sandeep

This assumption reminds me of the bhakt claims about how China has not successfully grabbed any Indian land. Ostrich-like. At this point, it is extremely low probability that India will ever get back Finger 4, or patrol access to F8. Getting the PLA to leave Finger 4 will take maintaining current levels of escalation across all domains. And even then, it is still unlikely that they are simply going to give up such an obviously tactical advantage.

Bit difficult to do that when you have thousands of muslims running street protests and an army of Indian journalists ready to publish polemics against Indian government's 'oppression' of muslims.

Problem is that we won't have S400 deployed fully, for another couple of years.

I don't think its imminent. Is Finger 4 worth the risk of escalation? I'd say not just yet. I want Modi to play this out like Kennedy played out Cuba - no backwards step, but no rush to get trigger-happy.

Jeebus, that's a terrible tweet. Deserves the outcome. If I see any "reasonable liberal" defending this crap, then that person's motivations become suspect in my eyes.

dancing skills, 'break the beard' skills, cooking skills. Interview skills.

We don't live in the 19th century or even the 20th. The nature of international conflicts has fundamentally changed. You are not going to see major physical blockades of supply routes - that would require a national commitment of resources that is simply too expensive for the cost-benefit equation to work. Conflicts now will be of the LAC type - salami-sliced fait accompli with advantage of surprise and limited objectives, or economic and multi-theater conflicts that will be fought out in board-rooms, server rooms and stock markets.

Which "port" is going to host Chinese offensive naval capabilities? Care to name one? Of course with a long coastline, peninsular India is vulnerable to attack, but it would require PLAN to operate thousands of miles away from homebase. The only realistic bases available to PLAN are Djibouti and Gwadar. In spite of massive BRI loans, SL is not going to allow Chinese Navy to use its ports to attack India - they cannot afford to do that. And for all the high talk of Chinese influence over Nepal - India has a history with Nepal going back generations. In a war-time scenario between India and China, the Chinese cannot dream of using Nepal against India, in any way. Let's not get alarmist.

All this "trade route" nonsense is for folks who don't have an adequate grasp on geography or logistics. The CPEC 'highway' is frequently disrupted by avalanches, and is by no-means all-weather. It simply cannot scale up in logistical volume to be considered a viable "trade route". Gwadar is considered to be this tactical masterstroke - the place barely has enough drinking water supply for a few hundred residents. And the average daily cargo weight that comes into Gwadar and reaches China, can be measured in grams, not even kilograms.

Making KL Rahul the 'keeper is a travesty.

Sorry bhai, I guess I was a bit snippy there. Your initial post was a bit naive though, asking for more Rafales instead of jets that are already inducted. But yes, I was rude, no excuses. I own up to it.

Mirage would have been a very solid 'allrounder' workhorse for the IAF. The fact that Indian establishment failed to follow through on acquiring these post-kargil, is a massive strategic blunder.

Doesn't matter when it was "ordered". ZERO are currently deployed. Which means we are at least 8 to 10 months away from being able to use Rafale jets, even if we get them delivered TODAY. Do you understand this? If you do not, then I cannot help you.

no, its not "factually correct". Throwing around concepts like the Malacca dilemma, while lacking the basic understanding to recognize that Gwadar and CPEC cannot ever offer any sort of realistic alternative for oil imports, automatically means that this "smart boy" analysis belongs in the trash can.

That's what I was referring to. It was so pathetic, "I see some mistakes in his stance, give me 2 weeks and I will make him top class allrounder". That's a very transparent way of saying, "give me some money, I have failed to become a commentator, and trying to play again in PSL as a 40 year old didn't work either, please give me a chance"