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In April 1 989, mountain soldiers from the Pakistani and Indian armies collided at an elevation of 22,158 feet on a battlefield where the dangers of the environment outweighed those of the physical enemy. Called Operation Chumik by Pakistani Army planners, the battle involved a Pakistani technical mountaineering assault of an Indian strongpoint on Point 22158, a key peak overlooking the Gyong La Pass, in an attempt to seize decisive terrain and unlock the stalemated Siachen Glacier War.
Although the Indians and Pakistanis were both experts in high altitude mountain warfare, the Pakistani commander of Operation Chumik, LTC S.M.Y Naqvi, defeated both the enemy and the dangerous environment through his superior use of mountain terrain, his ability to employ standard mountain warfare doctrine at previously untested altitudes, and his small unit leaders' aptitude for synchronizing technical mountaineering with maneuver.
The war on the Siachen Glacier began with a tactical race of operations by India and Pakistan to secure the high ground in a strategically important region. As a result of a diplomatic failure to complete the boundary between the Pakistani and Indian sections of Kashmir, the Siachen Glacier region of the Karakorum Range remained "a source of dispute between India and Pakistan" for over 30 years due to the region's geostrategic importance as an avenue of approach into the contested Kashmir and into Central Asia, according to Pradeep Barua in The State at War in South Asia.
On 13 April 1984, after intelligence reports indicated that Pakistan planned to move a military force onto the glacier, the Indian Army responded with Operation Meghdoot, an air assault operation that deployed two infantry battalions, inexperienced in mountain warfare, onto the key passes of Bilafond La, Sia La, and Gyong La (Eric S. Margolis, War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet). In accordance with standard mountain doctrine, the Indian commander established strongpoint defenses on the Saltoro Ridge on the southwest border of the glacier, overwatching the Pakistani approaches into the Siachen region (Nikhil Shah and B. Bhattacharjee, "Manning the Siachen Glacier," Bharat-rakshak.com). Thus, when the Pakistani forces arrived a week later, they found their passage onto the glacier blocked by an Indian brigade holding the tactically superior ground on the Saltoro...