WW4 File: India to deploy armored brigades on Chinese border, including six armored regiments with 348 tanks, three mechanized infantry battalions with 180 BMP-II fighting vehicles; two mountain divisions to consist of 40,000 troops, tasked with capturing Chinese territory

“The decision to deploy tanks to beef up India’s light, mountain infantry divisions was taken due to doctrinal changes in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA),” reports the Business Standard. These first-ever armored deployments, after decades of sporadic skirmishes, will take place along India’s northwest and northeast borders. 

The same source notes the PLA formations across the international boundary: “According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Lanzhou Military Region, which faces Ladakh, has 220,000 PLA troops, including an armoured division and two motorised infantry divisions (a division has three brigades). The Chengdu Military Region, opposite India’s north-eastern states, has some 180,000 PLA troops, including two armoured brigades and four motorised infantry divisions.”

It may be that New Delhi is also casting a wary eye at the current Sino-Japanese spat. The PLA could face two fronts in a possible regional war. How long that regional war would stay regional is another question, especially since both India and the PRC are nuclear powers.