Pakistan bleeding India and the Dragon spewing fire

Fighting a ‘limited war’: It is a flawed concept? by Lt-Gen Harwant Singh (retd)

IT is not clear as to when the idea or the concept of a “limited war” was first evolved and articulated. Maybe it was the fallout from the procrastination, dithering and timidity in our response and an alibi for the missed opportunity of a suitable riposte to a major mischief by Pakistan at Kargil. Such response would have put an end to the slow-bleeding of India by Pakistan. Or was it the result of the fiasco of “Operation Parakaram” (mobilisation of Indian defence forces consequent to the attack on Indian Parliament) where we thought we could go in for a limited war and then backtracked on conjuring up the prospects of a larger conflagration? It takes a minimum of two contestants to make war. Therefore, both must subscribe to the idea of a limited war. It cannot work when one of the contestants does and the other does not fall for it.
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Another three years: Army Chief More Powerful Than The President
by Abhijit Bhattacharyya 02 Aug 2010
ISI head as chief
NO Pakistani army officer can match Kayani’s professional experience and exposure. He has held all the important and sensitive “India-centric” commands. As a Major- General, he commanded the 12th Infantry Division, Murree, deployed to all over the Line of Control. This was followed by a three-year stint as Director-General, Military Operations from December 2000 to September 2003. On promotion as Lt.-General in September 2003 Kayani became commander of Rawalpindi’s X Corps for a year and then Director-General, ISI, for three years (October 2004 to October 2007). On his elevation in 2007, Kayani became the first ISI chief, in the history of Pakistan, to become the army chief.
One of the most crucial aspects of Kayani’s career is his connection with the US armed forces. He has done the Infantry Officer Advanced Course in United States Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia; the US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaii. The US administration welcomed his appointment as army chief, notably the then CIA chief Michael Hayden, the National Intelligence Director, Mike McConnell, and the Central Command Chief, Admiral William Fallon. The US military high command even predicted that being a “soldier’s soldier”, the Pakistani army under Kayani would perform much better than his predecessor Pervez Musharraf.
Thus, Kayani’s apparently “apolitical” and professional image gave him a distinct advantage. It enhanced his acceptability to the quarrelling politicians of Pakistan. “Civilians” may constitute the “boss-in-front”, but Kayani remains the fulcrum and the invisible centre-of-gravity. Kayani asserted himself when he removed Musharraf’s men from sensitive positions in September 2008. He changed four of the nine Corps Commanders and appointed a new head of the ISI. He always consults civilian leaders, and Zardari and Gilani have no reason to complain. When Zardari offered to send the ISI chief to New Delhi for discussions in the immediate aftermath of 26/11, Kayani turned down the proposal. The President’s failure made Kayani politically more powerful than his own Head of State.
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East of Singapore August 03, 2010
Nitin Pai demystifies the anarchy of international relations
Global Times, an English language daily newspaper owned by the People's Daily, Communist Party of China's mouthpiece, devoted an astonishing 11 of its 22 editorials last month to threatening the United States, South Korea, Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries for challenging China in the western Pacific. The strident criticism rose into a crescendo last week, with the newspaper delivering a thinly-veiled military threat. "China's long-term strategic plan should never be taken as a weak stand, " it warned, and while "[it] is clear that military clashes would bring bad results to all countries in the region involved, but China will never waive its right to protect its core interest with military means."Using state-controlled media to send signals to other countries is an old trick. In this case it allows the Chinese government to make the threat, yet claim that it is honouring its commitments under its 2002 agreement with ASEAN, where the parties pledged to "undertake to resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned."
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