The Middle East may soon feel India's growing power

The New Nation,Bangladesh ^ | Tue, 13 Mar 2007 | Eric Margolis

[Zhang Fei]

During Indira Gandhi's reign, Indian forces came close to launching an attack on Diego Garcia, in order to annex it.

Links please.

Here's a Time piece with the back story, namely Indira Gandhi's view that the existence of a US naval base at Diego Garcia was controversial.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi arrives in Washington this week for her first official visit in nearly eleven years. Her mission is to narrow India's differences with the U.S. on a number of issues. Among them: ... the controversial U.S. naval base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

More background:

At the Conference, the Indian Prime Minister was assiduously promoting the concept of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace. Her intention was primarily to prevent the United States from establishing further military bases in the countries on the rim of the Indian Ocean and especially to force the United States Government to dismantle its base in Diego Garcia.

An Indian source on a military forum says it was an "eyes only" operation:

Originally Posted by Blademaster I am curious. Did InN or InAF have any contigency plans of hitting Diego Garcia, or is that simply too far out of reach?

During Indira Gandhi's time, we had an airborne operation half way towards the island to capture it, but was called back. But better sense prevaled and an incident against the US was avoided.

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers I would love to learn and examine the operational details.

Sir, These are one of those "for your eyes only" type things. All I know is that one phase was already underway when they were called back. My fathers unit (a field ambulance unit), was packed and on the tarmac waiting for their turn to take off. It was one of those cold war era incidents, as Indo-US relations were not cordial.

Now, I understand that the official Indian position is that Diego Garcia belongs to Mauritius, but I can't believe the Indians would relinquish it after losing several thousand men in its taking.

[CarrotAndStick]

First off, that was from a blog/forum, some anonymous war-strategist-wannabe's comment. There aren't any accredited sources to this wild claim.


Secondly, about the thing about "thousands of Indian troops" dying, well ,remember, this supposed "incident" was during the peak of the Cold War. The US's allies, viz. , the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Chinese autocracy, were being encouraged to attack India, besides being provided material, military and diplomatic support by the US. India had, as a result, won Soviet support for protection.

In 1971-72, when the Americans coaxed Pakistan and China to attack India, with the cover of support of the USS Enterprise, the Russians threatened involvement by bringing in their nuclear submarine fleet to chase the carrier group, in the Bay of Bengal.



Attesting to this, the "thousands of casualties" might have as well been of American lives.



Throughout that night INS Vikrant continued her sortie south, and our air recce covered an area to a depth of 500 miles. There was no sign of the U.S. task force, so in the absence of any instruction from the Naval Headquarters I turned back north to rejoin my patrol area. As the day dawned, BBC broadcast amplified its earlier report: that having entered the Bay of Bengal from the Malacca Straits, the U.S. task force had proceeded west instead of going north to Chittagong. On reflection I felt that my reactions in the warlike situation proved the value of my tenure at the NCC.

As a postscript to this anecdote, soon after the victory of the Indian Armed Forces, one of the foreign celebrities that visited India was the renowned naval leader Admiral S.G. Gorshkov, Chief of the Soviet Navy. During his visit to Bombay he came onboard INS Vikrant. I had known the Admiral well earlier during my tenure in Moscow as the Indian Naval Attaché. The Admiral congratulated me and asked, "Were you worried about a battle against the American carrier?" He answered himself: "Well, you had no reason to be worried, as I had a Soviet nuclear submarine trailing the American task force all the way into the Indian Ocean."

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/History/1971War/Games.html

[sukhoi-30mki]

I've seen fellows on mil-forums saying that their cousins are working on Iranian SSBNs which are patrolling a few miles outside New York harbour!!!!So that's how much importance I give to such dribble.Indeed,there was tension between India & the US on the issue of Diego Garcia in the 70s & 80s(which has been resolved)-tension is one thing,but preparing to go to war is another.

Even Indira's biggest critics would say that the woman knew how best to time her moves to perfection.Atleast in the time of her government,India just didn't have the airlift assets or naval assets to even hold Diego Garcia for 1 week,which always has/had warships for defense & could rely on airsupport from American bases in the Middle East.IOW,pure bullcrap.