pakistan grabbed.
But, the good admiral shied away from tackling the harder issue about whether the Indian Navy would risk asserting the country’s maritime right to ply the Hormuz waters in defiance of Tehran’s closing it other than for a consideration ($2 million per vessel as transit fee) and, in the process, its ships possibly braving an Irani strike. Tactfully, he recommended “quiet diplomacy”, something right up S Jaishankar’s street!
Prakash’s view that India’s being in good standing with the three combatant powers somehow conferred on New Delhi the status of mediator is questionable. In the main because Bharat sarkar is yet to recover from the trauma of the US President Donald Trump gleefully and repeatedly rubbing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nose in the dirt (on Sindoor, as recently as three-four weeks ago) and otherwise displaying disdain for India (while Munir and Pakistan luxuriate in the praise that Trump and recently US Vice President JD Vance heaped on them for their peace efforts). And, more pertinently, because Pakistan’s diplomatic position as caretaker of Irani interests in America since 1979, to say nothing of the shared border, the Islam factor, and its close ties to China (which supplied Iran with arms and intelligence), had Islamabad in a better place anyway for mediation.
The Admiral’s op-ed appeared before Trump announced a US blockade of what is virtually an Iranian blockade! But the former development compounds India’s problem. It is clear though that Delhi does not think the Indian Navy is capable of running the US blockade and safely escorting Indian oil/LNG carriers through the Hormuz Narrows, or of risking engagements with either or both the US and Irani forces, because of the uncertainty over Indian movements being deemed “hostile passage”, reacting badly. This is a conclusion reached because any inclination on the part of the government to order Indian warships to escort Indian flagged vessels through the Strait proper — not as is being done to-date of escorting ships once they reach the open sea, would have been reflected in Prakash’s piece.
Trump, according to many, has painted himself and the US into a corner by imposing a blockade with some 26-odd warships and ancillaries — not enough for a leak-proof barrier. What isn’t clear is how stiffly or loosely the blockade will be conducted. But what is certain, given its past record of diffidence, is that Delhi will curl up deeper in its shell, and do nothing even as the energy and urea flows from the Gulf states and Iran — the lifelines for the Indian economy and agriculture, stay severed. Sure, MEA will have its people go off hither and yon, instruct its embassies everywhere to scour the diverse markets for any excess oil and fertiliser and, of course, such forays will meet with some success as New Delhi waggles $ under everyone’s noses.
In the context of institutionalised Indian inaction, it is curious CNS, Admiral Dinesh Tripathi, called a three day “apex level” conference starting yesterday involving naval theatre commanders and such, but to discuss what, exactly? News stories trumpeting the conference were opaque on this issue, with an Indian Navy statement that talked of this and that and a whole bunch of issues relating to the Service. The only relevant mention in it referred to the significance of the Meet “in the light of swift naval deployments to safeguard India’s energy security, amidst the ongoing conflict in West Asia with convergence of multi-national forces (MNFs) in the Indian Ocean Region.” It would appear from this that the FOCINCs are NOT mulling independent IN actions to force the two blockades — the seaward one by the US, and the landbased one by Iran, but rather seeking to join in some kind of MNF effort.
The collectivist approach as cover, I suspect, is the Modi government’s way of avoiding taking America or Iran head-on, and is based on the hope that China, perhaps, will take the lead, do the heavy lifting. Because unlike Delhi, Beijing has formally rejected the US blockade, asserting its right to trade independent of US restrictions with any country in the Gulf it pleases, including Iran. In effect, Xi Jinping is daring Trump to stop Chinese-flagged oilers mid-sea, have American sailors board the vessels, and sequester the vessels. As a former commander of the naval element in the US Central Command, Admiral John Miller, wondered if the US “would want to force that blockade against Indian and Chinese-flagged vessels, for example” especially if “they bring a warship as an escort [for protection because]”, he warned, that that would amount to a casus belli (cause for war) and America would be “into a different scenario”.
The Indian government’s standard risk-averse attitude, however, has ruled out the Indian Navy’s running the blockade solo, even though, as Miller indicated, it would have created a dilemma for the US Navy of getting tactically embroiled with its Indian counterpart. It cannot be that Modi and Jaishankar were unaware that India could have got away with running the US blockade because of what was at stake for Washington — the four foundational accords — GSOMIA, LEMOA, COMCASA and BECA the two countries signed that permit US forces to use Indian military bases and other resources, like on-shore provisioning and repair services, etc.
But the specific problem for India is this: Trump is politically damaged — always the butt of incessant public ridicule at home and abroad, he is now subjected to scorn and derision as well not least because Iran, despite a sustained US-Israeli aerial bombardment campaign that resulted in enormous destruction, remained unbowed and because, as a commentator said about the peace parleys in Islamabad, without winning the war, America cannot set the terms of peace. And Tehran’s standing up to him, moreover, has put him in a bind and thrashing around for some face saving way out. Trump’s mood cannot be any darker also because the man he modeled himself and his MAGA politics on, the autocratic Viktor Orban, lost his shirt in the general elections in Hungary.
It is precisely why a frustrated Trump could hit out, and the blockade is his gambit to show the world he can seriously unsettle it. On the other side, the Pasdaran-dominated Iran is just as determined to make the Hormuz energy traffic profitable. In this situation, Modi is relying on Jaishankar’s dormouse policy of giving offence to no one and attempting diplomatically to ease past the two blockades by negotiating free passage from both sides for its carriers. So far, Indian ships have been allowed transit by Iran on a case-by-case basis and without having to pay the toll. But the log jam of ships on either side of the narrows is such, it will be a long time before the situation returns to normal. Whether or not Delhi succeeds in easing the passage for Indian bottoms, the country is staring at oil and urea shortages and the cascading ill-effects in train on its economy.
If the status quo continues and the blockades hold for any length of time, Modi may be compelled to choose between making enemies of Tehran and alienating Washington. Upsetting the Trump Administration appears the better choice because America, in order to realise its policy strategically to contain China cannot do without India, and Delhi can use the enormous leverage it has of threatening to trash the foundational accords to get what it wants, while Iran can, strictly speaking, do without India as it is not existentially necessary for Tehran to have Delhi on its side.
Except Trump has time and again proved that an always cowering Modi and India can be humiliated without cost to the US, and that the BJP regime with a foreign policy prizing the America connection, will not exercise the heavy leverage it has. Because Trump feels free to take India and the Modi regime for granted, and his ambassador, Sergio Gor, to shout from the rooftops that all the US really cares about is not trade, even less US technology transfer that Messers Modi and Jaishankar daydream about, but rather to use India’s location and military assets and resources in the Indo-Pacific against China. Not tightening this tourniquet against Trump also means that Delhi is prepared to sacrifice its Russia links and the North-South connectivity project enabling Indian trade to access Afghanistan and Central Asia and Europe through the Irani port of Chabahar, conceived to rival China’s BRI and maritime Silk Route.
The irony is that Trump, as is his wont, will likely cut a separate deal with Chinese President Xi whenever they meet, and Tehran will try and win Beijing’s goodwill as well by allowing China’s oiler fleet safe passage, leaving a “sad sack” India, as usual, flumoxed and flailing simply because it does not have the will effectively to prosecute its policy of “strategic autonomy” that it formally swears by.
India’s Defence Strategy, Marut & Tejas Programs, Air Power & China Challenge | Bharat Karnad
Those interested in the larger subject of India’s not being strategic-minded may want to listen in on this podcast (hosted by Ravi Kapur). [Alert: I misspoke on Tipu Sultan’s defeat at Seringapatna as on the Krishna River, it is the Kaveri River!]
[The embarked 31st US Marine Expeditionary Brigade on ships nearing the Persian Gulf]
As predicted in my March 10 post — “America preparing to cut and run from Iran“, the US is in fact getting the hell out of the Gulf War. This prediction required no talent for prophesy, just a scan of America’s war record of the last 50 years! 2-3 weeks is what US President Trump is giving himself to wrap things up and call it a day. Because, he claims, he has won the war, “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capability, installed a new regime in Tehran. Really, no. The world has wisened up to Trump’s foreign policy by bluff, bullying, lies, exaggeration and hyperbole. The American consumer staring at $4 a gallon fuel is the domestic political reason why the US is upping stakes and vamoosing. It proves my point that Americans have no stomach for war, especially when remote fighting — push a button from an aircraft at 20,000 feet here, destroy a target hundreds of miles away there, is insufficient and the situation calls for transitioning to “boots on the ground”. That means bodybags and the political end of the US President of the day! So, Trump says Bye! Bye! to the Gulf leaving UAE and Riyadh pleading for the US to finish the job of replacing the Ayatollahcracy with a more amenable regime. No go, Abdul!
Trump, moreover, with his unique talent for making enemies of close friends, alienated the Gulf states by not providing them with an impenetrable air defence cover that was promised, and the next thing they knew was everybody running for shelter as Iranian missiles slammed arbitrarily into their military bases with American presence and into skyscrapers making the Dubai, Doha and Qatar skylines a liability for the emirs and sheikhs who saw their tall buildings fall, high-flying international residents flee, businesses consider re-location, and the reputations particularly of UAE and Saudi Arabia as safe havens for fun & investment, crater.
Even as the Pasdaran (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) counter-attacked, Trump crowed that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Salman, would have to “kiss my ass” for help, saying this at a meeting in his Florida White House at Mar-a-lago of Saudi and UAE Sovereign Fund managers who Trump expects will invest billions of dollars in the US and save his political skin! Such crassness from Trump is par for the course because he publicly talked of American bombs raining down on Iran as “beating the shit out of” it! But it will cost America. Salman is no fool and will not take this public insult sitting down. The Saudi and UAE wealth is unlikely to be invested in America.
The European NATO allies who mock Trump as an arriviste and can barely keep the contempt they feel for him under check, refused to enter the war as demanded by him by deploying naval escorts for tankers plying the Strait of Hormuz, and went further. The Leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez closed Spain’s airspace to US Air Force planes flying to the Gulf theatre, an action quickly replicated by the Giorgia Meloni regime in Italy and by President Macron of France, who earlier had damned US air strikes against Iran as “unilateral”. Poland then followed by refusing to send one of its Patriot air defence systems to the Gulf as requested by Washington. The Starmer government in the UK did not say no to Trump but is making haste so slowly that by the time the Royal Navy aircraft carrier finally reaches the Gulf the operational need for it will have evaporated — Whitehall’s point! Trump reacted with a post on Truth Social: “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” Unlike the US President, the European leaders are no idiots, and the “just take it” approach of colonial times will be hard to sustain.
To compound the frustrating situation for the US, the Houthis fired a missile at an American target, promising more fully to get into action. So Trump is looking at a two-punch economic disaster looming for the American and the world economies: the two most critical energy seaways are getting shut down — the Hormuz Strait by Iran, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (and the Red Sea-Suez route) by the Houthis. And to crown the developments, the US military suffered major hardware losses yesterday – Iranian drone hits blew up an American E-3 AWACS (airborne warning and control system) and several KC-135 refuellers, when these large aircraft were being readied for sorties at the Prince Sultan Base in Saudi Arabia. This is not to mention an alleged Iranian missile strike against the most advanced US aircraft carrier, USS Gerald Ford, anchored off Israel in the Mediterranean, which compelled its removal from the theatre. The rapid expenditure of munitions by its forces has denuded the American inventory so much the US Indo-Pacific commander has warned there’s not much left to fight China with should Xi invade Taiwan at this time!
The biggest winner of the Iran War unsurprisingly is Iran. With its military infrastructure quite literally reduced to powder and pulp with some 13,000 military facilities and installations destroyed by ceaseless US and Israeli bombing, the Islamic Guards still manage — a month into the war, to fire guided munitions to unsettle the US and its camp followers in the Gulf, laughing off Trumps’ threats to take out de-salination plants and civilian power stations, because they have over 417 de-salination plants that have greened desert spots in the Gulf states in their crosshairs. Reducing them to dust would return the emirates, sultanates and sheikhdoms to their original state — local fishing boat berths and caravan serais of yore, a prospect to chill the hearts of these desert rulers (who, of course, will betake themselves with their hundreds of billions of $, to Switzerland!).
Iran, moreover, has lost nothing that it prizes most. Nearly 600 tons of 60% enriched uranium are in tact, stored in an underground complex in Isfahan, geographically almost at the centre of the country, rendering any attempt by US and Israeli Special Forces to capture it, and cart it out of Iran, all but impossible. This vast amount of enriched uranium can, at a pinch, be turned into countless small radiation diffusion devices or “dirty atom bombs”, and are stored in bins deep underground that the Pasdaran guard more zealously than almost anything else in Iran. And further, Iran’s stocks of missiles and drones, and of grain, are being constantly replenished by Russia and China through the Caspian Sea route immune to American interdiction, with Moscow also feeding Tehran’s military with satellite-derived target coordinates and over-the-horizon terminal guidance for its weapons. And with Iran asserting its rights over Hormuz, every ship permitted safe passage through the Strait has to pay a $2 million fee — a small time revenue stream compared to Iran’s shipping its own oil unhindered from Kharg island to the world!
Most astonishing, however, is the grit and the spirit shown by the Irani people, not all of them supporters of Khamanei’s theocratic state. But they have firmed up, patriotically backing it in fighting off the Americans and Israelis. They are suffering enormous privation — food and electricity shortages, and are under terrific social strain but not buckling. There’s no people’s movement to replace the rule by shia clerics that Washington had fervently hoped would materialise once the first US bombs hit home. And, as a bonus, the Global South seems to be slowly but definitely coming around to supporting a besieged Iran.
The biggest loser of this war is India. Not because it got involved in any way, but because it did not, satisfying itself with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his foreign minister S Jaishankar spewing banalities. And then screwing up in the one diplomatic foray it embarked on at the UN. Instead of abstaining on both the Russian Resolution in the Security Council that sought an immediate unconditional cessation of hostilities by all sides — a reasonable objective to push, and on the Bahraini Resolution blaming Tehran for reacting to the Gulf states-aided US-Israeli attacks on Iran by striking at them, Delhi chose to co-sponsor the latter Resolution, putting India squarely in the Arab-Western camp. As a consequence, India’s problems may have just begun.
Sure, Modi wants to preserve his relationship with UAE and Saudi Arabia — the foundation for his Gulf policy — arguably the only successful prong of Indian foreign policy in the last decade. Indian labourers in the Gulf send back remittances amounting to almost $50 billion in the first quarter of 2026 — some 40% of the inward remittances totaling $138 billion (with UAE accounting for some 20% of it and Saudi Arabia 7%). It is a nice little hard currency cushion the Modi regime has over the years wasted on useless armament purchases, featuring such things as the dated Rafale fighter aircraft for the IAF and the navy! It also wants to protect the relationship with Israel — the source of advanced military technology. All this is understandable.
But there’s a lot of space between protecting Indian interests in the Gulf and Israel, and protecting the national interest vis a vis the US. Or, have Modi and Jaishankar missed out on the basic thrust of the American policy clearly and publicly articulated in Delhi recently by visiting senior Trump Administration officials?
We had Christopher Landau, US Deputy Secretary of State, bury the Modi regime’s flawed assumption that America would do for India what it had previously done for Dengist China — assist it to rise to great economic and military power. At the Raisina Dialogue 2026 — MEA’s annual poster event, Landau said no, that won’t happen because Washington had learned its lesson, and would not be a party to its own further diminution by setting up yet another economic competitor and rival. It left the Modi dispensation reeling — the main prop of its US policy kicked from underneath it by the Americans!
Next, Landau’s colleague at the Pentagon, US Under “Secretary of War” Eldridge Colby, son of a storied former US Central Intelligence Agency chief, William Colby, fetched up and formally aired, what I call, America’s compartmentalised strategy for India at the Delhi branch of an American thinktank. Washington will strive, he said in effect, to keep India down, preferably under its thumb, economically and in the technology sphere, prop up Pakistan as its main agent in the region, but will expect Delhi to help the US counterpoise China in the Indo-Pacific! Colby and Washington calculate that the Indian government is sufficiently spooked by the China threat to want to rely on the US strategically and to do so on American terms. And sure India should arm itself with American weapons, and reproduce any US military goods it wants but under license, thus lighting fire to the atmnirbharta pyre.
So far India has played America’s poodle without demur. It has adjusted its energy policy as per US directives, turning off and on the Russian oil spigot. Currently, this tap is open because as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Press, America has “permitted” India to resume buying oil from Russia to stabilise the supply end of the International energy market. Private players, like Reliance, are careful not to tread on US toes, and simply follow the Modi regime’s lead. This is now a business incentive for Reliance because it has committed to buying $300 billion worth of oil from a new refinery being constructed in Texas, in other words it is subsidising that refinery’s construction — a deal Trump has hailed as a new era of Indo-US cooperative relationship.
But, sorry, all this Indian money and Delhi’s willingness to accommodate American interests will only buy India license-production deals for stuff like the GE 414 jet engine, not its source code! Nor will it buy Delhi consideration in the Trump tariffs scheme — India will continue paying 15%-18% tariffs on its exports to the US, lower than the 50% rate imposed earlier only because the US Supreme Court ruled such tariffs illegal. In short, India will get absolutely no US concession on anything.
Meanwhile, “Field Marshal” Asim Munir and Pakistan are making merry on the American penny. Islamabad parlayed a diplomatic arrangement by which, with the closure in 1979, of Iran’s embassy in Washington, Pakistan was looking after that country’s interests in the US, into a mediator role in the ongoing War in the Gulf. It is playing the role of a communications channel it last played when Henry Kissinger was courting China in the early 1970s and often used official Pakistan visits to detour secretly to Beijing to confer with Maozedong and Zhouenlai to facilitate US President Richard Nixon’s great rapprochement and “opening to China”. And Pentagon has resumed arms assistance to Islamabad. And on the other side, Tehran has given blanket permission for all Pakistani oil bearing ships to negotiate the Hormuz narrows, even as Indian vessels are treated on a case-by-case basis, which reflects Tehran’s displeasure.
All this time, with the Gulf War spinning out of their comprehension, Modi-Jaishankar find the bilateral relations with Tehran in trouble. Modi’s basic geopolitical construct of North-South connectivity to link Indian trade to Central Asia via Chabahar in Iran and Afghanistan to rival Beijing ‘s China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, is in the doldrums. Over $500 million has been invested but its success is hostage to Washington’s intemperate Iran policy, subject to mostly its downs. In any case, it is going nowhere! The Gulf War has put IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor) as well in deep freeze.
India’s “between and betwixt” posture in the new Gulf war, and its tendency to bow down to the US while Modi and Jaishnakar mouth inanities about the Gulf War and fixate on Pakistan, is not going down well in the Global South where, even though India is the current chair of BRICS, it is the Brazilian President, Inacio Lula, who is making waves, standing up for Third World interests, and opposing America’s war against Iran without UN authorization or even formal declaration of war. The latter epitomised by the US nuclear attack submarine torpedoing the Iranian navy frigate, Dena, returning home after the Indian navy had hosted an Iranian flotilla of three warships at its International Fleet Review in Visakhapatnam and in the Milan naval exercise. Sure, India afforded two of the Iranian ships and their crews “safe harbour”. But India had moral responsibility to see the Iranian frigates safely home, but there was not a squeak of diplomatic protest by Delhi demanding an explanation from Washington for its heinous act.
Trump and America are running away from war, and from the Gulf, not to return in any substantial way to the region for a very long time. Had the Modi regime kept its wits about it, understood the undercurrents, and kept atop the developments in the Persian Gulf, India would have had a strategic role in shaping and influencing that region post-US. In the event, neither America nor Iran cares for India and its regional interests, and UAE and the Saudis know the Indian remittance economy survives at their sufferance and they can control Delhi. India is really up a creek, and the Modi government seems not even to be aware of the deep waters it is treading.
At the core the issue is of India being strung out between strategic subservience to the US — that has led to its Gulf policy ending in a cul de sac, and economic dependence on China, with both Washington and Beijing now hanging Modi-Jaishankar and India out to dry.
Every military procurement deal is a boondoggle. Apparently the Ministry of Defence thinks the Indian government has money to burn, and that the Indian taxpayer will uncomplainingly fund the armed services’ procurement excesses. There has been an unending series of exorbitantly priced defence buys in the last few years which make little sense, taken singly or together, do not follow the tech trends, and are completely oblivious of where warfare is headed — it is towards vast numbers of small, cheap and mobile drones and autonomous weapons as the military successes by Ukraine against Russia and Iran’s against the combined might of the US and Israel have shown.
Anytime there’s an announcement of a new fighter plane deal or of an investment in one, I despair. It is invariably yet another decision in a time-tested pattern of the Indian Air Force buying into the wrongest thing, choosing the most expensive fighting platform option available, at the wrong time and just when manned aerial warfare is becoming extinct, and when the atmnirbharta/self-reliance programme needs desperately to be rescued from going down the drain.
So here we are — the great Rajnath Singh, who doesn’t tire of yakking about atmnirbharta, and the Defence Ministry he “leads”, once again indulging the foresight-less IAF’s fetish for flying blind in clear light. On Vayu Bhavan’s plea, the Defence Ministry endorsed the service’s outlandish demand for a still more “exquisite” aerial weapons platform that the country can acquire by joining one of the two European consortia developing a 6th generation fighter aircraft! There’s the GCAP (Global Combat Air Programme) with the UK-Italy-Japan and the Dassault-led FCAS (Future Combat Air System) involving France, Germany and Spain. A more spendthrift and straight forwardly foolish and foolhardy decision is hard to conceive, even as the idiot electronic and print media and commentariat in the country do their customary wahs, wahs, and genuflect before the wisdom shown by all concerned!
When one thought the Indian Air Force couldn’t go any lower than with the Rafale deal, which pretty much killed off the Tejas project, it did. It plunged lower by seeking participation in GCAP/FCAS that will write finis to the indigenous Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft programme (AMCA). With the kind of latitude allowed the IAF by a mindless defence ministry and government to buy what it wants from wherever it wants, no surprise the Indian Navy too wanted in on the goodies, the fun buys! So it decided on the Rafale Marine carrier aircraft — this being its contribution to the Indian military’s dive into the depths of despond, at a time when the 2-engined Tejas designed for carrier operations had made it through all the test trials, and was on a fast-paced induction schedule into fleet service. Like the Air HQ, the NHQ too, did not do the right, nationalist, and patriotic thing. The cost of this folly? Rs 63,000 crore ($7.5 billion) for 26 Rafale Marine (Rafale-M) carrier fighter jets at $289 million for each plane WITHOUT weapons!
There’s no price tag mentioned for joining GCAP/FCAS yet, but it is not hard to extrapolate from the by now familiar figures for the most recent deal — Rs 3.25 lakh crore ($40 billion) for what was called the “Make in India” initiative for 114 Rafale aircraft, 18 off the shelf, 96 srewdrivered in the world’s leading aircraft screwdrivering facility — HAL. That amounts to Rs 2,850 crore EACH for an antiquated 4.5 generation fighter aircraft that went up in Sindoor and, for its troubles, was promptly shot down by the Chinese copy of the 4th-generation Israeli Lavi, the J-10 flown by the Pakistan Air Force! If this sad warplane, Rafale — exactly the same generation as Tejas but far less agile, costs so unimaginably much, how much more will joining GCAP or FCAS cost?
An initial total programme estimate for GCAP was $96 billion, which figure has escalated to something over $120 billion. Of this sum, Italy’s most recent estimated contribution by workshare and investment is $21.8 billion, leaving Japan and the UK to pick up $50 billion each. The Italians and the Brits are keen to water down their contribution by getting India in — when there’s an unsaleable product, the wisdom in the international arms bazar is to go to the Indian military — every foreign defence industry’s saviour! But GCAP is on an accelerated drive because Japan, fearing the Chinese Air Force, which is unveiling new high-tech combat aircraft every other year, reportedly wants it on the flightline soonest as replacement for its Mitsubishi F-2. In the event, it is too late to rework the whole workshare and proportionate investments aspects. But GCAP states would be very happy, of course, for the IAF to buy their plane, but it will get it last after the charter members have met their requirements. But because entry into the project is unlikely, the GCAP option may be off but, theoretically, split 4 ways the Indian contribution to it, at first glance, would be around $30 billion.
Ah, we come now to the IAF and Indian Navy’s favourite supplier — France! The FCAS cost estimate is $117 billion. But it is on its last legs because France and Germany differ on the basics — France thinks it already has the Rafale platform design that can be fruitfully embellished with new tech and built on as the advanced FCAS. But Dassault is unwilling to share the source code for the baseline Rafale system with Germany, arguing that Germans have zero aircraft designing and development capability, and Berlin can’t do much better than shut up, ride pillion, and periodically fork up the Euros! Germany feels insulted as does Spain, which has produced the medium range transport plane C-295 that Tata are assembling in the country, but little else. Enter the winner of the INTERNATIONAL SUCKER title – (We have to win at something) India!
Typically when in doubt, France, and every other arms supplying country, rounds in on India — everyone’s best and most valued customer, that can be taken for a ride anytime! And rounding in on the armed service dearest to Paris’ heart after its own Armée de l’air re-labelled since 2020 as Armee de l’air et de l’espace — the Indian Air Force! Dassault is hoping it can rope India into financing this whole wretched enterprise even as Germany and Spain wisely decamp. To recap, the FCAS initial cost of $117 billion is expected to escalate in lifetime cost terms to somewhere between 300 billion Euros (or Rs 3,25,13,10,00,00,000) and ONE Trillion Euros (Rs 10,83,77,00,00,00,000) !!!!!!!!!!! Halve whatever the price tag, and that, conservatively speaking, will be India’s contribution! Think of this mindboggling sum and blanche! Who says India is a poor country? Look beyond the Potemkinised New Delhi, Narendra Modiji!
[Su-57]
If the IAF is so eager for quickly stepping-up into the 5th-gen aircraft milieu, the Russian offer of its Sukhoi-57 seems reasonable, especially as it comes with complete transfer of source code, which will help finesse the Indian AMCA design and performance as well, and to integrate Indian-designed missiles into it, etc. Though let’s be clear: It is not a genuine stealth aircraft as it lacks the S-shaped engine ducts, say. But makes up for it by having recessed engine placement and an antiradar mesh on the fan-front. It can supercruise — go supersonic without afterburner, has endurance at 3,500km range (extendable to 4,500kms with external fuel tanks) and a 2-seat configuration (the IAF desires) for longrange strategic missions — useful considering the Service’s antipathy to a genuine strategic bomber — the Tu-160 White Swan with 13,500km range for non-stop 25-hour flying. Plus, importantly, the Su-57 (NATO codenamed “Felon”) has concealed in-built bomb-bays, so unlike the hideously expensive Rafale with weapons under-slung and on external wingpoints that would light up enemy radar like a Christmas tree at distance, it is relatively invisible. The 57’s radar cross section increases only for the moments the bays open for the weapon drop/release. And the entire deal will be far more affordable. And the IAF would have two mainline 5th gen+ aircraft — AMCA and Su-57 in its fleet. Politically, it will help correct the country’s foreign policy that has tilted so far US/West-wards there is near certainty of the country stepping voluntarily into America’s vassalage. See how India’s energy politics is hostage to Trump’s domestic political imperatives, highlighted by recent developments on the US-Iran war front.
It will make the Rafale completely redundant, and the deal for it can and should be cancelled. And if Rajnath Singh and the Defence Ministry have any military sense, which they don’t, the Rafale-Marine would be ditched as well, and trust reposed in the indigenous naval Tejas as the Indian Navy’s flag carrier fighter/strike aircraft.
Compared to the number of conflicts it has engaged in, post-1971, the IAF has had little to show by way of success. Its record of aerial kills is negative — it has lost more aircraft than it has downed enemy planes, as the first day (May 7) of last year’s Op Sindoor — 5 aircraft lost, or the 1st day of the Kargil conflict (two aircraft lost) in 1999, proved. (AP Singh can talk all the nonsense he wants about “12-15” Pakistan Air Force aircraft, including F-16s, the IAF supposedly shot out of the skies during Sindoor and, while at it, Air Chief Marshal, why not claim the destruction of the entire PAF fleet?! But he knows the score.)
But damned if the IAF does not have a very impressive record of killing home-designed and developed aircraft — the HF-24 Marut, HF-71/72/73, Tejas 1A, 2, and now the Chief of the Air Staff, ACM Aman Preet Singh, can proudly and symbolically mount the head of the AMCA in the officer’s mess on Zakir Hussain Marg, and gloat over another kill! Because, with over half a trillion dollars needing to be committed to FCAS prospectively where will the private sector consortium of L&T, Tata, & Bharat Forge — the finest in the country, tasked with designing, developing and producing the AMCA, get the money from? And with the attention diverted to the FCAS will the IAF ever actually buy any AMCAs when they are produced?
Fortunately, this horrendous GCAP/FCAS investment plan is so far only a paper demand by the Defence Ministry. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to ultimately decide if pouring hard-earned Indian wealth after poor European investments is a good idea. Whosoever is advising him on these issues will, hopefully, suffer from a fit of common sense, and prevail on Modi to reject this IAF-Defence Ministry request outright, and get the Prime Minister to tell the IAF to live within the country’s means — a piece of counsel he may like to extend to the other chiefs of staff he meets periodically as well, and to the senior commanders of the three armed services he confers with annually.
[Trump: Sleeping through an “excursion” with bodybags]
Just as the Kremlin is unwilling still to own up to the conflict in Ukraine as a war, and is sticking with Putin’s initial phrase for it — “special military operation”, so coined to denote a small, swift, military action, Donald Trump is struggling to find the right label for the US’ joint misadventure with Israel in Iran. While the US “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth has called it “war”, the US President, ten days into an armed affair that is far from over, has been reluctant to do so because calling any military hostilities war immediately enlarges the canvas and the nature of operations and, worse, raises expectations his government cannot meet. Hence, Trump has settled on calling it an “excursion”, having realised soon enough that his talk of regime change was so much hoo-ha that, short of landing massive American armies in Iran, is impossible to obtain.
And even then there’s no guarantee that the landed US forces will survive the intense firefights and close quarter guerilla fighting in attritional mode — something the Americans are loath to engage in — in the cities and in the Iranian countryside that over 31 Pasdaran (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) sub-regional headquarters with prepositioned stores have been preparing for. The Pasdaran are some 200,000 strong with a potential for unlimited manpower callup. Then there’s the Shia-ite theology of self-sacrifice and martyrdom to contend with. The Karbala syndrome — the exaltation of Hussain Ali’s death at the hands of the Umayad Caliph, Yazid, in 680 AD at the Battle of Karbala (in Iraq), which fuels the Pasdaran effort, is not to be taken lightly.
If the US military underestimated the “gooks” they were fighting in Vietnam, it may discover something equally chastening coming its way in Iran should Trump foolishly opt for a land war in a country twice as large as Iraq, which the US failed to keep in check after its ill-advised invasion in 2003. Given that Iran’s terrain is almost designed for mountain guerilla warfare of a kind that America lost in neighbouring Afghanistan not too long ago, Trump’s trumpeting his objective as successively “unconditional surrender”, “regime change” and having his choice selected as the next leader in Tehran was manifestly the wrong tack for him to take. “If Mr. Trump seeks escalation,” said Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Aragchi, tartly, “it is precisely what our Powerful Armed forces have long prepared for, and what he will get.” Trump has not repeated his patent nonsense lately, suggesting he may have seen the futility of setting such goals.
In any case, Trump’s excursion is getting pricey! According to US Congressional sources Op Epic Fury is costing America $890 million per day to prosecute, and the bill to-date for just the expended guided munitions and armaments exceeds $560 billion! This void will be a bonanza for the US defence industry to fill. But it is the bodybags coming home to grieving American families that is upsetting Trump’s plans. In wars, the US sports a dismal record — its only success being the 1990-91 Op Desert Shield (or, the 1st Gulf War). Honestly, the American society has no stamina for war — its muscularity being limited to beefy Hollywood stars wreaking havoc in action movies! So far the “butcher’s bill” of 7 dead and 140 injured American soldiers has been enough to unsettle US politics, with the media and the people starting to clamour for a pullout. Sympathetic media pundits are preparing the ground, arguing that because Iran has been militarily hurt, in many respects grievously, Trump can call it a victory and get the hell out. This last is round the corner because the media campaign is failing with MAGA’s mega influencers, like Joe Rogan, turning on Trump. What was supposed to be a quick in and out — a few days of decisive military strikes to bring Iran to its knees, is gradually taking a familiar course — an elongated military conflict that is impacting the global economy. With the Hormuz Strait now being mined by the Iranians, the US knows it is in for the long haul in a hard knuckle fight the American people have no will to sustain.
The real test, however, now looms for both the warring sides. Does Tehran and the new Mojtaba Khamanei dispensation think its military and the Pasdaran have squirrelled away sufficient quantities of guided munitions to keep the oil traffic through the narrow Hormuz Strait (23 miles at its narrowest) stalled? And then, for how long? Already the regional and international economies are tanking, with the oil, gas, and refining industries slowly grinding to a halt. If the Abadan oil refining complex and the oil storage and loading port at Kharg Island (able to handle 7 million barrels per day) have so far been spared Western strikes, Tehran too has desisted from taking out major refineries and tank farms in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf. No one wants a world without West Asian energy. In fact, Trump warned Israel against hitting Iranian oil facilities again after it struck such an installation near Tehran. Keeping the Hormuz gateway closed is precisely Iran’s leverage, and Iran seems confident that it can keep it shut long enough to advantage it. The US offer of naval escorts for oil tankers through this Strait, isn’t the answer.
In this context, the Modi government’s considering the option of Indian navy ships escorting some 36 Indian-flagged tankers with India-bound oil stuck on either side of Hormuz is a perfectly silly and dangerous idea, particularly in light of Tehran’s pointed threats of attacking any crude-carrying ship. In fact, an Indian vessel would be a tempting target for Iranian missiles for many reasons. Providing Iranian naval ships and their crews safe haven in Indian ports will only get you so far with a Tehran that is caught up in a do or die struggle. A shot to disable an Indian ship would create a bilateral crisis, yes. But Tehran may deem this an acceptable price for signalling to bigger players its resolve to stop the oil traffic whatever it takes. Except, hitting an Indian vessel will be minus the danger of a US carrier group countering with a lethal response in case a western tanker is sunk. Therefore, which ever part of GOI thought up this damn fool idea — very likely MEA seeking to please Trump, the foreign policy reflex of the Indian government should be to stop being an “idiocracy” (a word coined by Tom Cooper, the Austrian military analyst of repute)! Does Prime Minister Narendra Modi want the Indian Navy to be the “canary in the coal mine” for the US? Really?!
Instead of its ships risking passage through Hormuz, Delhi should quadruple oil imports from the Sakhalin oil field that ONGC has equity in — a far simpler and obvious solution. It should herald a fullscale restoration of oil trade with Russia on a sustained and permanent basis, not subject to cut offs of energy ties everytime some Trump or his poodle barks in Washington. Had Modi not allowed Trump to walk all over him and told the US President off in no uncertain terms that good relations with America will not be at the expense of ties with Russia, an old and reliable friend, and that India buys Russian oil because it will always suit India’s purposes to do so, and that the US centrally requires India to be on its side in its rivalry with China, that trade with India and access to its vast market benefits America more, as does the flow of cheap skilled labour, it’d have silenced Trump. And a grateful and appreciative Putin would have sold oil pennies on the barrel. Now the country will have to pay through its nose for the Sakhalin/Siberian energy. But better oil from somewhere than no oil from anywhere. And it can make this as in the past a remunerative business by selling refined petroleum products to Western European countries who’d be less willing in the future to impose sanctions just because Trump wants it so.
In this respect, it may be noted that when the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, assuming a lofty attitude, told the American Press that America had “permitted” India to buy oil from Russia, there was NO immediate challenge from the MEA to say that the country’d damn well buy oil from where ever and whenever as dictated by national interest, and that Delhi did not need US permission or approval. That reaction came two days after it had become a hot political issue here.
How little regard Trump and his Administration have for Modi and India was clear when Washington failed to inform Delhi about the plan for one of its nuclear attack submarines to torpedo an Iranian missile destroyer, IRIS Dena, barely outside Sri Lankan waters, when it was returning to home base after participating in the Indian Navy’s International Fleet Review off Vishakhapatnam (Feb 15-25, 2026) and the MILAN 2026 maritime exercise with friendly navies hosted by the Indian navy. The Modi regime couldn’t have averted this incident on March 4, but to spare it the blushes, could have reasoned with the US Indo-Pacific Command, Honolulu, to postpone the action to when the vessel entered Iran’s near seas so as to link it up with Op Epic Fury — a not illogical ask. Instead, Dena sank with the Indian government making much of sheltering the other two ships in the Iranian flotilla, Lavan and Bushehr, with external affairs minister S Jaishankar, at the Raisina Dialogue, MEA’s annual poster event, apparently justifying the kill by pointing to the US and other foreign naval presence in Diego Garcia and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean region. Hegseth described the surprise attack as “quiet death”! 87 bodies of dead Iranian submariners were fished out and 32 sailors rescued. (https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/iris-dena-iran-israel-war-indian-ocean-caught-on-wrong-side-of-events-s-jaishankar-on-iranian-ship-sunk-by-us-11181112)
Israel may have good reasons to want Iran defanged militarily and nuclear-wise, and to get that chump, Trump, to activate the American strike wherewithal against Iran, thus distributing the work load and the risk. No doubt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid it on thick about how easy it’d be for the Hero of Venezuela to depose the regime of the Ayatollahs, have some working stiff manage things for the West in Tehran, and position Trump, after Venezuelan oil (with Saudi and Gulf oil already in the American bag), to now also control the far superior grade oil and gas pumped out of Iran, and thereby hoist himself up as the true energy King of the World, or some such…! True to type Trump swallowed it whole and now finds himself up a creek.
Russia and China meanwhile couldn’t ask for a better turn of events. In stark terms, Russian oil is at a premium again and will stay that way for a good while yet, and the fact that two US aircraft carrier groups and huge air forces have been mustered to deal with Iran along with the redirection of logistics to the West Asian theatre, means a more desperate Kyiv being forced to husband its meagre military resources, and fewer American weapons to fight the Russians with. China, likewise, benefits from the US military forces in the Indo-Pacific being preoccupied with Iran — a mission that is fast depleting the American stock of guided munitions and long range missiles, and weakening the US’ military readiness profile in the Far East.
The seemingly scatter-brained Trump faces a no-win situation. Despite the Israeli and US onslaught, Iran has reportedly managed to preserve the bulk of its deadliest arsenal, made up entirely of indigenously designed and produced long range weapons systems — the Bavar 373 surface-to-air missile, and the 300km range Mehran air defence system operated by the Pasdaran. It means there will be more losses of American fighting assets, more casualties, and no easy wins for Trump to trumpet. Moreover, the longer the conflict the bigger the number of bodybags delivered back to the US, multiplying the political difficulties for Trump at home. He was, after all, elected in 2024, in part because he had promised “no more wars”.
In the event, with the November Congressional elections looming, the continuing Iran imbroglio will likely lose his Republican party majorities in the lower house and possibly even in the Senate. This is a certainty. As of January 2027 then, he will become a lame duck president and his usual theatrics will be of little avail. It is an end-state he wishes to avoid. So, if he isn’t already looking for a face-saving excuse to decamp from West Asia, he soon will. America’s reputation and credibility as partner and ally, or what little is left of them, being as usual in tatters after each such episode.
If no credible excuse comes his way and Hormuz remains bottled up and no oil flows, look for Trump to get out any way. He will invent some fiction for the US military to flee West Asia. It is something the American armed forces have had a lot of practice doing all over the globe in the last 70-odd years (Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan) and is good at — cutting and running from the battlefield!
It has the makings of a catalytic war. The US and Israel jointly struck Iranian targets, mostly nuclear-related installations and other strategic assets in Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, the port city of Chabahar, Ayatollah Khamanei’s residential compound in Tehran and, to make a point, the centre of Shia Islam, Qom.
As warned, the Pasdaran — Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, retaliated with missile firings on Tel Aviv, and the air bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain housing US Navy’s 5th Fleet, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and the international airport in Dubai, UAE, 2nd home to Bollywood stars and rich Indians, who must now be questioning their wisdom of investing in million dirham homes and apartments there.
Warnings of such an extension and spread of the war is what Tehran had hoped would deter the US government from going in with Israel in the initial air strikes. It didn’t.
If any of the emirates and kingdoms of the Gulf had any kind of consequential militaries, they would have felt compelled to respond to the Iranian strikes in kind. But because they are mostly American camp followers, they are on the horns of a dilemma. They cannot alienate Tehran and the shia minorities in their own societies (especially in Bahrain) or motivate the shia groups fighting Israel in West Asia — Hezbollah and Hamas in the main supported by Iran, by mounting even symbolic actions against the Tehran regime. And yet they cannot be drawn into a larger conflagration because the status of the UAE emirates and sheikhdoms in particular who, other than because of their oil economies, have fashioned themselves into global finance centres. Imagine how quickly Dubai would revert to a desert outpost if the large Financial Institutions decamp, leaving the various Sheikhs’ and emirs’ plans for their small estates evolving into technology, education, and cultural nodes, in the dust.
This is why there will be no catalytic war to engulf the Gulf.
The notion of ‘catalytic war’ was originally conceived in the 1950s by Henry Rowen, then a professor in business management at Stanford University, and later the 2nd head of RAND and Assistant Secretary of Defence in the George Bush Administration. He theorised that the two super powers — the US and USSR would be drawn into a nuclear war should their regional allies start conflicts that would suck the super powers into them.
Some 70 years later, we have a situation of a possible reverse catalytic war — the US’s lead role against a regional power that reacts by striking at America’s allies in the proximal areas inducing the latter to respond, triggering a full blown military imbroglio. But this won’t happen because the exchange ratio for the Gulf states for thus stretching the conflict could be catastrophic as mentioned above. So, starting with Jordan — the worst hit, none of the Iran-targeted states will unleash their puny forces against Tehran.
Catalytic war in the reverse mode won’t happen also because most of the leading West European countries have come out against the US-Israeli conflict initiation, with France and Spain, not Iran, raising the issue yesterday in the UN Security Council. So, Trump is now aware that his anti-NATO posture is coming home to roost, that European NATO will no longer support US-started conflicts anywhere in the world (unlike in the Cold War when UK and Australia joined the US in the war in Korea, and many NATO states despatched their troops to fight alongside American soldiers in Vietnam and much later in Afghanistan). Now, Washington has only Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel to bank on. And where Iran is concerned, it is the Israeli tail that is wagging the American dog — with Trump falling in line with Tel Aviv’s longstanding demand for a regime change in Tehran.
While Trump and Israel have claimed that the mullahcracy in Iran has had its leadership decapitated — that Ayatollah Ali Khamanei has been killed, it is unlikely this alone will mean much if the balance of forces within Iran continues to be with the shia clerics.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, there are four main players — the shia clergy and their main pillar of support — the all powerful Pasdaran with its intelligence tentacles reaching out into the nooks and crannies of the state and society, weeding out the protesters and unreliables wherever they may be found.
Secondly, there is the religiously conservative population in the vast countryide — the real strength of the clerical government in the country. Thirdly, there are the city folks in major urban centres — the people who supposedly yearn for the good times during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who projected himself as the latest in the line of Persian emperors going back to Cyrus the Great circa 5th Century BC. Even though this Pahlavi’s father, Reza Shah, was commander of a Persian Cossack Brigade, who was picked by Western powers at the end of Worl War I to rule Persia and protect their oil investments and interests. But a parallel democratising political development occurred with the Iranian majlis (parliament) in 1952 electing Mohammad Mosaddeg, a reformist, as head of government only to have the US Central Intelligence Agency stage a coup a year later, and return Iran to the West-friendly absolute rule of Reza Shah’s son, Mohammad Reza, which was ended by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. This Mohammad Reza’s son, the 1960 born Reza Pahlavi as the lineal descendent is Trump’s man to fill, once again, the vacant Iranian “throne”.
The fourth and decisive player are the baazaris — the traders, with enormous financial clout, whose siding with Khomeini ended the Pahlavi “dynasty”. This then is the setup, and the baazaris again will determine the side the balance of power will tilt in Iranian politics. The baazari element is too culturally tuned against the West to sustain the return of the American educated Reza Pahlavi as an obvious American stooge.
This analysis raises three side issues — two important, the third not so. First, when and how will the Iranian military with the Pasdaran in the van use the more “advanced weapons” in their arsenal that they have threatened to fire after they have expended the stock of older missiles and such? Assuming that at least one set of these new weapons are supersonic anti-ship missiles, will they be used to sink the most high value targets in the seas offsore — the US aircraft carriers led by the latest USS Gerald Ford equipped with EMALS (ElectroMagnetic Launch System) for rapid launch and recovery of strike aircraft, now anchoring off the Israeli coast, and reachable by longrange supersonic anti-ship missiles allegedly transferred to Iran by Russia/China? Should an American carrier be sunk, it will sink Trump’s presidency as well as surely as tomorrow’s sunrise. Trump will not react reflexively by doing anything foolish, like using tactical nuclear weapons, say. Why? Because then Moscow and Beijing will come to Tehran’s aid, and then there are no bets as to what might happen next. World War is too pregnant a phrase to bandy about loosely. But such a prospect does hove into view.
But what if Trump responds with a huge conventional military venture, all combat arms and assets in? No amount of aerial bombing will bring Iran to its knees. What will is a land war, and that is not something the US army, which has time and again shown it cannot win close quarter fights, and will abhor getting into. Further, if Gerald Ford is sunk with all its defences turned on, what prevents an enthused Pasdaran/Iranian navy-military from bringing down the other carrier and all the carrier escorts in nearby waters, and taking out US 5th Fleet ships berthed in Bahrain? If the Iranians don’t fire these missiles then questions will arise about the Pasdaran chickening out. Can Pasdaran survive that supposed calumny?
It leads to the second issue– actually that old question asked in Sherlock Holmes’ mystery of the missing race horse — Silver Blaze! Why did the dog not bark?! Here the dog is Russia-China, both big powers with interest in retaining the Ayatollah dispensation in Tehran. Why has there been not a squeak out of them even though Trump daily rants against them? After all, the mere fact of Soviet nuclear attack submarines trailing the Enterprise carrier group in the Bay of Bengal in 1971 allowed the Indian army to complete its business in East Pakistan. A similar presence could sow no end of doubts in the Trump White House and in the mind of the US military and save Tehran’s goose.
The third issue is the recent trip by Narendra Modi to Israel. From the first sense, one does get the feel that the returns for Delhi from the much heralded visit, as some commentators have concluded, are paltry. But be that as it may, the interesting thing is that Netanyahu must have alerted Modi to the ingoing Israeli strikes on Iran. So where was the need for the Indian government to put in its two pice worth of nonsensical advice to the US, Israel and Iran to seek peace?! The proverbial counsel given a blonde bimbo is relevant here: Don’t open your mouth and prove it!
After the visit by President Emmanuel Macron, India and France have just sealed what is officially touted as a “Special Global Strategic Partnership”. This is diplomatese for the fleecing of India, exemplified by the nearly Rs 4 lakh crore deal for the 4.5 generation Rafale fighter aircraft with the first 20 bought off the shelf, and some 90-odd of the rest assembled here by who else, HAL.
This defence public sector unit is to subscribe to a production scheme that starts at the 30% “indigenous” level rising to 60% by the end of its 30-year run. Even an otherwise weakheaded defence minister Rajnath Singh senses something is very wrong with the cost-product calculus, and has asked that the indigenisation level be upped but only to 50%. Hopefully, he means starting out, because Dassault Avions would be only too happy to reduce the end-level by 10%!
It did not occur to our respected defence minister or even Prime Minister Narendra Modi to tell Macron — that the contract will have to include ALL SOURCE CODES FOR EVERYTHING ON THE AIRCRAFT, INCLUDING WEAPONS, OR NO DEAL! Whatever the understanding to-date to buy this aircraft, it can be junked at any time. At a minimum, full and certifiable transfer of source codes should be the condition for the deal going forward. India holds the whiphand here, not France. Why is Delhi acting as a supplicant? It is Paris that wants India’s money, not the other way around. So Modi should INSIST on this! Nobody in the Indian government apparently appreciates just how much of a lifeline this deal is. For France!
While Modi misses no platform to blow his atmnirbharta trumpet, the head of Dassault — maker of the Rafale, Eric Trappier, has been equally determined in ensuring that his Company parts with no technology of any consequence in the Rafale deal, including source codes. Indeed, he severly and publicly reprimanded the head of the German firm, Thyssen-Krupp Marine, for promising source codes to India for the HDW 214 diesel submarine to get the navy’s Project 75i. He obviously fears Thyssen-Krupp will set a precedent for the rest of the arms suppliers, who have treated India as an endless source of sustenance, to follow. It is Trappier that the British weekly, The Economist, blamed for cratering the European trilateral 6th generation Future Combat Air System project, because he did not want to share the Rafale technologies with Germany and Spain as the tech base for the FCAS. So he is being consistent in not helping India become an independent fighter aircraft producer. But that is France’s problem.
The way the transaction has progressed it is as if Modi and Rajnath are nothing, the Indian government is zero and will bend to whatever the mighty Trappier and Dassault deign to SELL to the IAF! Thank you IAF leadership for doing France’s/Dassault’s work for them by projecting the Rafale plane as something the service and Indian security cannot do without — when that is about as hollow a claim as can be conjured up by a set of unscrupulous salesmen to a bunch of yokels! But, hey, Trappier has won out. India will pay a princely sum for a fast aging fighter platform and that too MINUS source codes. But let’s speculate a bit about what may be possible.
The 60% indigenisation level would be upped, and the timeline for it contracted to 3-4 years should Messrs Modi & Rajanth Singh sternly press Paris. But having staked a position, France is unlikely to budge but, should push come to shove, will agree — it is desperate to have this deal and the accruing bank balance to fund its own future programmes — to no indigenisation beyond 80%. Why 80%? Because the 20% level remaining with Dassault/MBDA for the most advanced Rafale tech, that will come as “black box” technologies, is what will hand Paris the “short leash” — the means of controlling the Rafale fleet and hence the IAF, and hence Indian military options for the lifetime of this plane in Indian service!
Except that will still leave India without the Rafale source codes which, in Indian hands, would help to fit, for instance, Indian-designed bombs, rockets and missiles and even avionics without Dassault/MBDA intervening to extract massive fees for integrating them into the plane.
This “mother of all defence deals” in terms of the sums involved, will empty out the Indian taxpayer’s purses to make a wealthy France, wealthier! This when, in pursuance of Modi’s atmnirbharta policy, such extraordinarily large sums in hard currency could have been invested in, say, additional production lines in the far more labour-efficient, process-wise effective, and product quality-wise better private sector for the Indian designed Tejas light combat aircraft in all its versions — 1A, 2, as a natural lead in to the AMCA (advanced medium combat aircraft) programme already allotted to the consortium of Tata, L&T, Bharat Forge, et al. This, perhaps, makes too much logic and sense for the Indian government.
But why the above preamble for a post on Modi’s Feb 25-26 trip to Israel? Because the Rafale deal with France is a cautionary tale for the sort of defence cooperation the Prime Minister should not enter into with Tel Aviv.
The strategic-minded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already announced a 30-year timeline for his country to become fully independent of US support because he has judged correctly, as the Indian government seems incapable of doing, that relying on America even in the midterm could be perilous and it is a risk his country cannot and will not take. Keeping the Israeli economy afloat is the key.
India-Israel relations are in fine fettle and the sharing of intelligence and ways and means of fighting Islamic extremism and terrorism, and managing disputed borders, is by now fairly routine. But bilateral ties are ready for an upgrade. Logically, because Israel is the start-up nation of renown and creates and innovates technology as its staple, and because most such technologies are first deployed for use by the Israeli Defence Force in its security systems, it is necessary, Netanyahu has concluded, that his country find a reliable, ideologically resonant partner. An economically prospering and friendly India fits that bill. Indeed, the Israeli government is looking to explore the possibility of drawing India into more extensive defence cooperation, and Israeli defence and high-tech companies are seeking Indian investors and partners for joint programmes to sell in a global market.
These developments have germinated, I believe, from an idea I first conveyed to Uzi Landau — I have written about this in previous posts — in, if I recall correctly, 2002, when he was visiting Delhi as the Israeli Minister for Public Security. He had come over for a meeting with me at the Centre for Policy Research, along with Shabtai Shavit, who headed Mossad from 1989 to 1996. Among other things that we talked about, I suggested to them the obvious mesh of Israel tech muscle with Indian finance and large DPSU production infrastructure to manufacture traditional military hardware for consumption by both the Indian and Israeli militaries — from large items such as tanks, long range guns, to small arms and ammo and artillery shells. Economies of scale and lowered unit price would obtain. This could lead, I argued, to Indian financing of, and participation in, at all levels, with Israeli companies researching and developing cutting edge weapons systems and military software, and how such a partnership could free both states from the inconstant “friendship” of the US. They were intrigued by the 2-way defence/security bond I was proposing. I pitched the same concept to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when he visited Delhi in September 2003.
The idea made its way through the Israeli government and got traction in the Indian government, fructifying in the 2006 deal between the DPSU Bharat Electronics Ltd and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for joint design and development of the Barak 8 (or Barak LR) long range surface to air missiles (LRSAMs) to protect Indian aircraft carriers and warships. The first test firing of this ship air defence system was in 2010. By 2018, four Kolkatta-class destroyers had the Barak 8 protection. To date, India has invested between $1.4-$2 billion in this project. It led to extension of the project to meet the Indian army’s demand for area air defence, and yet another programme, this time to design and produce a medium range variant of this missile.
Indians may have wished for a fairer division of work. DRDO produced the dual pulse rocket motor for the 150 km range, mach 2 missile, and IAI the MF Star multi-function, surveillance, track, and guidance radar. Still, it is a successful enough partnership to whet the Israeli appetite for more such cooperative ventures. And that’s where matters stand.
If defence cooperation is not to stay stuck in the Barak 8 mode, it may be wise for Prime Minister Modi to take the lead in furthering this cooperation by broadbasing it with a proposal, as was originally envisaged, to have the production of Israeli conventional weapons platforms and small arms move at least partially from Israel to India, to benefit the Indian armed services as well as the IDF and for export, and to establish an India-Israel Defence Cooperation Council as the lead mechanism for the purpose, and to realise the larger agenda of meshing the two defence industries for the good of both the countries.
It will be a departure from the typical license production/screwdrivering projects the DPSUs undertake of second rate equipment, such as the Rafale. And it will involve the conjoining of the unique talents and strengths of the two countries. What may emerge is a very strong joint defence science, R&D, and industrial complex to power the ambitions of India and Israel, and as a player on the global scene. And it will cement a desirable embrace.
[2020 army chief General MM Naravane & Northern Army commander Lt Gen YK Joshi]
There’s at once much more, and much less, to the quotes from the memoirs — Four Stars of Destiny, of the former army chief, General MM Naravane, carried in a commentary by Sushant Singh, an ex-army officer turned perceptive commentator, published in a recent edition of the magazine, Caravan. Access to this otherwise paywalled piece is available at https://archive.is/20260202071854/https://caravanmagazine.in/security/navarane-memoir-ladakh-crisis. The quoted parts are, apparently, the most controversial portions of the book that has not so far been cleared by the Defence Ministry for public release. If the content of these quotes is the reason why the Modi regime is chary, then it is needlessly apprehensive. Because, in reality, it is more damning of Naravane than it is of Modi and his government.
But what’s the brouhaha about? It has to do with the nature of the government’s directive, specifically, the defence minister Rajnath Singh’s instructions, to Naravane to deal with a situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) created by some PLA tanks from its Moldo garrison rumbling uphill towards an Indian position at a higher level in the Kailash Range on 29 August 2020, and the Northern army commander YK Joshi pressing him to allow the firing of his medium guns in response. The drama in Sushant Singh’s narrative refers to Naravane “making frantic calls to the leaders of India’s political and military establishment, including Rajnath Singh, the defence minister; Ajit Doval, the national security advisor; General Bipin Rawat, the chief of defence staff; and S Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs”, asking each of them, in the army chief’s words “What are my orders?”
This is mighty strange, but why were Doval, CDS, and the Minister of External Affairs, Jaishankar, of all people, even on the list that an increasingly frazzled Naravane was contacting to get instructions from? Were these persons in a formally designated heirarchy whom the army chief was, protocol-bound, to call serially for his orders with an imminent clash brewing? And did these people constitute what Sushant Singh calls ” a government committee” put in-charge of developments on the LAC by Prime Minister Narendra Modi? “My position was critical,” writes Naravane finding himself between Joshi “who wanted to open fire with all possible means” and a government committee “which had yet to give me clear-cut executive orders.”
And, if the persons, ostensibly on that “committee”, were called for directions by Naravane in that emergency in 2020, are these same persons still to be called for pol-mil instructions that the current or a future chief of the army staff is/will be expected to get his guidance from should things heat up on the disputed border? To put it plainly, why should the army chief expect an “executive order” from any one other than the Defence Minister? And why should it be tactically detailed? Look up the political directives from US President Franklin Roosevelt to General Eisenhower at the beginning of the American involvement in World War II — when American forces reached North Africa in 1942, and before Normandy landings in 1944, and consider just how undetailed they were. Or Churchill’s guidance to his theatre commanders, from a British politician who was a known authority on military matters. Rajnath Singh, in comparison, is a provincial Hindi Belt politician, like many others in the cabinet, who couldn’t spot a military drone from a hobby drone if his life depended on it.
But the guidance that was issued, and who issued it is the nub of the story. Implicit in Naravane’s account is his dissatisfaction with the Defence Minister’s instructions. Rajnath Singh, albeit after consultations with the PM and others, as the memoir reports, advised Naravane “Jo uchit samjho, woh karo”— do what you think is appropriate. Why was that directive wrong or inadequate, and why are doubts being raised about the Defence Minister as the order issuing authority, and Prime Minister Modi charged with dereliction of duty, and of shirking his responsibility for a decision that Naravane exaggeratedly believed could have started a running war with China? Sushant Singh thinks it was the PM’s call that he didn’t make — a very questionable thesis.
In the event, Naravane decided correctly to have Indian tanks with the lead army unit get into hull down positions, lower their guns and get set to fire downhill at the advancing line of Chinese tanks — actions that stopped the PLA armour in their tracks, ending that particular incident.
This denouement raises several troubling questions. First of all, about what Sushant Singh calls an “existing protocol” — “clear orders not to open fire” till, in Naravane’s words “cleared from the very top.” Why is such a protocol there at all? That’s my peeve — what is so special about the LAC that it has to be treated with kid gloves, and even the smallest troop movements have to be cleared by the China Study Group — that apex group of Mandarin-speaking nay sayers headed by NSA, before its decisions go up the chain to the PM?
But, to return to Naravane’s narrative, isn’t Rajnath’s directive with the PM in the know not “from the very top” then? Why does he, Sushant Singh, and other like-minded people, have a problem with that? And, if as the ex-army chief says, it made for “purely a military decision”, again, what’s wrong with that? Shouldn’t all tactical decisions on the LAC, in any case, be taken at most by the Divisional commander, if not lower commanders? Why bring the corps and theatre commanders even and, more ridiculously, the COAS, into it? The real problem from Naravane’s point of view, it would appear, was that he was “handed a hot potato… [a] carte blanche [to do whatever he thought was best, with] the onus…now totally on” him, and he did not cherish it. It turns out, he did not want to make that decision, have that onus on him!
In that case, what does Naravane, and others who think like him, believe the army chieftaincy is about — endless rounds of meetings in South Block with chai and samosas/biscuits, inspections of army formations and facilities with the requisite pomp and bandobast, making speeches, taking off on the occasional MEA-arranged foreign trip, and similar fun things? Or, for taking hard decisions in crises?
But Naravane dramatises the whole thing — about his sitting “with the map of J & K and Ladakh on one wall, Eastern Command on another”, visualising “the location of each and every unit and formation” on marked and unmarked maps, and about his contemplating various factors, such as the ongoing Covid pandemic, a faltering economy, fractured global supply chains and whether the army and government “Would…be able to ensure a steady supply of spares, etc., ….in case of a long-drawn-out action? Who were our supporters in the global arena, and what about the collusive threat from China and Pakistan?” But, he reassured himself that he had the necessary reserves, and that the army was “ready in all respects” before the Hamlet in him surfaces again: Writes Naravane “but did I really want to start a war?”
Sure, military chiefs are assailed by doubts before a big operation or even small actions but, as history shows, usually these are mostly about the war/ops plan, the assets deployed, the sufficiency of resources to sustain it, and the quality of his commanders implementing it. But, why was he thinking about things that are the preserve of others laterally or higher in the food chain to weigh and evaluate, and which was not his remit? After all, Rajnath had handed him a “carte blanche”.
Last week, at a talk I gave to a Higher Command Course in a military training institution, a student officer, in response to my view that India and its military need to be more aggressive and assertive when it comes to war and warfighting, asked if the military should not be “more responsible” because of the economic straits the country is in, etc., the kind of talk especially from military officers that gets up my nose. Seemingly, Naravane’s type of thinking is the prevailing norm for officers slated for promotion to higher ranks. And I said to this officer what I say here regarding Naravane’s attitude: It is none of the military brass’ damn business to think like politicians or diplomats or economists. Attend on the offensively desirable military outcomes you should be delivering whether any recessive-minded government wants it or not!
Remember how the late great general and commander 17 Mountain Division, Sagat Singh, the man who singly got us the victory in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, handled the PLA with offensive disdain and, disregarding his immediate corps commander GG Bewoor’s directive, and the same protocol and CSG constraints Naravane faced, beat up on the PLA and retained Nathu La Pass for the country in 1967? And how Naravane’s predecessor in office, General K. Sundarji, in his Op Chequerboard, exactly 20 years later, showed resolve to tangle with the PLA that its High Command did not expect, forcing the Chinese to withdraw from their intrusion in Somdurong Chu? Imagine what a Sagat or a Hanut Singh, the great armoured commander, when he took over the same Chhangu-based 17 Div would have done with a carte blanche that Naravane was afraid to exploit.
The PLA is a puffed up paper dragon, deflate it, let local commanders mount continuous offensive tactical actions that may lose a bit of ground here, gain a bit of territory there, to make the LAC a live theatre. The army may be surprised by the dividend such a policy will fetch for its own reputation and by way of politico-strategic gains for the country with respect to its negotiating position. Being a perennial punching bag does not help.
Security Wise 