Is an India-China arms race brewing?

[dead0man]

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[Beet]

China will not make any moves into Arunchal Pradesh; that is just absurd. As for the announcement of an increased military budget, it is pretty routine. The US still spends five times as much as China on military, and US spending is of a much higher quality.

[Redalgo]

My understanding is that the PRC has a regionally potent military but very lousy force projection capabilities, while India cannot defeat China in a serious, all-out confrontation. Yet still, can the PRC realistically operate a sustained campaign out of its western frontiers? Maybe I am missing some important considerations here, but I doubt it would be in the interests of either country to aggressively antagonize or initiate an armed conflict with the other.

[dead0man]

Indeed.  But it's one of those "that dude across the alley that we seem to get in a fight with about once every other decade has really started hitting the gym lately and making friends with our other enemies, we should probably hit the gym and make some new friends too" things.  India is a bit weaker, what with all the fasting and what not, but they have a lot more friends and potential friends.  The PRC has Pakistan, Burma, and....N.Korea....maybe Iran and Syria...they certainly have a "with friends like these, who needs enemies" issue.  It probably won't go anywhere, but who knows.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

China will not make any moves into Arunchal Pradesh; that is just absurd. As for the announcement of an increased military budget, it is pretty routine. The US still spends five times as much as China on military, and US spending is of a much higher quality.

In fact, NATO is at 70% of world military spending, and there are certainly plenty of US allies not in NATO.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Yes, and Russia, the main arms supplier for both, is laughing all the way to the bank.