In a historic move, India has redirected 50,000 additional troops to its border with China as tensions stir up between the two nuclear-powered nations. The redeployment of troops will allow India to have more options to attack and seize Chinese territory, if necessary, through its offensive defence strategy.
The strategy includes a lighter footprint involving more helicopters to airlift soldiers from valley to valley, along with artillery pieces like the M777 howitzer built by BAE Systems Inc.
Ever since the deadliest India-China faceoff at Galwan Valley, India has moved its troops and fighter jet squadrons to three distinct areas along its border with China. Currently, India has around 200,000 troops focused on the border, a 40% increase from the last year.
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China's actions along the disputed border
While it is unclear how many Chinese troops are on the border, India detected PLA's recently moved additional forces from Tibet to the Xinjiang Military Command.
Additionally, the Chinese side is adding fresh runway buildings, bomb-proof bunkers to house fighter jets and new airfields along the disputed border in Tibet. It also added long-range artillery, tanks, rocket regiments and twin-engine fighters in the last few months.
Reorientation of troops
The reorientation of the troops means that more troops will be acclimatized to fight in the high-altitude Himalayas, while the troops from the western border with Pakistan will be reduced.
Although India and Pakistan are long time rivals and have fought three wars to date over the disputed region of Kashmir, Prime Minister Modi has sought to ease tensions with Pakistan and concentrate primarily on countering China.
India has also obtained an offensive capability along the southern Tibetan plateau where regular soldiers outfitted with machine guns have joined lightly armed paramilitary officers.
In the far eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, where much of the 1962 India-China war happened, newly acquired French-made Rafale fighter jets armed with long-range missiles are being deployed to support the Indian Army on the ground.
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Not only the Indian Army, but the Indian Navy is also in action. Indian Navy is putting warships along key sea lanes for longer durations and studying energy and trade flows in and out of China, among others.
With GDP shrinking to worst in the last four decades, India is stepping up security cooperation with Quad members, the U.S., Japan and Australia, to counter China.
Despite India's strategic shift and troop movements, China retains an advantage along the border. Thus, China presents the biggest strategic challenge in the future, and it has led to shifting the attention away from Pakistan.
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