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VOLUME XLIIIilitary NUMBER 5MAY 1963eview

Sinkiang: Trouble Spot? Anthony Harrigan 3Himalayan Border War Wg Cdr M K Chopra Indian Air Force, Ret 8Dynamics of National Power Col Preston E James, USAR Ret 17Soldiers of the Party Malcolm Mackintosh 27 /New Steppingstones for Moscow? Fritz E Giese 32Battlefield Language Ma; David R Hughes USA 38A Jangled Ball of Yarn Erna K Basore 46Army Group Logistics Lt Col John A. Hoefling USA 50NATO Infrastructure. Wg Cdr P G. M. Ridsdale Royal Air Force 57Encirclement at YukhnoY Ma; Gen H Reinhardt German Army Ret 61Clausewitz: A Reappraisal Capt S 0 Tiomain Irish Army 76Turkey s Armed Forces Dr. Jiirgen Weise 80The Sergeant. Capt William J. Le Clair USA 87German Nebelwerfers Lt Col Joachim Emde West German Army 93Military Notes 99Military Books 1 9

The Military Review, a publication of the UNITED STATES ARMY, provides aforum for the expression of military thought and a medium for the dissemination ofArmy doctrine of the division and higher levels.The VIEWS expressed in this magazine ARE THE AUTHORS and not neces-sarily those of the US Army or the Command and General Staff College.

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Editor in ChiefCol Kenneth E. Lay

Assistant EditorLt Col Albert N. Garland

Features EditorLt Col Cleo S. Freed

Layout i r1st Lt Russell W. Munson. Jr.

Spanish American EditorLt Col Juan R Melendezsst SpanishAmerican EditorMaj Jose E. Tizol

Braztlian EditorLt Col Joao H Faca

Associate EditorCol Daniel E. HalpinArmy War College

Executive OfficerMaj Lorenzo D. Laughlin

Production OfficerLt Col Louis Ruiz

Staff ArtistCharles A. Moore

MILITARY REVIEW-Published monthly by U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas , in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Use of funds for printing of this publication hasbeen approved by Headquarters, Department of the Army, 3 July 1962.Second-class postage paid at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Subscription rates: 3.50 ' US currency) ayear in the United States, United States military post offices, and those countries which are members ofthe Pan-A merica n Postal Union including Spain); 4.50 a year in all other countries. Address subscription mail to the Book Department, U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth,Kansas.

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SINKIANG:A Sino-Soviet Trouble Spot?

Anthony Harrigan

N VIEW of the current disagree-ment between the Soviet Union andCommunist China, it is time thatstudents of military affairs take alook at the Sino-Soviet border areain central Asia. t is not outside therealm of possibility that some formof armed conflict may take placealong this border in the years ahead.

To outsiders, E. K Faltermayerof The Wall treet ournal said recently, 44the possibility of Red Chinaencroaching on Soviet territory mightseem remote. t doesn't to many Russians. The fact is that Red China,with upward of a half billion peopleand deficient in materials needed forindustrial production, long has lookedon the Soviet Far East with covetouseyes. Asiatic Russia has vast depositsof coal, enormous forests, diamonds,

gold, abundant supplies of nonferrousmetals and considerable hydroelectricpower, production.The Sino-Soviet frontier is ap

proximately 4,000 miles long, a muchlonger boundary than any shared byother nations in the world. t extendsfrom the Sea of Japan in the east tothe Pamir Mountain Range near In-dia's northwest frontier.On the Chinese side of the borderare Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, andSinkiang. Across the border are theS 0 v j t territories of Kazakhstan,Tadzhikistan, Kirghizia, and the region known as the Soviet Far East.

Whatever settlement is made ofideological disputes between the Soviet Union and Red China, national-istic ambitions for territory seem certain to remain constant. Indeed, in

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appraIsmg Communist Chi n a, itwould be a grave mistake to overlooktraditional Chinese ambitions in central Asia.

The late George E. Sokol sky, wholived in China for many years andwho also was familiar with AsiaticRussia, wrote in May 1962 that:Red China plans t expand China

t the Ch ien Lung Line which means. . . that its actual territorial controlwould have a line from Turkistan tthe Bay of Bengal.This means that China's ambitionswould extend westward to a region

not remote from the Soviet s CaspianSea.Ch ien Lung, who was cited by Mr.Sokolsky, lived from 1711 to 1799.For much of his lifetime he devotedhimself to conquering new territoriesfor China. It was during his reignthat China expanded to her greatestextent and, it has been said, Mao Tsetung's ambition is to restore China tothe limits of Ch ien Lung's empire. Soviet Interest

The Sino-Soviet border area has along history of strife. As early as1643, the Russians occupied the areawest and east of Lake Baikal.

But the big Russian drive came inthe 19th century. Prior to 1858, fourdivisions of what is now the SovietFar East- the Maritime and Khabarovsk regions and the Amur and Sakhalin Provinces-belonged to China.In that year Co u n t N. Muraviev- nthonyHarrigan is Director, For-eign Pol i y Research Institute of

South Carolina. Educated at KenyonCollege and the University of Virgin-ia, he saw service in World War II.Mr. Harrigan is Associate Editorwith The News and C 0 u r i e r ofCharleston, and is a frequent con-tributor t military journals bothhere and abroad.

Amurski, governor general of easternSib e r ia fixed the Russo-Chineseborder along the Amur and its rightbank territory. Between 1858 and1860, Russia forced China to cede theabove-named territories. The SovietGovernment proved no less interestedin Asia, and Sino-Soviet border incidents continued after the 1917 Revolution.

Japan's expansion onto the Chinesemainland resulted in serious troublebetween Soviet and Japanese armedforces. In 1938 and 1939 the Sovietand Japanese Armies tested eachother in two full-scale battles alongthe Manchurian border.

It is interesting to note that theSoviets supported a faction of nationalists in Sinkiang d u r i n g the1940 s in an effort to establish anindependent Eastern Turkistan Republic, a satellite they envisioned asbeing similar to the Mongolian People s Republic. The liberation armyof this Chinese secessionist groupwas led by a Soviet Army officer. Butwith the success of the Communistpower drive in China in the late1940 s, the Sino-Soviet border difficulties came temporarily to a halt.Possible ifficultiesf there are to be fresh difficultiesin the future, it is likely that theywill take place in Sinkiang. To understand why this is so, one has only tolook at a map and follow the Sino-Soviet border.

In the east there are substantialpopulations and a condition of widespread and thorough settlement. AnyChinese encroachment near the Soviet's Pacific frontier would be sureto escalate into a major conflict because the conditions are not unlikeborder conditions in Europe.The n, for approximately 2,000

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31:I.. _ .. f INNER MONGOLI

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P CIFIC OCE N

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miles, Chinese and Soviet territoriesare separated by the buffer state ofMongolia. This land is as Poland wasto Russia and Germany in prewardays.West of Mongolia is Sinkiang,where Soviet and Chinese territoriesmeet in the great Altai range ofred sandstone mountains. Continuingsouthwest along the border, one findsthe Dzungarian Basin with an elevation of 600 to 1,500 feet completelyringed by mountains of the Tien ShanRange. Located here is the historicDzungarian Gate, the ancient highway from China to the Kazakh Steppes and the Volga. The Tien Shan,with peaks over 20,000 feet high,snowfields, and glaciers, separatesthis area from the Tarim Basin to thesouth. Proceeding southwest along theSino-Soviet border, one continues ina mountainous region. These mountains meet and join the mountainsalong the Afghan and Pakistan-Indian borders.

In short, this part of the Sino-Soviet border is very close to a regionwhere Chinese imperialism is nowbeing manifested; Red China's conquest of Tibet also emphasizes thelong-range, continuing interest of thePeking regime in conquering lands tothe west.orderlandThe name Sinkiang means borderland. A former province of China, it

today bears the name Sinkiang u ~tonomous Region. The territory is660,977 square miles in size, with apopulation (as of 1958) of almost sixmillion. Uighurs, a Moslem Turkicspeaking people, comprise 75 percentof the population; the Kazakh, peoplerelated to the Kazakhs across theborder in the Soviet Union, comprisethe second largest ethnic group.

The Uighurs are agricultural people settled in oases along the northern edge of the Tien Shan where itborders the Dzungarian Basin. TheKazakhs are nomadic herders whograze their livestock in the Dzungarian pasturelands. At last report,approximately 300,000 Chinese werein Sinkiang; they are government officials, military personnel, merchants,and professional workers.

Sinkiang's economy is chiefly agricultural, and grain crops and cottonare planted extensively. Developmentof irrigation after 1949 brought newareas under cultivation. In addition,about 60 percent of Red China's woolcomes from Sinkiang. Oil was foundin 1960 and prospecting is ,continuingfor tungsten and other nonferrousmetals. A major rail line crossingSinkiang from Kansu Province to thejunction of Aktongai on the Turksibrailroad in the Soviet Union wasopened for service in the early 1960's.Across the Sinkiang border in theSoviet Union is the same kind ofmountainous, wild country. Most ofKirghizia, the Soviet Republic of central Asia west of the Takla Ma:kanDesert, is above 5,000 feet. In theKazakh region to the north, anti-Russian guerrilla warfare flourished formany years.Classical ConflictClearly, the Sinkiang border constitutes a region ideally made by nature and history for classic centralAsian border warfare. In the mountains and deserts, Red China and theSoviet Union could duel as China andIndia have dueled. Conflict could takeplace without any formal declarationor without a major war resulting.Moreover, the empty lands of Sinkiang, with a border cutting throughmountainous c 0 u n t ry afford Red

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THE HIMALAYAN ORDER 'WAR:N INDI N MILITARY VIEW

Wing Commander Maharaj K. Chopra Indipn ir Force Retiredo N 22 October 1962, while President Kennedy spoke to the Americanpeople on radio and television aboutthe Cuban crisis a half-world awayPrime Minister Nehru of India spoketo his countrymen over radio about theHimalayan border crisis.

This was, of course, a coincidence;probably, too, on the opposing side,there had been no deliberately engineered collusion of the two crises. Butif you look before and after the events,some striking similarities appear. Themilitary posture of the Soviet Unionand the Red Chinese had bee nstrengthened and weapons piled upmuch before the showdown. When thetime for decision came, the SovietUnion abandoned the position of forceimmediately; Red China did the samea month later.

These crises have had a profound

impact upon national as well as international thinking. As we in Indiaknow for certain our country willnever again be- as it w'as in the fallof 1962. And we feel the same can besaid of the West.

The Himalayan border extends fromthe trijunction of Kashmir-Afghanistan-Sinkiang east to the trijunctionof Assam-Burma-Sinkiang; it is 2,500miles long and forms a great divide between Red China and the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. For all but 900 ofthese miles-in Kashmir and in NepalInd ia faces Red China directly.On her side, Red China enjoys an

unbroken control over the entirelength of the border which is a distinct military advantage. t is true ofcourse, that this control is not uniformly firm throughout: Tibet hasseen a rebellion and is not yet returned

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to full normalcy; Sinkiang has notcompletely shed its traditional recalcitrance.Natural GuardianOn the other hand, the Red Chineseiron hand is at work and Tibet andSinkiang could hardly be relied on topresent indefinitely "soft bellies. Pre-cisely because Sinkiang and i et-the former with great industrial possibilities and nuclear resources- arenot completely settled, Red China hasconcentrated military power in thoseareas.

This region contains Mount Everest(29,028 feet) and more than threedozen peaks each over 24,000 feet inheight. The upper areas are cappedwith ice and glaciers, where if it doesnot snow it rains, and if it does notsnow or rain, cold, biting winds blow.It contains some of the world's thick-est jungles; and is littered with impassable ravines and gorges. This isthe Himalayan border long consideredby Indians as a standing naturalguardian of the north, which could notbe demolished or penetrated by anenemy.

But we are in the 20th century. Air-craft take little account of the Hima-layan altitudes and there is a regularDelhi-Moscow air service over theHimalayas.

North of the Himalayas there hasbeen an enormous concentration ofpower which can be applied much more

Wing Commander M a h a r j K.Chopra, In,dian Air Force, Retired, ismilitary correspondent for the Eng-lish-language Indian newspaper, TheIndian Express. He is the author ofHow Can Red China Be Contained?and Southeast AS'ia: A Mosaicwhich appeared in the November 1962and January 1963 issues of the MILI-T RY REVIEW.

May 1 963

widely and effectively than ever before. Altitudes, terrain, and adverseweather conditions have lost a gooddeal of their edge in the face of newweapons and techniques. The Hima-layas were never completely isolatedfrom the traveler, the trader, or thesoldier. Today masses of men can operate where yesterday only individualscould.Areas of onflict

China made a breach in two widelyseparated sectors of the border inLadakh and the Northeast FrontierAgency (NEFA), 900 miles apart.Ladakh is a province of Kashmir,having Sinkiang, Tibet, and India'sHimachal Pradesh as its contiguousterritories. Its area of 37,000 squaremiles contains a population of 100,000,which gives an indication of its sparsecharacter and comparative isolation.No wonder Leh, its capital, is at11,000 feet, not far from the IndusRiver; the average height of the sur-rounding mountain ranges is 19,000feet; mean rainfall is 2.7 inches; andtemperatures often fall below freezingpoint. Until India took up developmentprograms, there was practically noroad worth the name leading intoLadakh. Against the backdrop of Chi-nese aggression the poverty of communications is all the more depress-ing.

Despite its forbidding features,Ladakh has long attracted explorersand adventurers, travelers and trad-ers. t also has been the scene of bat-tles. In the past, in the days of Fa-Hien, whose spirit might be bitingMao, it was a meeting ground of peoples from Sinkiang, Tibet, and India.At Leh converged numerous routes,one from Kashgar, another from Rudok, a third from Gartok, and a fourthfrom Srinagar. These routes are still

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HIMALAYAN BORDER WARthere but they do not converge. Thatis the price Ladakh paid to become avital strategic crossland between India and central Asia. Aksai Chin isLadakh's northern sector, which Chinahas occupied by force and throughwhich she has built a road. This is, infact, the area best suited for land com-munications. t is here that you havea peephole into central Asia; and it isthe Chinese design to force India outof it.Rain Determining FactorWhile Ladakh has the air of centralAsia, NEFA breathes of the tropical.Assam, of which NEFA is the northern part, receives the full blast ofmonsoons from the Bay of Bengal,bringing heavy rains. Rainfall is animportant determining factor for mil-itary operations in this area. Therainy season lasts from May to August, which explains why the Chineselaunched their offensive in September.With rains conspire tortuous terrainand high altitudes, and NEFA, withits 30,000 square miles of territory,is described as so mountainous, socut about, chopped up, and dividedthat on a month's tour you may wellclimb a height exceeding that ofMount Everest. Some of the battleswhich raged in NEFA were for passesas high as 15,000 feet.

Living conditions are as difficult asin Ladakh, although in a differentway. Ladakh is barren, while NEFAis ablaze with luxuriant growth andwet with water. t is a land par ex-cellence of tribal folks-the Monbas,Akas, Daflas, Miris, and Abors. t isbeing assiduously developed by the Indian Government.Militarily, Assam is better knownto the outside world than Ladakh, forit figured in World War II. t was apart of Assam that a Japanese force

overran in 1944. From bases in Assam, General Joseph W. Stilwell received the bulk of his supplies for theBurma Campaign. From here, too,flew American transport planes overthe Hump carrying material and

equipment to enfeebled and impover-ished China. t must have been a mostperverted twist of fate which goadedChina to invade this region of all regions in the world.China Develops Cold WarTo go back a little, by 1954 Indiaand Red China had entered into atreaty of peaceful coexistence. Indiagave away all her rights in Tibet asan earnest of her good intentions. Inthat same year, China laid claim toa small area in the middle sector ofthe Himalayas.

During the next five years this smallclaim bloated to include part of Ladakh and the whole of the NEFA, al-together 50,000 square miles. Duringthese years Red China completed theAksai Chin Road connecting Tibetwith .sinkiang.A battle of diplomatic exchangesstarted, accompanied by sporadic skirmishes in Ladakh. From 1959, whenthe Dalai Lama fled into India follow-ing the rebellion in Tibet against RedChinese rule, Mao turned his fullsteam on India, which overnight be-c m e reactionary, imperialist,and aggressive. To settle the dis-pute, officials of the two countries metand produced a report. There was nosettlement. There were more borderincidents and further proposals, butlittle signs of a major showdown until July 1962 when Red Chinese troopsmade still another_push into Ladakh.Two months later the conflagrationspread into NEFA; the invasion cameon 20 October 1962.Red Chinese border designs are

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clear. I f you look in the Encyclopaediaritannica (1957), you will find thisstatement about Ladakh: I t extendsnorthward to eastern Gilgit and to afrontier with Sinkiang, undefined butroughly indicated by the Kuen Lunrange.Red China wants the frontier tocome down from the Kuen Lun crest,also down from the Karakoram Range,and even farther south, to include theloop of Aksai Chin. In the east thefrontier must descend from the crestof the Himalayan Range-along thecrest is the famous McMahon Linedescribed now as an imperialist creat ion - to the foothills. In both casesIndia must surrender a vital mountaintract of great strategic value; to thisshe will never agree.The attlesIn Ladakh, Indian strategy wassomething like this (Figure 1 . Themain base was Srinagar, capital ofKashmir, from where supplies couldbe airlifted or transported by road.The road went up to Leh a distanceof about 200 miles but could not berelied upon for speedy deliveries.Therefore, air transport was India'sprincipal logistical weapon. Airstripsand landing grounds were graduallyconstructed north and southeast ofLeh mainly to serve as links in thesupply line. About four dozen smallmilitary posts were established alongthe border, good for watch and ward,but feeble against a massive invasion.One such post more colorful than effective was at Daulat Beg Oldi a fewmiles south of Karakoram Pass. Chushul had an important airfield whichdid not fall to the Red Chinese despitetheir heavy shelling.

Chinese strategy was land basedrather than air based and was sustained by a network of roads andMay 96

strongly garrisoned centers such asRudok in Tibet. The Aksai Chin Road100 miles long was the base of furtherroads penetrating into Ladakh andleading to numerous concentrations:a dozen of them could be counted inthe Chip Chap River Valley facingDaulat Beg Oldi. Here, the Chinesescored heavily for all their forwardconcentrations could be reached by dependable supply lines. Heavy truckswere seen plying on the roads as wellas tanks, which the Chinese broughtinto the battles. Reliability of communications and rapidity of movementwere definite Red Chinese assets.Withdrawal

Within a week of the outbreak ofwar on 20 October the Red Chinese1aunched a three-pronged attack onthe Indian positions in Ladakh. Onecolumn crossed the border in the vicinity of Daulat Beg Oldi; anothercame in 100 miles to the southeast atPangong Lake; the third crossed stillanother 100 miles southeast at Demchok. After heavy casualties on bothsides numerous Indian posts fell followed by a general withdrawal of thetroops. After a lull of three weeksRed Chinese pressure was exerted onChushul. During the lun howeverthis important post had been reinforced. Although heaviJy shelled itremained in Indian hands.

All told the Red Chinese advancewas hardly more than 15 miles anywhere along the Ladakh front whenon 21 November Red China declareda unilateral cease-fire. Ladakh was aninstance of very limited land warfare,in which light tanks, artillery, andhand grenades were used. The use ofairpower was confined to supply dropsand fighter and bomber aircraft werenot employed by either side.

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HIMALAYAN BORDER WAR

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LINE OF CONTACT ON 7 SEPTEMBER 1962JO RE OCCUPIED BY RED CHINESE FORCESBEFORE 7 SEPTEMBER 1962

CHINESE CLAIM LINE OF 196THE DELINE TION OF INTER RE OCCUPIED BY RED CHINESE S OF N TION L BOUND RIES ON21 NOVEMBER 1962 THIS M P MUST NOT BE CON

SIDERED UTHORIT TIVE

Figure 1Military Review2

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ir Transport VitalNEFA presents in many ways aduplication of the principal strategicelements found in Ladakh. Tezpur, inAssam, was the principal Indian base.Not far from Tezpur the Himalayasbegin to rise, and from a place calledFoothills, Indian engineers had constructed a road to Bomdi La, Se La,and Towang, the three importantplaces which figured in the fighting.From Towang to the McMahon Linethere was no road until the Chineseconstructed one after invasion.

Despite the road to Towang, Indianlogistics in NEFA relied heavily onair transport. In fact, to the east atWalong, even a proper road did notexist; air transport was about theonly means of supply.

China had at least three airfieldsin Tibet. But as in Ladakh, surfaceroads were the main arteries of logistic support; these were constructedalmost parallel to the McMahon Linebarely 10 to 12 miles away. FacingWalong was the major base of Rima,and Rima is connected through Tibetand Aksai Chin with Sinkiang-a distance no less than 3,000 miles.Once again it was a three-prongedChinese attack, at Thaga La to thewest, Longju in the center, and Kibitoto the east of the McMahon Line (Figure 2). Only the first and the thirdthrusts were followed by sizable RedChinese advances. The characte r of theinvasion followed the model of Ladakh; a week of attack, a three-weeklull, another week of attack. Thisshows an efficient central direction ona wide front.Troops Move Southward

Descending from Thaga La Ridge,the Red Chinese troops overwhelmedthe Indian border posts and marchedsouthward to capture Towang. RedMay 963

China used the lull that followed toconstruct a road from the border toTowang, and to bring up supplies andreinforcements. Secure in their supply lines, a wave of Chinese troopsswept south and launched a frontalattack on Se La Pass; another wavebypassed the pass and by a pincermovement headed for Bomdi La, 30miles to the south as the crow fliesbut 80 miles by road. The fall of thiskey defense center jeopardized the entire Indian position in NEFA, and wasquickly followed by another 30 to 40mile advance by the Red Chinesetroops right up to the edge of AssamPlateau.Civil Administration Restored

In the center, Longju fell. Similarwas the fate of Walong to the east,from where the Chinese marchedsouth to about 100 miles from an important Indian oilfield. Then, on 2November, the Chinese halted.

Winter set in and the McMahonLine was wrapped in snow. As a selfimposed condition of cease-fire, RedChinese troops withdrew from NEFA,and by the end of December they hadthe area almost cleared. Indian civil,but not military, administration in thearea was restored. There was no RedChinese withdrawal from the areascaptured in Ladakh. Having done this,the Red Chinese said in effect: Comrades, let us now sit down and talk.

Meanwhile, other events had transpired. India made a fervent appeal tothe Western Powers for assistance,which was forthcoming immediately,particularly from the United Statesand Great Britain. Six nonalignedpowers met at Colombo and made proposals for settlement, which India accepted but Red China did not. Fromthis point on the two antagonists began a life of suspended animation;

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