Not accurate here at all.
The Sino-Soviet clashes happened in 1969 whereas China just tested their first warheads in 1964 that too with Soviet help. They didn't have any credible delivery mechanism to threaten USSR. In fact it was a limited war smaller than Kargil. It was more of a pissing contest since Nikita Kruschev basically denounced Stalin's policies and that pissed off Mao a lot as he was pretty chummy with Stalin and used the same Stalinist policies in China.
Nikita pulled military support for the Chinese by middle '56 when it became clear that Mao & him were not getting along. It's this point the thought arises why are we giving them nuclear help
The Chinese had to do the rest of the work till they tested in '64. They had enough Russian help up to the mid-fifties to get things done.
in '69, the Russians didn't assume the Chinese could not hit them neither did the Americans when Kargil happened. We know this only because of hindsight. in his book, Musharaf admitted they didn't have the means to deliver those nukes. But Kargil was fought as if nukes were a possibility. Valid examplesof two nuclear power having a limited war.
Don't forget that tensions didn't subside with the Soviets after that clash, they intensified further. I find not much acknowledgement of this in Indian commentary. The Chinese weren't sure if they would see the rest of the 70s. Meaning the Russians were close to nuking them. We know this because Chinese started building nuclear shelters around Beijing expecting the worst.
All other examples you cited here are not between two nuclear powers.
-Korean War between US/UK and allied powers directly engaged North Korea and then later China who were supported indirectly by USSR.
-Vietnam was an insurgency for uniting their country where the French pulled the same divide and rule tactic as in India
-Yom Kippur War of '73 had Egypt and Syria on one hand with USSR support and Israel with US support on another. Even though Israel had nukes by 1968 they have always denied the same.
In fact at at one point in the 73 war Israeli PM Golda Meir thought of using nukes as a last resort but the Israelis managed to turn the tide by conventional warfare.
-Afghanistan in the 80's was the Mujahideen supported by US and Saudi against the USSR. Again both sides weren't nuclear.
Exactly, they are examples of a non-nuclear power fighting a nuclear one and that is to make a point
if war between nuclear powers is unlikely then shouldn't there be even less chance of a non-nuclear power fighting a nuclear one ?
If you're interested in military tactics devised by the Indian forces look up the Cold Start doctrine concoted by Sundarji.
A small excerpt here.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...mitations_and_Possible_Response_from_Pakistan
This doctrine is a massive headache for the Pakistani military but they have developed tactical nukes which are small nukes designed to hit Indian armored formations after they have penetrated Pakistani borders by about 80 Km and they are unable to push back using conventional means.
These guys are so crazy that they have a policy to nuke their own territory. :O
Their tactical nukes are of limited use against Indian columns moving at them.
Watch
The NE didn't have much of a outside support and that outside support from India is precisely the reason Bangladesh exists today.
The LTTE defeat was an ethnic cleansing which we Indians cannot do as a principle .Otherwise how are we better than these dogs?
Moreover the international backlash(which would be absolutely justified) would ruin us and set us back by a decade or more. Think about the 1988 Tianamen Square debacle which halted the Chinese economy to a large extent till they got into the WTO in 2001.
The Khmer Rouge was actively supported by the US during the Vietnam war to act as a counterpoint to the Vietcong.
Once the US left and Pol Pot killed a million people in his country no one from the outside was ready to support them.
Hence the Vietnamese could go in and wipe them out.
NE had Chinese help as they perceived us as helping the Tibetans who had the CIA working with them. We had to
bomb Aizawl or we'd lose it.
Point is insurgencies can be tamed as we did in the NE without ethnic cleansing. I don't think anyone disputes this. Remember the hot pursuit into Burma in 2015.
Btw, tianamen debace didn't halt the Chinese economy, it still continued at dbl digit rates because it wasn't the target. China & India had the same size economy in 1990. What allowed the Chinese to get past was the two digit growth rates for a couple of decades.
The most important fallout for China after Tianamen was the west stopped arms sales. That is major otherwise the Chinese would be a much more potent adversary to deal with.
This is pretty scary. Once these guys have a carte blanche all their focus will be on us. Whether we go hard or go soft it won't matter.
Because they believe that martyrdom buys them a Season Pass to heaven.
You can only defeat an enemy by destroying their will to fight. If thats the carrot in front of them then 100 of them are ready to die to kill one of us.
Those are good numbers. We'll bleed them dry. As Patton said you don't win a war by dying for your country, you win a war by getting the other guy to die for his.
Unlike the 90's we have a fence and a much tighter grid. The Rashtriya rifles will be waiting for them.
They can throw all they want at us but they have to get their guys inside first.
As for the Kargil War it is a bit funny as the Paki army executed the tactical operation superbly but failed at the strategic level.
Think in case of a broader war in the western theater which will always be the focal point of conflict between Indian and Pakistan due to topography if they had pulled a Kargil parallelly then we would have to divert a substantial portion of our combat power which could be deployed in Rajasthan into routing out these guys from Kargil.
That would include a major chunk of the infantry and almost all of our artillery which is darn limited to this day. So tactically you are locking up a large portion of your enemy by only deploying a couple of regiments of light infantry. Pretty neat.
However being the hothead doofuses they are they played their aces up the sleeve too early which would come in handy in case of a broader war.
Other than '71 none of our previous wars were ever allowed to reach their logical conclusions. I see the same thing happening again.
Our leverage right now is economic. They need an IMF bailout within the next six months to a year. We can add conditions for that loan. The Americans are listening. No IMF bailout then no loans from the WB, ADB either. That is their weakness.
Add the FATF on top where they are already greylisted for terror financing and they are in a tight corner. If they fail to meet the conditions to get out of the greylist they end up on the black list. Effectively become North Korea.
The next bit is getting Masod Azhar designated as a terrorist. We did that to hafez Saeed and LeT attacks on India effectively came to an end post 26-11. If we are successful same happens to JeM. But we need to work on the Chinese for that.
Not a single shot has to be fired
Apologies for the long post guys. Problem is no one in my circle is interested in geopolitics. So excuse my rant.
Join WAB and have at it.
