IIt is perhaps more important to study failures than successes in foreign policy because the consequences are far greater. Thus there are many lessons in the 1962 war, which are as relevant today as they were then.
But before we get to these lessons, it is also important to challenge some of the myths of the 1962 war, such as the consequences of a ‘forward policy’. Most retellings of the war continue to follow the baseless allegation of British journalist-scholar Neville Maxwell that the forward policy had ‘loaded guns’ and ‘triggered a border war’. as Of. subramaniam wrote in his review of Maxwell’s 1970 book india china war, this allegation is not even met by the evidence that Maxwell himself presents, a coherent problem in Maxwell’s work. The Forward Policy, despite its name, was a defensive effort that sought to prevent China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from continuously moving into the disputed area by imposing Indian military posts to prevent the Chinese army from advancing. It mimicked China’s efforts to claim the area by advancing Chinese forces into the disputed area. Of course, unlike the well-supported Chinese armies, India’s forward posts were unable to either defend themselves adequately or support them when attacked. Furthermore, even though China was not aware of the logic or purpose of the forward policy, they certainly knew that the Indian Army was too weak to represent any threat to the PLA. This was the war of choice by Mao, and blaming forward policy for starting the war is a mistake that analysts and scholars should avoid because it hides Chinese responsibility for the war.
Mistakes made in 1962
This does not mean that Nehru was innocent. Forward policy, and India’s strategic and defense policies of the last decade in general, were responsible for India’s defeat and its consequences. The fundamental error that led to Nehru’s grand strategy, his understanding of the relationship between diplomacy and force. He was confident that there would be no war because any war between India and China would become a world war. The logic of this belief is still unclear, and it certainly turned out to be grossly wrong, but the belief that there would be no war allowed Nehru to pursue a military strategy that was unfounded and a disaster for India. Became the reason
Indian spending on its defense in the 1950s was only part of the problem. Another serious problem was that most of the spending was focused on Pakistan rather than China. Although Pakistan could not be ignored, it was unwise to focus so much on the weak threat. China was no stronger than India in 1962, at least based on crude measures of economic potential, but its military was a seasoned fighting force that had managed to stop the world’s strongest power in the Korean War. It should have deserved more serious consideration in India’s military plans than it actually received. The lesson is simple: focus on the military might of your strongest neighbors because they are the ones who can do you the most damage.
Equally, Indian policy has always emphasized using its own military resources to deal with its problems rather than looking for external military partners. This is a generally understandable choice as India has been a very strong power, especially with respect to its neighbours. However, in both 1962 and 1971, India realized that these were not enough. This mistake cost India dearly in the 1962 war. A decade later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was able to hasten the Soviet Union in a treaty that was never fully tested because India was dealing with a much weaker adversary in the 1971 Bangladesh War, which was easily dealt with.
Understanding Nehru’s mistake was another fundamental misconception of India’s power. Nehru had assumed that India was so strong and so important to others that it would do no harm. But India’s power was of greater potential than the real, embodied power, as it is today. It is not clear whether New Delhi has completely shed its belief in its own importance and imperative to focus on the inevitable task of securing itself.
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Security interests need to align partnerships
Political and diplomatic participation are necessary but in themselves they are insufficient to meet the threats. Therefore, non-alignment, or ‘strategic autonomy’ as it is known today, will be of little help when the chips are down. India’s ‘friends’ in the Third World left it in 1962 – as they would again in the Bangladesh War – raising empty slogans about peace, as India itself often does. The slogans don’t hurt, but the Soviet Union betrayed India in those crucial weeks. Nehru expected Moscow to rein in Beijing but China was more important to him. The Cuban missile crisis required socialist unity and India was a price Moscow had no problem paying. It is also useful to remember this history because sentimentality has little place in international politics. New Delhi should note an unsettling analogy to contemporary events: although India is not insignificant to Russia today, China is far more important and is likely to remain so.
On the contrary, the only true friends in international politics are those whose security interests are aligned. The ‘security interest’ is important here: while countries may have larger interests, such as the global order or situation, nothing else is possible when external security is compromised. This seems obvious, except that New Delhi has often focused on questions of global order and the situation for its own security. India’s position in the global order is an important objective but it must be forced upon the more important objective of securing India. India’s defeat in 1962 damaged India’s position in global councils, among other effects. A country that cannot protect itself may pursue some other purpose. India rightly argues that the contemporary global order needs to be modified to reflect contemporary realities, but it should pay more attention to realities at their limits.
New Delhi continues to focus on a diplomatic and political strategy to meet today’s China threat, building partnerships through minilaterals in conjunction with several countries. These are not a problem in themselves and may be necessary but are not a substitute for security sharing. In fact, even security partnerships will not be effective if they are not fully exploited. To Do More on That Quad’s Failure security agenda there is a problem. While it is not clear which of the four Quad countries are hesitating, it is a reasonable guess that it is India putting the brakes on as the other three are already engaged in security cooperation. And they’re expanding these ties further with additional agreements recently signed with AUKUS and Australia-Japan security agreement, If it is India that is dragging its feet on the security agenda of the Quad, it will be unfortunate. The partners will not be able to help India once the war starts. Nehru’s appeal for American help in 1962 should be instructive: although America was ready, there was little it could do in such a short time. as ashley tellis has pointed out, hoping that the US (or Quad, for that matter) will be able to help once the crisis begins is a highly risky gamble.
China today is a far more powerful adversary than it was in 1962. New Delhi seems to be taking this even more seriously. Unfortunately, many of the underlying trends in India’s approach to security – an emphasis on its own strength and unilateralism or a belief in its own importance – persist. This is a cause for concern.
The author is Professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He tweeted @RRajagopalanJNU. Thoughts are personal.
(edited by Prashant)