Years from now, after making peace with Pakistan, India aims at possible territorial expansion. China thinks the same.
Supposing India and China come to blows over a territorial dispute.
The US, Russia, and Pakistan declare neutrality.
Supposing only conventional weapons are used; no NBC (Nukes, Bio, or Chemical) are available or exist in this magical world, having been completely 100% removed by the United Nations, and manufacture is impossible.
How is this gonna turn out between the billion-man powers? Should US students be learning Wu or Tegulu?
Aside from possibly bombing the crap out of each other or fighting essentially meaningless naval or air to air battles, they wouldn’t really be able to come to grips with each other in a conventional battle. So, assuming they aren’t crazy, they would perhaps fight a couple of small scale ground clashes and possibly some nasty air to air and naval engagements, then come to terms.
My vote is to sell ammo to both sides, and erase our national debt in about a week.
That said, I think it might be closer than some might think. India’s probably got a decent technology advantage. If they’re defending, they could make it very expensive for China. If China was willing to take heavy casualties, they could probably take India. Eventually.
For an interesting take on this sort of a concept- there’s the Shadows of the Hedgemon series to look at by Orson Scott Card- basically a continuation of the “Ender’s Shadow”/Bean’s Quartet series of books and one of the minor background points that’s simmering throughout is China vs. India.
I thought it was an interesting read at least just for that part alone, and no nukes (for the most part) were used to fulfill your conditions, though true neutrality wasn’t quite maintained… worth a read if you want to check out how OSC visualized this battle.
I could easily see India getting Aid from other nations if it was the defensive player in this battle, but with the whole “No one else gets involved” clause- I think China would win, as India itself would be rife with internal conflicts and politics on going to war if it was the aggressor, while I’d see China as being more able to control its own people and convincing them war was the right action.
1962. It was a bit of a debacle and caused a major shakeup and reorganization of the Indian military in its aftermath. In particular the creation of a number of “mountain” divisions equipped and acclimated for combat on the Tibetan border.
As xtisme said the terrain on the order is such that we would be unlikely to see truly massive engagements. It would almost certainly be another border dustup like the first and I’d expect India to perform much better than in '62. Beyond that, hard to say.
I’ll add that IMO it should be effectively impossible for either state to actually conquer the other, if that was what was being asked. China is capable of actually overrunning Mongolia if they so desired, India could probably steamroll Nepal.
But neither is capable of mounting a massive conquest invasion across the Himalayas and subduing a nation of a billion plus. No one could.
ESPN would be the winner. There is no way they can get their main armies at each other, so it would devolve into a few border clashes in the mountain. Probably broadcast on The Ocho.
I don’t usually chime in on these military speculation threads, but it seems to me that xtisme and Tamerlane are clearly right that the geography just is not right for a large-scale conventional war. Of course, if the hypothetical situation allowed them to go nuclear, or otherwise “unconventional” (and in reality, why wouldn’t they?) all bets would be off.
But the real wild card is that this is envisaged as happening quite a few years in the future, and the way the two countries are likely to develop economically and politically. If they went to all out war at the minute, then I imagine that China would have the edge based on sheer size (of both economy and population), even though India probably has somewhat more advanced technology, and a better educated (and probably proportionately larger) elite.
Of course, the same applies a fortiori if China’s economy continues to grow at its recent rate. However, that does not really seem likely to be the case for very much longer, and I can see a very real possibility that China might dissolve into political chaos or even civil war before very long. It won’t happen tomorrow, but I really doubt that the Communist Party can continue to keep the lid on such a dynamically growing economy and culture (which shows almost no vestiges of actual communism, apart from the authoritarian system of government) for much longer. They won’t relinquish power without a fight however, so a fight there will be, and the country as a whole will be enormously weakened.
India, on the other hand, seems to have a much better chance of keeping politically stable, and continuing to grow its economy steadily. It is en route to becoming a very powerful country indeed in a few decades time.
Of course, if China eventually emerges as a stable, unified democracy, then further on down the road they will eventually be able to dominate India through sheer size once again.
I am quite prepared to be told I am wrong about that. It was just an aside, anyway, but my impression is that India’s scientific and technological elite is probably better integrated into the worldwide scientific networks than is China’s (for political reasons). China, due to its size, its booming economy and its political structure, is better placed at the moment to throw large amounts of resources into prestige projects like space exploration, and perhaps high-tech weaponry too, but I suspect India still has more scientific and technological strength in depth. I may be wrong though. I make no claims to be an expert on this sort of thing.
Looking at the '62 war isn’t going to tell you much, since both millitaries have changed significantly since then.
I doubt the Chinese could maintain a ground push into India without achieving air superiority, and IMO, the odds of the Chinese being able to achieve air superiority over Indian territory are pretty small.
The problem for India, though, is that a significant portion of its manufacturing and agricultural production is in North India, which makes the Indian economy vulnerable to Chinese air attack even in the absence of Chinese air superiority. The Chinese don’t have this problem, because even if India were somehow able to achieve air superiority over Tibet, that’s not going to make a dent in Chinese manufacturing or agricultural production.
A Chinese push through Burma, though, is outside the scenario presented by the OP, and in the case of such a push, then it becomes plausible that other countries may enter the war or at least implement sanctions, which depending on how the sanctions play out, could hurt either country enough to force a cease-fire.
Just to add: I don’t mean to imply that India could make a ground push into Tibet (I doubt they could). There’s a hail-mary possibility of an Indian air thrust into Chinese territory, but even if that scenario did happen, it wouldn’t impact Chinese capability significantly.