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2007-12-22 China-Japan-Koreas

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Posted by Anonymoose 2007-12-22 10:04|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 building and repairing a rail facility at those altitudes is a herculean effort, destroying it and avalanching rocks and snow atop it....not so much

just saying

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-12-22 11:04|| 2007-12-22 11:04|| Front Page Top

#2 This story reads like a preparatory money beg to the Indian Congress.

Posted by Almost Anonymous5839">Almost Anonymous5839 2007-12-22 11:06|| 2007-12-22 11:06|| Front Page Top

#3 The Chinese infrastructure buildup and #2's comment are not mutually exclusive. Actions/response by India WILL require money and will on the part of India's leadership.

Sound Familiar?

Posted by Throger Thains8048 2007-12-22 12:42|| 2007-12-22 12:42|| Front Page Top

#4 Please note that this is already a numbers game, in so far as unit strength on both sides.

Hearkening back to my "demographic war" theory, if one side, probably China, decided to imbalance the equation by sending enormous numbers of poorly trained, supplied and equipped draftees to the front, the other side would have little recourse but to do the same.

But the *purpose* of doing this would not be military necessity, but the convenience of taking large numbers of "excess" men and "sending them away" to keep them out of the cities and from causing trouble. Men not wanted by their cities, villages, or even by their families.

In other words, initially at least, the border would act as a minimum security prison or institution, reducing the expense of these men to just a pound of rice a day for each, instead of the huge cost of allowing them to tear down society in a quest for employment or mates that didn't exist for them.

Tens of millions of men just sitting there on either side of the border, reinforcing their defensive positions.

Ironically, if any conflict broke out, both sides would try to keep it a "smoldering" conflict, not letting it escalate, even if it was at a huge scale. World War I sized fights using just rifles and machine guns. Kashmir writ large.

The conventional armies stay out of it for the most part, acting as a 2nd echelon to stop any enemy breakthroughs.

The men themselves wouldn't matter as long as they didn't return home. The front would be a one way ticket where they would either live or die. Disease or war, wouldn't matter.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-12-22 13:24|| 2007-12-22 13:24|| Front Page Top

#5 There are ~~morons~~ strategic thinkers in Delhi who argued against development of the border regions, believing that any transport infrastructure would be used by invading Chinese troops.

Posted by john frum 2007-12-22 13:32|| 2007-12-22 13:32|| Front Page Top

#6 In 2007, mass casualties will not be tolerated by he Chinese and Indian populations.

TV is everywhere and when a family has just one son, (even Indian muslim families are having less children), or even just one child, losing him in a pointless war will not be tolerated.

Governments will fall.

The Kargil war was the first Indian media war and the footage of funerals did not go down too well.
Villagers were on TV asking why their sons were dying.

Posted by john frum 2007-12-22 13:36|| 2007-12-22 13:36|| Front Page Top

#7 GANGTOK: The Kunming bonhomie notwithstanding, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China is undercutting Indian Army's efforts to strengthen its presence on the border. On November 23, a week before the visit of defence minister A K Antony and chief of army staff Gen Deepak Kapoor to Sikkim, PLA soldiers unloaded boulders in an effort to wreck the construction of a metalled road at Fingertips, a strategic spot near Gurudongmar in North Sikkim. The area is close to the Kangra La pass bordering south-west Tibet.

Indian troops, however, swung into action the next morning, and removed the obstruction. The road construction at an altitude of 18,500 feet was completed on November 27. Chinese representatives, however, did not speak about the offensive at Fingertips during a meeting between army representatives from both sides on November 23. They also kept quiet on the bunker dispute at the trijunction of Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet.

Significantly, prior to the Fingertips manoeuvre, Chinese troops had entered Indian territory and asked Indian Army personnel manning the border post there to stop construction of the road.

Posted by john frum 2007-12-22 13:42|| 2007-12-22 13:42|| Front Page Top

#8 India-China border

Posted by john frum 2007-12-22 13:43|| 2007-12-22 13:43|| Front Page Top

Posted by john frum 2007-12-22 13:46|| 2007-12-22 13:46|| Front Page Top

#10

Posted by john frum 2007-12-22 13:51|| 2007-12-22 13:51|| Front Page Top

#11 Looks like maybe a 'Great Wall of India' is in order. Along with shaped charges, mines, trenches and anything else India can reasonably afford to defend with.

Posted by Mike N. 2007-12-22 13:51|| 2007-12-22 13:51|| Front Page Top

#12 China is doomed. Note the guy in a military uniform with his hat on backwards!

Posted by Mike N. 2007-12-22 13:55|| 2007-12-22 13:55|| Front Page Top

#13 and we can't even get a little fence between the US and Mexico....

Congress?

Posted by 3dc 2007-12-22 15:04|| 2007-12-22 15:04|| Front Page Top

#14 john frum: If done immediately, it wouldn't work, but as with everything else, it is a process.

The demographic imbalance these days means that there will be tens of millions of young men who are both unemployed and unmarried. This implies that they are on their own from the very beginning. That they do not have strong family bonds to support them. No family to object to their being drafted.

In other words, they are homeless men without jobs. Nobody wants them. They have to steal and worse just to survive.

From that point, recruitment is easy. They are offered a pittance wage and food, a uniform and a rifle, instead of starving to death. Maybe use just a little patriotism.

Remember also that they are not trying to recruit them "to fight and die" in an ongoing war, just to "join the army". It could be pitched like a public works program. They would probably think they are joining the regular army, not just being sent to an enormous border garrisons full of draftees to do drill and ceremonies for hours every day.

Part and parcel with this is that at NO point is it allowed to become a "media war". Journalists are not permitted anywhere near these isolated garrisons or near where any battles might happen.

Any news at all will carefully controlled and made boring and empty. For the longest time there *won't* be any war to report, anyway.

Because that is the bottom line, the real purpose to all of this. It is to get tens of millions of unemployed men off the streets. If they have *any* job, or even a family that supports them, they are not good candidates for this.

The vast majority are already on their own. They are the army of men with no place left to go.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-12-22 15:16|| 2007-12-22 15:16|| Front Page Top

#15 Moose, a couple points for conjecture:
1) Logistics for adequately feeding, housing, etc., for large garrisons in forbidding climates and geography would be difficult
2) Having a heavily armed underfed, underutilized, dissatisfied (see: sex and marriage opportunities) group of single men with no hope of improvement is also asking for them to turn on their masters (see: armed insurrection)

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-12-22 15:32|| 2007-12-22 15:32|| Front Page Top

#16 Any thoughts on how those seven armored divisions would fair in the mountains?

Posted by Excalibur 2007-12-22 15:55|| 2007-12-22 15:55|| Front Page Top

#17 Frank G: Only when considering the alternative, that is, tens of millions of men scavenging on the countryside and in the cities. What I have suggested is really an involuntary and ugly alternative to something that could be a lot worse.

This many men are an army whether they realize it or not. And the Chinese have had several very bad experiences with the common man going on a rampage. It could turn into something like a cross between the Taiping Rebellion and the Cultural Revolution.

The situation in China itself would force such actions, such as an economic collapse, not some Machiavellian scheming. This would be done because they would feel they had to do it.

And if you put said millions in remote camps, it would be done in such a way that not only would they be unarmed, but if they did revolt, they would have to pass through many miles of regular army lines without food to get to any settlements.

And I was being literal about 1 pound of boiled rice a day per man. Though that would be generous rations in this case.

As far as keeping busy, the Chinese are also known for grandiose labor intensive projects. And in those circumstances, it would not be unrealistic to imagine many of those men put to work. Farming to feed themselves, if nothing else.

The bottom line is that this would be done to prevent chaos on a national scale. If this means that most of these men must die, circumstances may force that as well.

The same basic problem applies to India, as well as a possible solution. The big question is will they reach an understanding of sorts to solve their mutual problem?

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-12-22 17:29|| 2007-12-22 17:29|| Front Page Top

23:30 crosspatch
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