China's war games unnerve neighbors

HONG KONG - War games launched last week by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have alarmed China's neighbors and raised further questions about Beijing's military intentions. The games, dubbed "Stride-2009", are scheduled to stretch over the next two months. They involve only 50,000 troops from China's 2.3 million-member standing army - the largest in the world - but the sophisticated nature of the far-flung deployments has captured the attention of military experts all over Asia and beyond.

For the first time, forces from the four major regional military commands - stationed in the cities of Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou - will all be engaged in live-fire drills at least 1,200 kilometers from their bases. Some soldiers will reportedly be involved in maneuvers as far as 1,600 kilometers from home. Previously, military exercises had only been conducted by troops under a single regional military command. This has led military analysts to speculate that one of the purposes of the war games is a test run for reforming the command system.

The official Xinhua News Agency described the exercises as a test of the PLA's "long-range force projection" that will involve high-speed civilian rail and air links in the rapid deployment of troops. This will be the army's "largest-ever tactical military exercise", the agency said.

What Xinhua failed to mention is how such elaborate, high-profile war games - on top of perennial double-digit increases in the military budget for most of the past two decades - are consistent with China's promise of a "peaceful rise". Certainly, China's regional neighbors seek constant reassurance on this pledge. And the United States, still by far the pre-eminent military power in the region, is also looking on with a wary eye.

The exercises, however, appear to be aimed more at bolstering the internal security of China, with its 9.6 million square kilometers in land and 1.3 billion people, than projecting military power abroad. Some analysts even see these games as a direct response to the recent riots in the western autonomous region of Xinjiang, which left nearly 200 people dead and more than 1,700 injured. But the war games were planned long before the ethnic clashes last month between Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.

That said, separatist movements in Xinjiang and neighboring Tibet have long worried China's military leaders, and things seem to be growing worse, not better, in these restive regions. The Urumqi riots were this year's embarrassment. In March of 2008, as China prepared to host the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, the government crackdown on violent protests in Tibet and other Tibetan-inhabited areas put a damper on Beijing's international coming-out party.

These internal trouble spots figure prominently in the rapid, long-distance deployments the PLA is now practicing. Disaster relief, however, is also important to military planners. Last year's magnitude eight earthquake in Sichuan province was a grave reminder of the devastating power of Mother Nature and of the folly of having no coherent national emergency plan in place. While the central government responded to the quake with unprecedented speed and openness - and PLA troops played a key role in the rescue effort - in the end the effort was hampered by lack of coordination and inefficiency.

The quake left more than 80,000 people dead and another 370,000 injured. A better plan, including a more rapid, coordinated response by the PLA, could have reduced the death and suffering.
The flawed rescue effort after Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan on August 9 is another regional reminder of the perils of poor emergency planning. The island's president, Ma Ying-jeou, is now mired in criticism amid reports that more than 500 people may have died as rescue helicopters carrying relief supplies passed obliviously over villages buried in mudslides.

A US military C-130 transport aircraft has flown to Taiwan, the first American military deployment on the island since 1979, to aid in the relief effort, and two US military helicopters are also expected.
In southeastern China, Morakot forced the evacuation of 1 million residents of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, underscoring improved disaster relief as an imperative for Beijing.

Although internal concerns may be the primary motivation for "Stride-2009", China's regional rivals are increasingly uncomfortable with the nation's growing military prowess. India's military, which fought a border war with China in 1962, is particularly alarmed.

It probably doesn't help that the war games focused on projecting PLA power over long distances began less than a week after China-India talks resumed in New Delhi over the long-standing border dispute. A day before the games began, India's most senior military commander, navy chief of staff Admiral Sureesh Mehta, admitted that his country was now completely overmatched by China's armed forces and issued a stark warning.
"In military terms, both conventionally and unconventionally, we can neither have the capability nor the intention to match China force-for-force," the Hindustan Times quoted the admiral as saying. He added, "China is likely to be more assertive on its claims, especially in the immediate neighborhood."

But Mehta's comments pale in comparison to those made by former head of the Indian Air Force, Fali Homi Major, who before his retirement two months ago called China a greater threat to India than Pakistan.

The perceived China threat is one big reason India has chosen to cozy up to the US and thus been rewarded with a complex, painfully negotiated deal guaranteeing full civil nuclear cooperation between the two nations.

The Chinese goal of gaining access to ports and airfields in the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean and into the Persian Gulf - Beijing's so-called "String of Pearls" strategy - has the potential to jeopardize both Indian and US interests.

Elsewhere in the region, Japan, America's staunchest ally, will continue to rely on US might to ward off any challenge from China. As will Taiwan, whose possible eventual reunification with the mainland makes its traditional reliance on American military support appear more ambiguous.

In other words, this is a Sino-US face-off - although, all the apprehension over China's military expansion notwithstanding, on paper it still appears to be more of a face-down. Despite Beijing's more assertive posture - which has included refusing US warships entry to Hong Kong for the Thanksgiving holiday in 2007 and in March blocking a US surveillance ship in the South China Sea - China's professed military spending of US$70 billion for 2009 is dwarfed by the Pentagon's $500 billion budget. Even if, as many Western analysts insist, the Chinese figure is a gross underestimate, the discrepancy remains huge and US military power in the region unchallenged.

Nevertheless, China's military spending is now roughly equal to that of Japan, Russia and Britain, and the outgoing commander of US forces in Asia has identified North Korea and China as the Pentagon's chief concerns in the region. North Korea is the biggest worry because of its nuclear ambitions, Admiral Timothy Keating told the Voice of America (VOA) last month, but uncertainty about China's military aims was second on his list.

"We'd like to understand better their intentions, their military intentions," said Keating, who will be succeeded after his retirement in October by Admiral Robert Willard, current commander of the American Pacific Fleet.

"I'm not so concerned about China challenging our pre-eminence," Keating told VOA. "We enjoy significant capability, so China's not going to challenge our pre-eminence any time soon. That's not the concern. It's the notion that, absent [of] dialogue, there's the potential for lack of communication leading to confusion, leading to a crisis."

The admiral was speaking after China and the US agreed to resume military consultations, which Beijing had cut off last October over former president George W Bush's decision to sell US$6.5 billion in arms to Taiwan.

The current US administration under President Barack Obama hopes to increase communication and cooperation with Beijing on all fronts, including regular talks between the top military brass in the two countries. And, like his predecessor, Obama will need Beijing's diplomatic help to rein in North Korea.

But the first Pentagon report of the Obama presidency, issued in March, echoed familiar complaints. "The limited transparency in China's military and security affairs poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation," the report stated.

The report also expressed concern over Beijing's plans to build multiple aircraft carriers by 2020, its development of weapons for use in space and its enhanced capabilities in electromagnetic and cyber warfare.

Answering complaints about its lack of transparency, the PLA has launched something of a charm offensive. Foreign reporters were recently invited for a rare tour of an infantry base near Beijing during which they witnessed a counter-terrorism drill, and on August 1, the 82nd anniversary of the foundation of the PLA, the Ministry of National Defense launched a multi-media, bilingual website in English and Chinese. The site, unlike its staid predecessor, aims to be informative and user-friendly.

A ministry spokesman said the site signals the PLA's new "openness" and is intended to "increase understanding between countries and raise trust between militaries".

These are worthy aims, but it will take more than a flashy new website and a public-relations tour of an infantry base to achieve them.

From Ms Daredevil to Mrs Vivacious

Major Ankita Srivastava, who retired last year after 14 years of service in the Indian Army, is jobless; she walked the ramp to cope with post-retirement depression

She gave the best years of her life to serve the country and treaded the path feared by even most men. At the end, Major Ankita Srivastava, who retired last year after 14 years of service in the Indian Army, is now fighting a new enemy depression.

Ankita is jobless and doesn't have money to even buy gifts for her children. "I was from the pioneering batch of women officers and for 14 years lived a soldier's life. But now I find myself nowhere. I am still unemployed with all my experience and status snatched away from me," she said.

Fighter: Ankita Srivastava

The courageous officer, who was second in the merit list when she joined Officer's Training Academy (OTA) in 1993, met many other challenges her way. Married to an Indian Air Force officer, her marriage was almost over after she could not cope with the post-retirement life and slipped into severe clinical depression.  "After retirement, my life took a turn for the worse. I had to visit psychologist to get treated for depression and marriage counselors to save my marriage," she said.

After her retirement in 2008, she got a letter from Minister of State for Defence M Pallam Raju assuring that all the retried women officers will be accommodated in National Cadet Corps (NCC) or in the civilian ranks of the MoD. Though, it remained only on paper. "It's been a year and no action has been taken as yet," she said.

At last, Ankita dared to make her own way. The same year she participated in Mrs Gladrags competition and bagged the crown of Mrs Vivacious. "For 14 years I was living a man's live, but I participated in the beauty pageant. Thanks to the Indian Army that I could gather fighting spirit and learnt to speak, walk and behave like a woman. However, I can't forget that the Army ruined my life," she said.

Bugged with government apathy, Ankita feels women are just a showpiece in the armed forces. "We are inducted into the Army only for the glamour factor. It takes the very best out of us only to leave us stranded when we lose the glamour and gain experience of military life," said the miffed retired officer.

In last one-and-a-half years she has met all the senior officers in Ministry of Defence (MoD) including Defence Minister and Minister of State for Defence only to get their lame assurance that "something will be done to re-employ them."

"Once I got a chance to speak to the personal secretary to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and he also agreed that the armed forces is wasting national potential by sidelining trained women officers," she said.

Like Ankita, crops of young women officers are feeling cheated by the "biased" decision of government, which has agreed to offer permanent commission to future women officer in selective branches.

A young women captain on condition of anonymity, said, "I am an engineer and after serving for two years I have realised that there is no career security in the Army. I joined forces for the pride of being in uniform, which is brutally snatched from us after 14 years. Women officers are not granted the ex-serviceman status and are not entitled to pension."

Some of the women officers who are scheduled to retire this month after completing their tenure have already filed a petition in the Delhi High Court for permanent commission and the next hearing is scheduled to take place on August 21. According to sources, the defence ministry is planning to offer monetary compensation to these officers instead of granting another six years' of job, which makes them eligible for pension. "Even a jawan becomes eligible for pension after 15 years of service. We are not fighting for monetary compensation but for the dignity of being in this uniform," said a serving officer, wishing  anonymity.

Brave heart
Major Ankita Srivastava, who is known  for her bravery, once saved life of a senior IAS officer from an armed mob at the cost of her life in Siliguri. "She fought back against the angry mob only with a small khukhri," said an officer.

She along with a group of five women officer from her and subsequent batches have filed a petition in Delhi High Court, demanding their job back including equal treatment with their male counterparts who undergo a series of mid-career courses to improve their qualification.

India to recruit 150,000 police: minister

NEW DELHI — India said Monday it would recruit 150,000 low-ranking police officers across the country by next March to boost a depleted and overstretched force.

"We need to recruit 150,000 in the states. There is no substitute for putting men and women on the road," said Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram.

He urged India's state governments to take responsibility for police recruitment and admitted that the central government did not "have the capacity to set up training schools" immediately.

The minister was speaking after a summit on internal security attended by state chief ministers.

Human rights groups have accused Indian police of using strong-arm tactics and violating the law to make up for a lack of proper training and outdated equipment.

A recent report by Human Rights Watched urged the government to undertake massive police reforms to improve public confidence in law enforcement authorities.

Chidambaram said police reforms "have not received the attention they deserve," and said part of the reason was lack of allocation of funds.

He added that a scheme aimed at modernizing the police force, which was due to end in 2010, would likely be extended for another five to 10 years.

SEARCH AT HALDIA DOCK

HALDIA, 17 AUG: With the state government sounding a red alert following a warning from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) about a possible sea-borne terrorist attack in the state’s riverine-port at Haldia, the Indian Coast Guard and the CISF officials launched a massive search operation both in the Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) and the industrial belt today.
The alert came in the wake of several reports and Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram’s warning that terrorists based in Pakistan could carry out an attack similar to the ones witnessed in Mumbai from November 26 to 29 last year.
According to sources in the Haldia dock, the search operation started last night soon after the IB alert on the possible sea-borne attack at Haldia port by a militant group reached the district police from the state government. All the gates of the HDC, the administrative building of the port’s Jawahar Tower and the port’s operation building at Chiranjibpur were immediately sealed by the joint forces. Security personnel have been deployed at all jetties and berths including the three oil-jetties to keep vigil and the Coast Guard has stepped up patrolling along the coast off Haldia dock.
Mr Anil Madhukar, commandant of the Haldia Coast Guard who is personally overseeing the whole search operation, said: “Following the receipt of intelligence inputs that there was a possibility of attack through the sea route, we have taken all type of security measures inside and outside the port. The surveillance along the riverine route has also been stepped up in a view to intercept any suspicious fishing boats that could be used by terrorists.”
Mr Pallav Kanti Ghosh, superintendent of police, said: “There is no need to be panicked. Security measures have already been taken at all places in the port and its adjacent industrial areas.”
The deputy chairman of the Haldia Dock Complex Mr Rajiv Dube confirmed: “After receiving Intelligence inputs of a possible terror strike at Haldia port, the Coast Guard has already stepped up patrolling along the Haldia coast as well as intensifying the security arrangements at all important areas here.”

CHILLI BOMBS WORK

Security forces in India might soon be armed with chilli bombs to take on rioters and fight insurgents.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is testing hand grenades stuffed with bhut jolokia or ghost chillies, which were confirmed as the world's hottest by Guinness World Records in 2007.
One seed from the fiery three-inch pepper, found in north east India, can produce intense pain in the mouth for up to half an hour. The DRDO hopes to use these qualities to develop tear gas canisters and hand grenades.
RB Srivastava, chief of the Directorate of Life Sciences in DRDO, said: "The trials have been done for the hand grenades. It gives out such pungent smoke that makes one come out of one's hiding place."
The heat from the weapon chokes the respiratory tract and causes the eyes to water.
Mr Srivastava said: "The war scenario is changing. Low intensity conflict is the norm of the day. The paramilitary forces face the problem of forcing the terrorists out of the hideouts. We wanted to find a non-lethal way to tackle insurgents and the mob during riot control."
The Scoville scale, which measures the piquancy or hotness of a chilli, rated the Bhut Jolokia peppers in number of Scoville heat units (SHU).
Bell peppers measure zero SHUs, while jalapeno peppers were rated at 2,500-8,000 SHUs. The world's hottest chilli measured over a million SHUs. Bhut jolokia might also find its way into soldiers' rations to help keep them warm.
"We want to see the feasibility of the chillies in the diet for soldiers in high altitude areas," Mr Srivastava told Indian newspaper the Hindustan Times.
The hot pepper is being used to scare away elephants that wander into fields hoping for an easy meal.

NAVY TO GET DIESEL SUBS

The Defence Ministry is believed to have cleared the decks for the Navy to purchase diesel-powered submarines to replace its ageing fleet of Russian submarines. The purchase is reported to be worth over Rs 25,000 crore.
The proposed acquisition of submarines was discussed Monday during the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) meeting—which clears the acquisitions by the armed forces—chaired by Defence Minister A K Antony. The meeting also discussed Army’s proposal to upgrade Air Defence equipment—guns and missiles systems.
Though the Indian Navy has already ordered six French Scorpene Hunter submarines, the first of which is expected to be inducted by 2012, at a cost of over Rs 18,000 crore, it is looking for a second line of modern submarines to replace the old Kilo and Foxtrot series submarines, which are currently the mainstay of its submarine fleet.

PAKISTAN ASSURES COOPERATION

Pakistan on Monday assured India of its “fullest cooperation” in preventing fresh acts of terror following warnings from its neighbour that militants in Pakistan were plotting new strikes.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a summit on internal security of “credible information of ongoing plans of terrorist groups in Pakistan to carry out fresh attacks,” urging his security forces to stay on high alert.
In the wake of his remarks, India’s deputy high commissioner was called to Pakistan’s foreign ministry and told Singh’s remarks “warrant serious and prompt attention,” the ministry said in a statement.
The deputy high commissioner was informed that “the government of Pakistan would like to extend its fullest cooperation to pre-empt any act of terror.”
India has boosted its security to prevent assaults after November’s attacks in the country’s financial capital Mumbai, in which gunmen killed 166 people.
“In all sincerity, we would request India to share information that they have and for our part we stand ready to cooperate fully in pre-empting any act of terror,” the Pakistan statement said.
It said that terrorism could only be combated by serious, sustained and pragmatic cooperation.
“We wish to renew our offer of cooperation to India in this regard,” the statement added.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training cross-border militants in Muslim-majority Kashmir -- a charge Islamabad vehemently denies.
The two nuclear-armed countries have fought three wars since independence in 1947 and came dangerously close to a fourth following an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 by militants New Delhi said came from Pakistan.

POLITICAL CARD IN AIRCRAFT DOGFIGHT

New Delhi, Aug. 17: The great duel in the skies for an Indian Air Force order that could top $11 billion for 126 fighter aircraft began in Bangalore today, but the real action is being worked out in boardrooms of aviation majors.

At least one of the six competitors in the race, EADS, is saying upfront that it will gift-wrap its offer of the Eurofighter Typhoon for the IAF with a “political package”.

“All such deals have a technical dimension as well as a political dimension,” chief executive officer of EADS defence and security, Bernhard Gerwert, told The Telegraph recently. EADS had flown Indian journalists to the Royal International Air Tattoo in Fairford, the UK, and to the German assembly plant at Manching last month to demonstrate the capabilities of the Eurofighter Typhoon.

“What that package will be is still being worked out. But an association with EADS means that India is associating with the governments of four countries in Europe and that can go a long way,” said Gerwert. The governments and the air forces of the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain collaborate to make the Eurofighter Typhoon.

EADS is upping the ante in the race for the IAF order because of a perception that the US, with its clout and the growing proximity of Indian and US military forces, could swing the deal towards one of the two American competitors —- the F-16 IN Super Viper made by Lockheed Martin or the Boeing F/A-18 E/F Superhornet.

Lt General Klaus-Peter Stieglitz, the chief of staff of the Luftwaffe, the German air force, was also forthright: “The political package has to be negotiated; as we did with Austria and Switzerland. But it is still quite early.”

The Eurofighter is a precious customer in Austria and is vying for an order from Switzerland for which the flight trials are over. The clinching of the End-User Monitoring and Verification Agreement between America and India is being seen by the competitors of the US as the latest symbol of the political closeness between the two countries and their militaries.

What the “political package” can be is yet to be defined. But EADS, at least, and the French government — which recently hosted a contingent of the Indian armed forces and the Prime Minister on Bastille Day — are convinced that it has to be a substantial concession. This could be, for example, a re-alignment of the European position on Jammu and Kashmir, bringing it closer to India’s stand. But no one is talking about that yet.

In Bangalore today, the IAF’s principal director, Air Staff Requirements at the Air Headquarters, Air Commodore Rakesh Dhir, began supervising the flight tests on the F/A-18 Superhornet.

Boeing Integrated Defence Systems has flown two US aircraft to the south Indian city that is also home to Hindustan Aeronautics and the Aircraft Systems and Testing Establishment of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. This is one of the seven schools of its kind in the world, to which the IAF seconds its test pilots.

Two test pilots, a group captain and a wing commander, will take turns flying the Superhornet and, later in September, the F-16 and the Russian MiG 35. Two other top guns will put the Eurofighter, the French Rafale and the Swedish JAS-39C Gripen to tests.

The flight evaluations are scheduled to be completed by April next year, after which the IAF evaluation team will fly to the home countries of the manufacturers, or any other designated site, to test weapon systems and armaments.

The flight evaluation tests begin after the technical paperwork of each of the six contestants is found to be in order by the defence ministry. A senior officer at Air Headquarters said the aircraft would be flown out of Bangalore, Jaisalmer and Leh for testing in normal, hot and cold weather conditions.

The performance of each of the aircraft will be quantified for take-offs, sustained turns and tight turns.

Sample missions will be assigned to the aircraft for ground strike, maritime strike, air-defence/air-superiority, acceleration and climb performance.

“We might assign, for example, an aircraft to accelerate from 0.8 mach to 1.42 mach within a specified time (seconds),” the officer said. One mach is the speed of sound.

The evaluation will also assess systems navigation, radar abilities, self-defence suits, electronic warfare systems and the ability of the aircraft to carry extra load (weapons, bombs).

One of the requirements to evaluate the “multi-role” ability of the aircraft is whether they are capable of carrying and dropping big 2000-pounder bombs at designated ground targets.

“The tests have to be tabulated and the results brought out statistically,” said the officer.

After this, the IAF will ask for the MTBF — mean time between failures — to arrive at the cost of operating each of the aircraft over the period they are to be in service, an estimated 40 years. This is the first time that the IAF has adopted “lifecycle costing” or “cost of ownership” to conclude the expenses to be incurred on each aircraft.

This is primarily because of the IAF’s experience with Russian equipment, so far the Indian military’s mainstay. The top brass and the defence establishment adopted the cost-of-ownership method because they concluded that Russian equipment were cheaper off the shelf but more expensive in service life because of shortages in spares and back-ups.

A major concern of the competitors has been how the IAF will attempt to fix the cost-of-ownership of twin-engine aircraft like the Superhornet, the Rafale, the MiG 35 and the Eurofighter with single-engine aircraft like the Super Viper and the Gripen.

The single-engine aircraft will clearly be much cheaper. But air headquarters sources say the costs will also be offset against performance because twin-engine aircraft will be more powerful and are expected to be more versatile, if heavier.