The Indo-Pakistani conflict in the past, present and future. Third Indo-Pakistani War Detachment of East Pakistan background causes

Third Indo-Pakistani war - an armed conflict between India and Pakistan that occurred in December 1971. The cause of the war was Indian intervention in civil war, marching in East Pakistan. As a result of the fighting, Pakistan suffered a heavy defeat, and East Pakistan (Bangladesh) gained independence.

Background [ | ]

In December 1970, parliamentary elections were held in the country, in which the majority of votes was won by the Sheikh-led Mujibur Rahman East Pakistan Party " Awami League” (“Liberty League”), which came up with a program for granting significant autonomy to the east of the country. According to the country's constitution, she received the right to form a government. But the leader of the victorious in the west Pakistan People's Party Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto opposed the appointment of Rahman as prime minister. Negotiations between politicians with the participation of Yahya Khan were unsuccessful. March 7 1971 Rahman made a speech in which he stated that his party was fighting for the independence of East Pakistan. In response to this March 25 The Pakistani army, consisting mainly of Westerners, began Operation Searchlight to establish control over all cities in the eastern part of the country. The Awami League was banned and Mujibur Rahman was arrested. March 27 major armed forces country Zaur Rahman read out on the radio the text of the declaration of independence written by Mujibur, proclaiming the creation of the state Bangladesh. A civil war broke out in the country.

Bangladesh Liberation War[ | ]

Initially, the Pakistani army encountered minimal resistance. By the end of spring, it had occupied all the cities of Bangladesh and suppressed any political opposition. IN rural areas unfolded partisan movement, whose members were known as " mukti-bahini" Their ranks were quickly replenished by army deserters, as well as the local population. The army launched a brutal crackdown on Bangladeshis; According to existing estimates, by the end of 1971, from 200 thousand to 3 million people in the country were killed. At least 8 million refugees went to India.

Pakistan's military forces in Bangladesh were in a hopeless situation. Three stationed here divisions were dispersed to conduct combat operations against partisans, had almost no air support and could not stop the advance of three Indian buildings. Realizing this circumstance, the Pakistani command tried to impose a war on India on two fronts and launched offensive operations in the west. However, even on western front superiority was on the side of the Indian army. In the battle of Longueval - December 6 a single company of the 23rd Battalion of the Punjab Regiment successfully held off the advance of the reinforced 51st Pakistan Infantry Brigade; Indian fighter-bomber aircraft played a significant role in this battle, destroying a large number of enemy equipment on the approaches to Longuevale. In general, the Indian army not only repelled the Pakistani attacks, but also went on the offensive, capturing some border areas early in the war.

On eastern front Indian forces, together with Mukti Bahini units, quickly bypassed the enemy’s main defensive nodes. The decisive factor here was high mobility in difficult terrain. Amphibious tanks have proven themselves well PT-76 and transport helicopters Mi-4 Soviet production. By the end of the second week of the war, the Indian army approached Dhaka. Seeing no point in further resistance, December 16 The commander of Pakistani troops in Bangladesh, General Niazi, signed the act of surrender of his group. December 17 India announced a ceasefire. This ended the war.

War at sea [ | ]

Military operations at sea were marked by a number of combat contacts between the fleets of the warring parties.

The Indo-Pakistani conflict of 1971 demonstrated the prematureness of abandoning the placement of large-caliber cannon artillery (over 100-127 mm) on ships. It turned out to be a much cheaper means of combating coastal objects, and at the same time no less effective than guided ship-based missiles. It was also confirmed that submarines continue to be reliable naval weapons - just like unguided torpedoes and "traditional" depth charges.

results [ | ]

As a result of Indian military intervention, Bangladesh gained independence. .

The 1971 war was the largest in a series of Indo-Pakistani conflicts.

Soviet-American confrontation[ | ]

British Indian Independence Act and state demarcation in South Asia

The national liberation movement in Indian cities and rural areas expanded. Anti-British protests began among Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army. The Indian part of the officer corps, not to mention the rank and file, was losing loyalty to the British crown. In an effort to get ahead of events, on August 15, 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act.

The British government, in accordance with a plan devised by the last Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, divided the country along religious lines in 1947. Instead of single state two dominions were created - Pakistan, which received territories populated predominantly by Muslims, and the Indian Union (India itself), where the majority of the population were Hindus. At the same time, the territory of India proper cut Pakistan into two parts like a wedge - West Pakistan (modern Pakistan) and East Pakistan (modern Bangladesh), which were separated by 1600 km and inhabited by various peoples (Bengalis in the east, Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns and Baluchis - in the West). At the same time, even the whole people- Bengalis: the Muslim part of it ended up as part of East Pakistan, and Hindu Bengalis made up the population of the Indian state of Bengal. East Pakistan was surrounded by Indian territory on three sides, and on the fourth, its border ran through the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Partition was accompanied by the extremely bloody migration of millions of Hindus and Sikhs to India, and Muslims to Pakistan. According to various estimates, from half a million to a million people died.
To the contents of the chapter

First India-Pakistan War

Additional tension was added to the situation by granting the “native” principalities the right to independently decide whether to become part of the Indian or Pakistani state. Using it, the nawab of the largest principality of Hyderabad in the center of India decided to join Pakistan. The Indian government, not wanting to lose this territory, sent its troops into the principality in 1948, ignoring the protests of Great Britain and the USA

Similarly, the ruler of Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region bordering West Pakistan, who was a Hindu by religion, declared his intention to annex his kingdom to India or become an independent sovereign. Then, in October 1947, Pashtun tribes invaded Kashmir from Pakistani territory, who wanted to prevent the transition of this predominantly Muslim territory to Indian sovereignty. The ruler of Kashmir turned to Delhi for military assistance and hastened to officially proclaim the accession of the principality to the Indian Union. (¦)

By 1948, the conflict in Kashmir had escalated into the first India-Pakistan War. It was short-lived, and in January 1949 a ceasefire agreement was signed between the parties. Thanks to the activities of the mediation commission of the UN Security Council in the summer of 1949, a ceasefire line was established, one part of which was recognized as an international border, and the other became the line of actual control (somewhat changed later as a result of the second and third Indian-Pakistani wars of 1965 and 1971 .). Northwestern Kashmir came under the control of Pakistan (subsequently the formation of “Azad Kashmir” (Free Kashmir) was created there), formally representing a free territory.

Two-thirds of the former princely state of Kashmir came under Indian rule. These Kashmiri lands were merged with the adjacent Hindu-inhabited areas to form the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Security Council in 1949 adopted a resolution to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir after the withdrawal of Pakistani troops from its northwestern part. But Pakistan refused to comply with the UN demands, and the plebiscite was disrupted. Pakistan gained access to the border with China thanks to control over northwestern Kashmir, through which the strategic Karakoram Highway was built in the 70s and 80s, which provided Pakistan with reliable communications with the PRC.

The Indian-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir has not been resolved. The events of the late 40s determined the basic anti-Indian direction of Pakistan's foreign policy. The Pakistani leadership since then began to view India as a source of threat to the independence of Pakistan.

At the same time, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir itself, within India, there were separatist sentiments, the bearers of which opposed joining Pakistan or India and demanded the creation of an independent Kashmiri state. On top of that, the eastern part of the state was historically until the 11th century. was part of Tibet, and its population still gravitates towards connections with the Tibetans. In this regard, the leadership of the PRC, which extended its control to Tibet after the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949, began to show interest in the Kashmir problem, especially since there was no clarity on the issue of the border line between the Tibetan lands of the PRC and the Indian possessions in Jammu and Kashmir - in particular, in the area of ​​​​the Aksai Chin plateau, along which a strategically important road for China passed from Western Tibet to Xinjiang. A hotbed of chronic tension has emerged in South Asia.
Diplomatic relations with the USA and USSR
India's diplomatic relations with the USA and the USSR were established even before the declaration of its independence, since its dominion status made it possible to do so. But India did not have close relations with either Moscow or Washington. The superpowers were preoccupied with affairs in regions that were more important to them - in Europe, East Asia, in the Middle East. This unusual and short-lived “vacuum of interest” in India partly contributed to the formation of Delhi’s specific foreign policy line, the authorship of which belongs to the head of the first government of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru.
The deterioration of Soviet-Chinese relations in the early 60s led to an increase in Moscow's interest in military-political cooperation with India, whose relations with the PRC remained tense after two conflicts over the previous ten years. The USSR provided India with significant economic assistance and began to develop military ties with it. In the first half of the 60s, the scale of military supplies from the Soviet Union exceeded the amount of aid coming to India from the United States. This began to worry Washington. The Kennedy administration set the goal of strengthening relations with India, despite Delhi's commitment to non-alignment and neutralism. The American president called India the key to Asia, believing that with American help it could become a “showcase” of the West, win economic competition with China and become a powerful counterweight to it. After the Sino-Indian conflict, India became the largest recipient of American economic assistance, although Washington was irritated by India's reluctance to cooperate more actively with the United States against China.

Fearing that it would be deceived in its hopes of turning India into a reliable partner, the American administration began to pay more attention to cooperation with Pakistan. After the “July Revolution” of 1958 in Iraq and its withdrawal from the Baghdad Pact in 1959, Pakistan’s value for American strategy in the Middle East increased so much that in March 1959 the United States entered into an agreement with Pakistan that provided for the possibility of using US armed forces in case of aggression against Pakistan. Since 1965, Pakistan began to receive modern weapons from the United States.

But the development of US-Pakistan ties was not without problems. The United States understood that the confrontation with India determined the Pakistani government’s interest in cooperation with the PRC on an anti-Indian basis. The prospect of a Chinese-Pakistani bloc did not suit Washington.

But such a bloc was also undesirable for Moscow. That is why, focusing on rapprochement with India, Soviet Union sought to maintain good relations with Pakistan. The task of Soviet diplomacy was to limit Pakistani-Chinese and American-Pakistan rapprochement. The Soviet-Pakistani dialogue developed successfully.

In the first half of the 1960s, Indian-Pakistani relations were tense. Indian Prime Minister J. Nehru's visit to Karachi in 1960 and six-month bilateral negotiations on the Kashmir issue in 1962-1963. and in the first half of 1964 did not lead to an improvement in the situation. Since the end of 1964, armed clashes began on the Indo-Pakistani border. In the summer of 1965 they escalated into a full-scale war.

The development of events caused concern in the USSR and the USA, who feared the strengthening of China’s position in South Asia. The United States, floating between India and Pakistan, suspended military assistance to the latter from the moment hostilities began, while simultaneously warning China against interfering in the Indo-Pakistani conflict.

Moscow found itself in a position convenient for carrying out a mediation mission: it had friendly relations with both India and Pakistan. The governments of both countries agreed to accept Soviet mediation. The United States also did not object to it. Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Mohammed Ayub Khan arrived in the USSR. In January 1966, Indo-Pakistani negotiations took place in Tashkent with the participation of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.N. Kosygin, which ended with the signing of a joint Declaration of India and Pakistan on ending the war and restoring the status quo. Formally, it was believed that during the negotiations the Soviet Union provided “good offices” to the conflicting parties, but in fact the USSR mission rather resembled “mediation”, since the Soviet delegate directly participated in the negotiations, which, in principle, is not provided for by the procedure for providing “good offices.”

The United States took a neutral position during the conflict. This was frowned upon in Pakistan, believing that Washington should have supported it more vigorously. Partly to spite the United States, in October 1967, Pakistani President M. Ayub Khan visited Moscow, during which he hinted at Pakistan’s desire to weaken its dependence on the United States in the military-political field. In early 1968, Pakistani authorities announced their disinterest in extending the agreement that allowed the United States to use radar installations in Peshawar to collect information about Soviet military installations. During A.N. Kosygin’s visit to Pakistan in April 1968, the USSR agreed to supply arms to Pakistan. This caused indignation in India. Trying to maintain good relations with both India and Pakistan, Moscow was generally inclined to remain on Delhi's side.

Formation of Bangladesh and the Indo-Pakistan War

On the periphery of international relations, elements of confrontation were more noticeable than in Europe. This has been confirmed by developments in South Asia. By the beginning of the 70s, the Soviet Union had finally established the opinion that India was a reliable partner of the USSR in the East, since Soviet-Chinese relations were extremely strained, and relations between China and India were also very cold. True, India did not want to be drawn into the Soviet-Chinese confrontation. But she did not trust China, especially since she saw the desire of the new US administration to move closer to it. India was losing its position as the US's priority partner in the region, as it was in the 60s. (¦) In Delhi, they knew that India’s “historical enemy,” Pakistan, was trying to promote the improvement of American-Chinese relations in order to devalue cooperation with India for Washington. Finally, Indian politicians believed that there was such a negative factor as “R. Nixon’s personal dislike for India” and the “anti-Indian fervor” of his national security adviser Henry Kissinger. In the early 1970s, the previously existing US-Indian understanding was evaporating.

True, the situation in the region developed rapidly regardless of the mood in Delhi. After the partition of British India, the state of Pakistan turned out to consist of two parts - western and eastern - which did not touch each other and were divided by a wedge of Indian territory. The capital of Pakistan was located in the west, and the eastern part felt abandoned and provincial. Its residents believed that the central government did not pay attention to the problems of East Pakistan and discriminated against it in matters of funding, although half the population lived in the eastern part of the country.

In the 1970 parliamentary elections in Pakistan, the East Bengal Awami League party won the majority of votes. Thus, theoretically, its leader, Mujibur Rahman, who advocated granting autonomy to East Pakistan, received the right to head the central government. But by order of the head of the military administration of Pakistan (dictator) General A.M. Yahya Khan, who came to power in 1969, M. Rahman was arrested in March 1971. Army units loyal to A.M. Yahya Khan were sent to East Pakistan from West Pakistan.
etc.................

During colonial rule, part of India was under the direct control of the British authorities, and the other was made up of native principalities that had their own rulers, semi-autonomous from the British. During the process of independence (1947), Britain's "direct" possessions in the subcontinent were divided along religious lines into two independent states - Hindu and Muslim (India and Pakistan). The native princes (whose number reached 600) received the right to independently decide whether to enter the first or second.

Indo-Pakistani War 1947-48. Movie 1

The Muslim nawab (monarch) of the great princely state of Hyderabad in central India decided to join Pakistan. Then the Indian government sent its troops into this principality in 1948, citing the fact that there were many Hindus in Hyderabad. The opposite happened in Kashmir, which is populated mainly by Muslims and borders West Pakistan. His prince, being himself a Hindu, declared his intention to annex his dominion to India or to become an independent sovereign. In October 1947, Pashtun tribes invaded Kashmir from Pakistani territory to prevent the region from passing under Indian sovereignty. The ruler of Kashmir turned to Delhi for help.

Indo-Pakistani War 1947-48. Movie 2

By 1948, the conflict in Kashmir had escalated into First Indo-Pakistani War. It turned out to be short-lived. In January 1949, an armistice agreement was signed. Thanks to the activities of the mediation commission of the UN Security Council in the summer of 1949, a ceasefire line was established, one part of which was recognized as an international border, and the other became the line of actual control (somewhat changed later as a result of second And third Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965 and 1971). Northwestern Kashmir (more than a third of the entire region) came under Pakistani control. Subsequently, the formation of “Azad Kashmir” (Free Kashmir) was created there, formally representing a free territory.

Partition of British India in 1947. Formation of independent India and Pakistan. The map shows the disputed territories of Hyderabad and Kashmir, as well as areas with a mixed Hindu-Muslim population

Two-thirds of the former princely state of Kashmir came under Indian rule. These lands were combined with adjacent Hindu-inhabited areas to form the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Security Council in 1949 adopted a resolution to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir after the withdrawal of Pakistani troops from its northwestern part. But Pakistan refused to comply with the UN demands, and the plebiscite was disrupted. Thanks to control of northwestern Kashmir, Pakistan gained a border with China. Here in the 1970-1980s the Karakoram Highway was built, providing Pakistan with connections with the PRC.

The Indo-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir has not been resolved. The Pakistani government has since seen India as its main enemy. In the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, there were separatists who opposed joining Pakistan or India and demanded the creation of an independent Kashmiri state.

The book is dedicated to the main striking power of the ground forces - tank forces. The author reconstructed the main tank battles of the Second World War, spoke in detail about the background to the creation and post-war development of armored vehicles, and gave a description various types and types of tanks, paying great attention to armor protection and parameters of tank guns, their maneuverability in specific landscapes. The publication is supplied with maps, diagrams and photographs.

One more lightning war there was a twenty-two-day conflict between India and Pakistan in 1965. In it, the combatants were more or less equal militarily.

When the British divided their Indian (colonial) in 1947 Ed.) empire, Punjab (with a predominantly Sikh population. - Ed.) was divided between India and Pakistan, and the issue of Kashmir was left open to be resolved by plebiscite. (Granting the long-overdue independence of India, the British decided to create two states on its territory - one with a predominantly Hindu population (India), the other with a predominantly Muslim population (Pakistan). This resulted in mass migrations, accompanied by pogroms and murders. Sometimes local rulers, professing a religion different from the religion of the majority of their subjects, they annexed their lands to one of the states, which became another source of future troubles. – Ed.) Long-standing hatreds, mostly of a religious nature, boiled over into the Kashmir War in 1947-48, and both countries later came to the brink of war twice. The 1965 conflict actually began in January in the Greater Rann of Kutch, a desolate, salt-marsh and apparently useless stretch of territory hundreds of kilometers southwest of Kashmir. This was followed by a better-organized Pakistani operation in Kashmir in April. The Indians counterattacked in May to take up defensive positions behind the 1947 ceasefire line to the north and northeast. The disputed territory is mostly quite mountainous (including highest mountains Karakorum and others – Ed.).

Hostilities began in earnest in August. Organized operations by Pakistani guerrillas, which were supplied by air across the 700 km Line of Demarcation, began in the mountains of Kashmir at four widely separated locations, with one group almost reaching the city of Srinagar. the main objective Pakistan's plan was obviously to provoke an anti-Indian uprising, but it failed. Another idea was to blockade the Indian armed forces here by splitting them into five separate groups.

India had a larger army. Both sides were armed with various armored vehicles. Pakistan had about 1,100 tanks: light tanks M-24 and M-41, medium tanks M4A3, M4A1E8, M-47 and M-48 and self-propelled artillery units M7B1 and M3B2. One armored division was available and another was in the process of being formed. The Indian Army had about 1,450 tanks, light tanks AMX-13, M3A1 and PT76 (Soviet-made amphibious tank); medium tanks M-4, M4A4, M-48, Centurion 5–7, T-54 and T-55 (the last two also of Soviet production) and jeep-mounted 106-mm recoilless rifles, as well as Unimog anti-tank vehicles . Some of the Indian Shermans (M-4, M4A4) were armed with Canadian-made 76 mm cannons. Both sides had approximately 150 tanks in their armored divisions, but infantry formations and units also had tanks and self-propelled artillery units. Neither side had enough infantry in armored personnel carriers or even motorized infantry.

On 14 August, an infantry battalion of Pakistani regular troops crossed the line to attack Bhimbar (75 km northwest of Jammu city). The next night, the Pakistanis fired artillery at the Indian position and tried to advance. The Indians, in turn, captured three positions in the mountains northeast of Kargil (near the demarcation line) to secure the crucial mountain road between Srinagar and Leh (in East Kashmir). On August 20, Pakistani artillery shelled Indian troop concentrations near settlements Tithwal, Uri and Poonch. The Indians responded with two limited attacks deep into North Kashmir. On August 24, the Indians attacked at Tithwal, capturing the peak of Dir Shuba. The Pakistanis blew up the Michpur bridge. The Indians eventually secured positions commanding the key Srinagar-Leh road, blocking the main route of a possible invasion into Kargil (from the north along the Indus River gorge).

Other Indian units crossed the Uri demarcation line on 25 August, taking several Pakistani positions in the mountains and finally capturing the Haji Pir Pass (leading to Poonch) from the rear. These troops, marching from Uri, linked up with the Indian column advancing from Poonch on September 10th. By the end of August, the main forces of Pakistani partisans (saboteurs. - Ed.) limited their penetration into Indian territory to just 16 km. The Pakistani guerrillas' plan would have been good if the expected uprising in India had taken place and if the plan had been better executed.

Two Pakistani armored brigades, each with forty-five M-47 tanks, with two supporting infantry brigades, moved from Bhimbar to Akhnoor on the Chenab River on 1 September to cut the important road and then capture Jammu and the city. This created the danger of isolating all Indian troops of 100 thousand soldiers in mountainous Kashmir, since both vital roads (Jammu - the junction of the roads to Srinagar (and further to Leh and Tashigang) and to Uri) and to Uri were blocked. Ed.). The operation began at 4.00 am with a powerful artillery barrage. To mislead the enemy, the area north of Naushakhra was also bombarded with artillery. This was followed by three tentative infantry attacks against one Indian infantry brigade and several tanks in defensive positions near Chhamba. There were two Indian infantry divisions in the area and they moved into the fighting after the Pakistani attacks began. The Pakistanis had terrain conditions suitable for tanks, while the Indians had to bring up reinforcements along a single road in difficult conditions. By the afternoon of September 2, the Indians had knocked out sixteen Pakistani tanks, but Chhamb was taken by the Pakistanis with wide coverage from the east.

A Pakistani tank column heading towards Akhnoor was attempting to reach the strategic 1.5 km wide Chenab River bridge, vital to supplying Indian forces facing the river. The Indians attempted to delay the Pakistani advance with air attacks and claimed to have destroyed thirteen tanks. Pakistani aviation was also called in, but subsequently air activity on both sides was low.

INDO-PAKISTAN WAR

September 1965

The attacking Pakistanis reached Nariana on September 5 and were 8 km from Akhnoor. However, they failed to capture the city due to their slow tactics and the flexibility of active defense provided by the Indians. Much of the Pakistani troops there were withdrawn when the Indians launched an attack much further south in Punjab, where the terrain is flat. India claimed that its air strikes had inflicted heavy losses on Pakistani armored vehicles during its withdrawal, which was nevertheless skillfully completed. The Indians had long recognized the Chhamba and Akhnoor area as unsuitable for defense due to the nature of the terrain and decided that the best defense would be an Indian attack on Lahore. The Indian offensive on Lahore began on 6 September, with a secondary offensive on Sialkot the next day.

The Indian attack on Lahore on September 6 was carried out on three directions on a front of 50 km by three infantry divisions with armored vehicles assigned to them and two infantry divisions in reserve. Northern group The Indians were attacked along the axis of the main highway. The southern group moved from the area east of Firozpur in the direction of Khem Karan. The central column, starting on the morning of September 7, advanced from Khalra in the direction of the Pakistani village of Burki.

The goal of the offensive in all three directions was control of the Ichkhogil irrigation canal. This channel was more than 40 m wide and 4.5 m deep. Facing east, it served as a sort of tank trap to protect Lahore. The canal, in turn, was protected by many long-term fire installations.

The Indian offensive faced very strong Pakistani defenses along the canal. Apparently for this reason the Indians launched another attack with up to a brigade force 650 km southwest of Firozpur. But soon the sector became calm again - after September 18, when the Pakistanis repelled the attack. This was the end of the retreat from the intended goal.

The Pakistani 10th Division had taken up defensive positions in front of Lahore just hours before the Indian attacks began, and there was still no Pakistani armor east of the Canal. The defenders were shocked by the pressure of the Indian attacks, because they treated the military abilities of the Indians with contempt (the costs of hundreds of years of Muslim domination over the Hindus in India; in the end, the millennia-old Aryan tradition and ancient culture prevailed. - Ed.). As a precaution, the Pakistanis blew up seventy bridges across the Ichhogil Canal, making it a veritable anti-tank ditch.

The Indian central column captured two villages by nightfall on the first day, while the northern column reached the city outskirts near the canal but was driven back. The southern column advanced through Khem Karan towards Kasur. There was so little opposition that the Indian commander feared a trap and withdrew his troops to the left bank of the Sutlej River. On the night of September 6, a force of Pakistani paratroopers was dropped on Indian forward air bases at Pathankot, Jalandhar and Ludhiana, but they mostly landed wide apart from their targets and were surrounded by Indian troops by the end of the next day.

It seemed that neither side had a coherent plan of action, and each operation was carried out as if it had no idea what the next step would be. As a result, both sides seemed to be driven by emotion, and their efforts were scattered over such a wide front that they did not have enough strength to make a decisive breakthrough anywhere. There was a deliberate escalation of the war on both sides (with both states apparently not thinking about the consequences) - the result of a long period of mistrust and hostility towards each other. And this escalation may also have been caused in part by the fact that, in their attempts to force a ceasefire, UN observers kept both sides constantly informed of what each was up to.

The Indians attacked Burki, a heavily fortified village with eleven concrete permanent emplacements that were given the appearance of dingy barracks. This was a night attack in which tanks were used by both sides. The second major battle was continuously fought for the village of Dograi, which was also heavily fortified, in addition to being defended by dug-in Shermans and recoilless rifles. The Indians reached the eastern bank of the canal and came under intense artillery fire, but no Pakistani counterattacks were launched. Part of the Indian infantry managed to cross the canal, but they were unable to gain a foothold, having overtaken their armored vehicles, which were intercepted along the way by Pakistani aircraft. The village of Dograi changed hands several times before the Indians finally took it hours before the ceasefire on 22 September. From the very beginning, the battle for Lahore continued continuously, but with varying success until the ceasefire.

Among the bridges blown up by the Pakistanis, one was located north of Lahore. His absence prevented the Indians from advancing in this direction, but also prevented the Pakistanis from attacking the Indians from the flank. As a result of this, the Indian reserve tank regiment, located north of Amritsar, was transferred to the Khem Karan area, which came under pressure from the Pakistanis. The Indians captured Khem Karan with the forces of their 4th Infantry Division and an armored brigade and again moved west.

On the night of September 7, the Pakistanis launched a counterattack with large forces on the left Indian flank. The Pakistani 1st Armored Division, with M-47 and M-48 medium tanks equipped with night vision devices, and an additional regiment of M-24 light tanks, concentrated in the Kasur area along with a supporting infantry division. After artillery preparation, a tank attack was carried out in two directions. Five separate attacks were carried out over the next day and a half and the Indians were driven back to Khem Karan. During the first strike, Pakistani tanks were pulled up from Pakistan through a tunnel under the canal and thrown into battle without refueling. The Indians believed that the 1st Pakistani Armored Division was in the Sialkot area. However, despite the fact that both the aforementioned armored division and the supporting infantry division were involved in these attacks, no breakthrough was achieved in the Indian defenses.

Meanwhile, the Indians prepared a U-shaped trap near the village of Assal-Uttar. There, infantry, artillery and tanks dug in between drainage canals that generally flowed in a north-easterly direction. The northern flank of this position was protected by the barrier of irrigation canals and ground softened by water as a result of flooding due to the closure of key canals. The southern flank was excluded given the minefield stretching to the Bias River. The Indians slowly rolled back to this position in order to lure the Pakistanis into a trap.

On September 8, the Pakistanis conducted reconnaissance in force - ten M-24 tanks and five M-47 tanks. They retreated after coming under fire. A night attack followed but was repulsed by Indian artillery concentrated in the center of the position. On September 9, an additional Indian armored brigade was brought up and deployed on the flanks of the artillery concentrated here. At 8:30 a.m. on September 10, the Pakistanis launched a powerful attack to the northeast with their 5th Armored Brigade and 2nd Infantry Division. The 3rd Pakistani Tank Brigade remained in reserve on the southern flank. The attack failed. Pakistani tanks turned into a field of tall sugar cane, behind which the entrenched Indian infantry with Centurion tanks attached to it were hiding. As soon as the Pakistani armor revealed itself with the undulating movements of sugar cane about 3 meters high, the Centurions opened fire, supported by 106 mm recoilless rifles mounted on jeeps.

Then, without reconnaissance, the 4th Tank Brigade launched a scattered attack on the Indian northern flank. When she reached the flooded area, she turned south and was hit on the flank by Indian Shermans (with 76 mm cannons) firing from the trenches. The Pakistanis withdrew during the night, abandoning 30 damaged tanks, as well as ten serviceable tanks that had run out of fuel. Personnel losses were heavy and included the division commander and his artillery officer. Pakistani troops were withdrawn to Khem Karan, where they dug in, holding three strips of Indian territory, each a dozen kilometers long, until a ceasefire.

The Pakistani attack involved moving in two columns. The southern column was to take the bridge over the Bias River, which was a section of the main highway, after striking parallel to the river. The northern column was to take Amritsar. The central column also intended to reach the main thoroughfare. The movement plan took into account the nature of the terrain - with parallel rivers, numerous canals and many drainage channels that ran roughly parallel to the northeast of the border area. This would pose a threat to India and was a possible development that Indians had always feared. It was for this reason that an Indian armored division and other troops were stationed in the Jalandhar area.

Apart from the 1st Indian Armored Division, Jalandhar also had four infantry and mountain divisions. The bulk of the Pakistani army was located in Punjab. On September 4, the Indian Armored Division boarded a train at Jalandhar. She arrived in Jammu on the morning of September 8 and disembarked. Then at night it moved towards Sialkot. The movement of three thousand different vehicles (including 150 civilian trucks involved) along a single road was fraught with the danger of a crushing enemy air strike, but the risk was worth it. Along with the I Indian Corps, which was engaged in the area, a feigned diversionary attack was launched towards Akhnoor, but the real attack was launched from Samba in three columns towards Phillora, where most of the Pakistani armor was positioned.

As previously mentioned, a day after the Indian offensive on Lahore began, Indian I Corps launched an attack near Sialkot on the night of 7 September against the Pakistan IV Corps, 15th Division and six regiments of medium and light tanks defending that city. The 7th Pakistan Infantry Division, which had moved out from Chhamb with the Parachute Brigade and the newly formed 6th Armored Division at its head, was ready to attack. The area was protected by a number of long-term emplacements, as well as significant amounts of Pakistani artillery. In an area of ​​about 12 km2 of flat terrain, what was to become a fifteen-day battle began - at close range and in the all-consuming dust - between 400 and 60 tanks, which were brought into battle every now and then. The Indians launched at least fifteen major attacks with tanks and infantry.

An Indian armored column to the north and an infantry column with some armored vehicles to the south targeted Sialkot. Heavy fighting involving tanks and infantry took place at Phillora and Chawinda. The immediate target of the Indians was the Lahore-Sialkot railway. On September 8, by 9.00, the Indians reached Phillora. Indian armor suffered heavy losses because it tended to move ahead of its supporting infantry and exposed its flanks to enemy fire. Many AMX-13 tanks were captured by the Pakistanis undamaged. The Pakistani counterattack on September 8 was followed by two days of regrouping and reconnaissance. In the Battle of Phillora between the 1st Indian Armored Division and the 6th Pakistani Armored Division, Pakistani tanks also suffered heavy losses due to being too close to each other.

There were no reserves left. Both sides threw everything they had into the battle. Finally, ten massive attacks by Indian tanks and infantry, with tank strikes from different directions, led to the capture of Phillora, which fell under the blows of the southern group of Indians on September 12. This was followed by a three-day lull for a new regrouping of forces. On September 14, the Indians attacked Chawinda, a key point on the Sialkot-Pasrur railway line, with Centurions and Shermans. On September 15, the Indians cut the railway at Chawinda and between Pasrur and Sialkot. The Pakistanis counterattacked, but used their tanks too spread out and did not have enough impact force. At Dera Nanak, Pakistani sappers blew up a strategic bridge over the Ravi River in order to block the third Indian offensive, thereby, however, eliminating the possibility of making a wide envelopment of the Indian left flank.

The Pakistani attack on September 20 on the Sialkot–Sughetgarh railway failed. The 3rd Indian Cavalry (Tank) Unit, equipped with Centurions, and the 2nd Armored Brigade, armed with Shermans, beat them up badly. After this, the front became calm until a ceasefire. Sialkot was only partially surrounded. Railway Indian troops reached, but the main railway line and the highway running in a westerly direction were not affected. Capturing Sialkot would cut off the supply line to Pakistani troops at Chhamb and threaten the Pakistani capital Rawalpindi. At some point, in the midst of the battle, the Indian commander-in-chief lost his temper and ordered a retreat, but the local commander refused to carry out the order.

The war lasted twenty-two days, ending quickly, without solving anything and exhausting both sides, after many diplomatic efforts. By the time of the ceasefire, on September 23 at 3.30 a.m., India held the Uri-Poonch salient and the area around Tithwala, Sialkot, and a strip of land in Punjab between the Ichhogil Canal and the border. Pakistan held the territory captured in the Chhamb and Akhnoor offensives and a narrow wedge in the Khem Karan area. The result was a fighting draw - in response to the call of the UN (special efforts were made. - Ed.) to the world. And although the truce was violated at times (by both sides), it began to be more or less respected by the end of the year.

Subjective opinions of the parties to the conflict and discrepancies in reports from both sides make study difficult, but it is clear that the casualties among the Indians (who attacked a lot) were twice as high as those of the Pakistanis. India admitted that casualties were 2,226 killed and 7,870 wounded, and claimed that 5,800 Pakistanis were killed, but this was an exaggeration. Pakistan suffered heavy losses in junior command and military equipment, in addition to armored vehicles.

70 Indian aircraft were shot down and Pakistan lost about 20 aircraft. Pakistan lost about 200 tanks with another 150 damaged but recoverable. This amounted to 32 percent of all his armored vehicles. Indian losses in armored vehicles amounted to approximately 180 tanks with another two hundred damaged but repairable vehicles, or about 27 percent of all available armored vehicles. It was later reported that 11 Pakistani generals and 32 colonels were retired. Several courts-martial took place in India and several officers were removed from command, but no further details were revealed.

The Pakistanis could claim superiority in the performance of their artillery, but neither side could claim superiority in the performance of their tanks, although the Indians seemed to demonstrate somewhat greater skill in weaponry and maneuvering. The Indians later claimed that Pakistani infantry were often carried in infantry fighting vehicles, but rarely dismounted and showed too much dependence on their tanks; What specifications American-made Pakistani tanks required more training from Pakistani tank crews than what they received and more than what the Indians required for their AMX-13 and Centurion tanks; and that American tanks exploded more easily because of the way their ammunition was positioned. Still, some of this criticism of both sides can perhaps be mitigated. This follows from a statement made at Sialkot by Lt. Gen. O.P. Dunn, commander of the 1st Indian Corps. In particular, the general admitted that the tanks used were too complex for ordinary peasant soldiers on both sides, adding that “this once again confirms the old truth that it is not the machine, but the person driving this machine who has the last word.” "

While the world is focused on testing ballistic missiles in North Korea, another potential conflict is causing increasing concern. In July, 11 people were killed and 18 were wounded in gun battles between Indian and Pakistani troops in Jammu and Kashmir, and four thousand people were forced to flee their homes.

On Sunday former minister Information and Broadcasting of India Venkaiah Naidu, nominated by the National Democratic Alliance for the post of vice-president of the country, said that Pakistan must remember how the clash ended in 1971, when Pakistan was defeated during the third Indo-Pakistani war and Bangladesh gained independence .

Former Indian Defense Minister and opposition leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said last week that China is using Pakistan to attack the country and is preparing Pakistani nuclear warheads to attack India.

Warheads and doctrines

This spring, The New York Times reported that India was considering changes to the interpretation of its nuclear doctrine, which prohibits the first use of nuclear weapons. Previously, India only prescribed a massive retaliatory strike, which involved attacks on enemy cities.

According to the newspaper, the new approach could involve preemptive, limited nuclear strikes against Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in self-defense. For now, all this is rather speculation, since conclusions are drawn based on an analysis of statements by Indian high-ranking officials without any documentary evidence.

But even such assumptions, firstly, could push Pakistan to increase its nuclear capabilities and set off a chain reaction of a nuclear arms race between the two countries, and secondly, could force Pakistan to take any escalation of the conflict as a reason for India to strike first.

Just a few days after the publication of The New York Times, Pakistan accused India of accelerating its military nuclear program and preparing to produce 2,600 warheads. In a June report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) noted that India has added about 10 warheads to its arsenal over the year and is gradually expanding the infrastructure to develop its nuclear weapons.

Former Pakistani Brigadier General Feroz Khan, an expert on Pakistan's nuclear program, had previously said that Pakistan has up to 120 nuclear warheads.

© AP Photo/Anjum Naveed

© AP Photo/Anjum Naveed

Last week in Washington, this Pakistani expert also said that Islamabad's plans to use nuclear weapons are based on the NATO doctrine of the times cold war, when it was planned to use tactical nuclear strikes against advancing enemy forces. To this, however, critics of Pakistan objected that Islamabad is using its nuclear status as a cover for waging a terrorist war in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

For India, the presence of Pakistani tactical nuclear weapons has become a problem. If Pakistan uses only tactical nuclear weapons and only on the battlefield, then India bombing Pakistani cities in response will be looked at in a black light. Hence the talk about changing interpretations of the doctrine, when it is necessary to have time to eliminate the Pakistani arsenals before they are put into operation.

Another reason is Trump’s rise to power in the United States. India believes that under the new American President it now has much more freedom to make decisions on the nuclear program. US relations with Pakistan under Trump are also going downhill: Americans have ceased to consider Islamabad as a reliable ally in the fight against radicals in Afghanistan. This is, of course, encouraging for India.

The scenario everyone is afraid of

Rising tensions in Hindustan could lead to catastrophic consequences. The trigger that will set off a chain of events leading to a preventive nuclear strike from one side or the other could be an escalation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir or a major terrorist attack in India like the attack in Mumbai in 2008.

The main problem, according to many analysts, is that no one knows what the criteria for the use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan are and what exactly it might perceive as a start of war on the part of India. The second problem is that the terrorist attacks in India may not be related to Pakistan at all, but it will be difficult to convince the Indian side of this.

In 2008, an American study was published on the consequences nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The authors concluded that although the total charges of the two countries are not so great, their use will lead to a climate catastrophe, which will cause major agricultural problems and mass starvation. As a result, according to the report, about one billion people will die within ten years. So the seemingly distant problem of India and Pakistan actually concerns the whole world.