India has long planned for its worst case scenario: A two front war against Pakistan on it’s western border and against China on it’s northern border.
India’s conventional forces have been tweaked, refined, and upgraded over the years (albeit in fits and starts with lots of missed steps) so that India could fight 1.5 wars while maintaining internal security with its large central police forces of more than 1.4 million personnel under the Home Ministry.
Pakistan is considered a regional power and a medium level threat and gets the 0.5 war rating, while China is rated as a great power or near superpower and a high level threat, warranting a full 1.0 war rating. This requires a force level of some 1.2 to 1.4 million personnel divided across 7 theater of operations across several thousand miles of front. Approximately 1 million reserve personnel can be called up to augment the regular forces, or replace combat losses.
These forces must be equipped and trained to deal with full spectrum, high intensity operations for a sustained period, hence the Indian armed forces emphasis of late on the much clouded ‘Cold Start’ doctrine and war reserves for more than 40 days of continuous fighting, as well as a defence budget of more than 60 billion USD, the 5th largest in the world.
However, India has been plagued by poor planning, ad hoc strategic decisions, interservice rivalries, and bureaucratic incompetence on many levels. As a result while India remains capable of defeating Pakistan in a sustained war lasting more than 2 weeks, it is highly unlikely that it can also defend against a full scale attack from China at the same time. India currently has only enough reserves in all categories for 10 days of sustained combat, so its combat power will diminish considerably as it begins to run out of critical war reserve types. India is probably capable of 1.25 wars as of 2019. A full scale fight against Pakistan, or a full scale standoff with China, or a full scale fight with Pakistan involving 700,000 troops and a brushfire fight with Chinese forces in one or two sectors, involving no more than 200,000 to 250,000 troops. A simultaneous major fight against both China and Pakistan is probably beyond India’s current capability.
So is India in danger of a two front war? Will China and Pakistan team up to take down India?
A reasonable assumption would be NO. China has not indicated any desire to engage in a destructive war with India. It has supported Pakistan with arms, financing, and diplomatic support, but never with any military forces. Pakistan by itself is unable to defeat India, and most Pakistani civilians, while very patriotic, do not show a desire to join up with China in some grand destructive war to ‘destroy’ India. India will defend itself, but has not taken steps to provoke China or Pakistan into a war. Its policy is fairly reactive…if attacked they will fight, but not before.
So India seems to be on the right track in slowly taking its time to modernize its forces, build up infrastructure, stockpile war reserves, and fully integrate its Cold Start warfighting plan, knowing there is little risk of a joint Pakistani-China attack. As a matter of national prudence India plans for a two front war but hope not to fight it, and evidence so far indicates they are probably right. Additionally, all three nations have been careful to keep conflicts limited, and have developed protocols for signaling, notifying, and mediating with each other via hotlines, treaties, and international involvement where both, or all, parties agree.
A final factor is the nuclear capabilities of all three nations. None of these nations show any willingness to roll over and submit to any invader, and each nation has more than enough national power to defend themselves. The force levels required to beat down Pakistani, Indian, or Chinese forces would ensure an extremely destructive war and would cross the nuclear threshold at some point. No one would ‘win’ if things went nuclear! There would only be billions dead and a glowing pile of atomic rubble.
The leaders and peoples of Pakistan, India, and China have shown no such bloodthirsty ambition, despite some radical fringe groups and political talk meant for domestic audiences. Most of the ordinary citizens just want to get on with their lives, and even have peaceful relations with each other, to the extent possible. It certainly seems as if the majority want to try for these things.