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India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

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Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#551
post #434
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Pakistan is a lot less stable right now than 2019 (as is the world). 2) The putative organization is in Pakistan, and likely supported by the military. The biggest threat India is doing (IMO) is threatening the water supply. That is getting everyone in Pakistan’s attention. These strikes are more about managing the local political situation in India, which requires some degree of obvious violent retribution.

The incentives of the Pakistani generals to permit organizations like LeT to commit further terrorist attacks is a different domain from whatever the local political situation is like in India. There has been a past regime where Pakistani generals were able to train and send militants regularly to conduct terror attacks in India. Without an effective response from India putting pressure on these generals, that can ea…

Do you think (plausibly) threatening to cut off water to large swathes of Pakistan, or blowing up some random terrorist camps, is the bigger actual threat?

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#552
post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be a long-term problem, but right now it's like worrying about high cholesterol during a knife fight.

Its not, you goto look at how the actors in the region act and invest. Some of the regions rich seem remarkable calm towards a muklear armed iran.

Can Pakistan can ship nukes to Iran fast enough for the Iranian economy to supply in return a militarily useful quantity of anti-air and anti-missile defence systems? On a timescale of "shooting currently happening"? If not, that's a problem for the rest of the decade, whereas an escalating situation on this border could've already evaporated a few cities between me having read the headline 20 minutes ago and pressing the [reply] button now.

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#553
post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pakistani military cares about itself, above all. It wants to maintain its role as the primary protector of the Pakistani people, answerable to no one but themselves. As long as the threat of India looms large, their primacy is guaranteed. As a reward generals are allowed to grow filthy rich. Support for the Pakistani military was at its nadir during the era of benign neglect because there wasn't an Indian boogey…

> I fully expect that they'll fund more terrorists, leading to a constant cycle of violence. Yes, that's the defining characteristic of all terrorist organizations. Get money, not through politics or production or economy, but by damaging others. Then get paid for not doing quite as much damage. This model has spread quite a bit in the past 5 years.

5 million years

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#554
Things most likely will not escalate.

These terrorist attacks are always planned by Pak Army with the next steps in mind. Pak Army needs a war to re assert it's dominance. It is under a lot of pressure domestically due to what they did to democratic opposition, so precipitating war with India would provide a chance to consolidate the base. The choice of explicitly targeting people by religion was done to ensure an Indian response. Which is what their Chinese backers also want, start a war to ensure India gets distracted. Smart geopolitics on their part.

Long term India will have to think through deterring such terrorist actions from Pakistan. Pakistan was and remains a epicenter for Islamic terrorism and sooner or later the world will have to confront it, they have been getting a pass for far too long. Deterrence will only come when the real perpetrators which is the Pak Army - Jihadi complex is deterred. Hell Pakistani people might be better off without the current Pak Army.

As for the Indus Water Treaty shenanigans, nothing will happen there, it's all posturing.

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel and Russia also want peace. China wants peace with Taiwan. The US wants peace with Greenland and Canada. You have to be careful with that word, peace, because all wars are defensive.

In what possible sense can you possible mean that "all wars are defensive"? And it is absurd to claim that Russia wants peace. It can literally have peace anytime it wants by simply pulling its troops out of Ukrainian territory and ceasing the launching of missiles and drones on the populace. The US threats on Canada and Greenland are not made with "peace" in mind.

> In what possible sense can you possible mean that "all wars are defensive"?

I think the argument is all wars can be defensively spun. Russia apologists falling for the imminent-Ukraine-membership lie, MAGAs falling for the idea that we’re defending our Arctic interests by invading Greenland, Hitler’s argument that the Nazis were defending against a jealous Jewry and Europe, et cetera. The justifications for war are always, in part, however flimsily, couched in terms of defence (in modern times).

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen Quite contrary, the Ukrainian government was publicly saying that it was all bluffing. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60174684 Zelensky repeatedly said that the West was creating a panic. Ukraine's repelling of the attack was heroic and legendary, but the truth is that if it wasn't for the astonishing incompetence of the Russian…

> Zelensky repeatedly said that the West was creating a panic. I still have no idea if it was serious, or a fake "look at us helpless and not preparing at all". It was reported in media that he was given early warnings and briefings from the US about the incoming attack. There are so many cases like that that were may never learn about for sure...

Ukraine kind of wasn't prepared at all. The US was screaming warnings and giving precise intel, but Ukraine's defence didn't seem to plan for an actual attack at all.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64664944

It is just shocking incompetence by Russian forces that Kyiv wasn't taken in days. Russian units faced negligible resistance right to the outskirts of Kyiv, where their own lack of training, planning and logistics stalled their efforts.

https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-russias-failure-to-take-...

Ukraine is now a potent military force and Zelensky is a bonafide hero, but they were in a profound state of denial and got incredibly lucky in those early days.

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would a unilateral surrender of land be considered valid terms for peace? Because you trade it for more than it's worth to you. America gave up the Philippines, for example. Every decolonisation effort could accurately be described as "a unilateral surrender of land." > what land would Pakistan offer in exchange? You'd probably need China to participate. Maybe Siachen or even areas of Sindh? It's a long shot. O…

> decolonisation effort Kashmiris on the Indian side are citizens (unlike in "colonies"). AFSPA must be phased out but Kashmir isn't the only Indian state that's subject to it. > neither side is concerned with the wellbeing of anyone in Kashmir Yeah, the issue is too good to give up for (religion-based) politics and (military-industrial) businesses, on both sides of the border. Reminds of me this Bollywood movie dial…

> Kashmiris on the Indian side are citizens (unlike in "colonies")

Since when has that prevented any government from negotiating borders?

> the issue is too good to give up for (religion-based) politics and (military-industrial) businesses, on both sides of the border

Yup. I’d add that the citizens of both countries legitimately despise each other. Not genocidally, for the most part, but dismissively to each others’ humanity. So it’s not like you have to go full manufactured consent to develop jingoism.

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#558
post #322

There is a lot of Indian English-language media on YouTube and Twitter. There the war drums have been sounding strongly for the past weeks. They seem to draw a parallel between India/Kashmir/Pakistan and Israel/Gaza/Iran - seeing India as the superior and morally just super power against a weak corrupt dysfunctional terrorist-sponsoring Pakistan. So in that thinking right now there is an opportunity to get a final so…

It is true though, India has the moral upper hand here. All Pakistan has achieved in it's short existence is to be thug for hire(first US now China) and a place for midwifing every other Islamic terrorist faction.

It is also inherently unstable given they have never been able to solve their innate identity crisis, in short it is as Islamic North Korea(nukes) at best. It should be treated like the pariah that it is.

You can't kill civilians in cold blood and expect to get away with it.

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#559
post #61

I believe it's mostly overstated. Pakistan is not economically strong enough to participate in a war, and India is not interested either. However, the Modi government wants to project strength. They were unable to locate the terrorists even after two or three weeks and needed a distraction. So, they targeted some areas in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). In response, Pakistan claimed to have shot down four Indian air…

> Pakistan is not economically strong enough to participate in a war They have nukes. They don't need to be rich to do massive damage. Sure doing so would have terrible consequences, but cooler heads sometimes don't prevail. Or only prevail after much suffering and pain.

There aren't a lot of examples of a country being unwilling or unable to fight in a full-scale war, and instead launching nukes at their next door neighbor. I don't think this is part of the playbook, or based on evidence, I think it's coming from anxiety.

Re: India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu and Kashmir

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel and Russia also want peace. China wants peace with Taiwan. The US wants peace with Greenland and Canada. You have to be careful with that word, peace, because all wars are defensive.

In what possible sense can you possible mean that "all wars are defensive"? And it is absurd to claim that Russia wants peace. It can literally have peace anytime it wants by simply pulling its troops out of Ukrainian territory and ceasing the launching of missiles and drones on the populace. The US threats on Canada and Greenland are not made with "peace" in mind.

OP's point is warhawks and propaganda can easily weaponize their position as the aggressors as being "peace seeking".

The best example of this is the Iraq war. The US invaded another country and sold it as a peace keeping mission because "They are building weapons of mass destruction!".

In fact, the US has decades of history doing such actions (see: banana republics and the CIA's anti-communism efforts).

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