India's Own 2MRC Strategy is a 2Front Strategy

India's new doctrine is focused on facing down China and Pakistan at the same time.

There is one country responding to China's military build-up and aggressiveness with some muscle of its own. No, it is not the United States, the superpower ostensibly responsible for maintaining peace and security in Asia. Rather, it is India, whose military is currently refining a "two-front war" doctrine to fend off Pakistan and China simultaneously.

Defending against Pakistan isn't anything new, and Delhi has long viewed China with suspicion. But in recent years India has been forced to think more seriously about an actual armed conflict with its northern neighbor. Last year Beijing started a rhetorical clash over the Dalai Lama's and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visits to Arunachal Pradesh state, which China claims as its own. In the two years before that, Chinese border incursions into India almost doubled. Not to mention China's massive military buildup and concerted push for a blue-water navy.

In response, the Indian military is rewriting its so-called "Cold Start" doctrine. Cold Start's initial intent was to provide the armed forces with more rapid and flexible response options to Pakistani aggression. The Indian military believed that its ground forces' slow and lumbering mobilization after the 2001 terrorist attacks on its parliament played to Pakistan's advantage: International opinion turned against decisive Indian military action. Delhi also worried that its plan to send in heavy forces to weaken Pakistan was unrealistic and might well trigger a nuclear response.

So Indian strategists searched for military solutions that would avoid a nuclear response but still provide a rapid retaliatory punch into Pakistan. The resulting doctrine was built around eight division-sized "integrated battle groups"—a combination of mobile ground forces backed by air power and tied together through an advanced system of sensors and reconnaissance capabilities. The Indian Army would advance into Pakistan and hold territory to use as leverage to end terrorist attacks launched from Pakistani soil.

But as China has grown more aggressive, Delhi has begun planning to fight a "two-front war" in case China and Pakistan ally against India. Army Chief of Staff General Deepak Kapoor recently outlined the strategy: Both "fronts"—the northeastern one with China and northwestern one with Pakistan—would receive equal attention. If attacked by Pakistan and China, India will use its new integrated battle groups to deal quick decisive blows against both simultaneously.

I suppose it helps to have a wall named "The Himalayas" between you and one of your opponents, eh?

By: Brant