Unquiet In The Himalayas

The Chinese pla’s incursions across the line of actual control in ladakh test the vulnerability of india’s newest union territory

- Sandeep Unnithan

A few years back, the top brass of the Indian Army’s Northern Command decided to put a twist to a war game. The Udhampur-based command, which defends a 2,000-km-long horseshoe-like territory from the plains of Jammu to the rugged deserts near the border of Uttarakhand, was examining the possibility of war with Pakistan. That year, they decided to throw China into the mix—what if the command had to simultaneously battle two countries? The war game was played out, saw China going on the offensive in the first two days with Pakistan joining in. The conclusions, as one planner put it mildly, were worrying. The army, even with the support of the air force, would find the going extremely tough. In an off-the-record media interaction a few years ago, a senior member of the present security establishment dismissed a two-front war scenario as “improbable” because it did not factor in India’s not insignificant diplomatic heft.