India as Bulwark Against China: Analyst Explains Why the US Plan Won’t Work
The Atlantic Council, a US influential think tank, has proposed a new strategy aimed at using India as a US bulwark against China in Asia. Speaking to Sputnik, military analyst Vasily Kashin, a senior research fellow with the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, threw the plan into doubt, citing its apparent flaws.
The plan being developed by US strategists to involve India in an alleged anti-China alliance does not look very promising, military analyst Vasily Kashin, a senior research fellow with the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Sputnik China.
“Given the current unpredictable course of the Trump administration, strategic investments in a US-Indian alliance seem unreasonable,” Kashin surmised, commenting on the “The Sino-Indian Clash and the New Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific” report by Bharath Gopalaswamy and Robert A. Manning of the Atlantic Council think tank.
The think tank’s recommendations include US-Indian joint patrolling of the Indian Ocean as a response to China’s growing presence there and expanding New Delhi’s cooperation with Washington and Tokyo in military shipbuilding. The report also envisages Australia’s involvement in joint naval drills alongside the US and India.
“It is not clear how this step would limit the activity of the Chinese fleet in the region,” Kashin says. “It is most likely that in response China would seek to increase its military presence there [the Indian Ocean]. Similarly, it is clear that the joint Indian-American patrolling would only aggravate tensions in relations between India and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”
Another proposal of the authors of the document is that India “should improve its carrier aviation capacity, which will help maintain sea control in the Indian Ocean.” The report says that “India’s military structure is based on carrier battle groups, which gives it an advantage over the Chinese Navy.”
According to Kashin, “this is a very strange statement.” He drew attention to the fact that “China, unlike India, independently produces aviation and all type of equipment for aircraft carriers.” Currently, Beijing is building two large aircraft carriers, one of which will be equipped with an electromagnetic catapult, in addition to the modernized Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag.
full story at https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201711171059198772-india-us-china/