Only time will tell, whether the Chinese intrusions on the LAC had achieved their aim in keeping with the strategy outlined by the two Chinese authors of a book on Unrestricted Warfare, who’ve suggested that all means, armed and unarmed, with lethality, should be used to compel an enemy, to submit to your interests.
No wonder the Chinese troops of the PLA had used nail-studded clubs among other means to get the better of the Indian soldiers, though unsuccessfully so. And so the year-end review for 2020 of India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) states: that even though Indian troops countered every Chinese move along the LAC in Ladakh, by maintaining “all protocols and agreements between the countries, while the PLA escalated the situation by utilisation of unorthodox weapons” to further their ‘expansionist designs’.
Only time will tell, whether the Chinese intrusions on the LAC had achieved their aim in keeping with the strategy outlined by the two Chinese authors of a book on Unrestricted Warfare, who’ve suggested that all means, armed and unarmed, with lethality, should be used to compel an enemy, to submit to your interests.
And now with the disengagement process on the LAC having commenced in February 2021, there are questions about what China has achieved by flexing its military muscles on the Himalayas. But the challenges that China could pose on us, could go well beyond the Himalayan frontiers, since the Indian army with the IAF’s assistance has had to ‘mobilise troops including accretionary forces’, as per the MoD report. It left China little room for further intrusions on the ground. What however could follow, wouldn’t be what meets the eye.
Future warfare
If push had come to shove, the Chinese could well have used electronic warfare means instead of focusing on just the use of conventional military platforms, despite the Chinese having deployed their air assets to their optimum, as the IAF Chief had recently indicated, and India’s navy keeping a close watch on Chinese ships and submarines in the high seas. The recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan gives us one major take away: it is that the nation that has more advanced electronic warfare capabilities, will win battles in future.
The use of drones, sensors, and microchips could be more lethal than the armada of air and naval power that had until now dominated military planning. The jamming of radars could make military users blind, and many of our systems could be rendered inoperative. The Chinese are working to get to the top of it, based on their ten years Made in China plan for 2025, announced in 2015. Thus, Chinese companies, as part of a deep civil-military engagement, provide the Chinese armed forces technologies – stolen on reverse engineered – to enhance the PLA’s space and cyber capabilities as also in artificial intelligence.
Here is an example of what the Chinese have been capable of. In November 2016, the US Navy’s extremely high-tech guided-missile destroyer, the USS Zumwalt – that was commissioned at a cost of US$ 4.4 billion – and was billed as a force multiplier had suffered a propulsion failure on the Panama Canal. This had shocked the US defence establishment. A thorough investigation led the US to identify ‘Çhinese Chips’- microchips that were manufactured by China’s PLA- which the Americans had to buy in tens of thousands to cut manufacturing costs.
To authenticate America’s findings, two days after the embarrassing failure of the US navy’s destroyer, a British hi-tech naval destroyer, HMS Duncan, had suffered a similar propulsion failure. This apparently also had Chinese Chips in it!
Therefore, electronic warfare is the next big challenge for militaries worldwide and China is focusing on that more than just conventional military platforms. India should therefore create ‘geek brigades’ made up of IT experts for its armed forces. The role that India’s IT industry can play in India’s defence industry must be taken up on priority. The strategies articulated in the book on unrestricted Warfare – even though its focus is on how China could get the better of the USA – has a militarily and economic message that India would be foolish to ignore.
Future strategy
While the US strategic community continues to focus on retaining their military edge purely with newer technologies, the Chinese have for some years quietly built up their reach within the American elites and have by now long-standing financial links even within Democrats and Mr Joe Biden’s party members. If this requires money, so be it. And thus the Chinese plan to buy out politicians, stifle the media, steal resources and even technology, seems predictably all par for the course. It is a pattern that is steadily emerging even in India, which offers both opportunities and challenges for China.
Electronic warfare is the next big challenge for militaries worldwide and China is focusing on that more than just conventional military platforms. India should therefore create ‘geek brigades’ made up of IT experts for its armed forces.
But China also targets the local population. Thus, it has flooded the Indian market with products and apps, since India offered one of the largest markets – with reportedly 560 million cellphone and their e-application users – with investments from Alibaba and Tencet reportedly in the likes of Paytm, MxPlayer and Gaana. These pose a big security challenge, which hasn’t been explained to the innocent Indian users.
In fact, with Indians known to give out information more easily than most other people, data can easily be taken away, including privileged information of companies, allowing for their use to even reverse engineer products. Also, the information on internet is controlled by two camps; the ‘open’ or the traditional camp dominated by Western companies – like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc – and the ‘closed’ or the companies controlled by China – like Alibaba and Baidu; it’s anybody’s guess, where the greater dangers lie.
In future wars, our adversaries may well use cyber and biological weapons that are hard to counter. Take the recent case of the US. Despite around 50 organisations of the US government having been recently hacked – and this includes the US Treasury, State and Homeland Security departments – their cybersecurity experts were clueless of the thefts for nearly nine months!
And as India has ranked poorly on cyber power index computed internationally, to safeguard itself and to respond to cyber-attacks, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that while our critical national assets are reasonably secure against the repeated cyber attacks they face, the security of our banking and business entities need to be further enhanced, if 2021 is not to be another nightmare!
Besides, if the pandemic has alerted us to one thing, then it is the crippling effect that a biological attack may have on any society. And though most major countries are signatories to international conventions against the use of biological weapons, (while still maintaining their stocks of germs) there is no guarantee when they could decide to use it.
And if they do, this could have a devastating impact on those targeted for which no country is quite sufficiently prepared.
–A version of this article was first published in THE TRIBUNE in January 8, 2021.
