CHINA ON COLLISION TRAJECTORY WITH UNITED STATES IN INDO PACIFIC IN 2023

The Indo Pacific, 75 years since the last Korean War, in which newly emerged Communist China challenged the United States in a Major War on the Korean Peninsula, once again witnesses China headed on other Major War with the United States, unless prudence overtakes the megalomaniac impulses of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Unlike Korean War 1949-50, any future war which China provokes the United States into an armed conflict, inherently incorporates the possibilities of a wider Major War involving not only Indo Pacific countries but also Europe and Russia forced to side with China.

China with its amassed military power exponentially built up in last 20 years, when United States was strategically distracted by its military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, is itching to flex its military muscles.

Chinese President Xi Jinping having had his way in establishing 'Full Spectrum Dominance' over the South China Sea without any checkmating by Bush and President Obama Administrations was led into the belief that "US Power was on the Decline'.

However, follow-up US Presidents Trump and Joe Biden have adopted Hard Line strategies towards China which while not dispensing dialogues with China incorporates Trade Wars and even firm contours of a 'China Containment Policy'.

In 2023, United States strategic policies of a mix of Trade Wars and Containment have started hurting China and more specifically the image of Chinese President Xi Jinping whose signature swing from decades of 'Soft Power' usage was replaced by Xi's muscular 'Hard Line' strategies.

So, in 2023 we are witnessing the kinetics of both China and the United States engaged in a confrontation of 'Hard Line Strategies' against each other.

The Indo Pacific Regin in 2023 is sitting on an explosive gunpowder-keg which even a small unintended incendiary spark can ignite a possible Worl War III.

In my assessment that 'Incendiary Spark' will be ignited by China and not the United States. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping has too many high-profile stakes in the 'flash points' that he has ignited on China's peripheries since 2013. Domestically, President cannot afford to climb down on these flashpoints without endangering his regime.

Post-Ukraine War in which Russia is stuck in a quagmire of its own creation, Russia's geopolitical and military dependence on China has intensified. This has forced Russia to actively participate in Joint Air Patrols with Chinese Air Force combat planes over adjoining Seas of Japan and South Korea. Additionally, Russia has been drawn-in by China to take part in similar provocative Joint Naval Exercises in these contested spaces.

The moot question that emerges from such a hostile, contested and confrontationist security environment in Western Pacific, is that for how long the United States can exercise "Strategic Restraint"' against an aggressive and bellicose China intent on challenging United States predominance in Indo Pacific?

In Conclusion, the assessment that I wish to offer is that "Strategic Restraint" of the United States is wearing thin, going by ongoing US military developments in Indo Pacific.

The United States will not be the first one to ignite the spark of a Major War in Indo Pacific. The United States will await China to do so.

The United States would, however, be well-advised to bear the lessons of the Korean Warin its strategic planning. China then with a primitive military machine and no nuclear weapons, dared to challenge the United States then a Sole Nuclear Power in the world.

In 2023 and beyond, China bristling with a nuclear weapons arsenal and a formidable military machine can be expected to be more aggressive and vicious in its next War with the United States & US Allies.

   

NATO VILNIUS SUMMIT 2023 AND INDO PACIFIC SECURITY

Op Ed published on the quoted subject carried by Eurasia Review. See at

https://eurasiareview.com/15072023-nato-vilnius-summit-indo-pacific-security-oped/

NATO seriously concerned by systemic challenges posed by China to Indo Pacific security and also to European security.

NATO can be expected to intensify its strategic outreach to Indo Pacific

RUSSIA AND UNITED STATES LIKELY STRATEGIC POSTURES IN EVENT OF NEXT CHINA-INDIA WAR ANALYSED

Contextually, a China-India War is inevitable viewing India's Northern Himalayan Borders with China Occupied Tibet in 2023 being conflictual and explosive with China deploying massed military formations reflecting its strategic intent to coerce India to submit to China's delineation of its perceived "Strategic Frontiers". 

China's belligerence against India is bound to intensify and its military responses against India can escalate in response to India's rising military profile and India reducing its military asymmetries with China's Comprehensive Military Power.

Medium and long-range military indicators suggest that China's President-for-Life Xi Jinping in pursuit of his grandiose Greater China Dream perceives India's geopolitical postures impeding his obsessive ambition. 

With President Xi Jinping at the helm and casting himself in the mould of Chairman Mao Tse Tung's 'Great Helmsman' role, the temptation for another China-India War exists substantially, notwithstanding India's stiff military standoffs against China at Dokalam and more notably at Galwan recently.

With such a strategic backdrop it becomes imperative for India's security establishment to analyze Russia's and United States possible strategic postures in the event of a second major China-India War, which may not be a short-duration War.

Analytically, geopolitical factors prevailing in 2023 and likely to unfold for another two decades at least, suggest two contrasting strategic postures of Russia and United States in the event of the next China-India War.

 Russia post-Ukraine, more specially, enfeebled both geopolitically and militarily, will be in no position to provide even the semblance of any countervailing influence over China to dissuade it from its impulsive instincts for war with India.

India's security establishment needs to remember the historical record of then Former USSR responses to China-India War 1962. Russia was then a powerful Superpower, geopolitically and militarily powerful. Yet even despite its recent armed Border Conflicts with China on disputed Ussuri River territories, Russia adopted a neutral posture in China-India War 1962.

Strategic reality check of that period glaringly highlights that it was the United States and Western Countries that rushed-in military supplies to India in its hour of crisis after the first Chinese onslaught. in October 1962. US Air Force provided massive C-130 airlifts to rush Indian Army formations to Sikkim and Arunachal.

Coming to United States strategic postures in the next China-India War, going by past historical precedent, and unfolding geopolitical environment, where United States has invested heavily in US-India Strategic Partership, analytically it can be asserted safely that the United States would adopt substantive geopolitical, strategic and military postures in support of India against China.

The manifestations of United States multi-dimensional postures in support of India will form the basis of another Paper. Suffice it to state that short of putting boots on the ground, which India would also not want, the United States could be expected to pull out all stops to assist India in its War against China.

Concluding, one cannot but observe, that if Russia is no longer a 'Strategic Asset' for India against China, and the United States can prove much more of a 'Strategic Asset' for India against China, including its vast counter-vailing power, should India now RESET ITS RUSSIA-POLICY and stop its multipolarity crusade?