"Military Sub-plane" author: Jeffer Initial Guidance
Recently, Junwu Mushroom discovered a particularly interesting news.
On January 10 and 11, Camp Victoria, a Chin National Army stronghold in the Indian state of Mizoram, was hit for two consecutive days by air crossings by fighter jets from the Myanmar Air Force.
According to ethnic armed personnel in Chin State, the bombing by the Myanmar Air Force was carried out by three fighter jets and two helicopters, and the fighters dropped at least five bombs on the camp, destroying several houses, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 20 others.
Some Burmese people say that the Myanmar Air Force that carried out the cross-border bombing mission was equipped with a newly equipped Thunder Dragon fighter, so it is interesting to say that the Myanmar Air Force drove a Chinese-made fighter across the border to India to bomb its own country's rebels, which is simply matryoshka doll!
However, there is no reliable source to confirm that it is a thunder dragon fighter, and Indian netizens are sure that it is not a thunder dragon, but a cross-border bombing carried out by the Myanmar army's MiG-29, after all, India has a MiG-29, but there is no thunder dragon.
Is it that let's put aside for the time being, such a small country as Myanmar has crossed the border to attack Indian territory, and India seems to want to calm the people so far, what is going on?
Bold small country
Chin State is an autonomous state located in northwestern Myanmar, bordering India and Bangladesh, and inhabited by the Chin people, one of the founding members of the Union of Myanmar.
The Chin National Army/Chin National Front, which was attacked by the Myanmar Air Force, is an armed group formed on March 20, 1988, after the failed armed resistance of the Chin people, and is one of eight ethnic local armed forces that signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement with the Thein Sein government in Myanmar in 2015.
Following the Burmese military's military coup on February 1, 2021, the Chin National Front publicly opposed it, announcing on May 29 of the same year that it had joined the People's Defense Army (PDF) formed by the Government of National Unity (NUG), and since then armed clashes have erupted with the Burmese army.
Since last year, the Burmese military junta has launched offensives against local armed forces of all ethnic groups in Myanmar, and the Myanmar Air Force has carried out multiple airstrikes on Chin villages and strongholds in Myanmar, and last October the Myanmar Air Force bombed a concert in Chin State, killing at least 60 people.
Because most of the members of the Chin National Army are Myanmar Chin ethnic groups, they have been entrenched in the mountainous areas of the India-Myanmar border for many years, and when they encounter the encirclement and suppression of the Myanmar government army, they will enter India to operate.
In order to preserve its strength, the Chin National Army has set up its command structure and training camps in India, such as the target of this air strike, the Victoria Battalion, which is the headquarters of the Chin National Army in Mizoram.
▲The approximate location of the air raid can only be roughly estimated in the Theo Valley around the red circle
In this way, the Chin National Army can unscrupulously launch attacks on targets in Myanmar, and then flee back to India to avoid the Burmese government army, and the government army throws rats, hindering the problem of the border between India and Myanmar, it has never been able to achieve a complete blow, and most of the time can only look at Lin Xingxing.
Because the Burmese rebels in India have long maintained a tacit supportive attitude, they have even been allowed to set up communication points, training bases and strongholds in India.
This routine is a bit like India's support for the Sri Lankan rebel, the Tamil Eelam LTTE, which is one of India's methods of infiltrating and controlling neighboring countries and bargaining with neighboring governments.
India's sneaking and poking behavior has caused Myanmar to express dissatisfaction many times, and the two sides have even clashed in border areas on many occasions. However, such a cross-border air strike like this is really the first time that Myanmar has done it, and it is estimated that the Indian side is also a little confused.
▲ National Army camps in India
In the face of foreign military aircraft air strikes in China, the Indian side did not make any response at the first time, this kind of neither affirmation nor denial, ambiguous attitude, seems to want to deal with this matter coldly.
India's border officials told the media that "no Indians or property were damaged in this airstrike, and the village of Fakawan, 9 kilometers from the border, was the closest to the explosion." ”
Sources in India's defense establishment also said that no action has taken place on Indian territory, and it is clear that India intends to make big things small and small things.
Although the target of the Myanmar Air Force is the Chin National Army, the Myanmar Air Force directly sends fighters across the border to strike without India's consent, which is already an "invasion" at the level of sovereignty.
But at present, the Indian Air Force and the official side have no intention of holding Myanmar responsible, why is India so instigated this time? Military mushrooms speculate that there may be three reasons:
First, India is the first to lose money. In itself, India's behavior of conniving at the rebels of neighboring countries to set up strongholds in its territory is very disgraceful, and the air strikes of the Myanmar Air Force are also famous, if India reacts strongly, it will undoubtedly make the outside world feel that India wants to "protect the short" and fall into a bad reputation of stirring.
The second is the "exchange of courtesies" between India and Myanmar. In India, there are also many rebels, such as in the Indian states of Assam and Mizoram, where rebels often attack the military and police.
When the Indian military and police clear them out, they will run to Myanmar, and the Indian military and police will inevitably break into Myanmar during the pursuit, and the Myanmar side should also know this.
Since everyone often visits each other, then simply keep a low profile, don't make a noise about something, and solve it tacitly, so in this incident, India behaved so calmly.
▲ Indian anti-terrorist forces involved in encircling and suppressing terrorists
Third, India is afraid of making too many enemies. India has recently had a very unpleasant fight with Pakistan and China, first the Indian army who illegally obstructed the normal patrol of the People's Liberation Army was beaten by fat, and then the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan accused each other of "conniving at terrorism", and the two sides were once at loggerheads.
Although Myanmar is a small country, but India is not strong enough to dare to fight on three fronts, Myanmar is not the main containment target after all, if there is an incident with Myanmar, what if someone raids his hometown? Therefore, as long as it does not have a big impact on India, India does not want to provoke Myanmar.
Some people may wonder whether a cross-border air strike like Myanmar that violates India's sovereignty is tantamount to declaring war on India. In fact, not only Myanmar is a country that will do this, there is nothing new under the sun, and I have not seen any two countries fight just because of this.
Cross-border strikes are not alone
Late at night on May 1, 2011, Obama and a group of others watched as two stealth Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Afghanistan to Abbottabad, 64 kilometers north of Islamabad, Pakistan, 300 kilometers away.
As they crossed the border, three CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters that had been following behind stopped, carrying Black Hawk return fuel and 24 SEALs as reserves.
An hour and a half later, two Black Hawk helicopters, which had been flying ultra-low to evade Pakistan's air defense radars, arrived at a triangular compound where Ben Smith lived. bin Laden and his family.
However, one Black Hawk crashed into a wall when landing, causing engine damage and forced landing, and another Black Hawk, who was originally in charge of controlling the field, had to land as a substitute, and the Navy SEALs who fell from the sky began to attack.
Soon they found Ben. Bin Laden, shot bin Laden in the chest and left eye, then dragged the body downstairs, found a bright place to take pictures and sent it back to the White House.
After being confirmed by experts, bin Laden's body was put on a spare helicopter along with his computer and books, and a Black Hawk helicopter that had been damaged earlier was blown up on the spot by a thermite bomb.
After the 18-minute hunt was completed, U.S. troops quickly withdrew and the Pakistani Military Academy not far away showed no response.
On May 3, CIA Director Panetta admitted in an interview with Time magazine in Washington that the US military did not notify the Pakistani authorities before launching the raid because they were worried that if the Pakistani side knew about the plan of action in advance, it might notify bin Laden to hide, thus ruling out the possibility of informing the Pakistani side in advance.
On the same day, the Pakistani side issued a statement saying that neither the Pakistani government nor the military leadership knew about the US action in advance, and that US helicopters used the "blind spots" caused by the radar caused by the mountainous terrain around Abbottabad to enter Pakistani airspace. The Pakistan Air Force was informed of the raid and sent warplanes into the air within minutes, but by then a U.S. helicopter had flown out of Pakistani airspace with bin Laden's body. The Pakistani side is deeply worried about this and asks the US side not to take an example.
According to common sense, the US military's move to directly enter Pakistan's airspace without warning and fly ultra-low altitude to avoid radar can be regarded as an act of war, even if Pakistan shoots it down, it is reasonable and legal.
However, U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Diane Feinstein said on May 3 that if it were ascertained, the Pakistani government would have known about Ben. If bin Laden is hiding, the United States will have to consider whether it has to cut nearly $1.3 billion in annual aid to Pakistan.
Therefore, Pakistan can only express its ignorance of such a domineering cross-border behavior with the United States, plus the following is not an example.
As the younger brother of the United States, Israel has perfectly inherited the mantle of the United States in illegally crossing the border to strike at this area, and Israel has often engaged in such actions after the end of the fourth Middle East war.
For example, in the 1976 raid on Ugandan airports, Israeli military aircraft used the civilian route to fly at ultra-low altitudes, crossed Ethiopian airspace, drove 4,000 kilometers to raid Ugandan airports, and special forces killed more than 50 terrorists and Ugandan soldiers, and successfully rescued more than 100 hostages.
On 7 June 1981, during Operation Babylon, which carried out air strikes on Iraq's nuclear facilities, nine F-16 and six F-15 Israeli F-15 aircraft, painted with Jordanian aircraft emblems, took off from Ezi airbase, flew over the Red Sea in turn, flew over the desert zone in northern Saudi Arabia and over the border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and blew up Iraq's Ussilak reactor in two minutes.
Until now, Israel remains emboldened. According to Israeli reports, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out thousands of air strikes against targets in Syria, mainly targeting Syrian air defense forces and Iranian military targets in Syria.
In addition to Israel, another "military power", Turkey, often engages in illegal cross-border strikes. Since the 2003 Iraq war, Turkey has regularly crossed into Iraq to carry out military strikes against PKK forces.
After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the Kurds in Syria and Iraq continued to grow in the process of fighting the "Islamic State", and Turkey has taken a series of cross-border military operations against Syria and Iraq since 2018, trying to establish a "buffer zone" in Syria separating Syrian Kurds from Turkish Kurds.
In July 2019, Turkey brazenly launched cross-border air strikes against Kurds in Iraq after the assassination of a Turkish diplomat in Iraq's Kurdish region.
The first airstrike killed 16 Kurds, including the PKK's supreme leader, and the second killed 18 Kurds. Although Turkey claimed that all those killed were "terrorists", it was confirmed that only three PKK members were killed in the two air strikes, and the rest were all civilians.
As a master of fishing in troubled waters, after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022, Turkey has stepped up its military operations against Kurds across the border in Iraq.
Will a cross-border strike trigger a war between the two countries?
Cross-border strike refers to cross-border military operations in which one or more countries cross the border of another country and use force against international terrorist forces in the territory of another country.
As far as the practice of the international community is concerned, transboundary attacks can be divided into four categories, namely, cross-border attacks authorized by the Security Council, cross-border attacks in the exercise of the right of State self-defence, transboundary attacks under the principle of request for consent and cross-border attacks that are unilateral military operations.
Generally speaking, the most controversial cross-border attack is the fourth type of cross-border attack, which is unilateral military action, that is, an action that is often questioned whether it will trigger a war between the two countries.
Will such actions lead to war between the two countries? Before finding the answer, Jun Wu Mu felt that it was better to understand the concept of the two countries at war.
Traditional international law holds that war is a conflict caused by the mutual use of force between hostile countries, and war is a state of law, so accidental, local, short-lived border conflicts, etc., do not constitute war under international law.
Generally speaking, when two countries are at war, it involves declaring war, which is when one country notifies or declares the termination of the state of peace between the two countries to another country, thus turning into a state of war, and undeclaring war is the act of one country launching a war and suddenly attacking another country.
According to Article 1 of Hague Convention III of 1907, a declaration of war is subject to three conditions: 1. The other party must be notified in advance before the act of war is initiated; 2. The content of the notification should be accurate and not falsified in the slightest; 3) The content must state the reasons for entering the state of war.
Take the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, why does Russia always insist that a special military operation is being conducted in Ukraine, not a war? It is because once war is declared, it will bring a series of legal consequences.
The first is that the warring nations enter a wartime state, which means that all actions in the warring country have to make way for the war, which greatly increases the material and political costs.
Second, when declaring war, the two sides will regard the citizens of the other party as citizens of the enemy country, and can confiscate or freeze the assets of the other country and individuals in their own countries, abolish the original treaties and agreements, and restrict the activities of the other party's nationals in their own countries.
Third, after the declaration of war, diplomatic relations between the belligerents were immediately terminated, and exchanges and negotiations between the two sides had to be carried out through a third country or an international organization, while other countries had to state their position on whether they were neutral or on which side they were on.
Of course, most countries in the world will choose neutrality, because once they declare that they are allies of belligerents, it means that they are in a united front with their allies, and the other country can also strike at them in all aspects.
However, neutral countries also have many obligations, such as not allowing the belligerents' materials to pass through their own territory and airspace, and not providing any material or weapons assistance to both belligerents.
For example, if Russia declares war on Ukraine, and NATO continues to support Ukraine, Russia has every right to attack NATO countries.
Finally, once war is declared, it means that the two sides can strike at each other by any means, and must fight until one side declares an armistice or surrenders unconditionally.
It was precisely because the consequences of declaring war were so serious that Russia delayed declaring war on Ukraine, and China was already at war with Japan after the September 18 Incident in 1931, but it was not until December 8, 1941.
After all, war is not a child's play, and it is actually normal for armed conflicts between the two countries, but once a war occurs at the legal level, then the situation is not easy to control.
Clausewitz wrote in The Treatise on War that "war is nothing more than the continuation of politics by another means." If there is no violent political conflict between the two countries, it is unlikely that such sporadic cross-border strikes will risk as many risks and consequences as mentioned above.
Moreover, the current international community is still governed by the law of the jungle, the big fist is good to speak, for small countries and weak countries, to achieve real independence, the space is extremely narrow, under the bullying of the "carrot + stick" policy of the United States, the vast majority of small countries can only choose to swallow their anger, even if the United States does not apologize, they have to find their own steps.
In addition, it will also be related to the strategic strength of a country. For example, on March 13, 2015, a Burmese military bomb fell into China, killing four innocent civilians working in a sugar cane field in Dashui Mulberry Village, Mengding Town, Gengma County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province.
In the evening, Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin urgently summoned the Myanmar ambassador to China to make solemn representations on the deaths and injuries of Chinese personnel caused by the Burmese military bomb, urged the Myanmar side to conduct a thorough investigation of the incident, inform the Chinese side of the results, and severely punish the perpetrators.
See? This is the normal response to such contingencies, which can be resolved at the diplomatic level, rather than having to resort to force.
After all, the strength of China and Myanmar is not in the same order of magnitude at all, and if they have to give a hammer, I am afraid that there will be no neighbors around China.
With the rapid development of international terrorism, cross-border attacks have been recognized in international counter-terrorism practice, but in order to prevent the abuse of cross-border attacks that infringe on the sovereignty of other countries and endanger international peace, cross-border attacks should be strictly restricted.
Myanmar air strikes on rebel camps in India, according to how strategic India is, at least it should issue condemnation and negotiate with Myanmar, but now the Indian side is silent, as if this incident has not happened, which is really contrary to common sense.
This makes people wonder, is it really India's loss?