Human soldiers will be the least important aspect of modern war
Pravin Sawhney
United States’ National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan on his visit to China held extensive talks with Chinese seniormost diplomat Wang Yi on August 27-28. Both sides shared their concerns and agreed that strategic communication was important since this bilateral relationship was most consequential for shaping the evolving world order. Sullivan’s two key concerns of regular military to military and Artificial Intelligence (AI) talks underscored that in the ongoing intense security competition with China in the Asia Pacific region, the US military was unsure of its deterrence and war fighting capabilities against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This should concern India and its military leadership since the Indian military and the PLA have been in a standoff on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) since April 2020 with no signs in easing of border tensions.
The question to ponder over is this: If the US military is unsure of its capabilities against the PLA, does the Indian military leadership which regularly assures the nation that it is prepared for a two-front war (with the PLA and Pakistan military) even understand the formidable adversary that it is up against on the LAC? The answer is a big No, since the army leadership, which has designated itself as the lead service in war (with the other two services, the air force and navy supporting its operations), talks about shifting of its forces from one theatre to another as if both the PLA and the Pakistan military have similar war concepts.
The reality is that while the Pakistan military has established its deterrence against the Indian military (evidence is Pakistan Army’s ongoing proxy war into Jammu and Kashmir), the PLA, in an entirely different league, has deterrence against the US military in West Pacific, which it has done by its asymmetric warfare strategy. Asymmetric warfare is about not matching the adversary’s capabilities but identifying and attacking the adversary’s vulnerabilities to end the war quickly on favourable terms with minimal casualties.
Before explaining this, three crucial issues should be understood. One, unlike the Indian military which is preparing for a border war with the PLA, the latter will have nothing to do with it. On 1 January 2022, China announced that nibbling of its territory on the disputed border would amount to infringement of its sovereignty over which it will fight. So, in case of a war between India and China, the PLA will fight for its sovereignty to reclaim its territories: the state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Ladakh.
Two, following the revocation of Articles 370 and 35A from Jammu and Kashmir on 5 August 2019, the PLA and Pakistan military have come in a tight operational embrace with China publicly stating that it would ensure Pakistan’s sovereignty. This means that in an event of war with either adversary, India would fight with both. While Pakistan would certainly join in a war between India and China, in the war between India and Pakistan, China may not show its hand openly but might support Pakistan with its non-kinetic capabilities. China may do this to ensure that its narrative of peaceful rise which is the basis on its global economic Belt and Road Initiative strategy is not jeopardised. However, this should be no comfort for the Indian military since PLA’s non-kinetic capabilities include providing round the clock visibility of the battlespace to the Pakistan military. Moreover, PLA could unleash cyberwar and use its non-kinetic space capabilities to create chaos in civil life across India. The PLA would also ensure operational sustenance such as ammunition, spares and other war waging capabilities to Pakistan military to meet its war surge needs.
And three, unlike the Indian military which has capability to fight in three physical war domains of land, air and sea, the PLA can fight in six war domains: four physical ones of land, air sea, and space, and two virtual domains of cyber and Electro Magnetic Spectrum (EMS) by cyber and electronic fires. By definition, a war domain implies capability to confront, contest, and combat in that space.
War Control
PLA’s ability to fight in six as compared with three war domains by the Indian military has implications for conventional warfare. For the beginners, the latter is fought at three levels: tactical, operational and strategic. Tactical level is the lowest level of war where battles happen resulting in attrition. The operational or the intermediate level of war is more than the sum-total of all battles in a battlespace since cognitive confrontation (the mind game) between the two military leaderships plays a big role in one side winning while the other losing a war. The highest strategic level of war brings the two political leaderships in cognitive confrontation.
Another issue regarding the three levels of war is that the Indian military and the PLA assess it differently. For the Indian military, which still follows the 38 years old US military’s Air Land battle war concept (1986), each service believes in winning the war by itself since it considers its battlespace to have all three war levels. For example, the Indian Army’s different formations are responsible for different depths on its land space. A division commander fights its battles till a certain depth from the frontline, however, when his defences get breached by the enemy, the concerned corps commander (higher formation) fights the battles till his defences get breached. Then, the highest formation, army commander takes over the war. Thus, in this artificial construct of dividing land, a corps headquarters has been designated as the highest tactical level, while the army commander is referred to the one responsible for the operational level of war where war/ campaign is won or lost.
It is same for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy. With the induction of technologies, they believe they have an operational or campaign role, which would facilitate tactical combat support to the army better rather than them supporting the army war plan from the beginning. The army is considered the most important service since the outcome of a war is determined by capture of enemy territory, taking prisoners of war, or by heavy attrition of enemy men and material, all of which happens on the land space. For this reason, the army generals believe that ‘boots on the ground’ are critical for war outcome.
For the PLA, with the ability to fight in six domains, each domain is a tactical battlespace, while integration of all six domains by Integrated Joint Operations (IJO) constitutes a campaign. Since the PLA integrates physical domains like land, air, sea, and space with virtual domains of cyber and electromagnetic spectrum, it does not talk about platforms (which virtual domains lack), but about capabilities for IJO. Thus, on the one hand, there is no bean counting of platforms like guns, tanks, aircraft with each side which is what all levels of war in Indian military are concerned about. On the other hand, command and control of virtual domains is not dependent on domain peculiarities and geography. For example, all physical platforms like tanks, aircraft and ships are influenced by the geographic and climatic conditions of the operational area as well as core competencies of the physical domain (army’s core competency is combined arms operations while air force’s is speed, flexibility, range and precision), while cyber and electronic fires which traverse at the speed of light have nothing to do with domain and climatic peculiarities.