Which countries are likely to support India if it had a war with Pakistan or China?

NOBODY.

Pakistan is China's vassal. If an Indo-Pak war breaks China will stand by its vassal. But you can be reasonably certain there will be no direct intervention.

Nevertheless you should brace for a sizable flow of Chinese weaponry into Pak armoury and a Chinese buildup on the border, more to distract than to attack.

An FB post

The assumption someone or the other will come to our aid in case of a war between India and one of its neighbours is patently unrealistic.

A war between two nuclear nations is no occasion for a third country to get directly involved. Loud expressions of dismay and even louder demands for Pakistan and India to put the guns away and start talking. Some may even condemn Pakistan, if it had aggressed.

Israel is most likely to go a step further, supplying sophisticated systems and ‘advisors’ if we so desire. It has had the Islamic State of Pakistan in crosshair ever since Islamabad went nuclear.

• But Israel will think twice if we get into a shooting match with China. China is a near super power — it’s an economic powerhouse and has acquired military might over the past decade. Nobody wants to incur its displeasure unless there are just rewards. Sticking up for India doesn't qualify.

• In an imaginary situation like this everything is speculation and anything is possible. The strongest possibility is any future Sino-Indian war will be a conventional one — land and air battles with a few sea engagements. It won’t last long.
• It won’t be a war for land because conquest and occupation will result in long term hostilities. My money is on a brief brutal war of attrition and if we've learnt any lessons from 1962 and the wars we have waged with China’s vassal state we should manage to hold our own against China.

Neither India nor China will opt for nuclear strikes because the ensuing devastation will be too huge even to contemplate. Besides commonsense, the nature of war will be dictated by the tremendous international pressure that will be brought to bear on both parties even before the first shot is fired.

One can’t be too sure if this reasoning holds good for Pakistan as well. It was threatening nuclear strikes when it faced defeat at Kargil. Pakistan will be aware that it is bound to lose yet another conventional war. Pak military has the destruction of India as its raison d’etre.

If we can think up a war, we might as well think up a scenario where the top Pak military brass presses the N-button and flies off to Saudi Arabia. No more Pakistan, no more chunks of India.

We bandy around the word ‘friend’ so much we fail to understand what it means in international context. India doesn't have any friends in the conventional sense of the word ‘friend’. We have nations who are friendly to us. But it’s not the buddy buddy kind. We lost our last buddy in 1962 in the rugged terrain of the Himalayas.

• Pakistan is a pariah but everyone is being polite about it. Of course its Islamist friends may think being a pariah in kaffirs’ eyes is quite the Islamic thing to happen.That's cold comfort when the shooting starts.
• China has no friends either let alone allies. It is ringed by grim neighbours who entertain some very unpleasant thoughts about their imperialist Big Neighbour.
• India will get help from those who want to stop Pakistan and China in their tracks. But it'll be naive to expect any direct involvement or any substantial involvement. Nobody buys into somebody else's war. Nobody will step up to die for us.

War is a place where you do your own dying and do your own killing. The soldier knows it. He doesn't look for help from outside. What keeps him going is the faith his country will back him to the proverbial last bullet.

And the forlorn hope his family won’t be forgotten.

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PS: A few comments allege some real friends of India are missing from my list of the countries that will support us. A few words may clear the air.

Japan & Vietnam: Poor choices. They are already pushed to the wall by China over a number of barren islands in South China Sea and East China Sea..

Senkaku islands which Japan controls are virtually under siege by China which has declared a no fly zone over the isles. US and Japan disregard it. Japan being a semi protectorate of the US gives China pause.

Vietnam nurses ancient hatreds for China but could do little when China militarily evicted it from Paracel and Spratly islands, which were in Vietnam's hands for centuries..

The world watched, did nothing. US remonstrated mildly.

Despite the Chinese aggression Vietnam does business with China — as does Japan. Commerce knows no permanent enemies.

US & Russia: The new pal and the old buddy. Old Buddy Russia has stood by India in critical times. But times have changed. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the communist system, Russia is a country in search of a global role. It may like old friends but prefers dollars more. That has taken it to the doorsteps of our two troublesome neighbours. Commerce knows no permanent friends.

• It has signed a $ 3 billion arms deal with China under which it’ll deliver S-400 SAM missile systems -- the best in the business. (EDIT: The deal has forced India also to buy the S-400 missile system.) Russia will also sell 24 Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets to China in a deal worth $2 billion.
• The two countries will jointly develop a new jumbo jet. The Sino-Russian strategic alliance is sprouting wings -- despite Russia’s intellectual property concerns.
• Then there’s Pakistan — the country where the US housed, trained and sent the Taliban to rout the Soviets from Afghanistan. It's also the country where US Navy Seals shot dead Osama bin Laden. This is a region rich in ironies.
• One such irony is the US will never abandon Pakistan. It’s worried that Pak will splinter and its nuclear arsenal will fall into wrong hands. Uncle Sam will stick around to keep an eye on things.
• To top it all there is this two-way trade between Beijing and Washington. It was a whopping $598 billion in 2015. Compare it with India’s trade with the US: $66.2 billion..

If a war breaks out both these heavyweights will jump in to mediate, instead of taking sides. It matters not how much we buy from either. Stopping the war will be the priority. You don't broker peace by getting into bed with one of the belligerents.

Afghanistan figures in a few comments. This is beyond comic. The Afghan government survives only because of American (the Alliance) military presence. It has lost quite a bit of territory to Taliban, which regularly sends suicide squads into Kabul. The prospect of the Afghan army taking out the Pak army is comic books stuff.

India’s Clout: We overestimate ourselves. Do we honestly believe our increased clout in the world will be a deciding factor in gaining allies? That's a shaky premise to conduct business from. These days it's the Chinese clout that will influence many countries.

The world is not India-centric as we would like to believe. It’s not China-centric either. Every country pursues its own national interests. But the world buys from China. China is the manufacturing hub of the world. That makes for a lot of clout.

We are often carried away by our self importance. The rhetoric of self-importance clouds our vision. It makes few friends and influences even fewer people. It never wins wars.