India's military adventurism against China

Sajjad Shaukat | Kashmir Watch

Although India and China agreed to avoid flare-ups along their border on January 17 this year, yet despite the 15 round of talks, the issue still remains unsettled owing to Indian obstinacy. Both the countries had fought a bloody war in 1962 over a disputed border.

Indian hegemonic designs to dominate the region can well be judged from its plans to spend huge amounts on military build up and purchases of sophisticated arms and weapons from France, Germany, Israel, Russia and USA. Indian leaders openly state that India will defend its national interests beyond South Asia. On the one hand, Indian rulers assertively advocate regional peace, but on the other, they mislead the world by cunningly projecting their threat perceptions. These are certainly source of concerns, especially for China and Pakistan which are particular targets of India’s duplicity.

In this regard, in November, 2011, The Chinese media hit back at India’s proposed military build-up on the border and its recent relationship with East Asian nations such as Japan and Vietnam at the cost of Beijing. In this respect, China’s official newspaper ‘People’s Daily’, recently reported, “East China Sea and South China Sea issues continue to expose some countries’ envious, jealous and hateful attitude towards China…India has begun to consider Beijing as an opponent.” While China’s state-run news agency Xinhua warned, “if India intends to antagonise its neighbour by taking China as an imaginary enemy and gets unwisely involved in affairs which fall within others’ backyards, it would hold its national strategies as hostage and put at stake its own national interests.”

Today, China is India’s biggest trading partner with which New Delhi has signed a number of agreements in various fields, but American support, it is playing a double game with Beijing. In this context, in the mid of October, 2011, as part of its second phase of military expansion against China, Indian government has given the go-ahead for the deployment of BrahMos cruise missiles in Arunachal Pradesh along the Chinese border. With a range of 290 km., these missiles are being deployed to improve India’s military reach into the Tibet Autonomous Region. The three BrahMos missile regiments raised so far have also been deployed in the western sector to counter the presumed threat of Pakistan. Indian new scheme has coincided with the revival of propaganda campaign that China has allegedly been deploying troops in Pakistan’s areas of Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Kashmir and FATA. Both Beijing and Islamabad have denied this false accusation.

Besides, as part of its military adventure against China, Indian government is planning to increase the strength of the Indian Army by almost 100000 soldiers over the next five years. It would also be the largest increase in deployment along the China border since the aftermath of the 1962 war. It will also focus on Indian islands with the larger view of securing maritime routes crisis-crossing the Indian Ocean.

As regards Indian military build up against Beijing, on May 31, 2009, after 43 years, New Delhi re-opened its Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) airbase in northern Ladakh, which overlooks the strategic Karakoram Pass and is only 8 kilometers, south of the Chinese border-Aksai China area. New Delhi has also erected more than 10 new helipads and roads between the Sino-Indian frontiers.

On April 20, 2008, The Times of India had written, “By having a full-fledged airstrip at DBO, India will be able to rush in troops and supplies to the region during emergencies.” The paper quoted Western Air Command Chief Air Marshal P K Barbora revealing, “Yes, we have also plans to land our AN-32 transport aircraft at DBO. It is part of the Indian Air Force to improve air maintenance of the far-flung posts in the region”.

In this connection, Defence Ministry planners are working on building additional airfields and increasing troops—raising two new mountain divisions to be deployed along the 4,057-kilometer Line of Actual Control (LAC).

With the help of Israel and America, on 26 February 2008, India conducted its first test of a nuclear-capable missile from an under sea platform after completing its project in relation to air, land and sea ballistic systems.

Notably, Indian Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta had disclosed that New Delhi “will soon float tenders to acquire six submarines”. Mehta also accused Beijing saying, “Indian Navy would keep a close watch on the movements of Chinese submarines which are operating out of an underground base in the South China Sea” and “wish to enter the Indian Ocean”. However, under the pretension of China factor, New Delhi and Israel, with the tactical support of the sole superpower are plotting to block the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean for their joint strategic goals.

It is mentionable that in October, 2011, India hosted the leaders of Vietnam and Myanmar, highlighting its intentions which it is following regarding its ‘Look East Policy’ as it is building close security and economic relations with these two nations in East and Southeast Asia. In fact, New Delhi designed this policy to initiate its influence in the region, while main aims behind are to sabotage the interests of Beijing.

During her trip to New Delhi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on July 20, 2011 urged India to be more assertive in Asia, saying that the country should play more of a leadership role. She explained, “India has the potential to positively shape the future of the Asia-Pacific.” Clinton further said, “India should play a role as a US ally in regional forums such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).”

It is noteworthy that on October 15, 2010, Indian Army Chief General VK Singh had openly blamed that China and Pakistan posed a major threat to India’s security, while calling for a need to upgrade country’s defence. Indian former Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor had also raised similar allegations. So, under the pretext of presumed threats from China and Pakistan, New Delhi which signed an agreement of civil nuclear technology with the US in 2008 has been acting upon the direction of the latter to counterbalance China and destabilizing Pakistan including Iran.

Particularly US clandestine aims could be judged from the fact that on November 2, 2011, America agreed to sell India the most expensive—the new F-35 fighter jets. In a report to the US Congress, the Pentagon said, “We believe US aircraft such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)…to be the best in the world”, referring to the radar-evading F-35 jet.

Unlike India, Pakistan mostly prefers to develop its arms, equipments and aircraft with the joint cooperation of China. For example, the JF-17/FC-1 is designed as a co-operative venture between Pakistan and China to replace Chinese A-5C (massively modified MiG-19), F-7P (MiG-21+), and French Mirage 3/5 aircraft. In this connection, defence analysts opine that unlike the US F-35 fighter jet, the JF-17/FC-1 fighter is better due to its quick system of surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition.

Nevertheless, recently, India also decided a major purchase of US F-16 and F-18 fighters. The Pentagon’s government-to-government program of foreign military sales to India has included C-17 and C-130 aircraft, radar systems, Harpoon weapons and specialized tactical equipments. Besides acquisition of arms and weapons from other western countries, America which emerged as a potential military supplier to India has lifted sanctions on New Delhi in order to import nuclear technology.

In fact, Pakistan’s province, Balochistan where China has invested billion of dollars to develop Gwadar seaport, infuriates both US and India. With the help of India, US desires to control Balochistan as an independent state in containing China and restraining Iran. It is due to these reasons that Washington and New Delhi are creating instability in Pakistan by backing Baloch separatists to complete their hidden strategic agenda. In this regard, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) gets logistic support from India, while another separatist group, Jundollah (God’s soldiers) is also harming the cordial relationship of Pakistan with China and Iran. In the past few years, their militants kidnapped and killed many Chinese and Iranian nationals in Pakistan, while committing other subversive acts in the province and Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan. Tehran had directly indicated American CIA for patronage and funding of that type of terrorist attacks.

It is of particular attention that in May 1998, when India detonated five nuclear tests, the then Defense Minister George Fernandes had declared publicly that “China is India’s potential threat No. 1.” India which successfully tested missile, Agni-111 in May 2007, has been extending its range to target all the big cities of China.

Nonetheless, with the support of US, India’s military adventure against China is likely to destabilize whole of the Asia because of its chain reaction.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

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Indian Army to hold 20 war games with friendly nations

IANS

New Delhi: In its bid to have greater engagement with foreign militaries, Indian Army will this year hold between 15 to 20 bilateral war games with friendly nations like the US, Russia, France and Britain, apart from neighbours Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal, officers said Sunday.

The exercises, mostly focusing on counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism manoeuvres, will help in honing the skills of Indian and other friendly troops in different scenarios, and improve their interoperability, as required under United Nation’s multinational joint military efforts for world peace.

Among the first exercises this year will be with Singapore at Babina in Uttar Pradesh, close to Jhansi, this March, officers said.

During the India-Singapore exercise, both sides will pit their mechanised forces and tanks in battle with terrorists in an urban scenario. The exercise is likely to be called “Bold Kurukshetra”, officers said.

“Indian Army’s counter-insurgency skills are much sought after by global powers due to the five-decade experience that we have gained in the northeastern states and Jammu and Kashmir,” the officers said.

With the US, the Indian Army’s mechanised infantry forces will hold an exercise, “Yudh Abhyas”, in Rajasthan this year, when they will both field their tanks and armoured personnel carrier.

Most other exercises are still in the works and the venues and dates will be finalised soon, officers said. The other nations to join the exercises this year will be Mongolia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Australia, and Central Asian nations.

In 2011 too, India had held 16 military exercises with other friendly nations such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia.

In October 2011, India held its first ever army exercise with French Army called “Shakti-2011″ at Chaubatia in Uttarakhand.

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Elements behind the Tibetan insurgency against China

Lt. Col. (R) Zaheerul Hassan | Asian Tribune

Police in China shot dead more protesters on January 24 and 25 this year in Tibetan-inhabited regions as unrest spread to some other areas. 

China’s Sichuan province, which has big ethnic populations, has been rocked by violent clashes.

The new spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhist monks and successor of Dalai Lama, Lobsang Sangay, head of the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile has called on the international community “to not remain passive” and “to intervene to prevent further bloodshed,” by the Chinese security forces.

The United States on January 24, while hinting towards heavy hands by the Chinese security forces, said that it was ‘seriously concerned’ by the situation, calling on Beijing to exercise restraint. On the other side, on the same day, a China’s spokesman Hong Lei accused “overseas secessionist groups” of trying to discredit the government by hyping accounts of what happened, while Chinese official news agency, Xinhua, citing local authorities, revealed that police used lethal force after a violent mob attacked on them with knives, gasoline bottles and guns.

In the past few years, several persons died in the terror-incidents and ethnic riots occurred in various regions of China’s Xinjiang-the largely populated Muslim province. For all the incidents, India blamed Pakistani militants for supporting the insurgency in order to deteriorate Sino-Pak ties and to cover India’s role behind Tibetan insurgency.

In fact, New Delhi which had given shelter to the Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama along with his 120,000 followers since a failed revolt against Chinese rule in 1959 has been playing a key role in assisting upsurge in the Tibetan and Muslim areas of China—by mobilising armed groups to create instability in Chinese neighboring provinces and enabling Tibetan leaders to get international support in distorting the image of Beijing.

It is mentionable that Maoist guerrilla commanders, who are waging a war inside India, have been providing basic military training to local youths in West Bengal. They use weapons which they have snatched from the installations of Indian security forces. Since their struggle, they have kidnapped a number of personnel of the armed forces. Some poor persons, serving in the Indian forces have also provided them with arms and ammunition.

While on the one hand, Indian politicians and media realise the real causes of Maoist uprising such as political, social and economic injuctices, but on the other, they still accuse China of backing the Maoist guerrilla warfare.The fact of the matter is that Indian secret agency RAW with the assistance of American CIA and Israeli Mossad have intermittently been arranging subversive acts in Tibetan regions of China. For this purpose, RAW has set up a number of camps where Tibetan militants are being imparted training, and are then being sent to China along with arms and ammunition. In this respect, Afghanistan has also become the hub of regional conspiracies, particularly directed against Pakistan, China and even Iran.

It is notable that on March 10, 2008, when anti-government violent protests by Buddhist monks erupted in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa and later on flared in nearby provinces India, while acting upon a secret diplomacy, backed the same.

In this context, Indian Former Foreign minister Yashwant Sinha had argued that we should intervene to secure Tibet’s freedom. He explained, “We want good relations with China. I am not saying let’s have war with China. But if we reach a point of conflict over Tibet, we should be prepared for that eventuality.”

In May 1998, when India detonated five nuclear tests, former Defence Minister George Fernandes who had declared publicly that “China is India’s potential threat No. 1”, pointed out, while advocating Tibetan independence, “If need be, I am prepared to march to Lhasa in support of this movement.”

Indian assistance to Tibetan insurgency could be noted from its contradictions. New Delhi shows that it does not favour an independence of Tibet and avoids any propaganda against China. On the other hand, Indian media had left no stone unturned in exaggerating the casualties by manipulating China’s crackdowns against the militants of Tibet—which were essential to restore law and order. Full coverage was given to the ambivalent statements of Tibetan leaders and western propagandists.

Regarding Tibetan upsurge of 2008, on April 14 that year, Express India news agency (online) had strongly advocated the position of Dalai Lama. While concealing the sinister designs of India, the paper quoted Lama as saying, “He was saddened by the anti-Chinese protests that marred the traditional Olympics torch relay through the streets of London, Paris and San Francisco”. 

India’s other leading newspapers and TV channels had also propagated against China in relation to military action and civilian casualties.

The matter of anti-China campaign is not confined to Indian press; even general public as well as intellectuals in the country are working against Chinese integration. In this context, Dr Abanti Bhattacharya, associate fellow of Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA), Delhi, wrote in Asia Times Online on December 7, 2007, “India has the Tibet card, if it chooses to use. The very presence of the Dalai Lama in India along with Tibetan refugees spread across 35 settlements is leverage for India.”

However, indicating the official stand, taken by the Indian government tactfully, the Dalai Lama had revealed that he wanted to talk to China for autonomy, but not outright independence for his homeland. In fact, both New Delhi and Lama had covertly planned bloodshed in Tibet including other adjoining territories, motivating the people for liberation.

Chinese state-run newspaper, the People’s Daily had said in this connection that Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize had “never abandoned violence since fleeing to India”—and he “is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics of August 2008 hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions for Tibet’s independence.”

As regards the Indian dual Tibet policy, the same has significant security problems for China owing to the entanglement of the issue in the Sino-Indian border dispute. In the post-1949 period, when the People’s Republic of China came into being, India urged China to let Tibet be an autonomous region. On April 29, 1954, through an agreement, New Delhi had recognised Tibet as part of China. After the Indo-China war of 1962, China returned the land it had occupied in Arunachal Pradesh. Indeed, China’s claim over Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh) on the basis of old Tibetan religious links is logical.

Indian intervention in the Tibetan areas cannot bee seen in isolation; there are also other fundamental reasons behind Indian double game. Fast growing economic power of China coupled with its rising strategic relationship with the Third World; especially Pakistan—development of Gwader seaport in Pakistan’s province of Balochistan by Beijing has irked the eyes of Americans and Indians. 

Owing to this jealousy, US support to India for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, the formation of the East Asia Summit, the US-India nuclear deal, Obama’s announcement of recent defence strategy, which calls for greater US military presence in Asia, maintenance of six permanent bases in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign troops in 2014 and Indo-US anti-Pakistan secret game—all are part of American desire to make India a major world power to counterbalance the power of China in Asia. All these developments show future intentions of New Delhi which is apparently, emphasising close ties with Beijing where most of the Chinese see India as a “future strategic competitor” rather than a partner.

In the recent past, US President Obama also met Dalai Lama so as to indirectly encourage insurgency in China. Nevertheless, it is because of the strategic developments in Asia and some western countries’ so-called moral support to the Tibetans that the upsurge in these areas is being exploited by these anti-China countries.

India which apparently shows mutual cooperation with China, showing inactive approach in the solution of border dispute, has clandestinely been increasing military build up near the Chinese border, coupled with covert assistance to the Tibetan insurgents as part of its shrewd diplomacy.

The writer is a retired Lt. Col. of the Pakistan Army and a defence analyst

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American scientists make breakthrough in creating an 'invisibility cloak'

A warplane cloaked with such materials could achieve "super-stealth" status by becoming invisible in all directions to radar microwaves.

[Photo Credit: Reuters]

Agence France Presse

The lab work is the latest advance in a scientific frontier that uses novel materials to manipulate light, a trick that is of huge interest to the military in particular.

Reporting in the New Journal of Physics, researchers at the University of Texas in Austin cloaked a 7.2-inch cylindrical tube from light in the microwave part of the energy spectrum.

Those hoping for a Harry Potter-style touch of wizardry will be disappointed however. To the human eye, which can only perceive light in higher frequencies, there would have been no invisibility.

But, say the researchers, the experiment is important proof of a principle that so-called plasmonic meta-materials can achieve a cloaking effect.

A warplane cloaked with such materials could achieve "super-stealth" status by becoming invisible in all directions to radar microwaves, said co-lead investigator Andrea Alu.

Plasmonic meta-materials are composites of metal and non-conductive synthetics made of nanometre-sized structures that are far smaller than the wavelength of the light that strikes them.

As a result, when incoming photons hit the material, they excite currents that make the light waves scatter.

The new experiment entailed making a shell of plasmonic meta-materials and placing the cylinder inside, and exposing the combination to microwaves.
Microwaves scattered by the shell ran into microwaves bounced from the object, preventing them sending a return signal to the viewer.

"When the scattered fields from the cloak and the object interfere, they cancel each other out, and the overall effect is transparency and invisibility at all angles of observations," said Alu.

Any shape of object can be masked, he added.


The cloaking worked best at a microwave frequency of 3.1 gigahertz, said the paper.

The feat is a step forward because other techniques have entailed bending light around two-dimensional objects or, in 3D, masking microscopic bumps on mirrors or reflectors, an approach called "carpet cloaking," say the authors.


The new concept could be modified for visible light, although any cloaked objects would be very small, in the micrometer range, as the plasmonic effect is linked to the wavelength of the light, Alu said in a phone interview.

Even so, there could be important applications for microwave meta-materials, he said.

"Camouflaging to radar is one important application, a super-stealth device to make objects invisible to radar," he said.

"What we are thinking about is not necessarily cloaking the whole warplane but some hot spots, a part such as the tailplane that you would want to cloak because it reflects most of the energy (from microwave radar)." 

Another outlet would be in laboratories, filtering out the "backscatter" of light from the tip of high-powered optical microscopes. Unwanted light such as this impairs images of the object that is being scrutinized, and skews measurements.

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FBI wants new app to wiretap the Internet

Commondreams.org

The FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) posted a 'Request For Information (RFI)' online last week seeking companies to build a social network monitoring system for the FBI. The 12-page document (.pdf) spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by February 10, 2012.

It says the application should provide information about possible domestic and global threats superimposed onto maps "using mash-up technology".

It says the application should collect "open source" information and have the ability to:

• Provide an automated search and scrape capability of social networks including Facebook and Twitter.
• Allow users to create new keyword searches.
• Display different levels of threats as alerts on maps, possibly using color coding to distinguish priority. Google Maps 3D and Yahoo Maps are listed among the "preferred" mapping options.
• Plot a wide range of domestic and global terror data.
• Immediately translate foreign language tweets into English.

It notes that agents need to "locate bad actors...and analyze their movements, vulnerabilities, limitations, and possible adverse actions". It also states that the bureau will use social media to create "pattern-of-life matrices" -- presumably logs of targets' daily routines -- that will aid law enforcement in planning operations.

New Scientist magazine reports today:

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly released details of plans to continuously monitor the global output of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, offering a rare glimpse into an activity that the FBI and other government agencies are reluctant to discuss publicly. The plans show that the bureau believes it can use information pulled from social media sites to better respond to crises, and maybe even to foresee them. [...]

The use of the term "publicly available" suggests that Facebook and Twitter may be able to exempt themselves from the monitoring by making their posts private. But the desire of the US government to watch everyone may still have an unwelcome impact, warns Jennifer Lynch at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based advocacy group.

Lynch says that many people post to social media in the expectation that only their friends and followers are reading, which gives them "the sense of freedom to say what they want without worrying too much about recourse," says Lynch.

"But these tools that mine open source data and presumably store it for a very long time, do away with that kind of privacy. I worry about the effect of that on free speech in the US".

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