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14 January 2009

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TJ

One day I hope someone will ask Bush how he managed to get absolutely everything in the world to go to hell all at once. Impressive.

Arun

http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2008/JOE2008.pdf

November 25, 2008
United States Joint Forces Command

"There is one dynamic in the literature of weak and failing states that has received relatively little attention, namely the phenomenon of “rapid collapse.” For the most part, weak and failing states represent chronic, long-term problems that allow for management over sustained periods. The collapse of a state usually comes as a surprise, has a rapid onset, and poses acute problems. The collapse of Yugoslavia into a chaotic tangle of warring nationalities in 1990 suggests how suddenly and catastrophically state collapse can happen - in this case, a state which had hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics at Sarajevo, and which then quickly became the epicenter of the ensuing civil war.

In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico."

William R. Cumming

It would be interesting to note the religions making up the Indian Armed Forces. Also the Indian internal security procedures and deployment procedures for its units based on the fact it is the 3rd largest Islamic country. By the way what geographic regions of India are majority Muslim?

Mark Logan

Way off topic, but I can't help but ask about the picture. Putting the Mahout ion the most protected postion would be a very wise precaution, but they would have had to train the elephant not only to accept
direction from there but also ignore any input from the man riding the neck.

Did they really do it that way for "war" elephants?

R Whitman

Some background on the author??

Trent

WRC, just Jammu and Kashmir.

Rajat

The author is known to have connections within the Pakistan army of course because he himself was an officer there. However, Mr. Sehgal often betrays a sense of exaggeration when it comes to India because he spent months under humiliating circumstances in an Indian Prisoner of War camp following Pakistan's defeat and dismemberment in 1971.

That said, India's Cold Start doctrine does not require all of its military formations activated. I doubt that the Indian Army is ready to strike as the author indicates.

What might be happening is that the Indian government might want to show the threat of military escalation to make the international community take more urgent notice of Pakistan's flouting of its own commitments to prosecute the Mumbai terror culprits.

The Pakistanis now have India's evidence and the whole world agrees that Mumbai was planned in Pakistan. There should be no reason for Pakistan to delay action.

Unless Mumbai was done at the behest of the Pakistani state and therefore the state has no desire to punish its own proxies.

frank durkee

What software do i need to download this document?
Thanks.
Frank Durkee

Trent

FD, Microsoft Word.

Charles I

Frank Durkee, you can also use Open Office - a freeware alternative to Microsoft products. Does everything, same features, opens all MS Word documents has Power Point equivalent, and again, is free ,and is NOT Microsoft.

Only failing is that it's spellcheck function doesn't yet interface with Outlook Express.

Jose

IMHO, Pakistan will not be here within a couple of years, because the failed acronym nation is beyond repair.

The GWOT was probably the final blow as the Pashtuns/Taliban rebel against the central government.

If they leave, so will the Balochis, Sind, etc.

More ammunition on why we should not have gotten involved in Iraq.

India can just wait to pick the ripe fruit from the tree.

FB Ali

The whole point of this article is in the last paragraph : if India attacks Pakistan, the latter will use its nuclear weapons. This appears to be part of the war of words going on between the two countries relating to India’s demand for the handing over by Pakistan of certain named persons who are alleged to be behind the Mumbai terrorist attack. These sallies are also aimed at the US, with each side trying to scare it into supporting its stance.

However, the fact remains that, should there be any serious Indian military incursion into Pakistan that its army cannot contain, there is a distinct possibility that the latter will use tactical nuclear weapons, which could easily escalate into a full-scale nuclear exchange. I doubt that Pakistani generals appreciate the nuances of nuclear deterrence; to them these are just more powerful battlefield weapons. (This is no reflection on them. Generals in all armies have thought thus from the advent of nuclear weapons; whenever they get into a tough spot they would urge their government to let them use their nifty little nukes. The problem in Pakistan’s case is that its government isn’t strong (or wise) enough to say No).

Cold War Zoomie

Some background on the author??

He's the managing editor of Defence Journal.

S.D.

FD, 1)If Word not available it opens with WordPad (usually here C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe" )

or Microsoft provides viewer free.

Word Viewer 2003
Brief Description
View, print and copy Word documents, even if you don't have Word installed

http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en

frank durkee

Thanks for the help.
Frank Durkee

Byron Raum

FB Ali,

From what I understand, the generals in Pakistan already don't need permission. Far from not understanding deterrence, Pakistan views its nuclear arsenal as the answer to what it considers to be India's overwhelming conventional arms superiority. Consequently, they are always on high alert. Remember, in Pakistan, the generals have almost always been a quite powerful political block. So, it's not just a possibility, it's a certainty. That's kind of the idea. The harrowing part about it is that a deterrence means that both sides have to be totally sane at all times.

B.R.

Jon T.

TJ - at the "exit interview" I heard at George Bush's recent press conference, George, IMO, sounded like a confident intelligent weight lifter who had the gloves removed by his writers and handlers. He used the word "aggressive" at least twice and the phrase "face serious consequences" once. In each, his voice got stronger and more insistent. I was surprised at how willing he was to let his "passive aggressive" boundary function rest for a moment and let his tiger out of the cage. It sounded like him saying "Listen, I work out, I run, I am strong, I actually do read and no one is going to mess with me. Do you have a problem with that?" Summation of eight years.

What his relation to India Pakistan is, I have not an idea. I leave that to the rest of you who know something about it.

I do know something about language and emotion and he sounded supremely confident.

Clifford Kiracofe

1.Rehearsing an order of battle, so what is new here? Just s'more Pak hysteria ops?

2.Pakistan, a failing state should shut down its terrorist machinery to remove a potential cause of war with India, not to mention justifiable reprisals by India. The United States should insist that the Pak Army shut down the terror ops.

3.About those nukes, so what exactly is the Chinese role in the management of the Pak nuclear arsenal and decisionmaking? Do Chinese technicians, rather than Pak technicians, have their fingers on the buttons and machinery with Beijing having a veto on use?

4. To deal with the regional threat situation, which includes a disintegrating and potentially Balkanized Pakistan, the US must have a very frank discussion on a range of issues with the Chinese with the objective of removing Pakistan's ability to play dangerous and destabilizing games by using its China card, such as it is.

5. It would seem that it is not in India's interest to have a Balkanized Pakistan in turmoil on its borders as that could spill into India proper with negative effects on India's own internal stability.

SAC Brat

For Mark Logan,

Check out the Thai period film "The Legend of Suriyothai"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Suriyothai

The battle scenes were carefully researched but the production commentary says that they were hampered by a lack of writings on elephant tactics and only had paintings and carvings to work from. A ironic note was they decided it was cheaper to use real elephants than computer animated ones for the battle scenes.

Arun

From an Indian forum, a question:

"Is Iran as implacably, virulently disposed against Israel and/or the United States, to the same extent, or less, or more, than Pakistan is towards India? If less or more, then why? Is it because they have less political Islam in their governmental doctrine than Pakistan? Or is it because Pakistan has something else in addition to political Islam governing the formulation of its policy towards India?"

and a proposed answer from the same forum:

"In the case of India, what became of Pakistan is indistinguishable from what remained as India. So, differences had to be fabricated, history had to be invented as well as suppressed, and the seeds of hatred had to be sowed. grown and nurtured. While Islam was used as 'curry leaves' to add flavour in the early stages, it became the main course after 1971."

-- and a comment about the Sehgal piece:

"The article by {Sehgal} is only partly correct. He has goofed up on various location and formations. As for Armoured Divisions: 1st-Ambala (II Strike Corp), 31st Jhansi/Babina(I SC) and 33rd Bhopal/Sagar (21 SC)."

Mark Logan

Thanks SAC, there really is very little known about the art.

I've always been fascinated by elephants from when I was just a boy.
We had a vacation to Thailand and I witnessed something remarkable. There
was a logging operation that doubled as a tourist trap. Both myself and my sister managed to get our parents to hang out for hours watching them work.
The elephants were hoisting logs into a truck and two men with polaxes were adjusting the logs the elephants dropped. Just as a mahout commanded his elephant to drop, one of the men slipped and fell right across the pile. The elephant held the log until he got out of the way.

All the engravings I've seen of war elephants show the mahout in the traditional position, but none of them are from India. I find it interesting because this training would have made the war elephants useless for anything but fighting,
and they are a darn useful
thing to specialize like that. But the indications are war elephants were specially trained and reserved for war in other places as well.

That picture sure seems like a metaphor for armies in general. The guy fighting has to do it atop a beast that not only has a mind of it's own, but is
being steered by someone who probably had never fought and can only see what's happening in glimpses.

Michael Chevalier

India is reported to be buying Boeing P-8s for its maritime reconnaissance needs. This most likely makes Boeing the odds on favorite for supplying India with trenches of fighters as well, that being the F-18E/F Super Hornet. The P-8s have the Signint technology to have broken into the cell calls used by the Mumbai attack perpetrators. (for the techies, think Rivet Joint level capability) They would be networked with the Hornets in a way no other aircraft could do.

Getting past the military details, this a huge expenditure and another very strong linkage between the two countries. I find this telling: The U.S. is providing, undiluted (in any description I can find), very advanced technology to India. The assets will be identically capable to the U.S. Navy’s planes. Compare this to pre-Decider gates placed on U.S. weapons sales to Pakistan, a congressional block on overseas F-22 sales and bickering over the full stealth/avionics content of the F-35 to foreign purchasers. The geopolitical aspect appears to be a continuation of recognition of where our ‘center of gravity’ in interests lies in this hemisphere.

Where does this take the U.S.? I can read this: two nuclear armed powers with a bad history of conflict, a chunk of disputed land that wants to be part of Pakistan (by reports of polls), a lack of action on terrorism launched from one country to another (and maybe aided by part of the government apparatus), U.S. weapons in both places (the Decider provided modern F-16s to Pakistan and modern weapons to match, including Harpoon missiles plus 50 self-propelled 155 howitzers), our supply routes to Afghanistan run through Paki territory, Pakistan a potentially Balkanized country.

I can read Pakistan history. I am bewildered by a place that seems to be begging for instability. After their own assassinations, has India turned the corner into sanity? I have to say that, despite the horror in Gaza, the thought of mushroom clouds in this part of the world is what I believe Joe Biden’s test could be, at its ghastly worst.

MCC

zanzibar

Michael

I have not been to Pakistan although I know a few here in the US. I have traveled a bit in India and again know several here in the US.

They inform me that there are no more differences than East & West Germany. Apparently there are more cultural differences between the North & South in India than between those in Pakistan and those in the North of India.

Maybe in the long term a unification may lessen their superficial disagreements. From what little that I know of the Indians they seem rather level headed and I doubt they would initiate the tactical use of nuclear weapons.

Sparsh

Col. Lang,

Seghal's description of the Indian Army's Orbat is an *extremely* shoddy piece of work. Several major items of detail are either extremely outdated, inaccurate, incomplete, or in some cases just plain wrong. He seems to have put it together in a great hurry without any proof reading - so glaring are some of his mistakes.

Sparsh

Arun,

Only the location of the 31st Armoured Division that you quote is correct.

The 1st is not at Ambala and the 33rd is nowhere even remotely close to Bhopal/Sagar.

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