In change of stance, India supports talks with Taliban

[Swing_n_Speed]

1. The taliban didnt fire stingers at the USAF/US Army. they fired a few 'fire and forget' line of sight G2A missiles like strelas and RPGs pointed at air. If the Taliban were firing stingers and javelins at the USAF, they'd be losing helicopters at the rate of 1 every day. 2. precisely-the Paki support of the Taliban constitutes to funding the madrassahs, having pow-wows with their leadership, letting them know when drone strikes are comming and thats it. This type of support is significant, but it is practically invisible support because the funding comes in through the way of Islamic charities. Something you cannot stop, period. I mean what- make it illegal to donate to an Islamic charity ? make it illegal to donate to starving paki/afghan children ? Never going to happen, so their pipeline will remain open. Its harder to shut down these charity-based terror-network funding than getting the Swiss to be frank with their bank account names. So how do you deal with the Taliban ? You cannot hurt their financial pipeline. You cannot hurt their armament production (they do it themselves, in caves of the Suleiman ranges) and they get thousands of kids every year who wish to get themselves killed like their daddys for their fictional God and 72 virgins. Only option: kill them all. But that option only exists in paper and cannot be implemented. So the net result is, the Taliban are unbeatable.

Well it's not like of all Islamic charities money only goes to the Afghani Taliban. There are enough restive hotspots in the Muslim world and enough madrassas that need to be maintained. Yes the Taliban is probably a huge beneficiary of Islamic charities, but at the same time they also benefit immensely from the ISI. By engaging the Taliban through talks it means you are playing right into the hands of the ISI.

[Muloghonto]

How many of the Rafales' date=' Su 30s will be used against jihadis and naxals - the 2 primary security threats at present? [b']Pakistan army apparatus either isn't a threat or India is incapable of making them accountable for the their transgressions. (I am not saying this. This is the track record of India) So, fancy Air Force toys shouldn't factor into the defence situation.

1. If the issue is to fight the naxals and the jihadis, then DRDO or foreign imports dont enter the picture. India is self-sufficient in small arms and last i checked we made practically all our guns & bullets from scratch at the Ishapore factory. 2. Ofcourse we are incapable of holding the Paki military accountable. This is because they are a nuclear nation and unlike Uncle Sam, we cant just out-tech the Pakis to our will, entering their airspace at our will with zero consequences.

From Pakistan's side, they have also clearly shifted towards asymmetric warfare against India because they don't have the guts to go to full out war either (since Indian Army has been sufficient at whooping their behinds in each of the past instances).

Yep. Its not about guts, its about the brains. Pakis are not stupid. They are doing pretty much what we'd be doing in their shoes: conducting asymetric warfare with a rival that is incapable of crushing us in the battlefield and incapable at stamping down terrorist activities.

And as you have put it in prior posts, India doesn't have much of chance against China so 100 Rafales shouldn't do much to move the scales.

Indian army has zero chance against the PLA. IAF is an underdog against the PLAAF but we can hold our own in our airspace. IN is a huge underdog against the PLAN currently but due to our geo-strategic location, IN can hurt China deeply by nixing its Malaccas strait trade. The Rafales do make a difference. Gives us a 2nd option to conduct air support missions in their territorry. The thing is, despite the MAD doctrine, you cannot let your conventional military competency slip. Otherwise you have 'Osama Bin Laden execution mission' style stuff happening all over the time, where your enemy sneaks in & sneaks out with massively superior equipment and you cant do squat.

So the rational decision should be to stop funding defence companies of the goras and build your own capabilities for the long run. Because in the short run India is still the same old underdeveloped shithole incapable of not only challenging the big dogs but even little chihuahas next door.

It is the goras' stuff that keeps minimum deterrance a valid scenario against the Chinese from just steamrolling us. Its the T-90s, Mig-29s, Su-30s and Rafales of the world that are preventing China from just walking into Arunachal. Besides, we havnt stopped funding the defence companies. We just arnt buying their substandard crap. There's a difference. Nobody wins if we just buy substandard crap because they are a national company. Otherwise you end up like Italy or Brazil, where they have substandard crap and dont ever go to war, unless it is far, far away against cave dwellers. Last i checked, Finmechannia and Embraer are not purchased by any self respecting military. Why would we want to be like them ? Look, you've got it all wrong. We do fund DRDO. DRDO is just about the worst run technical firm I've ever looked at and its trying to be the monopoly of Indian defence industries instead of outsourcing to Indian private sector companies and encouraging their growth. But as of now, the incentive should be for DRDO and its partners to put out a product good enough for the military to want to buy. They stand to make billions if they could put a product on the table. Why should our military competency suffer to promote nepotism in the defence sector, where companies realize they dont necessarily have to build the best thing to keep their contracts, ala Brazil and Embraer or Italy and Finnmechannia ?

No, I think that Rafales and Sukhois are for display purposes only (since the political leadership doesn't have the gumption to use them). While you are displaying a false sense of nationalism. As if buying several dozen fighter jets going to impact the security situation. Current policy signifies a lack of vision and planning. That is my point. Lack of Vision and planning across the board.

Our stance is defensive, not offensive. Our army lacks the capability to be a mobile army, so i dont see whats wrong with having your offensive weapons in defensive configurations. Thats practically what the Japs & the Koreans have been doing for their entire lives. Lack of vision & planning is from DRDO, not the government or the armed forces. The government is tasked to provide the armed forces with its financial & material needs. The armed forces is tasked to maximize its material & financial needs from efficiency & 'bang for your buck' perspective. These are the two primary relevant mandates in this situation. The onus is on DRDO and its consortium partners to try and break into this industry by putting superior products out. I dont care what they do- steal plans from the yanks like the Chinese do, overpay for your star engineers, do what it takes. Yes, the deck is stacked against DRDO. But as it should be. Indian industries dont have a god-given right to supply material to its armed forces. The armed forces have a God given right to choose its material based on declared criterias, regardless of whom it comes from. Indian industries have to earn that right, just like American industries also have to. Last i checked, America does not favour its defence industries with contracts- it takes a complete free market approach to it (as it happens 90% of western competent defence makers are US owned, so it works out well for America) and in stuff like America is not the king daddy, like short range surface to air missiles, it buys what Israel has to offer. Our focus is the same and to be honest, it is working. in the last 20 years, our defence sector has gone from being glorified ammunition builders to making all our small arms & motorized needs, while making significant forays into high end defence spectrum such as figther aircrafts and even the collaborative effort of BRAHMOS. its significant progress but what you want is unrealistic at this stage. Our defence industry needs atleast another 40-50 years to mature in the high end spectrum. The comparisons to China are irrelevant in this regard because Chinese have a much better reason to develop their own stuff with full gutso: they are under embargo from practically every single western arms manufacturing nation and Russia will sell them stuff only sporadically. We are not under such immense pressure to succeed in our defence industry, which is more along the lines of western free market principles. It is showing signs of significant progress, which means we are doing things right, but it is completely unrealistic to expect companies that have been around for 20-30 years to compete with companies that have been around for 100-150 years. I dont know how much you know of the weapons industry- i will admit i dont know much outside of gun-making and ammunitions (due to my personal interests) but how old your company is, does really matter in terms of having the database and machining records to give a huge edge over a company that has been around for just a couple of decades. What you want right now, is not the best scenario for India. And what you want (total arms independency) will be a reality in 40-50 years. That is acceptable IMO.

[Muloghonto]

Well it's not like of all Islamic charities money only goes to the Afghani Taliban. There are enough restive hotspots in the Muslim world and enough madrassas that need to be maintained. Yes the Taliban is probably a huge beneficiary of Islamic charities' date=' but at the same time they also benefit immensely from the ISI. By engaging the Taliban through talks it means you are playing right into the hands of the ISI.[/quote'] ISI provides basic training and intel on where the Americans are at and when the drone strikes are comming. As you can imagine, it does a spotty but decent job at the latter part and a good job at the former. Hence a million and one ambushes. Yes, less than 10% of Islamic charity money goes to the Taliban- if that. But it is an invisible pipeline. Most charities are non-taxable and therefore poorly regulated and they also have patchy recordskeeping (because it is a company with no real customer, its performance does not have to be competetive. A charity, by definition remains relevant even if it is donating 0.1% of its funds because any charity is better than no charity in the charity business). So good luck tracing all that money. Its a royal pain in the butt to expose fake charities as charlatans because its hard to guage its finances, nevermind who the money is going to after it changes hands a zillion times. Going after their funding- that was the route #1 America took to counter Al Qaeda and it didnt work. So its not going to work. Look, i wish i had easy answers on how to deal with Islam and Islamic terrorism but the reality is, only effective solution is Hitler part II. Exterminate the problem. But i myself cannot see that being an option outside of logical exercises because i myself cannot justify sacrificing a billion muslim lives to root out the evils propagated by its religion and half a billion nutbars. So no, there are no quick & easy fixes. Unfortunately not only is Hitler part II not a humane option, it is also an impractical one. Swayam America Bhagavaan cannot kill off muslims willy illy, so hum kis khet ki mooli hain ?

[Swing_n_Speed]

ISI provides basic training and intel on where the Americans are at and when the drone strikes are comming. As you can imagine, it does a spotty but decent job at the latter part and a good job at the former. Hence a million and one ambushes. Yes, less than 10% of Islamic charity money goes to the Taliban- if that. But it is an invisible pipeline. Most charities are non-taxable and therefore poorly regulated and they also have patchy recordskeeping (because it is a company with no real customer, its performance does not have to be competetive. A charity, by definition remains relevant even if it is donating 0.1% of its funds because any charity is better than no charity in the charity business). So good luck tracing all that money. Its a royal pain in the butt to expose fake charities as charlatans because its hard to guage its finances, nevermind who the money is going to after it changes hands a zillion times. Going after their funding- that was the route #1 America took to counter Al Qaeda and it didnt work. So its not going to work. Look, i wish i had easy answers on how to deal with Islam and Islamic terrorism but the reality is, only effective solution is Hitler part II. Exterminate the problem. But i myself cannot see that being an option outside of logical exercises because i myself cannot justify sacrificing a billion muslim lives to root out the evils propagated by its religion and half a billion nutbars. So no, there are no quick & easy fixes. Unfortunately not only is Hitler part II not a humane option, it is also an impractical one. Swayam America Bhagavaan cannot kill off muslims willy illy, so hum kis khet ki mooli hain ?

America went after Al Qaeda? Since when? Who on earth is America funding in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq against the Shia government? And dude we all know how the Taliban was formed. There was no great Islamic charity which formed them but was the unholy nexus of Regan+Zia Ul Haq + The Saudis! How did the insurgents in Mali get their hands on weapons to challenge the government to the point where the French had to step in?

[Muloghonto]

America went after Al Qaeda? Since when? Who on earth is America funding in Libya' date=' in Syria, in Iraq against the Shia government? [/quote'] Not america. Its the uncontrollable rich spastic underlings of America: Saudi & Qatar. But America did try to go after AQ's funding program from 2002 onwards. It just didnt work. Err no, the Taliban have little or nothing to do with the Mujahaddeeen. What you speak of, were mostly the Northern Alliance & Warlord militais that the Taliban toppled. Only the top core of the Taliban militia has mujahadeeen experience and even then, not all of them. Their foot soldiers, in 2001 had average age of 18.That means the bulk of their recruits came from the children growing up in the Soviet Afghan war days (in Afghanistan or Pakistan), not active combatants. Last i recall, there were just a few hundred child soldiers in the mujahadeen, which numbered in dozens of thousands. The taliban are an ISI-Saudi-Pak Army creation.

[Swing_n_Speed]

^^^ This argument is never ending and I'm glad on ICF there's a poster as knowledgeable as you.:two_thumbs_up: But I'm off to bed now, will reply tomorrow. Cheers mate was fun chatting.

[Muloghonto]

^^^ This argument is never ending and I'm glad on ICF there's a poster as knowledgeable as you.:two_thumbs_up: But I'm off to bed now, will reply tomorrow. Cheers mate was fun chatting.

Cheers, it was fun too.

[surajmal]

Strategic Importance of those planes in the current setup is highly debatable. And unless you or I have been in touch with the military bigwigs, such a discussion is hot air. Now regarding the need for domestic production; I don't disagree with your assessment of the situation, I disagree with the course of action (and I posit that India won't achieve parity with the west if the status quo continues for another 100 years let alone 50). A modern Air plane is a nice illustration of a state of industry (in totality) because it is pretty much the pinnacle of human engineering achievement (IMO) as its subsystems encompass length and breadth of the technical spectrum. Someone once told me that in 1947, India was roughly a century and a half behind the West in technological terms: Basically the whole industrial setup i.e. from mining to manufacturing technologically intensive items was non existent, while US and UK were building F86 and Vampire. Since then India has made plenty of progress. But by trying to grow the industry organically, you won't be doing any catching up; West would have moved on from jet engines by then. You are going to have to throw money at the problem and them some. And keep doing it for another 50 years and if your are lucky, maybe you will be in the same ball park. Plus you can't expect a bunch of novices (in relative terms) to compete with Industry giants. It is unfair.You will have to accept that struggles/failures/delays as part of the process of narrowing the 150 year gap. (LCA hasn't experienced a single crash. If you want faster delivery, are you willing to accept crashes and casualties? I'm sure DRDO engineers are capable of testing 2/3 control factors for given component at a time. But would people accept the risk. The Program would have been shitcanned a decade ago, if they went wild wild west like Americans or Russians used to.) A gap that includes proprietary know-how that can only be accumulated through experience because no one is going to sell it to you until it has become outdated. India will have to reinvent the wheel. There is no way around it. And since there is only one primary consumer, that consumer will have to make sacrifices. The prevailing Indian mindset is that of instant gratification. That is why Indians like to poo poo all indigenous achievements because the Gora has already done. Yes, the goras have already done it because they had a 200 year head start. During which time you people were busy eating, sleeping, ****ing and *****ing. And that was the entirety of your existence. To do proper R&D, Indians will have to drop the baniya mentality of looking at all economic activities as balance sheet entries. Otherwise, it simply wont work. In the olden days, the lynchpin of a military was leadership. Now it is weapons. A great modern military is built bottom up not top down. So if the planners aren't focussing (#1 item on the list) on building the requisite industrial setup, they need to find a different job.

[surajmal]

1. If the issue is to fight the naxals and the jihadis' date=' then DRDO or foreign imports dont enter the picture. India is self-sufficient in small arms and last i checked we made practically all our guns & bullets from scratch at the Ishapore factory.[/quote'] INSAS has fallen out of favour. Your special forces use Tavor. You are still importing handguns or license producing them. My 11 year old cousin can do a better job managing OFB. I mean these people were sitting on Bofors' design specs for the last 24 years and they didn't even know. All this while, the Army has been looking for guns from foreign vendors who end up getting blacklisted because Babus want to keep up the appearances of preventing another Bofors like scandal. That is how incompetent these people are. Budget is non existent compared to our neighbour. In the arms industry, nepotism is the name of the game. But it is irrelevant to our discussion. Anyways, if you want to continue this discussion, may as well open a new thread because we have gone a little off topic. .

[Muloghonto]

INSAS has fallen out of favour. Your special forces use Tavor. You are still importing handguns or license producing them. My 11 year old cousin can do a better job managing OFB. I mean these people were sitting on Bofors' design specs for the last 24 years and they didn't even know. All this while' date=' the Army has been looking for guns from foreign vendors who end up getting blacklisted because Babus want to keep up the appearances of preventing another Bofors like scandal. That is how incompetent these people are. [/quote'] Tavor is not used against Naxals, its used against the terrorists. The Tavor is a small callibre bull-pup, it totally lends itself to urban warfare and has no place whatsoever in the jungles of central India/Jharkhand. As it should be - India does not design or produce any bull-pup guns, we import them. Our neighbour had no option. It was pour massive amount of money & effort into domestic sector, stake entire lives & careers to steal any and every trade secret or roll up and get owned by bumbling Indian baboogiri army. We do not have the same 'develop indegenous defence sector or die' pressure to develop it and as such, our defence sector is following the path of market principles governed growth. Fair enough.

[KeyboardWarrior]

there was the news in Pakistani media that a Pak army plane landed in Qatar with some political personality in that plane, and Saudis were there too. I shared this news few months back in some thread of ICF and it seems true now. US asked to Pak Army and Saudis to make Exit strategy for US and talk to Taliban. and now its official "Taliban Office In Qatar" and again these are the news now a days, Karzai have "zero" role in this plan. and India will follow US Exit plan. Simple.

[ravishingravi]

I'm sorry, what's the alternative ? We refuse to talk to Taliban ? That essentially means Afghan govt, ISAF & Padosis work it out among themselves and our $2 billion investments & other sacrifices are sidelined. We always were the sideshow there and unless we're sending boots on the ground to replace ISAF or completely leaving that place, this is the only option. Its the Americans, Brits and their buddies that spent so much more than us and shed far more blood than we did over there. They're not acting tough anymore, how on earth can we do so ?

As an American, or a country whose directions stem from US policies I would agree. But from Indian perspective only, there are two points. Will India be able to exert their influence in Afghanistan with string taliban ? I think no. Is Taliban a problem for us ? Are they pro Pak. state / military ? Yes. So, I would rather have India just staying mum than bending down like this.

[Muloghonto]

As an American, or a country whose directions stem from US policies I would agree. But from Indian perspective only, there are two points. Will India be able to exert their influence in Afghanistan with string taliban ? I think no. Is Taliban a problem for us ? Are they pro Pak. state / military ? Yes. So, I would rather have India just staying mum than bending down like this.

India's role in Afghanistan will be dictated by our relationship with Tajikistan. We've badly handled that situation and not shown foresight. I dont even know if we ever took posesssion of that air base in Tajikistan. The key to countering Paki nonsense & propagation of islamic jahilliyat in Afghanistan is Tajikistan, as everything around Kabul and north of Kabul is Tajik territorry. The pashtuns like to claim Kabul but their actual presence in Kabul and immediate neighbourhood of Kabul is overshadowed by the Tajiks. Also, the region of Hazarajat is extremely anti-taliban ( justifiably so) and its easier accessed from Samangan and Sar-e-Pol than from the south. Therefore, cultivating ties with Tajikistan and the anti-taliban Tajiks & Hazarajat effectively gives influence in the northern & central half of Afghanistan. As long as we can secure a long term future at Farkhor base, it would be well worth stationing a few squadrons there and the support crew, which would give us a central bird's eye view of central asia, northern Afghanistan and decisively contain Pakistan from the north.

[Swing_n_Speed]

As an American, or a country whose directions stem from US policies I would agree. But from Indian perspective only, there are two points. Will India be able to exert their influence in Afghanistan with string taliban ? I think no. Is Taliban a problem for us ? Are they pro Pak. state / military ? Yes. So, I would rather have India just staying mum than bending down like this.

True. Sometimes a wait an watch approach is best. But our corrupt government is probably pandering to the interests of a powerful lobby with stakes in Afghanistan! And the minute USA decided to talk with the Taliban our rudderless leaders took it as a blessing in disguise and they too decided to initiate dialogue. Dialogue with the freaking taliban....sigh the irony of it all.

[Swing_n_Speed]

Not america. Its the uncontrollable rich spastic underlings of America: Saudi & Qatar. But America did try to go after AQ's funding program from 2002 onwards. It just didnt work.

Seriously? What are Saudi and Qatar without American support? Their top intelligence official is nicknamed Bandar Bin Bush. That's how close they are. Yes there is the possibility that Gulf nations are upto a bit of hanky panky. But by and large they do what they do with US approval and backing!

Err no, the Taliban have little or nothing to do with the Mujahaddeeen. What you speak of, were mostly the Northern Alliance & Warlord militais that the Taliban toppled. Only the top core of the Taliban militia has mujahadeeen experience and even then, not all of them. Their foot soldiers, in 2001 had average age of 18.That means the bulk of their recruits came from the children growing up in the Soviet Afghan war days (in Afghanistan or Pakistan), not active combatants. Last i recall, there were just a few hundred child soldiers in the mujahadeen, which numbered in dozens of thousands. The taliban are an ISI-Saudi-Pak Army creation.

The Taliban are the direct offspring of the Mujahideen. America and gang formed the Muja...and then ditched them once the Soviets left. And as you said infighting ensued. At the end of the day you have to recognize America's hand in creating this monster right? Because when America decided to fund the Mujahideen, America didn't merely put guns in their hands. They also and as reported by The Washington Post in 2002: 'The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings …. The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books ….' http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/09/sleeping-with-the-devil-how-u-s-and-saudi-backing-of-al-qaeda-led-to-911.html http://rt.com/op-edge/afghanistan-syria-womens-us-153/ Which leads be back to the my original point. By negotiating with the Taliban are we really negotiating with a violent, independent organization or are we dealing with a violent, proxy militancy?