Sarah Paine — The war for India (lecture & interview)

Sarah Paine (Naval War College) argues that five pivotal Cold War decisions locked in the China-Pakistan vs. India-Russia alignment that still governs South Asia today.

• In 1969 the Soviets asked the US whether it was acceptable to nuke China; when the US said no, Mao concluded the USSR—not the US—was his primary adversary, reshuffling all Cold War alliances.
• The US-Pakistan Baghdad Pact alliance (Eisenhower’s own retrospective judgment: ‘perhaps the worst decision we could ever have made’) poisoned US-India relations for the entire Cold War.
• China built all-weather roads through Tibet 1950–1957; India didn’t discover them until 1958, which is why the 1962 Sino-Indian War defeat was total—China could deploy troops, India could not.
• After the 1962 war India doubled its army to 750,000 and created 10 mountain divisions; Paine argues that if China had not invaded, a China-India coalition would have fundamentally altered the world order.
• Pakistan ceded territory to China in 1963—likely in exchange for nuclear development assistance, though undocumented—cementing the Pakistan-China axis against India.
• Putin is expending Cold War ordnance stockpiles in Ukraine while leaving Siberia exposed; Paine says the Xi-Putin relationship will end, and China will choose the moment least convenient for Russia, possibly leveraging Siberian resources including Lake Baikal (20% of world’s fresh surface water).
• The Able Archer 1983 war-game nearly convinced Soviet leadership the US had launched a real strike; Reagan moderated his rhetoric after learning how close to the edge Soviet commanders were.

2025-01-16 · Watch on YouTube