How India must prepare to fight the next war with China

  Here, we examine the looming Chinese threat, and how India must prepare to fight the next war. To make prudent policy choices, we need to understand the nature of the Chinese threat; streamline our military doctrines, strategy, and structures; build a mix of war-fighting capabilities and technologies; and take a long view of India’s infirmities on its defence resourcing and the defence-industrial base, and the state of its border infrastructure. In brief, India needs a clear blueprint of how to cast a ready and relevant force for its northern borders.

  A formidable adversary, China possesses an impressive capacity to allocate its surplus capital for building its armed forces. Its industrial base is capable of producing a growing number of highly capable weapon platforms, to include combat aircraft, warships, missiles, and a variety of land-based systems. Its missile capability has significantly expanded, complemented by a large fleet of fifth- and sixth-generation fighter aircraft and air defence systems. It is doubling its nuclear warhead arsenal, and making great strides in modernising its surface and sub-surface naval platforms, including aircraft carriers. It possesses some advanced cyber, space, and electronic warfare capabilities, and it is making forays into quantum computing and hypersonic platforms to fight future wars.

  China’s publicly announced defence budget last year stood at approximately $236 billion. Its allocation increased by over 7 per cent. When off-budget allocations are added, it is estimated at approximately $310 billion. When adjusted in terms of purchasing power parity, their spending is assessed at $574 billion. And, if corporate funding on defence research, development, and production were to be added, this rises further considerably. Conservative estimates indicate it to be no more than 27 to 33 per cent higher than its official budget, thus pegging it at about $314 billion. On the contrary, India’s defence budget last year was pegged at $86.1 billion, making it only one-third of China’s official budget. Accordingly, the Sino-Indian rivalry is not only strategic but also asymmetric, with economic asymmetry lying at its core.

  On all reckonable indices of economic development, military modernisation, technologies, and innovation, China outranks India by a factor of three to five. In sheer military terms, India is one-fifth the material size of Chinese capabilities on land, air, and sea. Given this wide strategic gap, it is evident India does not possess adequate capacity to counter a Chinese aggressive design. Notwithstanding this, India still needs a unique strategy to deter or defeat a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) offensive along its land borders and in the maritime domain, even if its current capabilities have not yet fully grown in scope, quality, and strength. It further implies how India gauges the gaps in the PLA’s strength and posture to formulate an effective border-guarding strategy.

  Achieving deterrence

  Dealing with a rapidly modernising PLA means figuring out its intentions and preparing for anticipated action. It boils down to the type and quantum of forces likely to be employed against India to seize its territorial claims. If this can be somehow averred, India can narrow down its choices to fight the Chinese aggression: either fight the PLA along the borders, or extend the battle deeper into Chinese territory to target its centre of gravity. While doing so, it has to protect its own infrastructure and logistic installations in the battle space and its hinterland. Both situations are somewhat different, and they require distinct capabilities and operating concepts. The question then is, how India leverages its capacity — in terms of useful doctrines and strategy — to thwart a PLA offensive in an all-out conflict.

  Such an offensive would involve moving huge amounts of men, machines, and material over harsh terrain and climatic conditions and extensive road and rail infrastructure across Tibet and Xinjiang. Having mobilised at speed and scale, it would aim to seize decisive terrain or lodge itself in pockets across the length and breadth of the borders and, if successful, expand its lodgment up to its perceived claim lines. Should this prove difficult, the PLA might like to employ its large inventory of ballistic and cruise missiles to attrite our infrastructure in the hinterland, and to weaken India’s defence of its borders. In a nutshell, the PLA would aim to lodge itself in pockets across the three sectors (west, central, and east); expand captured footholds in areas of strategic interest; and alongside, degrade India’s infrastructure to force India to conclude the war.

  Consequentially, India’s operational strategy will have to be designed to break the PLA’s plans of lodgment, expansion, and rear-zone attrition. The primary challenge will be how the Chinese plan to engage India’s frontline defences along its land borders. The secondary concern will be how the Chinese would seek to degrade our border infrastructure and logistic supply chains in the event of a protracted conflict. In that sense, India’s military strategy will have to transcend beyond defending simply our borders to secure both our strategic road-rail infrastructure and critical civilian infrastructure and industry.  Additionally, securing our air, space, cyber, and maritime domains will remain crucial. That raises the question: which capabilities are suited to deter war, and which ones are crucial to defend or defeat threats to our territorial integrity. 

Deterring China’s strength and capability is a tall order. India will have to figure out what to prioritise and what not to, lest we invest in areas that have little impact. More tanks, guns, and fighter aircraft to fight the frontline battle; or more drones, missiles, and munitions to wage the hinterland battle is the key question. Choosing between the two would require distinct investments, industrial capacities, and acquisition plans. That puts the Indian military in bit of a quandary. In contrast, China has an abundance of military wherewithal to fight a protracted war. Along the land borders, its forces are well structured to prosecute a combined-arms campaign. Its rocket force has the reach, range, and deep inventories to cause serious attrition to India’s hinterland, and its infrastructure, logistics, and industry. Therefore, strengthening deterrence to dissuade China from starting a war will be key, while remaining fully prepared to fight an all-out border war. 

Two aspects are pertinent. First, pre-positioning of military resources along the entire warfront, with additional forces mobilising with speed and urgency from the hinterland, when needed. Slow and steady buildup of forces is no longer a choice in this age of battlefield transparency.  

Pre-positioning can help reduce this dilemma by half — if not absolutely — from a readiness point of view. This would entail ramping up indigenous capacity for strategic intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; stockpiling of fuel, spares, and munitions; bolstering of road, air, and rail infrastructure; and positioning of reserves to lend their timely employment.

  Second, when forced to respond to a Chinese provocation or attack, rapidly deploy its forces to thwart the PLA offensive design. Striking at the PLA’s centre of gravity to disrupt its offensive before it builds momentum would be key. This would require identifying high-value targets and infrastructure across the Tibetan massif, including road and rail approaches from Xinjiang and Chengdu. Precision strikes to destroy communication bottlenecks and chokepoints across the frontier would be crucial to winning the hinterland battle.

  Herein lie the questions of capacity and escalation. Any attrition battle of the hinterland would require a wide assortment of offensive and defensive missiles, and inventories in limitless quantities. Further, targeting the heart of the PLA’s offensive would entail prospects of uncontrolled escalation, in dimensions more than land. On both counts India’s planners might have to accord more thought, as we might be in a position to fight a hard battle along the contested borders, but not the attrition battle in the hinterland with equanimity. Additionally, our ability to blind the PLA command and control systems besides its space, cyber, and electronic warfare systems in order to sustain a suppression campaign against PLA targets is still in doubt.

  Technology and tactics

  A two-front collusive threat complicates India’s capability needs. It muddles the policy debate, as each capability choice comes with an affordability tag. A straightforward approach would be to invest in war-fighting competencies at two levels: the traditional platforms which constitute the backbone of any force, vital to deter or defeat material threats; and those new-age technologies that can provide an asymmetric edge on the battlefield. As these new technologies evolve, their cost, efficacy and application become important criteria to identify future force designs and employment concepts. Therefore, building a mix of capabilities nuanced enough to stalemate the PLA will be important.  

Three aspects are pertinent. First, India would have to invest in technologies that allow its military to fight the “land-air littoral” battle across the length and operational depth of its borders. Battles are no longer frontal alone but top-attack too, with the advent of drones and unmanned platforms. This top-down dimension is dramatically transforming how less-capable militaries can leverage low-cost platforms to stalemate a stronger adversary. The Russia-Ukraine war is instructive. In that context, India’s capacities are relatively weak, and its defence industry is not capable of producing a wide range of unmanned systems and in the volumes needed. Consequentially, our ability to build 24x7 visibility over the adversary’s battle space is limited, to undertake informed decision-making for the best use of our scarce resources. 

Second, a major increase in our inventory of precision-guided missiles is inescapable in a conflict with the PLA. Since these are never low-cost, the effort should be to employ a large number of cheap drones to destroy targets in the immediate battle space and the loitering munitions for the hinterland. Loitering munitions, with their ability to combine sensing and surveillance tasks, can perform valuable attrition in war, in lieu of more expensive and sophisticated missile systems. Together, the unmanned aerial and ground systems, long-range missiles, and guided artillery are rewriting the rules of the relationship between precision, manoeuvre, and attrition on the battlefield.

  And third, while fighter aircraft, tanks, and warships have a role to play in the battle, their utility on a transparent battlefield is losing importance. Notwithstanding that, these traditional capabilities would still continue to be crucial in India’s territorial context — more to act as a deterrent rather than to just deliver tactical outcomes. For instance, 

long-range bombers and stealth fighter aircraft, if acquired, can be extremely useful to attrite the PLA forces in depth. So would other space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities, and along with critical land systems such as air defence and long-range artillery platforms, which remain important.

  Suffice to say that, capability development today is more than simple budgetary allocations, as more money does not necessarily get you more firepower on the ground. To tilt the balance on the battlefield, it is important to understand which capabilities are ageing, which ones are providing diminishing returns, and which ones are more ground-breaking. Budgetary allocations also tend to unnecessarily heighten our confidence, as capabilities that are felt essential today might turn out to be less useful tomorrow. In that case, investing in expensive, large-signature platforms will have to be weighed out against more precise, lethal, and agile technologies. 

  Additionally, the new technologies on their own are not a sufficient condition to win wars.  On the contrary, doctrinal and operational concepts are central to exploiting technology. Unless it supports a doctrine, to tout every new technology as a game-changer can be pointless. This makes the argument of legacy platforms being obsolete and antiquated even more facile. India’s policymakers will have to be sure of what capabilities they need in terms of type and quantity against realistic acquisition timelines.

  Resourcing and readiness

  Operation Sindoor highlighted the increased use of new technologies, including that of drones, missiles, and loitering munitions. Besides its indigenous capacities, India relied on its partners for critical munitions and other equipment. No nation is large enough to go to war on its own, but those like China with a strong industrial base are better placed to do so. China’s industrial policy has allowed heavy investment in this regard, including its munitions and shipbuilding. Its defence production outpaces that of any other major arms-producing country, reinforcing that if a border war is thrust upon us, it could be a gamble unless India takes a strategic view of its defence industrial base, defence resourcing, and border infrastructure needs. 

Three aspects are important. First, India needs to strengthen its scientific, technological, and defence-industrial prowess. It must find flexible ways to accelerate its military acquisitions, which can lead to new approaches to defence industrialisation. Ensuring that war-fighting capabilities keep pace with the Chinese military threat requires an industrial policy which promotes collaboration with a range of defence actors, from the traditional ordnance factories and private industry players to the start-ups and innovators. To achieve this, India has to invest in reliable partners beyond its traditional suppliers: the US, Russia, and Israel.  Learning from Ukraine’s experience can be useful. Ukraine’s model of disaggregated technology development has allowed the emergence of new ideas more from the private sector than government-owned industry. Its major achievement has been the mainstreaming of dual-use technologies into its military thinking and operations. In India’s case, fostering industrial convergence would require a government-wide initiative to study the evolving technology trends and possibilities of integrating 

processes across the civil and defence industry. Like China, India needs to identify its set of advanced technologies, which can serve military and commercial applications. More importantly, India will have to aspire to become a creator of technologies, rather than being an importer.

  Second, it needs to streamline its defence budgeting framework and find innovative ways of resourcing its military modernisation. With India’s budgetary allocations pegged at one-third the size of China, decisions to bridge this gap remain a political and economic conjecture. To balance its socio-economic and strategic resourcing priorities, India has to find more innovative mechanisms — beyond the customary annual allocations as a percentage share of its GDP. A more useful approach to build its hard power in terms of technology or capacity would require better resourcing logic and consistency. Some plausible budgetary innovations could be: create a one-time defence fund, like the German €100 billion defence fund; exempt India’s defence industry players from acceptable debt limits; or create an extra-budgetary mechanism along the lines of the Polish bureaucracy and issue defence bonds to raise capital for upgrading its industrial capacity. Consequently, India needs a better criterion to resource its military modernisation. These will have to be in sync with needs of modern combat, rather than defray resources on an equitable or proportionate basis to less relevant technologies. There might also be a strong case to build a “benchmark index” to allow balancing of capabilities into which money is being invested. 

Finally, it needs to thoroughly augment its border infrastructure and logistic readiness, which cannot wait for a war to start. The challenge is, how much to cater for in peacetime, and what could build up during war. Also, logistics in this age of transparency is a big giveaway, as ease of targeting infrastructure and installations adds to new risks of war. It allows liberal use of missiles and munitions leading to more casualties of men, machines, and material. This underscores the need to rethink the traditional scales of logistical support. At another level, the development of road, air, and rail infrastructure in the border areas is the key to India’s deterrent posture. While the state has worked diligently towards achieving connectivity in these areas, it does not match up to Chinese efforts. India needs to recognise this differential. While adopting new technologies to rapidly create border infrastructure is important, it requires comprehensive state policy, and agency. Creation of a “national strategic infrastructure development board” along the lines of the National Highways Authority of India can possibly help streamline the resourcing and implementation of strategic infrastructural projects along our northern borders, cutting across ministries, departments, and state jurisdictions. 

A capable joint force 

China’s growing military might and its assertive posture along the Himalaya poses a tough challenge to India. Until a mutually acceptable boundary solution is found, India has no option but to build its capacity to deter China. But this is not only a simple matter of reorienting the joint force but also of signalling a strong intent to use force. To fight the Chinese, India needs a capable joint force: one borne out of the state’s capacity, its technological prowess, and industrial capacity.

  To achieve this, India’s policymakers must first ensure strong budgeting pathways in defence. Second, enable the fusion of the civil-defence industrial base to offset research, development, and high production costs. And third, strengthen the national strategic planning framework to readily accept and absorb rapid technological shifts in warfare. In summary, India needs a formal national security strategy to make the giant wheels of government work in sync to deal will all dimensions of national security, including an increasingly irredentist China.