Attempted Indian Conquest of Pakistan, 1971

That IMHO, seems like a overly dramatic solution that will lead to decades of difficult occupation for India. What about a simpler compromise of simply establishing dominion or puppeting Pakistan--perhaps cut it up into small pieces, perhaps turn it into a puppet government.

I don't think Pakistan will get wiped off the map, but It will be India's turf once again...
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971

The Pakistanis got busted up real bad in this one.

What if the Indians had decided to go all out and conquer and annex Pakistan?

Will the US and China risk war with the USSR to stop it?

The thing is, they never really wanted to conquer Pakistan. Pakistan has never really posed a serious threat to India (in the sense that India could destroy the Pakistani state while even a nuclear-armed Pakistan can only hope to hurt India as a whole) and is much more useful as an external Big Bad. That's much less the case these days now that India has opened up and it's people have wider horizons but in the 70's it was very true.

The Indo-Pakistani Wars were much like a midget being held at arms length by a giant. The midget can't do anything much, besides maybe biting the giant's hand, but the giant has no problem repeatedly kicking him in the crotch.

The Indian Army could swamp the Pakistanis but that would just leave them in control of a hostile country with an armed insurgency to equal the Afghan one in OTL.
 

Baskilisk

Banned
The Indo-Pakistani Wars were much like a midget being held at arms length by a giant. The midget can't do anything much, besides maybe biting the giant's hand, but the giant has no problem repeatedly kicking him in the crotch.
Maybe that's what it was like before, but now it's more like a midget and giant are ten feet away from each other, pointing loaded guns. The guns will probably hurt the midget more as it's a smaller area and will hit more critically, but it's still going to cause a lot of injury for the giant.

As for a total conquest, India is more likely to take chunks off of Pakistan and divide the rest into Baluchistan, Sindh, and a third Mulism rump state. It's land that India doesn't want, or need, and the "Pakistanis" there certainly don't want or need India.
 
Maybe that's what it was like before, but now it's more like a midget and giant are ten feet away from each other, pointing loaded guns. The guns will probably hurt the midget more as it's a smaller area and will hit more critically, but it's still going to cause a lot of injury for the giant.

Oh yes, certainly- I was using the midget/giant scenario when talking about Indo-Pakistani wars pre-nuclear capability. This is now another reason why neither government wants an all-out war. However, my point was more that even before both nations achieved nuclear arms, India never really wanted to conquer Pakistan. Remember- India as a single national entity is a very new concept, less than a century old. India is, in effect, a single polity made up of a patchwork of ethnicities- the wonder is that they've kept it going successfully (this is one of the achievements of the Indian government that people tend to overlook). The independence movement began to teach Indians to see themselves as Indians first and Malayalee/Bengali/Tamil/Punjabi second but the existence of Pakistan allowed the Indian government to keep developing this- "You might not like the <insert ethnicity> but as Indians we must work together and be ever vigilant against the eeeevil Pakistanis". This worked to help foster a sense of national unity- when Bangladesh rebelled against the Pakistani government the Indians were able to paint themselves as the white hats, riding in guns blazing in defence of Justice and Freedom (tm) which, to be fair, was actually pretty true in that case. This is the real reason why India would never really have tried to conquer Pakistan- it's much more useful the way it is. Plus in the post-Cold War world, it's helpful because it allows India something to compare itself with for PR purposes- "Hey Westerners, look at us: we're secular, democratic and can keep our country under control".

As for a total conquest, India is more likely to take chunks off of Pakistan and divide the rest into Baluchistan, Sindh, and a third Mulism rump state. It's land that India doesn't want, or need, and the "Pakistanis" there certainly don't want or need India.

Possibly but unlikely for the above reason- being seen as the aggressor is bad PR. India could have done this in '71 but a major invasion of Pakistan wasn't even part of their objectives- they did smash the Pakistani army and take parts of the Pakistani Punjab and Sind, which they then gave back in the treaty signed the next year. If they had wanted to they could have just brought up even more divisions and swamped the Pakistanis. There was just no point in doing something to antagonise the West and China (who were Pakistani allies)
 

Ak-84

Banned
At the time of the ceasefire, most of the Pakistani army in the west was well intact, i its most powerful formations, had not been engaged, the Indian attempt at Shakarghar had been defeated and the Indians were on the defensive in Kashmir, where there had been a breakthrough in Chamb and at Ranjouri. The Indians were no where near being able to conquer Pakistan in 1971, there whole posture in the west was defensive, except for the Shakarghar battle.
 
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