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When the great Napoleon allegedly said that God was on the side of the big battalions, he might have had the pending heavyweight fight between India and China in mind. Although China currently has the demographic edge in terms of men of military age and older, India will soon blow them out of the water on that and, perhaps, in other areas, AI in particular, as well.

Currently, India is on a roll. Pakistan is bogged down in Afghanistan, both BRICS and NATO’s Asian alliances play to India’s interests, and things could hardly be better.

Or worse, depending on whether your cup of Darjeeling is half empty or half full. As this Indian think tank document makes plain, India is now more vociferously speaking out against China’s so-called Belt and Road Initiative, India is exporting arms and making peace treaties throughout South East Asia and India’s increasing sophistication in capability, credibility and communication all go to show that India, if not ready for all comers, is more than ready to go head to head with China in any of the many arenas where their interests collide.

Add in Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Ossies and Kiwis and the smart money has to be on India to give the Chinese a drubbing. Not that it will come to that.

This informative Stanford University paper explains how and why “the United States has placed a strategic bet on India” to be “an invaluable counterweight to Chinese influence in the region”. Add to that that the Indian rupee has not only been particularly volatile of late, but that it sunk to a historical low against the Yankee dollar in January 2025 and, bar room talk of BRICS notwithstanding, Modi won’t be abandoning NATO’s financial comfort blanket any time soon; he simply has too much on his plate.

As does Chinese President Xi, who must have his concerns about the return of the Donald to the White House. Although Trump is flooring his domestic enemies like skittles, China tops the list of countries standing in Trump’s way of dominating the world. Sooner or later, Trump will have to do a St George on the Chinese dragon.

But why should America fight China, when India is there along with their other coolies to do the dirty work for them? From an American point of view, things are going swimmingly. China is hemmed in by a series of forward posts America maintains with its Asian and, for some reason, European allies. With India evening up the numbers, it is time to give China another century and more of shame.

Whereas the Great War was a chemists’ war and the Second World War was a physicists’ war, the next war will be won and lost largely in the realm of artificial intelligence, with the current drone and missile schnozzle in Ukraine being only a prelude to what awaits Asia.

Although the British have kindly agreed to raise more Gurkha regiments (in Nepal) to help keep China at bay, the heavy lifting will be done by the Indians and the strategic brains will be safely back in Langley and in Silicon Valley. With Elon Musk and all of Big Tech playing for Team Trump, the Chinese should be very concerned and all the more so because this excellent SCF article dealing with the topic singled out Palantir, whose very strategic alliances with Mossad opens up other vectors the High Command of China should urgently concern itself with.

Although these CIA papers here, here and here all contend that China’s Peoples Liberation Army’s Strategic Support Force (SSF) are making great strides in AI, they also call attention to a number of crucial bottlenecks the Chinese face. The key strategy for the United States to deploy is to accentuate those bottlenecks and then to draw China into further fisticuffs with the Philippines and then, eventually with Japan and India, showing that China is a menace to the world and that Uncle Sam, in his role as John Wayne, must again reluctantly play the global sheriff.

The best way for the Yanks to play this is to further provoke the Chinese to bully the plucky Philippines, to instigate more issues with Vietnam and other front line countries and, once NATO’s Ukrainian conflict dies down, fall back on sanctions, asset freezes and the like where precedents have already been set with Russia and a myriad of other countries we need not adumbrate here.

It is not so much that China would be a much tougher nut to crack than Russia but that they are totally different animals, with China being much more prone to an oil blockade. And export freezes to really work them up.

Although that is one frog that would have to be boiled very slowly so as not to over excite the volatile Chinese, because the Pentagon feels it is a viable strategy, Xi and his chums best quickly put their thinking caps on.

And, though Xi and Putin are supposed to be best mates, their alliance does not hold the proverbial candle to the glue binding the global Trump led forces that oppose them in this, the fast approaching Chinese year of the double headed snake, which can bite you from either end. Although Trump has given Tiktok a 75 day reprieve, it is not at all apparent that he will be so kind to China when all of his Big Tech ducks are in order and ready to quack against Beijing.

Although I have often written about the pickle the bullies of China and the United States have put the long suffering people of the Philippines into, I again repeat that Russia must be Asia’s peace maker unless, of course, both China and India wish to impale themselves to make America great again, in which case they deserve all the sufferings Uncle Sam and a very grateful NATO arms industry will soon bestow on the pair of them.