<thread> Since there seems to be interest in relative mil capacities of India-China-Pakistan, a friend encouraged me to replug some of my data-driven work on this question from the past 2 years on this. Here are the articles & also associated discussion videos.

1/ Military balance in a 2-front war using a simple metric, from July 2018. The pt here are not the nos. but trend and relative mil power: https://abhirej.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/orf_specialreport_67_twofrontwar_finalforupload.pdf
Discussion">https://abhirej.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/o... about the paper (w/ SL Narasimhan & J Ranade) crucial for a different perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DIzEJ0_7ek&t=1405s">https://www.youtube.com/watch...

2/ A deep-dive into twenty years of Indian defence budgets, March 2019: https://www.firstpost.com/india/government-misspend-on-defence-will-widen-gap-between-intent-and-capability-6321261.html
Conversation">https://www.firstpost.com/india/gov... w/ @HappymonJacob on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJvQ9_QAQCw">https://www.youtube.com/watch...

3/ A side-by-side comparison of Chinese and Indian mil spending (incl. capital & revenue) from 2010 to 2017, July 2019: https://www.firstpost.com/india/chinas-white-paper-on-defence-should-worry-india-as-beijing-focuses-on-equipment-new-delhis-approach-remains-manpower-heavy-7057141.html">https://www.firstpost.com/india/chi...

4/ All of these present a manifestly grim picture. That said, other research suggest that the local balance along the LAC may indeed be more favourable to India. Worth considering the excellent analysis of @frank11285 and @alexbollfrass: https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/strategic-postures-china-and-india-visual-guide">https://www.belfercenter.org/publicati... <end>