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

reuters.com

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

#651

Post by int_19h »

enugu wrote: post #621
lazide wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Cutting off water supply is clearly the bigger threat. However, it involves a longer time frame - building infrastructure which one expects not to use in a normal situation. Importantly, even once built, it selects the wrong targets, not terrorists or military bases - but regular people who will be faced with scarcity of water and food, as the crops use Indus water. This would be something highly unethical, and also…

What force, though? Israel does something similar, and how much actual pushback (as opposed to sternly worded statements) did it actually get?

Even if it were to translate to sanctions, I'm not so sure BJP wouldn't welcome it. "The Fatherland is besieged, let's unite together around Dear Leader and fight back like one" tends to be a very popular take in authoritarian countries for a reason, and it's that much easier to pull off when you can actually point at some way in which your country is targeted.

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

#652

Post by int_19h »

prmph wrote: post #588
krisoft wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They are not going to use nukes. I always wonder at the people who have this idea that states are going to use nukes on a whim. The taboo against the use of nukes is very strong, so strong that I believe nuclear armed nations would rather wage conventional warfare even at great cost, and consider nukes only in the extreme situation where the very survival of the state is seriously threatened (and even then I'm doubtf…

Europe doesn't have the capacity to impose a no-fly zone on Russia. I doubt even US could pull that off.

Anyway, the real concern wrt nukes is that they require people in government who are at least marginally sane and care about self-preservation. The problem with countries like Russia and Pakistan is that it's one coup away from being run by people who genuinely believe that they are fighting a holy war against some kind of worldwide Satanic conspiracy. Such people are unlikely to hold power for long, but with nukes, they don't have to.

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

#653

Post by int_19h »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #641
Brigand wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely covered Bin Laden. The intelligence agencies are not of your opinion: „Counterterrorism officials told Logan that there is no way the Pakistanis didn't know about this.“ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-pakistan-know-where-bin-lad...

I mean, there is a way they didn't know it though. There aren't any hard evidences available today that prove this happened. Imo, it's pretty unlikely. Like I said, he never left the compound or ever got any sunlight. He didn't even have internet access. He passed all his messages through couriers to other people. When he was found, out of his enormous trove of documents, not a single one indicated any kind of coordi…

Why do you assume that nobody in the Pakistani military may be motivated by factors such as religious extremism, above and beyond simple utility calculations?

It may very well be that some people in ISI were sheltering Bin Laden for no reason other than that he was a genuine hero to them.

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

#654

Post by enugu »

lmm wrote: post #646
enugu wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that I am not referring to the prolonged occupation of Afghanistan, much less of Iraq here. Rather, something like a strike which targets bin Laden and other organizers of the terrorist attack.

So it doesn't matter that military responses that have actually been tried in the real world have been counterproductive, because you can imagine other kinds of military responses and you imagine that those kinds of military responses would have gone better?

The French air strikes after the Paris attacks was not an occupation of Syria. There is no inevitable logic for a prolonged occupation.

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

#655

Post by workfromspace »

ponector wrote: post #406
anticodon wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Putin had already attacked multiple countries before. Georgia, Chechnya As always, westerners leave in an information bubble. Chechnya was always a part of Russia. It was a civil war. Ukraine was always a part of Russia until 1991, btw, there was never a separate country called "Ukraine" before 1991 - you can easily find that even in Western history books, although I'm sure they'll be rewritten in some way soon, if…

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania were always part of "Russia". Would you suggest they should be invaded as soon as Ukraine is fully occupied?

> Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania were always part of "Russia"

No it wasn't. Here's a quick timeline of Estonia.

   1219–1346 (127 years): Danish Kingdom
   1346-1561 (215 years): Livonia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
   1561–1710 (149 years): Swedish Empire
   1710–1917 (207 years): Russian Empire
   1944–1991 (47 years): Soviets

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

#656

Post by int_19h »

niemandhier wrote: post #437
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #23

The bad news: there is some real potential for escalation due to the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/indias-water... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Waters_Treaty Wasn't there something in the intro of "Mad Max fury road" about water wars?

This is probably the only real dangerous point at the moment. Neither side gains to win much from a conflict, but should India really tamper with the water supply I hope they consult their economists first. Otherwise Pakistan has little choice but instantly commit to a full war. The reason: A significant amount of the food produced in Pakistan directly depends on the water from the river Indus. Even a moderate water…

> Neither side gains to win much from a conflict,

If you mean people as a whole, sure. But it's not people who decide, it's the governments. And war is a tried and true measure for authoritarians of all stripes to use as an excuse to consolidate their power and rally the public. Because, well, it works - so long as you're on the winning side. But, given the history of Indo-Pak wars, I could see why the Indian government might believe that they'll win any open military confrontation that their actions may provoke.

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

#657

Post by enugu »

int_19h wrote: post #651
enugu wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting off water supply is clearly the bigger threat. However, it involves a longer time frame - building infrastructure which one expects not to use in a normal situation. Importantly, even once built, it selects the wrong targets, not terrorists or military bases - but regular people who will be faced with scarcity of water and food, as the crops use Indus water. This would be something highly unethical, and also…

What force, though? Israel does something similar, and how much actual pushback (as opposed to sternly worded statements) did it actually get? Even if it were to translate to sanctions, I'm not so sure BJP wouldn't welcome it. "The Fatherland is besieged, let's unite together around Dear Leader and fight back like one" tends to be a very popular take in authoritarian countries for a reason, and it's that much easier…

Dont buy your description of India. Elections matter, BJP can and does lose many elections, India is dependent on oil from Gulf countries, it doesn't have US to shield it from actions which it shouldn't even be doing in the first place, there are much better options against Pakistan etc.

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

#658

Post by buyucu »

ngc248 wrote: post #419
saagarjha wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, fascism can take a lot of forms. Just because you're not hitting every single manifestation doesn't mean it's not fascism. I mean, here in the US Trump lost the 2020 election, then picked up a majority again and is currently doing some pretty fascist stuff.

If retaliating against a nation which does asymmetric warfare via terrorism is being a facist, then so be it.

India is not retaliating. India is the agressor here.

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

#659

Post by ashoeafoot »

enugu wrote: post #482
lmm wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should the terror attacks in the US or France not have had a military response? Probably, yes. Military responses to terrorism are almost always counterproductive. I don't know which specific attacks you're talking about, but the ones I can think of the US did far more damage to itself with the blowback than the original attack ever achieved.

Note that I am not referring to the prolonged occupation of Afghanistan, much less of Iraq here. Rather, something like a strike which targets bin Laden and other organizers of the terrorist attack.

we wenr green and attacked oil revenues that financed terror.

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

#660

Post by selivanovp »

ponector wrote: post #602
krisoft wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No one is going to deploy nukes. They have no use against the troops. To level enemy city? Mass casualties, but would not help to win the modern war. That's why there was no sense for Ukraine to keep nukes. They should have kept strategic bombers, though.

They had neither money nor ability to support their bombers. And that’s why they happily cut them to pieces for US dollars. Russia managed to get just a part of the fleet thanks to massive gas debt already accumulated by Ukraine back then.
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