China is able to make India suffer more severe military losses than in the past if it wants to engage in competition, state-backed newspaper Global Times said on Tuesday, after a fresh border flare-up between the two nuclear-armed countries.
Indian forces foiled an attempt by Chinese troops to occupy a hill on the Asian giants’ disputed border in the western Himalayas, officials in New Delhi said on Monday.
It is probably correct that China could escalate on the border beyond India's capacity to match China.
That's why I think in a serious war that India would expand the fight to the Indian Ocean rather than fight at a disadvantage only on the border:
China surely has the edge on land. But I think there are limits to how decisive any land action can be given the terrain.
Amazingly, India still hasn't corrected their dangerous deficiency in air power.
So to compete with an escalation on land by China in the north, India would have to broaden the conflict to a sea war to cut off China's line of supply across the Indian Ocean [Link added as an UPDATE] and perhaps attack China's base at Djibouti. China's logistics to operate in the Indian Ocean would be severely tested if China sent their fleet there.
India would have to be careful deploying their ships in the northern Bay of Bengal (or further south considering my post is over a decade old), of course.
India would need to succeed enough at sea to use their distant blockade on China to pressure China to give up any territorial gains on the contested border. Which would be interesting to take notes on to measure how much a blockade would actually hurt China and how quickly it would hurt.
Of course, it would be best not to start down the path of a general war between the two most populous countries on the planet, who also have nuclear weapons.
UPDATE: This is obvious but it doesn't hurt to repeat:
As a monthslong military standoff between India and China along their disputed mountain border protracts, experts warn that the nuclear-armed countries — which already have engaged in their bloodiest clash in decades — could unintentionally slide into war.
Fingers crossed. Nobody wants war.
That said, peace is helped by China being diverted away from the sea. A China torn between inland and seaward focus is good for all of China's neighbors.
