raharris1973
Well-known member
Could India have kept fighting in 1962 and won all its border territory back from China (mainly the Aksai Chin in the northwest around Kashmir, because China yielded the Northeast frontier regions voluntarily) if offered US aid $, equipment advice in similar quantity to what the US was giving South Vietnam in 1962 and 1963?
Nehru, during the September-October 1962 war with China, finding himself in grave, unexpected, trouble, did find himself asking for American help, against all prior inclinations. And he certainly received some. But I doubt the volumes of funding, equipment, and expert personnel support Americans provided to India in the rather brief Sino-Indian border war was anywhere close in volume or expense to what the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) aid and advisory program was providing South Vietnam that year.
To recap the territorial aspect of the Sino-Indian border war, India, which claimed borderlines earlier established and asserted by the British Raj, found itself infiltrated/attacked by Chinese who set up roads and posts on land in both the Aksai Chin section of Kashmir in the northwest and the Arunachal Pradesh (current-day name) of northeast India. For a short period of time the Indians in 1962 responded by building posts asserting their own claims, entangling the posts of the two countries, but China mounted decisive attacks in both areas, sending the Indians reeling in September-October 1962.
The Chinese demonstrated total control of the battlefield by advancing and holding their entire claim in Aksai Chin, which they hold to this day, and advancing into entirety of their claimed territory in northeast entirety, eliminating Indian opposition within it, and then declaring unilateral ceasefire and voluntary withdrawal to the British-defined McMahon line in the northeastern border (essentially the Indian interpretation of the border). [None of this is to say there was not brave and valorous resistance by the Indians, nor instances of Indian forces tactically acquitting themselves well. There were. The Indians suspect, not without reason, that the Chinese have undercounted their casualties from these operations as well. However, what I've provided is a reasonably accurate summary of the operational level].
The Indians neither broke the ceasefire in pursuit of the Chinese in the northeast past the McMahon line, nor, after a certain point in October or November 1962, persisted in trying to dislodge the Chinese from occupied Aksai Chin in the northwest - they accepted cease-fire, and to this day, India claims Aksai Chin is its own territory wrongly occupied, and China claims Arunachal Pradesh is its own South Tibet territory wrongly occupied by India.
Bottom-line - by reasonable measures, China won, India lost, despite China as a winner not holding on to its peak territorial gains.
Presumably, despite the political humiliation and criticism Nehru faced in the moment, and historically, for being unprepared for this war, for not deterring it, for being friendly with China in years beforehand and that not working to prevent the war, and for losing it, he quit while behind, presumably because persisting to fight for every inch of unredeemed territory appeared too costly. India had to get on with living, feeding itself, doing the green revolution.
But what if the US had offered it generous aid. The US had given India some economic and development aid since independence, but it, as a nonaligned country, had never been the recipient of the huge military US aid package on the scale that countries like South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam, and the Philippines received in the 50s and 60s. But what if, since it was now a "frontline" state against China, and no longer seen internationally as trying to be China's "brother", India was offered a South Vietnam style military aid package if it wished it for the purposes of regaining its land? Such a package need not include US ground troops. That would be downright silly. Sending soldiers to India, solving India's problems through addition of manpower, would be like selling ice to Inuit, or sand to Bedouin. But funding, equipment, advice, expertise.
I don't think this offer was ever made. But if it was, would Nehru have accepted it, and a continuation of a continuous war of territorial redemption? Or would he have rejected it, fearing losing his last shreds of "Nonaligned*" credibility more than fearing loss of the border war and territory?
On the US side, an argument in favor investing in India at this level would be the simple geopolitical, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", based on containment of China as actually the *more* radical of the two leading Communist powers being important in the early 60s. An argument for why India would be at least as deserving an ally as South Vietnam, and probably more, is that India was actually a democracy, a large economy in the world and relevant country diplomatically beyond its borders - all things that South Vietnam was not.
Against rating India as a more deserving recipient of US aid in 1962 than South Vietnam, the actual land under contestation with China - the barren mountains and plateau of the Aksai Chin, and, the Himalayan frontier lands of Arunachal Pradesh [because China was realistically *not* threatening the Indian core] was in reality much less populous and productive than the agriculturally rich rice and rubber lands of the much more populace, to the tune of about 20 million, South Vietnam, which the Chinese and North Vietnamese backed Viet Cong were contesting the entire existence of. Also, South Vietnam was an ally/dependent of the US and sided with the US consistently on international issues, whereas Non-aligned India voted as it pleased and would be getting generous treatment beyond reciprocity. Such generosity would also excite the jealousy of Pakistan, which had been "willing to commit" at least formally, to two US regional alliances, SEATO and CENTO and US training/oversight programs, where India had not.
All that aside, say an Indo-US deal is made, and the Indians keep up their effort. Can the Indians, in a war protracted by several months or a year or more, win all their land back, or any of their land back? Why or why not?
What would be the effects on India of the attempt, successful or not? On Pakistan?
What about on China? And its foreign policy capabilities and actions elsewhere, like its aid levels to North Vietnam, or trends in the Sino-Soviet split? The popularity of its model among 3rd world nationalists like Indonesia's Sukarno and Cambodia's Sihanouk? On the one hand, in the short war that happened, China showed it had its military professional $hit more together than India at this time. However, it was facing endemic internal crisis, including famine and the letdown of the failed Cultural Revolution, the political eclipse of Mao, unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang (which included defection of many nomad groups across the Soviet border), even a provincial military mutiny in Henan province, and Taiwan stepping up its mobilization and preparations for invasion of the mainland and agent infiltrations. It was also paranoid-ly preparing a national redoubt/third line/third front in its interior southwest, premised on the idea that its coastal and border lands would be lost to invasion or at least atomic and conventional bombing devastation to the point that China would need to rely on productive resources located deep inside, and under the country.
*Funny thing about mid-century non-alignment is that it was most important to be seen as non-aligned with the USA and "the west" generally, not so much with the Soviet Union
Nehru, during the September-October 1962 war with China, finding himself in grave, unexpected, trouble, did find himself asking for American help, against all prior inclinations. And he certainly received some. But I doubt the volumes of funding, equipment, and expert personnel support Americans provided to India in the rather brief Sino-Indian border war was anywhere close in volume or expense to what the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) aid and advisory program was providing South Vietnam that year.
To recap the territorial aspect of the Sino-Indian border war, India, which claimed borderlines earlier established and asserted by the British Raj, found itself infiltrated/attacked by Chinese who set up roads and posts on land in both the Aksai Chin section of Kashmir in the northwest and the Arunachal Pradesh (current-day name) of northeast India. For a short period of time the Indians in 1962 responded by building posts asserting their own claims, entangling the posts of the two countries, but China mounted decisive attacks in both areas, sending the Indians reeling in September-October 1962.
The Chinese demonstrated total control of the battlefield by advancing and holding their entire claim in Aksai Chin, which they hold to this day, and advancing into entirety of their claimed territory in northeast entirety, eliminating Indian opposition within it, and then declaring unilateral ceasefire and voluntary withdrawal to the British-defined McMahon line in the northeastern border (essentially the Indian interpretation of the border). [None of this is to say there was not brave and valorous resistance by the Indians, nor instances of Indian forces tactically acquitting themselves well. There were. The Indians suspect, not without reason, that the Chinese have undercounted their casualties from these operations as well. However, what I've provided is a reasonably accurate summary of the operational level].
The Indians neither broke the ceasefire in pursuit of the Chinese in the northeast past the McMahon line, nor, after a certain point in October or November 1962, persisted in trying to dislodge the Chinese from occupied Aksai Chin in the northwest - they accepted cease-fire, and to this day, India claims Aksai Chin is its own territory wrongly occupied, and China claims Arunachal Pradesh is its own South Tibet territory wrongly occupied by India.
Bottom-line - by reasonable measures, China won, India lost, despite China as a winner not holding on to its peak territorial gains.
Presumably, despite the political humiliation and criticism Nehru faced in the moment, and historically, for being unprepared for this war, for not deterring it, for being friendly with China in years beforehand and that not working to prevent the war, and for losing it, he quit while behind, presumably because persisting to fight for every inch of unredeemed territory appeared too costly. India had to get on with living, feeding itself, doing the green revolution.
But what if the US had offered it generous aid. The US had given India some economic and development aid since independence, but it, as a nonaligned country, had never been the recipient of the huge military US aid package on the scale that countries like South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam, and the Philippines received in the 50s and 60s. But what if, since it was now a "frontline" state against China, and no longer seen internationally as trying to be China's "brother", India was offered a South Vietnam style military aid package if it wished it for the purposes of regaining its land? Such a package need not include US ground troops. That would be downright silly. Sending soldiers to India, solving India's problems through addition of manpower, would be like selling ice to Inuit, or sand to Bedouin. But funding, equipment, advice, expertise.
I don't think this offer was ever made. But if it was, would Nehru have accepted it, and a continuation of a continuous war of territorial redemption? Or would he have rejected it, fearing losing his last shreds of "Nonaligned*" credibility more than fearing loss of the border war and territory?
On the US side, an argument in favor investing in India at this level would be the simple geopolitical, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", based on containment of China as actually the *more* radical of the two leading Communist powers being important in the early 60s. An argument for why India would be at least as deserving an ally as South Vietnam, and probably more, is that India was actually a democracy, a large economy in the world and relevant country diplomatically beyond its borders - all things that South Vietnam was not.
Against rating India as a more deserving recipient of US aid in 1962 than South Vietnam, the actual land under contestation with China - the barren mountains and plateau of the Aksai Chin, and, the Himalayan frontier lands of Arunachal Pradesh [because China was realistically *not* threatening the Indian core] was in reality much less populous and productive than the agriculturally rich rice and rubber lands of the much more populace, to the tune of about 20 million, South Vietnam, which the Chinese and North Vietnamese backed Viet Cong were contesting the entire existence of. Also, South Vietnam was an ally/dependent of the US and sided with the US consistently on international issues, whereas Non-aligned India voted as it pleased and would be getting generous treatment beyond reciprocity. Such generosity would also excite the jealousy of Pakistan, which had been "willing to commit" at least formally, to two US regional alliances, SEATO and CENTO and US training/oversight programs, where India had not.
All that aside, say an Indo-US deal is made, and the Indians keep up their effort. Can the Indians, in a war protracted by several months or a year or more, win all their land back, or any of their land back? Why or why not?
What would be the effects on India of the attempt, successful or not? On Pakistan?
What about on China? And its foreign policy capabilities and actions elsewhere, like its aid levels to North Vietnam, or trends in the Sino-Soviet split? The popularity of its model among 3rd world nationalists like Indonesia's Sukarno and Cambodia's Sihanouk? On the one hand, in the short war that happened, China showed it had its military professional $hit more together than India at this time. However, it was facing endemic internal crisis, including famine and the letdown of the failed Cultural Revolution, the political eclipse of Mao, unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang (which included defection of many nomad groups across the Soviet border), even a provincial military mutiny in Henan province, and Taiwan stepping up its mobilization and preparations for invasion of the mainland and agent infiltrations. It was also paranoid-ly preparing a national redoubt/third line/third front in its interior southwest, premised on the idea that its coastal and border lands would be lost to invasion or at least atomic and conventional bombing devastation to the point that China would need to rely on productive resources located deep inside, and under the country.
*Funny thing about mid-century non-alignment is that it was most important to be seen as non-aligned with the USA and "the west" generally, not so much with the Soviet Union