India will have to make it clear to China that it opposes any unilateral military action. Any Chinese attempt to alter the status quo will be met with stiff resistance, and if necessary, with counter action.
China’s growing military might and its assertive posture along the Himalayas pose a tough challenge to India. It is incumbent upon India to craft a border guarding strategy that not only safeguards its rightful territorial claims, but deters China from undertaking any unilateral military action. Until a mutually acceptable boundary solution is found, India has no option but to build its capacity to deter China from altering the status quo.
Building India’s capacity would imply acquiring and deploying assets for strategic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), augmenting border infrastructure and troop habitat, fielding the right mix of weapon-platforms, creating an asymmetric edge, stockpiling strategic reserves of war material and restructuring the current force to provide high levels of military readiness and response action. But deterring the Chinese military is not simply a matter of restructuring, equipping and reorienting the border guarding force; it is also about signalling a strong military intent and willingness to use force.
The more powerful an adversary, the more important and difficult it is to deter the adversary. India will have to make it clear to China that it opposes any unilateral military action. Any Chinese attempt to alter the status quo will be met with stiff resistance, and if necessary, with counter action. India will also have to assure China that it does not seek any territorial aggrandisement. Improvements in border infrastructure are India’s legitimate needs, and should not be construed as inimical to Chinese interests. So, how does India demonstrate its military resolve to deter China, without exacerbating an unintended escalation, are among the issues that befuddle policymakers and practitioners.
TERRITORIALITY AND CONFLICT
Two scholars, Paul D. Senese and John A. Vasquez, in their book, The Steps to War, explain how wars arise from a series of steps that states take to deal with real or imagined grievances that bedevil their relationship. One such factor is territory and disputes arising out of it. When states are unable to draw a compromise in a territorial dispute and disagreements persist, they tend to resort to the use of force. If such disputes recur and militarise over time, they lead to a deep sense of rivalry that becomes very hard-line and prone to war.
Understandably, India’s festering territorial disputes with China have acquired such a military character. As the likelihood to give up respective territorial claims diminishes over time, the probability of using force will only increase. This could lead to inadvertent military escalation. In this context, two aspects are important: First, the role and salience of territorial contiguity in increasing the probability of war. Second, whether the presence of a border dispute is real or imagined, how do the two states handle their disputes is significant in bringing about or averting war. Hence, it is not territory per se, but territorial contiguity and lack of geographical clarity that explain the occurrence of border disputes and the probability of war.
Our border disagreements and disputes with China are borne out of this territorial contiguity. Complicated and intricate colonial treaties, unclear boundary lines, imprecise border tri-junctions, illegality of ceded territory and manning difficulties in unreachable sectors of super high-altitude—all add up to a contentious border. This lack of clear border demarcation has bred intense mutual suspicion, and in turn grievances over control of territory. The recurring nature of these disputes indicates the acuity of prevailing mistrust. Once an escalatory threshold is crossed, the probability to miscalculate increases and it can trigger a wider military escalation. The question then is, how China and India will manage such risks of territorial contiguity, in absence of its geographical clarity, so that recurring disputes do not escalate into war.
Broadly speaking, the presence of norms and mechanisms to manage disputes can give a set of actors’ ways and means for handling disputes, without an inadvertent escalation. While four such agreements and protocols (1993, 1996, 2005 and 2013) exist, and they lay out a set of norms and protocols, these are not adequate to address the current nature of border disagreements. These protocols have worked well until the late 2010s, but post that, with frequent stone-walling from the other side, there has been a marked decline in their effectiveness to mutually defuse border tensions. A reset in the norms and protocols is therefore necessary in the Sino-Indian context.
RITUALISING BORDER-CONTACT
During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union demonstrated that ritualisation of the mutual relationship could help dampen prospects for war. The probability of war tends to increase if territorial disputes militarise and recur, but one can expect the likelihood of war to reduce if the handling of disputes is ritualised. When there are no mutually accepted norms or mechanisms to handle border disputes, military escalation becomes strident. Even if norms and protocols do exist, but these are not very precise, the parties to the dispute tend to exploit the loopholes. Therefore, how disputes are handled holds the key to ushering in peace and tranquillity, not merely the presence of norms or protocols.
There can be only two ways of handling disputes. Either by use of force, or by demonstrating restraint. The tendency to over-compensate for perceived threats, by way of military build-up and arms-racing can increase the risk of war. Furthermore, militarised border disputes tend to generate domestic narratives that pre-disposes governments to pursue hard-line policies. However, if states were to resolve their disputes through restraint and dialogue, they can expect long periods of peace and prosperity. In other words, the policy practices of a state act as a dampener or cause of war.
The ritualisation of border-contact can help avert inadvertent escalation. The ongoing military-level talks in Eastern Ladakh must be seen in this light. Besides managing the disputes at hand, these talks assist in resolving other minor infractions arising out of routine border-contact. It would make eminent sense if these high-level talks are extended to other sectors. The need to ritualise contact also highlights the necessity to increase existing channels of military communication, in terms of additional border hotlines, alternate media connectivity for fail-safe communications and border meeting points. These act as useful tools and mechanisms to avoid or manage inadvertent escalation.
POLICY CHOICES
While much political and military capital is being expended on managing the current border disputes, there is little effort spent on addressing the long-term risks of territorial contiguity. A political settlement alone can help build durable peace. Once the borders are settled, other disagreements arising out of an absent boundary would cease to exist. However, China might not have any incentives to seek an early resolution to the boundary question. In that case, as an interim measure, stabilisation of the borders, by re-visiting the existing border agreements and protocols, could be pursued.
A few aspects are important. First, a new agreement, which comprehensively addresses the current infirmities in existing border agreements and protocols, is the need of the hour. A comprehensive one-piece peace and tranquillity agreement would avert the need to connect the dots over four different agreements (1993, 1996, 2005 and 2013) to interpret the field-level responses in a crisis situation. At the tactical level, this is a critical requirement for better understanding and response action.
Second, an all-inclusive border agreement can help draw clarity on a few extant clauses that are misleading and contentious. For instance, Article-II under BPTA 1993, which lays out the principle of mutual and equal security, is woefully vague and prone to conflicting interpretations. A few other clauses pertaining to use of certain category of armaments and weapon platforms, or permissible force levels in a sector, or modalities that guide mutual reduction of forces remain obscure and unclear.
And third, a revised agreement could help address the current gaps and new nuances in border management. For instance, heightened risk-taking behaviour of troops, skirmish-prone stand-offs, use of intrusive or disruptive technologies such as drones, sonic booms, dazzlers and tazers, provocative deployment of large-calibre area weapons in the forward zone, or coordinated separation of entangled forces, all of which impact border management at the tactical level.
In the wider context, it might also be prudent to consider the principles that might guide a future border settlement. And how we can draw clarity and consensus on it. The answers to these questions would require resumption of a political dialogue with China, to re-build trust and confidence. China with its political structure has an edge. India would have to work hard to build domestic consensus, lest our internal contradictions limit own options to negotiate. Many experts might argue that making peace would signal weakness and invite renewed Chinese aggression. On the contrary, this approach might afford us the time and opportunity to bridge the power gap and, in turn, the material resources to strengthen our efforts to build a credible military deterrent.
Lt Gen Harinder Singh (Retd) is a former corps commander.