Arjun Subramaniam

Coercive Diplomacy and China | UPSC

Arjun Subramaniam is a military historian and strategic commentator

• IN THE GREY ZONE :  The global level is the absence of a definitive prognosis on the decline and rise of American and Chinese power, respectively.

CHANCE FOR MIDDLE POWERS

• THE TWO HEAVYWEIGHTS : The contest promises to be a long-drawn one that could last decades and result in several bouts across domains ranging from the traditional military and diplomatic spaces to new frontiers such as space, cyber and the cognitive domain.

• COERCIVE DIPLOMACY : It is instructive to benchmark the happenings in eastern Ladakh against four of his variants of coercive diplomacy —It is a gradual turning of the screw, a try-and-see, a tacit ultimatum, or a full-fledged ultimatum.
• AGGRESSION AT GALWAN VALLEY : PLA engaged in altering the existing status quo in eastern Ladakh, then waited and wanted to see India’s response.
• WAITING FOR A REPLICATE : This was critical for the Chinese to decide whether it could replicate similar transgressions elsewhere along the Line of Actual Control.Ex: Arunachal Pradesh
• INDIAN MILITARY QUICK RESPONSE : An immediate Indian military response in the form of a quid-pro-quo  shrilled the voices across constituencies of strategic watchers.
• TRY-AND-SEE APPROACH : Though the borders are not perfectly demarcated by India’s strategic establishment, which decided instead to adopt the try-and-see approach.
• BORDER TACTICS : In this phase of the crisis, India sought to engage in mild forms of coercion that involved the building up of forces to achieve parity on the ground.

THE ESCALATORY LADDER

• STRENGTHENING INDIA’S DEFENCE : India’s defensive posture was strengthened militarily, so did the coercive content in its diplomacy and economic posturing vis-à-vis China.
• TACIT ULTIMATUM : It could issue an indirect or tacit ultimatum (attempt to get a target, a state, a group in hope of not seeing a response ) thereby demonstrating resolve and intent.

• FAMOUS STATECRAFT : Avoidance a war and winning without fighting lies at the heart of both Kautilya and Sun Tzu’s approach towards statecraft.

• LEADERSHIP ROLES : Ringing true is also his emphasis on the ‘importance of political leaders having a good understanding of adversary leaders, their mind-sets and domestic constraints’.

SYNERGY IN HANDLING CHINA

• STEALTH OPERATIONS : In eastern Ladakh, the People’s Liberation Army unrolled its tactical plans with speed and transgressed with the requisite stealth.
• THE OPERATIONAL AND STRATEGIC LEVEL : The Chinese engaged in significant overreach and did not expect the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force to mobilise in strength and slip into their operational roles at high altitude with ease.
• POLITICO-DIPLOMATIC-MILITARY APPROACH : At the strategic level, the refusal of India’s political establishment to push the panic button in May, and the synergised politico-diplomatic-military approach by the Indians during negotiations have been a welcome departure from the past.