[aristeides]

Are you sure the Indian Army is such a mess? Its operations in the 1971 war were quite impressive.

[steveegg]

That was then. While the Pakistani army has become somewhat more efficient (I doubt they're anywhere near the caliber of the Coalition in the Persian Gulf War), the Indian armed forces have become moribound, and rely too much on superior numbers.

A prime example of what the next Pakistani-Indian war would look like if it kicks off in the next year or so is the border skirmish last year. I know I saw the details somewhere on FR, but the short version is that Pakistan-backed rebels snatched a key mountain in Kashmir, and it took an unusually-high amount of effort by the Indians to eject them from that mountain.