Lessons from Ladakh Standoff

We keep repeating the mistakes. The Chinese PLA incursion in Ladakh, across the LAC, is once again a collective intelligence failure for India. There is much to be learned for India from the current scenario.

- LT GENERAL P.C. KATOCh (RETD)

THE NORM WE FOLLOW is to appoint committees after conflict situations whose reports are either buried like Henderson Brooks report of 1962 or lessons forgotten like of Kargil Review Committee. Commenting on shortcomings ‘during’ the conflict is taboo – even considered anti-national. The result is we tend to keep repeating our mistakes

But there is much to be learned from the current scenario.

One, Jarnail Singh, former joint secretary in PMO has blamed R&AW for intelligence failure for the 1999 Kargil intrusions in his book ‘With Four Prime Ministers – My PMO Journey’. 21 years later we suffered similar intelligence failure with Chinese aggression in Eastern Ladakh, even though NTRO was raised after 1999. Mere intimation of PLA exercise in Aksai Chin, which is a training area for PLA mechanised forces, was hardly enough. China had constructed a new road four kilometers short of Galwan which satellite imagery should have picked up. The NSA and the Joint Intelligence Committee failed to warn the Cabinet Committee on Security of the impending threat, as did the Director-General, Defence Intelligence Agency to the Defence Minister.

Two, China has had 24x7 satellite cover astride the LAC but we have been focused on Pakistan and failed to do so against China despite missions to the Moon and Mars.