Reassessing the Chinese threat.
First published for the Indian military review, before the Doklam & Galwan crisis, it has become more relevant with the current standoff in Ladakh. Memories of 1962 still affect the ability of our Political and military establishment, to assess the military threat from China. Politically, we have been extremely circumspect when dealing with incursions of the PLA across the LAC. Articles in our defence journals and those written by defence experts, make repeated references to the excellent Chinese transport & airfield network across LAC and its ability to throw upwards of 30 divisions against our forces, tasked with defending the LAC. This is contrasted with the poor infrastructure development on our side and shortfalls in the men and material required to deal with this threat. As an armchair enthusiast and former company CEO who has dealt with competition mapping in the civilian world, I decided to examine this premise, using open source information and Google earth, to ...