Abhi posted earlier about the India-Pakistan fight over the high-altitude Siachen glacier. Let’s take a closer look at the economic aspect: the 23-year-old Siachen conflict is the epitome of inefficient war engineering, even worse than the kill ratio of musket warfare in the 18th century. The enemy here isn’t the other nation, it’s the territory you’re purportedly saving. It’s like fighting on Mars or the ice planet Hoth (photos):

Ninety-seven per cent of casualties here are due to the extreme weather and altitude, rather than fighting. “On the glacier you have to first survive the elements and then you fight the enemy,” says a senior officer…. [Link]

… with winter temperatures of 70 degrees below zero, the inhospitable climate in Siachen has claimed more lives than gunfire. [Link]

India has lost more than 2,500 men in Siachen, most of them to the hostile weather. [Link]

Every ounce of supply is hauled on specialized high-altitude helicopters and snowmobiles. The cost has been $10B (extrapolated), or $30B adjusted for purchasing power. The cost of supplies is a hundred times more expensive than on a normal battlefield, and India’s paying platinum rates to airlift human feces. Instead it could have bought fourteen Russian aircraft carriers:

… a chapatti delivered to a soldier there cost Rs 500. Even the excreta of soldiers manning these posts has to be lifted by helicopters and brought to base for disposal… [Link]

Islamabad political analyst Hussain calculates that it costs the Indians $438 million a year to fight for Siachen (Indian officials claim it is less than $300 million), while Pakistan’s bill is estimated at $182 million… [Link]

I have been intently following the plight of the four missing U.S. Navy SEALS over the past weekend. Knowing that they were out there on the 4th of July just trying to survive in the mountains was pretty moving. As of today, one of them has been rescued, the bodies of two were recovered, and a fourth is still missing. I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who exhibit such extreme self-discipline and self-reliance. Soldiers in mountainous areas epitomize these qualities regardless of the rationale behind their orders.

The most brutal mountain fighting in the world has been along the India-Pakistan-China border at 19,000 ft. high on the Siachen Glacier, in the Karakoram. This classic 2003 article in Outside Magazine is essential reading for anyone who is a student of the absurdity of war:

Here’s what is beyond dispute: Never before have troops fought for such extended periods in such extreme physical conditions. At least twice a week a man dies, occasionally from bullets or artillery, but more often from an avalanche, a tumble into a crevasse, or a high-altitude sickness—perils usually faced only by elite climbers. Not surprisingly, the men who serve in the war regard it as the supreme challenge for a soldier.

“Minus 50 at 21,000 feet—it’s beyond anything the human body is designed to endure,” an Indian officer on the Siachen told me. “This is the ultimate test of human willpower. It’s also an environmental catastrophe. And—no doubt about it—things can only get worse.”

…Life at such forward positions is brutal, and the Indians begrudgingly admit that the Pakistanis are tough customers. “They are sitting right underneath us on an 80-degree slope,” one Indian officer who was stationed above Tabish would tell me later. “We can throw grenades just like pebbles on top of them. It really takes guts to be there.” Captain Waqas Malik, 26, who served at Tabish, grimly described the hopeless feeling of such positions. “Once a ridge has been occupied,” he said, “you require a heart with the capacity of the ocean to accept the casualties you will incur in the taking of it.“

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