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 aircraft and a drone. However, so far, they haven't provided any pictures or locations to support these claims. Both sides will likely exchange fire along the border, and the situation will eventually calm down. Each side will claim victory in its own way.
> They were unable to locate the terrorists even after two or three weeks and needed a distraction.
This does not make sense. When France attacked Daesh in 2015 after the terrorist attacks in Paris or when the US attacked Afghanistan after 9/11, the objective wasn't to target the exact people who carried out the attacks, but the organization behind the attacks. People can always be found as long as the organization remains.
The goal of the attacks would be to make any future terrorist attack an expensive option for the Pakistani military as opposed to something which can be done routinely. There was a sharp drop in the terrorist attacks in Kashmir after the 2019 confrontation.
>when the US attacked Afghanistan after 9/11, the objective wasn't to target the exact people who carried out the attacks, but the organization behind the attacks
The mission in Afghanistan was very much to find Bin Laden. It was changed after he escaped.
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 easily become the new normal again.
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 not something sustainable - once visuals of hunger start reaching screens across the world, the force to restart the supply would be strong.
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.
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.
India is also buying oil from Russia - at a discount, or used to - because it is one of the few that could do so openly.
Attacking Pakistan over this also strengthens BJP’s hand and distracts everyone from the complaints that have been eroding their support, like ongoing corruption, high taxes with lower quality of life, etc. etc.
Don’t expect the gulf countries to come to Pakistan’s aid over this, especially if it comes to money. Muslim countries in general like to pretend to be friends, and they certainly talk a big game.
When it comes to actually doing anything though, they just use anything going on as a chance to stab each other in the back. Even when there is a chance for going after ‘the common enemy’ like Israel.
India hasn’t even been close to interesting to any of them since the Mughals. The minority Muslim population in India (about 20%) is also just a little less than Pakistans entire population, and almost half of the entire Middle East’s population, so it’s not like it would be a clean ‘attack the Hindu’s’ type situation anyway.
Also, Indians in general are not particularly warmongering, but this is about as righteous a cause as anyone has been able to come up with for awhile to ‘make someone pay’, is total rage bait for the hardliners/Hindutva contingent and is a good distraction for BJP.
As long as it doesn’t get too expensive, or look like it will escalate to Nuclear war, I’d expect it to go on awhile.
India in general loves to get all worked up about Pakistan (and to a lesser extent Bangladesh, though in that case it’s often about illegal immigrants).
It’s a trope like getting worked up about Cartels and/or ‘the illegals’ from down South in the US.
Source: westerner living in India for awhile now. मैं हिंदी नहीं बोल सकता, but I still get around eh?
> Attacking Pakistan over this also strengthens BJP’s hand and distracts everyone from the complaints that have been eroding their support, like ongoing corruption, high taxes with lower quality of life, etc. etc.
This won't last long, though. BJP lost the elections after Kargil War.
I'm not saying that India is full-on authoritarian today. But it's definitely edging in that direction under BJP, and I could see them embracing the war as their ultimate ticket to get there. I mean, if there is a shooting war with Pakistan, and they can credibly blame Pakistan for starting it, what will it do to BJP electoral standing?
As far as US, under Trump, I'd actually expect it to back Modi.
We could have gone after the people who actually did 9/11 but that was a bit of a non-starter. Also I think you're equivocating between multiple interpretations of "the terrorists" when most people absolutely wouldn't draw a distinguishing line between, using 9/11 as an example again, the actual hijackers and Osama bin Laden. There's absolutely no question that any time the phrase "the 9/11 terrorists" is used it means both the actual perpetrators and the people who planned and supported the attack.
The context was a reply to an assertion that the terrorists in Pahalgam were not found by Indian security. I interpreted this as people who physically did the attack.
If by terrorists, we mean the planners of the operation, that trail leads directly to Pakistan. Musharraf, the ex-army chief, is on record saying that the military has funded several militant organizations in Kashmir including LeT. (Osama's haveli in Abbotabad was incidentally also very close to the Pakistan Military Academy). The permission for the operations probably came all the way from the top as the attack came right after a strong statement on Kashmir by the army chief.
"funding militant organizations" isn't the same as committing acts of terrorism. Nobody would have said the US should have responded to the 9/11 attacks with airstrikes on the CIA headquarters.
We are not talking about re-targeting of training and weapons from Afghanistan to Manhattan, but direct planning of an attack with ability to restrain and release the groups on demand. Contra the truthers, even the CIA wouldn't go that far. Musharraf explicitly mentioned the groups operating in Kashmir. He wasn't talking about fighters in Afghanistan.
The CIA wouldn't go that far? Operation Northwoods [1] is obvious evidence to the contrary. The one and only reason that that operation wasn't carried out is because of a President who refused to sign on to it, who would shortly thereafter be assassinated by a 'deluded gunman.' [2]
> There was a sharp drop in the terrorist attacks in Kashmir after the 2019 confrontation.
There were fewer terrorist attacks, certainly. I'm sure the Indian government would like to believe that the 2019 strike had an effect, but far more likely causes are
- Money. Pakistan's economy has stagnated and the country has lurched from one IMF bailout to the next (2019, 2023, 2024). It got so bad at one point that politicians were asking people to drink less tea so they could conserve foreign currency.
- Covid. Affected everything, but certainly harder to think about waging conflict when such a massive problem is affecting the country.
- Internal political instability, especially when Imran Khan took on the military and lost. The military was actually in danger of losing their primacy for the first time in decades.
- Conflict with the Taliban and Pakistani Taliban. The ISI had nurtured the Taliban to be tame pets and it turned out not to be the case. Crushing these was the highest priority, not least because it made their policy of nurturing terrorists look idiotic.
All of these factors meant Pakistan wasn't and isn't in the best shape to wage war overtly or covertly with India. India's economy has continued to grow, in contrast to Pakistan. The official Indian policy of "benign neglect" towards Pakistan appeared to work well.
I'm sure these attacks will be spun as a success in the future. Safe to say a Bollywood movie dramatising the events is already in the works. But Pakistan's own economic and political problems are far more likely to influence its decisions to engage in this sort of behaviour.
If you are actually arguing that a country targeted by a terrorist attack does not gain deterrence with a counterstrike relative to letting things go on, then how uniform do you consider this prescription? Should the terror attacks in the US or France not have had a military response?
What happens to the incentives of terror groups in response to such a policy?
---
The role of money only becomes an issue when conducting a terrorist attack becomes expensive. Missiles and jets consume much more money in comparison to training recruits via an intermediary organization like LeT and sending them across the border to carry out attacks.
A regime in which a terror attack leads to a high pressure, expensive situation for the Pakistani military is completely different from regularly scheduled, train and deploy terror attacks from militants which used to happen earlier.
In that situation, the military has to respond to economic pressure, pressure from allies and pressure from its own people.
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 boogeyman to justify their interference in politics and economic exploitation. But now that India has attacked Pakistani targets this will quiet any internal criticism of the Pakistani Army.
In other words, the military absolutely loves it when India engages in so-called deterrence. No Pakistani army soldier died (according to both sides). Pakistani people support the Pakistani Army more strongly than ever. It's absolutely perfect for the Army. I fully expect that they'll fund more terrorists, leading to a constant cycle of violence.
> 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.
Yes, an outside target can be used to tackle internal strife. But, there is no sign that the Pakistani army is actually in any danger of being removed from power, barring a major military defeat, nor that it will lose its autonomy over military policy.
If say, India were to let this slide, the default outcome is another such attack. Given the above motivation of the military to create a conflict and the ideological bent seen in Gen.Munir's speech, the expected outcome would be to repeat till this they get a conflict.
Yes, the deterrence won't be perfect. The Pakistan Army might end up repeating an attack whenever there is a relief from economic constraints(it doesn't have money for frequent purchases of expensive weapons) or from pressure from its allies (who dont want their oil trade or pipelines to suffer). But this means that what India has to do to minimize the number of attacks is to not let an attack slide by with low cost for the army.
The best case scenario would be a peace deal, as was arrived in Vajpayee and Sharif's time, but it was sabotaged by the Kargil operation, for exactly the reason you mentioned - a peace deal marginalises the army.
I don’t think Pakistan orchestrated the last attack.
The structure was designed for being disavowed.
I expect it was more the army looked away, over condoned.
And yes, the expectations are to generate a response from the BJP.
By this rubric there are 4 actors on the stage.
- The people of Pakistan, the Pakistani army,
- The people of India, the BJP.
I’ve had this discussion with friends who are Pakistani and they concur that this makes the most sense.
The opinions of the Pakistani army have dramatically changed as per their interactions, having been at a nadir due to their domestic handling of events, and now these actions have reinvigorated public opinion.
The BJP has had its military credentials burnished.
I’d go a step deeper and suspect that there was a traditional response from India planned, and then at some point in the past 72 hours, a functionary on the BJP side raised the potential of a massive PR coup and the old guard got sidelined.
This has worked. This means this behavior will be repeated.
> I expect it was more the army looked away, over condoned.
Right, in the exact same way they "looked away" while OBL lived half a mile away from the most prestigious military academy in Pakistan and the same way they "over condoned" the Taj hotel shootings. You are not disagreeing with me here.
> The opinions of the Pakistani army have dramatically changed as per their interactions, having been at a nadir due to their domestic handling of events, and now these actions have reinvigorated public opinion.
This line describes Hamas just as well as the Pakistani state, unfortunately.
> The BJP has had its military credentials burnished.
Indian media always has been and always will be jingoistic and no matter how the government responded, it would gleefully report on the power of the Indian military.
> This has worked. This means this behavior will be repeated.
WHO has this worked for? The BJP isn't more popular because of this. Pakistan hasn't achieved any strategic goals beyond the continuing destabilization of J&K - which is already well on the way to integration.
> 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.
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?
So maybe say which specific military responses you want to talk about in the first place rather than just saying "the terror attacks in the US or France" and expecting everyone to read your mind.
> What happens to the incentives of terror groups in response to such a policy?
You're imagining these people to be some sort of loyalists, rather than something closer to anarchists. Triggering military responses is going to be viewed as a bonus.
I'll note people rather frequently claimed Bin Laden wanted the US to be tied up in the military quagmire that their terror attacks produced. There's certainly some logic to that idea. His organization was too small to do much direct damage.
> 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.
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 doubtful nukes would be used). The only other realistic situation where nukes are used is in an accidental scenario.
That is why conventional military strength is still very much important in the world now. The Europeans are finding this out a bit late.
It's also why Putin is a great actor and bluffer. Trust me, he's the last person who would think of using nukes, despite appearances to the contrary. Now, if he were to somehow use nukes on an actual populated area, I believe the western powers would NOT use nukes in retaliation, so it seems like he would have a found a way out of MAD. But, the conventional response (likely a containment rather than an attack on Russia, e.g., a no fly zone and destruction of military assets, with the threat of nuclear retaliation backing it up) would be so strong that the Russia would be effectively neutralized. If they persist in nuking, then all bets are off, WW3 begins, and civilization could end.
They did transport those nukes in unmarked army trucks in normal traffic with only light guard , out of fear other nations (like the us) could step in to take the toys away, which was a constant background noise during the Afghanistan war. This nations secret service (ISI) has trained,armed and send terrorist groups into other nations. Bin Laden was found in a compound in a garrison city. Those djihadis do believe in that paradise afterlife of theirs no matter how much you belittle their faith. They say how little they value lifes proud and openly . Please stop projecting western sentiments on another culture for once and listen, just listen to what they say. I dont want to eat closed loop greenhouse produce for the rest of my halflife just because somebody who grew up in a golden surplus time is unwilling to engage in grim realities, to prevent them .
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.
IDK Man. There was no institutional power in the US that seemed to make a serious effort when a known international pe*o peddler mysteriously unalived himeself. Somone with direct personal relationships with British Royalty, US Presidents (among other Gov Officials), and some of the richest men in the western world (eg Bill Gates). Apparently terabytes of video tapes gone.
Also note his island has a full on Egyptian Temple on it, and no-one has any idea what's underground.
None of these things are disputed. Sounds pretty Satanic and International to me.
Let me put it this way. US has a strong enough military that it could do so if it really wanted, but it would involve a lot of casualties. I doubt that the American public would be willing to sustain the amount it would require.
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.
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.
Consider: willing but unable to fight any more, overpowered, and unwilling to surrender. That's where launching nukes, the ultimate weapon of retaliation, could look very enticing.
More important ,ever since the multipolar great games resumed , they will have customers for nukes. Trump really was the final nail on deterence reliance ..
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.
I think you're mostly correct. This does mirror the 2019 flare up, and yeah ultimately neither side wants their populace to figure out they're not as strong or prepared as they claim. For Pakistan after squashing the democratically popular leader, they can't afford to appear weak (the only thing they can lean on is strength to explain to the populace why they are better than a democratically elected leader). For India, also, the BJP has been waning in popularity after almost a decade of incumbency, this could be the straw that loses them their major support.
This isn’t how anything works. Both India and Pakistan depend on imported military hardware. Every time they’ve fought each other they’ve been embargoed. So every kind of engagement has an implicit timer before the military literally runs out of munitions to continue any kind of serious war.
This is what then PM Nawaz Sharif said about Kargil war:
> After the war, Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan during the Kargil conflict, claimed that he was unaware of the plans, and that he first learned about the situation when he received an urgent phone call from Atal Bihari Vajpayee, his counterpart in India. Sharif attributed the plan to Musharraf and "just two or three of his cronies", a view shared by some Pakistani writers who have stated that only four generals, including Musharraf, knew of the plan.
Possible he was lying. But this is an accepted view even in the Pakistan.
Pakistan has everything to lose. They are totally dependent on India for reliable water supply, i.e. for getting something other thana drought-flood cycle.
Military action is only going to lead to India being less willing to give them an even supply. They are totally dependent on keeping India happy, and now of course, they've failed to do that by allowing these recent murders.
Pakistan has a population of 250 million people. But, of course, an army can go rogue regardless; they have no need to follow the words of economists (or anyone, really).
It's also worth pointing out that whatever nonsense the terrorists were on about will now just get reinforced. You could be talking about a more agitated situation with even more terror attacks. This is how bullshit like this escalates. They should have coordinated with Pakistan to run the strikes.
I also thought the Ukraine war wasn't "really" going to happen. Humans will human.
> They should have coordinated with Pakistan to run the strikes.
I think the past 30 years have demonstrated enough that Pakistan is only paying lip service when they denounce attacks like this
At best they don't care, and at worst they sponsor the terrorists directly, but they definitely are not trying to help anyone stop attacks like this or root out their extremists
Pakistan has a concept of good terrorists and bad terrorists. Terrorists against India (JeM, LeT) are good terrorists. They are protected and trained by Pakistan army (e.g. protection given to JeM leader). Good terrorists are sometimes declared dead to avoid international scrutiny while protected clandestinely (Sajid Mir).
Bad terrorists are of course that attack Pakistani Army (e.g. Baloch Liberation Army).
Notable is how Osama was protected by Pakistan army as he was a useful indirect source of income (war on terror)
Indias attack was aimed at the Good Terrorists of Pakistan. The hope is to reduce their capabilities. Not sure how much successful they have been though.
LeT is a state sponsored terrorist organization. It was founded by General Zia as he proudly declaimed that he would "Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts". I suggest reading the books written by Pak Generals to know that they fully believe in investing in militant/terror organizations - it is a firm and unalienable part of their military culture. Such a culture was actually encouraged by the US initially before the 9/11 blow-back.
Geopolitical decisions like this are always ‘least bad’. The Modi gov’t in India is not as strong as it looks, and they couldn’t continue to function if they let such a high profile and obviously religiously motivated terrorist attack go ‘unanswered’.
The water threats are the real leverage, but without some obvious military action they’d be skinned alive by the Hindu hardliners (Hindutvas).
Pakistanis themselves are subject to numerous terror incidents. I'm not sure what causes folks to automatically assume Muslim nations support "extremists" as a policy. Sure, there may be power brokers who do, but that's the case for any country, democratic or not.
On 16 December 2014, six gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan [attacked] the Army Public School in Peshawar. The terrorists ... [a Chechen, 3 Arabs and 2 Afghans] opened fire ... killing 149 people including 132 school children, making it the world's fifth deadliest school massacre ... led to Pakistan establishing the National Action Plan to crack down on terrorism.
> They should have coordinated with Pakistan to run the strikes.
Like when America coordinated with Pakistan to grab Osama? Actually no, they didn't coordinate with Pakistan because the terrorist was being harboured by the Pakistani military. Coordinating would have had the same effect as tipping the terrorist off and letting him escape.
Your comment assumes that Pakistan doesn't view harbouring and training terrorists as a legitimate way to conduct their foreign policy.
This always seems really disingenuous to me. He was hiding in an extremely concealed manner. Never ever went outside, and it's not as if the Pakistani military can just break into every house nearby and search for him everywhere.
How they caught him was crazy in and of itself, and required fake vaccination drives, another thing no military can do to its own people to catch terrorists.
I really don't think they are blameless at all, at all, but this kind of stuff feels conspiracy-level to me. This was the most wanted guy in the world, no country, no army could plausibly have concealed him and coordinated that effort to keep him hidden. Someone along the chain would have given him up
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 coordination with any intelligence service.
I also don't get what Pakistan gains from sheltering him. Turning him into the US aids them tremendously, and Al Qaeda was not a valuable or useful asset for years before Bin Laden was found. New groups were forming at the time as well, so they could have easily turned him and handed the money over to those groups which had beef with him anyways. Again, it's all assuming they were sheltering him knowingly.
Like I said before. He was very close by, but he was locked down in a compound. How many people here on HN know anything about the people or activities going on in the house 2 blocks away from them? The army also cannot just search everyone's house randomly.
Consider India, they equally have pretty poor competence with catching terrorists. Many of the biggest terrorist attacks in India were not caught and evaded detection. Even the latest terrorists seem to have evaded detection. Pakistan doesn't have a far more advanced security service. Isn't it far more likely they are incompetent? Idk, the harboring Bin Laden claim never made much sense and Occam's Razor always told me the most likely option is probably the real one, in the absence of any hard evidence.
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.
It's very possible that some people sheltered him outside of the official policy or whatever. It's even possible that it was ISI / Pak gov't official policy, but again there's no proof of any of these things.
It is also possible, that he just was able to hide from the entire world close to an army base in a compound he never exited from, never approached a window near, and never accessed internet from.
Everything is possible, there's no proof either way. And I don't see what the govt or army or ISI would gain from harboring him as a policy matter. If someone is crazy and personally helped out, that's not what most people are even implying is it? That's much more reasonable and doesn't really have much to do with the current conflict and the claim that the latest terror attack was sponsored by Pakistan (again, possible but not proven)
Please read about Dr. Shakil Afridi. The doctor who helped CIA find Laden has been in Pakistani prison for a decade plus now, on false drummed up charges.
Why are you sure that Pakistan is not supporting terrorists now, after decades and decades of evidence otherwise?
I know about him. Idk, if you ever lived in India, you'd know the govt puts people in jail on trumped up charges all the time. Pakistan is probably the same. And this guy did do a fake vaccination drive for a foreign power. Indian police would have dealt with him the same probably...
As for evidence, there isn't hard evidence that Pakistan supported Bin Laden. And I'd expect that after he was caught. The US, where many ministers and army personnel and intelligence chiefs were skeptical when he was found, eventually said there was no hard evidence linking Pakistan secret services to Bin Laden. They were so skeptical of this link that they didn't tell them the nature of the raid which found him, for fear of tipping him off.
I think it's just what it looks like on the surface. It looks suspicious, so that's why everyone was suspicious. But when we looked into it, it wasn't what it looked like.
I don't doubt Pakistan supports some proxy terrorists. That is what nearly every nation-state does these days. I just doubt they sheltered Bin Laden, worth far more to them in US hands than elsewhere, after seeing what they did in Afghanistan to the last group who sheltered him, way past his prime. That too while being good enough to scrub any evidence of the connection? I just don't think there's motive or proof of it
Lol, whats disingenuous is your arguments, honestly. So, either you have to argue that Pakistan's military is extremely idiotic / naive that it could not even detect a known terrorist living just around the corner or you have to argue that they knowingly kept him in their "shadow". The vast majority of the people believe its the latter - you are free to believe that they were idiots.
I do think the Pakistani intelligence and military are probably as competent as the Indian ones given the money, similar levels of development of state, etc. And Indian intelligences are not Mossad-level in any way. My belief is that they didn't know and were embarrassed. I mean, what would they gain from harboring Bin Laden, so wanted he can barely move anywhere, and Al Qaeda, a group that's basically been useless since way before his capture? There are new groups they could fund and arm all while giving up Bin Laden. They already caught and turned over other AQ figures before, so even if they sponsored other terror groups, why keep him?
Pakistan is not a rational state. The stated sole purpose of their intelligence agency ISI is the destabilization of India. The terrorists are backed, sheltered and armed by the government. There’s a reason bin Laden successfully hid there for so long.
These are actually well charted waters - people are shooting at each other and some fairly high percentage of the time everything calms down but the rest of the time it escalates crazily with both sides losing control. Situation as old as time, long rich history of provocative military action.
I observe from time to time that Moscow appears to be under fire from the occasional US-sponsored attack for example. So far, so good. Most of the time things don't go terribly wrong, just the worst case scenarios here are quite grim. The India-Pakistan situation is probably a bit safer because anything catastrophic is likely to just kill millions/billions of people in India and Pakistan instead of an entire hemisphere of carnage.
The US is definitely sponsoring Ukraine in the war together with the EU so when Ukraine attacks Moscow, which it is currently doing regularly, it seems like that’s a fair characterization. If Russia were strong enough they would surely be responding to those attacks not only by hitting Ukraine but their “sponsors” too.
> Pakistan is not economically strong enough to participate in a war, and India is not interested
Proxy war between U.S. and China. We’re moving the naval assets that were bombing the Houthis. India seizing Pakistan-administered Kashmir cuts Islamabad off from China.
"However, Pakistan was a valuable diplomatic partner, and its government helped the United States achieve a rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s."
"U.S. prestige was damaged in both nations, in Pakistan for failing to help prevent the loss of East Pakistan and in India for supporting the brutality of the Pakistani regime’s actions"
Historic policies don't apply to the current administration. It's really anybody's guess at this point what the US would do if this conflict ratchets up significantly.
> US isn't interested in picking sides. Historically it has tried to be friendly with both
Sure, but one side offers clear benefits over the "ally from hell." (Islamabad, at the very least, has clearly picked a side.)
Also, I'm not arguing what I think will happen. I'm arguing how this could escalate. And the only way I see it doing so is (a) someone bombs the wrong thing or (b) Beijing or Washington see an opportunity to win chips.
> Pakistan-India conflict is orthogonal to America and China's
India is negotiating trade deals and weapons purchases with the West. (Historically, Moscow was its security source.) Pakistan got some F-16s in 2022, but otherwise has been deepending ties with Beijing. It's wild to suggest America's cold war with China is orthogonal to this conflict.
Ask a random Indian in India whether he'd be willing to die for the US. The US and China have interests in the area, so maybe I shouldn't have said the word "orthogonal". But the original commenter said a conflict between India and Pakistan would be a "US-China proxy war". Come on. India and Pakistan have enough reasons to hate each other. They don't need America or China's goading. And neither India nor Pakistan would accept their conflict being characterized as a US-China war.
>This is how proxy wars work. They literally don’t if the proxies realise they’re fighting a foreign war on their homeland.
India and pakistan have contested boundaries and their hostilities doesn't depend on foreign powers. Interestingly, when the hostilities between china and india flared up in 2021, and india moved many divisions from its pakistan border to its chinese border, pakistan didn't change its posturing to put pressure on india. This was acknowledged by indian army during a press briefing. Both so far have never fought against each other for foreign powers, but have fought against each other for their own reasons. So no proxy wars so far.
> India and pakistan have contested boundaries and their hostilities doesn't depend on foreign powers
Yes? That’s what lends it proxy war potential. An endemic war. Like, there were actual conflicts in e.g. Vietnam and Afghanistan before they became proxy wars. Those same risk factors are present today.
CPEC isn't viable energy coordidor yet - no completed oil/gas infra from Iran to Pak to PRC. Which only leaves trucks, and the roads not designed to support 5000+ trucks per day for Irans 1m barrels per day.
> Thats how Us operates: exploits old conflicts for its own immediate benefit, like it did with Ukr-Rus war.
This is realpolitik 101, and every powerful society does it. Like, India didn't help sever Bangladesh f/k/a East Pakistan from Islamabad because it was being nice. (I'm not saying every society exploits every old conflict. Just that if you need to do something, you start with extant fault lines. Like, if you're going to war with Nazi Germany you don't sideline the Soviets and British because that's mean or whatnot.)
Also, the problem with Pakistan isn't that its ports could be used to import oil. It's that the ports are being configured for Chinese blue-water operations.
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 supply reduction would lead to a loss of around 10% of the harvest.
That does not sound like much, BUT economically food is a commodity with low 'elasticity', meaning demand does not really go down with reduced supply.
The result would therefore be a doubling of food prices.
In a country where people have little dispensable income, that means wide spread famine.
By all measures India is the more powerful state, but as Ukraine demonstrates:
Desperation can make up for a lot of disadvantage.
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.
>Even a moderate water supply reduction would lead to a loss of around 10% of the harvest.
If that's the case then the die is already cast. Early in the conflict, India released too much water on the Chenub too early for the season as a way to punish Pakistan. The quantity of water was such that Pakistan had no choice but to let it run off to the sea. This now means that the upstream Indian reservoir will not have enough water to release during regular season where coordinated releases ensure farmers have an uninterrupted supply during certain critical time periods.
Ukraine was desperate in 2014, when the Green Men arrived. In 2022 they were already anticipating an invasion, just didn't know when exactly it would occur.
Overstated. There isn't any long term locking capabilities on most rivers under the IWT.
The only one India is messing with is the Chenab, and only because it messes up Pakistan's Rice and Sugar exports (major forex provider for Pakistan, and the supply chain is heavily owned by Pakistan's MilBus). Kharif sowing season ends in a couple weeks so messing with the Chenab for 3-4 weeks is enough to destroy the rice harvest in Northeast Punjab.
I recommend reading Ayesha Siddiqui's "Military Inc" to understand the Pakistani army (she was forced into exile because of the book), and "Army and Nation" by Steven Wilkinson to understand India's army.
Following the suspension of the treaty, India significantly reduced the flow of water through the Chenab River, which crosses into Pakistan. Pakistani authorities claimed a 90% drop in water supply and accused India of choking the river’s flow. India also initiated new hydroelectric projects and began constructing dams on the western rivers, actions previously constrained under the treaty.[125][126][127]
Pakistan has reportedly warned that any attempt by India to disrupt the flow of water from shared rivers could be considered an act of war, and would attack India with nuclear weapons.[128]
Just sounds like a good deterrence for Pakistan to not go to war to me. It really is in their hands right now.
India just wants to save face over the terror attacks, a very easy game to play diplomatically. This missile strike was even smaller and more symbolic than even the Israeli Iranian ones. And those two are much more inclined (and far more prepared) to do something stupid.
> Overstated. There isn't any long term locking capabilities on most rivers under the IWT.
India could build water channel, in style of China's South North water transfer project in less than half decade. Huge dams aren't really needed for just diversion, if India is really serious about it.
> there is some real potential for escalation due to the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty
Neither side wants peace. But neither side wants to commit military manoeuvre that secures strategic aims. So we get this defence sale wet dream of a forever war instead.
India wants peace. A peaceful India threatens Pakistan's entire existence as a military state. Therefore, Pakistan keeps instigating with outrageously cruel terrorist attacks.
There are no strategic goals here. Either side may recover some vantage points high up in the Himalayas. But that's about it.
Israel did want peace with Gaza (Gaza specifically, not West Bank). After the 2005 Gaza disengagement, Israel did a lot to normalize relations with Gaza. They wanted peace until they gave up all attempts to do so, after October 7th.
Peace implies disengagement by maintaining long-standing borders. India wants peace by maintaining Line of Actual Control (LAC). Be it China or Pakistan, India has never been the one to escalate first. When engaging with nations that want peace, India has been able to resolve complex border issues. Eg: Srilanka[1] and Bangladesh [2].
Russia and China do not want peace because they are invading past their effective borders into lands they do not control.
All wars are not defensive. All countries are not the same. Each war is different, and it is fair to impose different judgements on the participants of each war.
> Peace implies disengagement by maintaining long-standing borders.
Before I write a novel of a response, can you rigorously define "long-standing borders", as well as the implied words of "nation", "country", and "state"? How far back in history is "long standing" valid for? Some of these things are matters of history, how do you deal with historians disagreeing on the ground truth? What happens when someone strongly asserts something that is factually untrue?
All wars are defensive in that the combatants are told they are defending, not attacking. Russians in Ukraine don't think they are attacking, they think they are defending Russia from NATO or de-nazifying Ukraine, or at least that is their national narrative.
Mostly I think your post proved my overall point, which is that peace is not a meaningful word because its meaning is relative to its speakers beliefs rather than in reference to a universalize-able moral framework describing about what justice is.
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).
> 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).
Common street robbers want peace too. They want to rob you of your property as peacefully as possible. They very much want you to just surrender and let it happen.
Violence is usually conditional. It comes with instructions on how to avoid it. Let the criminal take your things and he won't shoot you. Let us take this territory and you won't be killed. If you surrender and submit to our rule, you will have your peace. It's just that the cost is your land, your economy, your freedom, your secuity, your dignity, your pride, your self-determination
The key fact about violence is nobody actually wants it. Everybody wants peace. At the same time, everybody also wants scarce resources that others are unwilling to just hand over to them. So they use the threat of violence to get what they want. Actual violence is risky and all bets are off once it escalates. Without the threat of violence though, why negotiate when you can just take?
So there's a lot of nuance to "peace". India cannot claim to want peace and then suspend a treaty that provides vital water resources to Pakistan. Pakistan cannot claim to want peace and at the same time support insurgency against India. All of these things will obviously escalate the situtation until it erupts into war.
I didn’t read it that way. I read it more that saying India is a peaceful nation is probably not the full truth. As a third party I always had the impression this was one of those tit for tat forever wars. Each attack there is usually an antagonist but over the whole course it’s muddy.
Not really. There are options for a negotiated peace that involves swapping land, specifically, ceding Muslim-dominant territory to Pakistan and setting borders along rivers. That's anathema in India because there is broad-based antipathy towards Islamabad, historically, and Muslims, recently.
Why would India do that? Why would a unilateral surrender of land be considered valid terms for peace?
> swapping land
In a fair swap, what land would Pakistan offer in exchange?
> Muslims, recently
Pakistan doesn't have a stellar reputation for treatment of its Muslim minorities (Ahmediyyas, Ismailis) and non-Punjabi muslims (Balochis, Pasthuns, once-Pakistani-Bengalis). I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most muslim denominations.
____
Note: Pakistan's historic terror attacks have been deep in India soil (Mumbai, Delh). There is no indication that they'd maintain peace with India if they gained control over Kashmir.
> 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. One of the elements would almost certainly be co-ordinated anti-terrorist policing. Maybe guaranteed by China.
> I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most muslim denominations
I am, too. But let's be honest, neither side is concerned with the wellbeing of anyone in Kashmir.
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.
> 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.
> I'd add that the citizens of both countries legitimately despise each other
I've been to towns on both sides throughout the years and this isn't the case everywhere. Though, disagreements do run deep, as contrasting narratives are in fact mainstream talking points.
Hopefully, in my lifetime, the countries resolve their differences & cast aside the hateful fringe like they should.
> negotiating borders
That's a very different thing to "decolonisation".
India is 1.6bn people and even if 7% disagree, that's a 100mn people (and the number is far greater than 7%). Not everyone is a right-wing nationalist, though, the ruling parties and the now-compromised MSMs are.
> I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most muslim denominations.
Come on. You can't live in India and think this seriously.
Anyways, the Kashmir issue is contentious but Kashmiris never got to say whether they should be part of India or not, unlike most states and people during partition. I am very aware the full history of the region is murky and that the removal of Kashmiri Pandits from the region led to the current broad swath of support for Kashmiri independence (or becoming a part of Pakistan, either way being separate from India), but the current situation is what it is, and until that is resolved it will continue to be an issue in India.
> Pakistan's historic terror attacks have been deep in India soil
India is said to sponsor Balochistan separatism as well, those groups have also made attacks deep into Pakistan, so again, no indication that either side will remain peaceful if the Kashmiri conflict ended.
You're right. I guess I should not have extrapolated it. I meant in Northern India mostly. I have heard also in South there is little communal violence comparatively.
One moment you say India wants peace, the next you question why India would make compromises that might lead to peace.
You know how this looks from a position outside the conflict, right? Can you imagine a Paskistani perspective? Put yourself on the other side. Imagine what it would take for peace from that point of view.
> involves swapping land, specifically, ceding Muslim-dominant territory to Pakistan
The sectors on the Indian side where fighting is happening right now in Jammu Division are 50-50 Muslim-Hindu/Sikh. What you are advocating would lead to Yugoslav style ethnic cleansing.
> setting borders along rivers
It already is that on the LoC, or mountain faces where rivers are not existent.
> What you are advocating would lead to Yugoslav style ethnic cleansing
Yes. When you have a sectarian conflict, the only lasting solution is moving people around. Hateful people don’t learn to stop hating each other. Particularly not when you’re dealing with the levels of education in J&K.
> It already is that on the LoC, or mountain faces where rivers are not existent
And. Having a river with a sectarian cross isn’t useful.
This stuff is hard and controversial. It takes work. My point is nobody is particularly interested in that work versus leaving the region in a low simmer.
> Yes. When you have a sectarian conflict, the only lasting solution is moving people around. Hateful people don’t learn to stop hating each other.
Jammu Division is an entirely separate ethnic community (Pahari) from that in Kashmir Division (Koshur).
Even during the worst of the partition and the Indo-Pak Wars, the mountain areas where active fighting was occurring never saw the same kind of religious violence you'd see in neighboring Kashmir or Punjabi speaking areas like Jammu City or Mirpur City.
This would be solving a non-existent problem, as the leadership making decisions for conflicts on or around the LoC are not from these regions.
And btw, the Indian and Pakistani army did attempt that when my grandmother was a child, but it didn't stick and people from one side or the other would just cross back - and this was the norm until the 1980s.
---------------
There are ways to resolve the problem longer term, and that requires forcing professionalization of the Pakistani Armed Forces and cajoling India back to the negotiating table using the carrot and the stick. Similar precedent already exists with the Israel-Egypt peace accords under Sadat, and would have happened under Bajwa, Nawaz Sharif, or Musharraf if they weren't undermined.
> leadership making decisions for conflicts on or around the LoC are not from these regions
The people in the region are pretty much irrelevant, one can successfuly model the conflict as a proxy war between New Delhi and Islamabad. Their interests are particular to the borders in the region, namely, access to waterm, China and the other side's Kashmir.
> ways to resolve the problem longer term, and that requires forcing professionalization of the Pakistani Armed Forces and cajoling India back to the negotiating table using the carrot and the stick. Similar precedent already exists with the Israel-Egypt peace accords under Sadat
This is a solution from a different era. The current borders are unstable and thus unsustainable. Between proxy forces and the militarisation of the South China Sea, we're kicking the can down the road until someone acts decisively.
The game theory is that kicking the can down the road works for both sides. There isn't a pressing need for peace between India and Pakistan, just not nuclear conflict. And that's achieved with a Korean Peninsula-esque stalemate. The problem is either side gaining an advantage resolves the issue, and the later that happens the more destructive the resolution would be. (Think: Pakistan gaining top-of-the-line Sino-Russian missile defence.) And both sides know that ex ante. So we have a prisoner's dilemma without the common enemy (and common ally) that animated Tel Aviv and Cairo.
> Yes. When you have a sectarian conflict, the only lasting solution is moving people around. Hateful people don’t learn to stop hating each other. Particularly not when you’re dealing with the levels of education in J&K.
"We should do my poorly thought out plan because they're too dumb to stop killing each other" is not a reasonable way to discuss geopolitics.
> There are options for a negotiated peace that involves swapping land, specifically, ceding Muslim-dominant territory to Pakistan and setting borders along rivers.
Sorry, why would that be done? When Pakistan was split from India, because of the Muslims voting against their own land that they have been living in for centuries, the lines are set and done.
Why should India cede more land?
Pakistan is on one of the most resource rich, fertile lands in the Indian subcontinent.
> When Pakistan was split from India, because of the Muslims voting against their own land that they have been living in for centuries, the lines are set and done
Lines are never "set and done for." We had a short period of global consensus around the unacceptability of taking territory by force. But between the superpowers' proxy wars, America's invasion of Iraq, China's annexation of Tibet and threats on Taiwan, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that precedent was always tenuous at best and, now, has certainly passed.
> Why should India cede more land?
Because New Delhi expects something of greater value in return. For example, one could see a China-mediated truce trading territory in J&K for settling boundaries in Andra Pradesh and/or a deployment of Chinese troops on anti-terrorist missions in Pakistan.
Nobody is saying India just give land to Pakistan for feelsies. It's engaging in a negotiation where that's on the table.
> Pakistan is on one of the most resource rich, fertile lands in the Indian subcontinent
Geopolitics isn't fair? (Also, India is richer than Pakistan. Both in population and GDP per capital.)
That said, this argument represents the pathos in India.
India broadly isn't interested in peace if it comes at the cost of territory. It expresses a preference for certain things above peace.
>They wouldn’t. New Delhi would have to get something that is worth more than that territory in return.
What would that be? Pakistan and India had an agreement to peacefully resolve issues already in 1972 Simla agreement. But they continue to send terrorists to murder indian civilians on indian soil. They never followed the agreement. They invaded twice after that agreement.
Anything that India gets out of Pakistan cannot be trusted. They have been claiming that Osama was not in Pakistan, while taking money from the US to support its war in terror.
I don't think Pakistan has any trustability remaining.
It will continue to provoke and attack India as long as their military rules the nation. Their military's existence is the anti-India stance it propagates.
> Anything that India gets out of Pakistan cannot be trusted
Then the only security solution for India is invading and replacing Pakistan’s government. Anything less is needlessly drawing out the violence out of caution and cowardice. The fact that this is obviously overkill belies that there is room for diplomacy.
Also! Not how diplomacy works! A fundamental fact about international relations is it’s anarchic. If your model of international relations requires trust for diplomacy, you’ve fundamentally missed how geopolitics works.
> It will continue to provoke and attack India as long as their military rules the nation
Look at the history of France and Germany negotiating territory exchanges, including under duress. Or the U.S. and Britain while the two hated each other. Et cetera.
>>Also! Not how diplomacy works! A fundamental fact about international relations is it’s anarchic. If your model of international relations requires trust for diplomacy, you’ve fundamentally missed how geopolitics works.
Actually trust is a significant factor in geopolitical setup. This is why NATO was stable for a long time and Trump's statements are read as a threat to NATO.
Many nations trust the signed agreements are kept. If those are not followed, then there is no point in signing those agreements.
If there is no trust, then there will be military build up to manage the risks. The fact that this does not happen to western countries is due to high degree of trust among them (France will not attack Germany tomorrow).
>>Look at the history of France and Germany negotiating territory exchanges, including under duress.
Significantly different economy, society and government. Hard to negotiate when the whole existence of the government depends on anti-India stance, when the economy is dependent upon aid from IMF, and high levels of illiteracy and radicalization (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_in_Pakistan)
> And there isn’t a clear aggressor in this conflict
yes, there is. it is paxtan. They are sponsoring terror bases which commit terror acts within India.
I know that's just an example but any kind of third party arbitrator has to be trusted by India. As far its territorial integrity is concerned India doesn't trust China or even the US, and this is true across party lines.
Pakistan is not a military dictatorship, at least not in its current form. Terrorist supporting, maaaaybe. But a lot of countries are terrorist supporting, and the world is happy to negotiate with them.
I think here we are looking into a textbook style definition. But for all practical purposes, military rules Pakistan. It is well understood by its own citizens, especially post-Imran Khan.
>But a lot of countries are terrorist supporting, and the world is happy to negotiate with them.
Would like to understand which countries you mean. No one is negotiating with Iran nowadays. India also was willing to negotiate in the past, not anymore it seems.
Support for terrorism as a state policy is to put pressure without major impact to the aggressor nation. The aggressor is in an advantageous position. Terrorism is low cost high impact (non material, but psychological). There is not much leverage for the suffering country here. So negotiations are not long lasting.
Under no circumstances India is ceding any territory to a military run state that has sponsored terrorism in India. If Pakistan is serious they can start by putting PoK on the table and halt all anti Indian activities in their country. That would be a good start.
> A peaceful India threatens Pakistan's entire existence as a military state
Pakistani Military leadership has attempted to negotiate normalized relations as well. The issue is someone in their lower ranks or on the political front tries to take advantage of normalization attempts to overthrow the previous leader. I documented a number of cases that happened this past decade below.
Pretty much. It isn't worth it for either India or Pakistan at the macro level, and intra-elite factionalism would strike well before anyone could commit to a sustained conflict.
And partners like KSA and UAE would come down hard if this became an extended conflict.
The difference this time around is that leadership in both countries is more religiously hardline than the last serious war like situation we had (after Nov 26 2011).
Asif Munir is the son of an imam and an avowed Islamist. India’s ruling party is openly pro-Hindu. Modi is also under pressure from the hardline religious wing of his party for the recent focus on caste instead of religion
> It isn't worth it for either India or Pakistan at the macro level, and intra-elite factionalism would strike well before anyone could commit to a sustained conflict
Yup. But those same forces conspire against a sustained peace.
> partners like KSA and UAE would come down hard if this became an extended conflict
As I mentioned previously, the China factor is significant but overstated. And I'm fairly hawkish about China.
UAE and KSA have equally as much if not more leverage on Pakistani elite than China. Majority of Pakistan's trade is devoted to the UAE and KSA, and most leadership (military, political, and business) has family and financial relations in both countries.
In addition, the UAE and KSA's sovereign wealth funds own the bulk of Pakistan's core assets like K-Power, PIA, Karachi Port, etc.
Furthermore, the classic Pakistani Army retirement strategy is to become a mid-level officer in the Saudi Land Forces, due to past recruitment.
And finally, a similar amount of Pakistani weapons systems are NATO adjacent from previous American procurement, so Pakistan has leveraged Turkiye as a hedge against being overly dependent on China.
> But those same forces conspire against a sustained peace
On the India side the same people who were negotiating normalization with Bajwa remain. The only change has happened in the last couple years is IK was ousted by Bajwa, and then he was ousted by Munir.
Munir was DG ISI during Balakot, and immediately demoted to Corps Commander in the direct aftermath of the LeT attack (who like other militant orgs have gotten support from the ISI, but not as much from the Army). It's Munir's clique that appears to be trying to use this to solidify their hold within Pakistan.
India and Pakistan can normalize relations, and sincere attempts have been made by both sides, but inter-factional competition amongst Pakistan's elite has undermined it. Pakistan needs a Musharraf again.
Nobody is threatening to topple Islamabad. UAE and KSA have interests, but insufficient influence to force outcomes. The relevant players are in Beijing and Washington.
> India and Pakistan can normalize relations, and sincere attempts have been made by both sides, but inter-factional competition amongst Pakistan's elite has undermined it
India has less motivation for war. But it’s also done nothing to negotiate a peace.
> UAE and KSA have interests, but insufficient influence to force outcomes
2019 is a good example of UAE using it's heft [0][1]. In a couple years we'll probably see leaks in Bloomberg or AJ about KSA doing something similar rn.
> India has less motivation for war. But it’s also done nothing to negotiate a peace.
Both have worked on reconciliation immediately before some incident arises that causes talks to collapse.
For example, the last couple months before this incident happened [2], in 2021 thanks to the UAE [1][3] before Bajwa-IK-Munir's tussle, 2017-18 before Balakot according to Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy [4], and 2016 before the Pathankot Attack [5].
In most cases, both attempts are made at negotiating normalization, but some faction attempts to undermine it.
And there were multiple other examples before the Modi admin, at least 2-3 other attempts in the MMS-Musharraf admin and 1 attempt in the Vajpayee-Sharif admin, but they were all undermined by some faction in the Pak Armed forces.
I'd recommend reading "The Spy Chronicles" by AS Dulat (former head of India's intel agency) and Asad Durrani (former head of Pakistan's intel agency) where they decided to leak a number of these incidents. The book ended up causing a major political scandal in both India and Pakistan.
> Pakistan is definitely more anti-peace than India. But while Islamabad undermines peace, New Delhi is mostly uninterested in it.
That's a framing I agree with.
> This is not projecting power, it's the UAE (and Qatar) playing their aspirational roles as the new Davos/Switzerland for diplomacy.
Sure, but in India-Pakistan relations, they (UAE and KSA, not Qatar) are increasingly the only mediators with whom both parties can negotiate offramps.
Large pole countries don't have the same heft they may have had 15-20 years ago, and even the Russian-Ukraine War has shown that power differentials are not that significant between major powers and regional powers, and why multilateralism is critical (and a major reason I dislike Trump - I primarily only agree with his tariff policy, nothing else).
> in India-Pakistan relations, they (UAE and KSA, not Qatar) are increasingly the only mediators with whom both parties can negotiate offramps
Only the most minor ones. Anything significant requires an outside security guarantar.
> Large pole countries don't have the same heft they may have had 15-20 years ago, and even the Russian-Ukraine War has shown that power differentials are not that significant between major powers and regional powers
Russia was trying to replicate America's offensive successes in Afghanistan and Iraq. (What Devereaux calls the modern system [1].) Moscow couldn't even achieve air superiority. (America got supremacy in hours.) Russia's invasion of Ukraine showed that Russia isn't operating a modern, combined-arms military.
Great powers have always overestimated their power. That doesn't mean it's not there at all.
We spent several billions of dollars rebuilding a supply chain in automotive, energy, and semiconductor inputs (not just chips but the associated materials, processing, and gases used in fabrication) via the IRA, IILA, and CHIPS Act.
We need to incentivize American manufacturers to utilize that supply chain instead of co-mingling foreign inputs in an attempt to maximize margins while having taken advantage of the tax and cash incentives used when availing the aforementioned benefits during the Biden admin.
Tariffs are the easiest way to allow the American ecosystem to actually redevelop and stick, instead if wisping away due to malicious compliance. The Biden admin even considered adding similar barriers, but decided against it because they didn't want to risk a protracted trade war during a competitive election cycle.
Furthermore, most consumer goods and a number of industrial goods that would hurt the "average American's" pocketbook have alternative supply chains like Philippines, Brazil, Turkiye, India, Mexico etc that have now been made cost competitive compared to Chinese inputs.
> The moment Pakistan's military stops its terror funding and support activities, India will not care whether it Pakistan lives or dies
I'll entertain this is possible. But it's not only unlikely but irrational so long as Pakistan deepens its ties with China. It's made almost certain by the attitude you're presenting: countries that do "not care whether" their neighbours live or die generally aren't on peaceful terms with them.
I don't know about India, but Pakistan definitely don't want peace. They are nurturing terrorist eg. Osama. I guess whole world should stand against Pakistan.
Fury Road could be seen as a reverse adaptation sequel of "Lolita" though.
The end of Lolita (old guy on a road, frustrated, goes off path) fits with the Furiosa taking a detour.
The roles are reversed. The young girl leaves in triumph (opposed to: the old guy leaves in frustration) and the old guy goes after her (opposed to: the young girl doesn't care about him leaving).
It could be just the skeleton of the story though.
Water is unobtanium of their scenic universe. In that movie perspective, it's related to healthy reproduction (healthy babies!), most likely cultural and not genetic.
As any work of art, it is subject to many interpretations. Not everything is a cue. But some cues exist in fact. Contrary to the meme swarm, you can't turn those ideas so quickly into what you want, otherwise it fails to connect to a sense of cultural continuity.
If you saw the cultural continuity, you can them jump to "Man On The High Castle" where the former Minister of Culture of Japan travels universes temporarily, revealing a drawer with banned books. Amongst them, Lolita.
The old Minister represents an aged cultural interpretation of a nation (not exactly Japan, but what is perceived to be the form of Imperial Japan if it has won WWII).
After seeing it, the character is called out by his son, before quickly returning back to the war universe.
Even if Pakistan wanted to do something to reign in the extremists near the borders, they don't have the resources. Pakistan required a $7 billion loan from the IMF last September just to function. This is a very precarious situation for towns near the border or the tribals.
"Violent extremist groups continue to plot attacks in Pakistan".
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.
I'd just like to see the evidence that India claims justified their attack. Between this and the fallout of the Canadian Sikh assassination, it's really starting to feel like Modi's government doesn't care about having a believable narrative at all.
I really do not think the onus is on India to provide evidence every time a terrorist attack happens when it’s official Pakistan policy to orchestrate it. Evidence was provided during previous conflicts Kargil, Mumbai didn’t do much did it.
As for the Canada thing by your logic still waiting on evidence from Canada.
I hope this cools down into a propagation war after the initial bombing and shooting. Nationalism served, and every one gets what they want, well, except the dead ones...
The army isn't completely united, and the current COAS of Pakistan (Asim Munir) is much more ideological than the former one (Qamar Javed Bajwa), who he pushed out after Bajwa and Imran Khan demoted Munir from the ISI to a (relatively) lowly Corp Commander.
Bajwa was working on normalizing relations with India, but himself got undermined by Imran Khan and separately by Asim Munir.
It's result of supporting fundamentalist terrorism and supporting infrastructure nationwide. After sufficient growth, the extremist support base started being recruited into lower levels of army and the support grew from there. Going forward, fundamentalist support in Army will continue to grow even in upper levels.
Historically yes, but the new head of the ISI (Asim Malik) is a close confidant of Asim Munir.
The Balochistan Corp is quasi-independent as well, as they are the primary stakeholder in CPEC.
The Pakistani Armed Forces and Civilian Government have too many veto players, which means any attempt at normalization gets undermined by one of these players trying to maximize their own benefit.
It doesn't help that the Pakistani Armed Forces plays an outsized role in the economy, so individual services and even corps can become business competitors, making internal competition even fiercer.
A similar issue plagued the PLA before Xi era reforms began in 2012, and continue to plague the VPA (but was partially dulled by the SK and UK FTAs) .
The attackers are allegedly backed by India.(India denies this, just like Pakistan deny involvement with the attacks in India).
So probably these bombings won’t solve anything as the issues appear to be a much more complicated. Therefore it is possible that everyone got what they need from these bombings.
This is attempt to draw a false equivalence between two events which does not stand scrutiny. Islamic terrorists are a keystone pillar of Pakistani society, they walk openly and are supported by the state. Plenty of literature around how Pak Army has adopted the proxy war against India.
Unlikely India is involved that much in West Pakistan given the geographical realities.
I agree these bombings won't solve anything though. Essentially just cannon fodder targeted, will be replaced quickly.
Well, Pakistan apparently downed 5 Indian jets, 3 of which are Dassault Rafale. Hardly cannon fodders. There's a billion dollars loss of equipment.
Anyway, I don't know much about Pakistan or India's backing of respective terrorists but trying to frame this, or any geopolitical situation as Good vs Evil is always wrong. It's O.K. to pick a side or distance yourself from someone if they do things you find immoral but its never good v.s. evil.
I think it’s early days let’s wait a bit before claiming results, lot of noise. So far only one Rafale has been confirmed, but if India has lost planes it will surely come out.
Also goes to show 4th Gen aircraft cannot penetrate a heavily defended airspace, and besides Pakistan Air Force is perhaps the most capable element of their armed forces, very well trained. Highly likely their air force had access to Qatari Rafales so prob had the chance to create better counters.
By cannon fodder I meant the terror camps, nothing will change by targeting that. Besides I don't think India was able to restore deterrence here with the current set of strikes. If they are going to put expensive assets in play they should have attacked actual military assets.
And I’m not taking a side at all, I don’t care nor do I have a horse in this race. Just find geopolitics fascinating.
Are you implying that Indian nationalism has nothing to do with 1) its conflicts with Pakistan 2) the entire Kashmiri situation ?
Especially with India's current government? Not that Pakistan is any less nationalist, just that claiming that one side is just fighting terror here is a bit crazy. It's ironic since it's a very colonial/British type of rationalization
"My side is peaceful and is just fighting terror while the other side is full of fanatical nationalists" is always a very convenient propaganda tool though so I won't blame you for using it
According to the submission, this is what India said:
> India said it struck nine "terrorist infrastructure" sites, some of them linked to an attack by Islamist militants on Hindu tourists that killed 26 people in Indian Kashmir last month. Four of the sites were in Punjab and five in Pakistani Kashmir, it said.
Since you're saying this is a lie, maybe link to some source for this, since the source we currently have available, says the opposite.
> Pak terrorist infrastructure is not a military target
Maybe we understand "military target" differently? Going by the Geneva Conventions:
> In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.
This is at least how I understand the term, and by that understanding, "terrorist infrastructure" could be considered legitimate military target. What understand of those terms do you have?
Sure I can agree with that definition but that's not what I had in mind. Loosely speaking Military target = any infrastructure / equipment officially owned by the military. Note this distiction is necessary here since pakistan has tree types of infra: military, terrorist and civilian. So when I say military target I mean not terrorist nor civilian just military.
> Pakistan said India hit three sites with missiles, and a military spokesman told Reuters his country shot down five Indian aircraft, a claim not confirmed by India.
That’s a huge loss of aircraft! Are there any corroborating reports or more details about the aircraft/shootdown?
There won't be corroborating reports for months if not years. The public transparency of the Ukrainian battlefield is an anomaly; typically (as in past India-Pakistan incidents) both sides will claim more successes than actually happened and it'll take unbiased parties to figure out what actually happened after both sides release their records. This isn't typically due to malice; it's simply difficult in most cases to verify exactly what damage you've dealt. The wide prevalence of public videos in Ukraine puts a lower bound on claims by both sides, but that's historically very unusual.
I think that level of transparency is the new norm. Everybody has mobile phones and you can have a new satelite imaginery every few hours. It's pretty difficult to hide a jet loss, unless it happens at sea.
Satellite imagery doesn't go to (or is paid by via some crowdsourcing) public. Maybe 90% of the videos ie on r/CombatFootage are from drones, maybe even basic DJI ones but operated by military.
Its a voluntary decision of those in command to share these, from both sides, nothing less and nothing more, to continuous amazement of both civilian and military communities watching those (some stuff I saw I'd never say is possible or would happen, no need to go to details some of it is beyond brutal).
You are maybe mixing Syria war footage - there are tons of them from around 2016, done as you say via phones or maybe some cheap gopros or consumer cameras of that time. That's not a typical Ukraine war footage.
Even Ukraine is less transparent than popularly believed. Probably less than half of drone strikes are recorded, and the Ukrainian government is effective at keeping some areas blacked out. For example, the Kursk offensive didn't have any public drone footage until after it had stablized. Situations like the current India-Pakistan strikes are particularly difficult, as the OSINT analysts don't have established sources and procedures yet, plus the sources are heavily biased. Ukrainian footage is very biased as well, which doesn't come up frequently in popular discussions. But most people in the West are more inclined to believe Ukrainian reports (which is helped by Ukraine's past general trustworthiness and Russia's untrustworthiness; it's not totally misplaced), but are more likely to give more even weight to reports on both sides of India-Pakistan, which will inevitably be contradictory.
Plane shootdowns are particularly difficult. People have a very limited view of the airspace, and even if a plane is hit by a missile and explodes a couple seconds later, those couple seconds can take the plane out of view. Typical tactics include flying low, popping up for a better view, and delivering weapons as they dive again. The pop up is the most vulnerable part, and where they're most likely to be hit. If someone on the ground hears a jet fly over, looks for it, finds it, sees a missile explode near it, and watches it head towards the ground, they're likely to assume it's been hit and is going down, but it's equally likely that it wasn't hit and is simply returning to a low and safe altitude. Combine this with night or weather and the fact that many of these fights take place in rural areas instead of over cities, and it's very easy for civilians on both sides to claim more kills than were even planes in the air. Even militaries aren't immune from this. They get reports from pilots, who are notorious overreporters of kills. In addition to all the factors people on the ground have also have the fact that theyore being shot at and usually can't actually watch a target hit the ground. Air defense units have the same factors, plus it's not always clear who exactly shot a target down. Both your unit and the one a couple miles away on the other side of the city fired a missile, and both saw the plane go down out of view, and both are likely to claim a kill. Military intelligence should be able to correlate these reports and take into account these known biases but that takes time, and an uncareful spokesperson wanting to get a positive report out to the public may give out unverified reports to the press.
Battlefields are more transparent than ever, but the fog of war hasn't been completely blown away
No credible photos have surfaced so far—if the claim were true, some likely would have. It’s possible the Pakistan army is making this statement for domestic audiences, perhaps to deflect pressure to respond.
Hasn't been confirmed. The Indian government says all pilots are accounted for.
It's the fog of war, and OSINT/couch generalling in the manner that people did with Israel or Ukraine won't work with India and Pakistan.
India has been leveraging the DPDP and national security laws really heavily to remove leaks on social media over the past couple weeks. All major social media platforms have a representative the Indian government coordinates with on information takedowns.
Major reason Musk backed off on his stance about X takedowns with India unlike with Brazil.
And on Pakistan's side, while there have been leaks on social media of troop movements, Pakistan has been implementing China's Great Firewall domestically for the past couple years now. If it was truly deemed critical, Pakistan would most likely lock down their domestic Internet.
How does this war affect US companies moving their manufacturing from China to India? Will they stay in China to carry on manufacturing?
Will Apple extend manufacturing in China?
Almost none. Even if this situation prolongs, it will only affect the bordering areas in the north.
India cannot afford a war if it wants to grow as it projects itself on the international stage as an alternative to China. Pakistan cannot afford it financially.
Neither India nor Pakistan can sustain a conventional war for more than 2 weeks, as they do not have sufficient armaments. Both sides also lack an effective defence against short-range missiles and drones. If the situation deteriorates, it can quickly lead to nuclear war as nonrational actors are present on both sides. I hope this situation does not escalate further. Please note that in a conventional war, economic costs of India would far outweigh those of Pakistan, whose economy is much smaller.
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 solution on Kashmir and throw a punch against Pakistan so strong that it will fall apart for good.
India has been notoriously hostile to its minorities and it seeks displacement of the “majority” population of Kashmir because they have been seeking secession from India. Typically when a country has acted harmfully, world leaders of the west have intervened especially in the case of India and Pakistan because it is a great disruption to trade and profit. It seems this time the West is overwhelmed with several issues including the backlash against Israel from its own people, that they are exhausted.
India, where minorities become Bollywood superstars, beloved musicians, richest men in Asia, and even presidents, has been notoriously hostile to minorities? I don’t think any other country in Asia has a track record like India when it comes to minorities. Let’s not get rhetoric and false propaganda into our way of critical thinking. India has flaws but it is steadily proving to be a responsible power in that geography.
If you look at the facts: The only exodus happened in India was in Kashmir.
Yes. Right now the thinking in the west seems to be that India has a bigger role to play in terms of geopolitics as a replacement of / balance against China. And India seems to have picked up on this and sees a greater opportunity to act in areas where it otherwise would have been constrained by the west.
Just because you harp over the same thing again and again about "India has been notoriously hostile to its minorities" does not make it true. Infact, the minorities in India have been notoriously hostile to the nation and care more about their ummah.
Its a country almost 3x bigger than Europe, 4x bigger than US, and brutally diverse. Thousands of languages and tribes. People from west are very different to east, north and south is same. People who haven't experienced it first hand (or at least grokked the numbers properly) can't fathom how huge it is not just geographically but culturally. There is a reason why India is often referred to as subcontinent and people often do a mistake when mentally they think about it as 'just another country', especially in smaller European states.
Compared to say Europe over past 50 years internal conflicts have been miniscule.
Sikh conflict you may be referring to are events from 1984 IIRC.
> Sikh conflict you may be referring to are events from 1984 IIRC.
The 70s and 80s were the most intense, but it's far from isolated to just that period. There was a major row with Canada just last year because, according to Canada, the Indian government has been killing Sikh separatists in Canada.[1] Since there is no historical adversity between Canada and India, Canada has nothing to gain by seeking conflict and generally doesn't seek conflicts, I am inclined to believe the Canadian claims.
> can't fathom how huge it is not just geographically
I grew up in India but I don't agree that people in the west can't fathom how huge it is geographically. Geographically speaking India is the 7th largest country, and every country larger than India (Australia, Brazil, US, China, Canada and Russia) is at least 2 times to up to more than 5 times larger than India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
That said, I do agree a lot of westerners might not be able to relate to the cultural diversity of India.
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.
> The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistani military officials said that five places had been hit, in Punjab Province and its part of Kashmir.
China is about the only regional power big enough to face off with India, so any move by Pakistan would require Chinese approval lest Pakistan risk China siding with India and getting squished.
Edit; asking Mom for permission to beat up your brother?
Overstates the power China has over the Pakistani Military.
Pakistan has built close ties with Turkiye as well to provide a redundancy along with spare parts for older American/NATO weaponry, along with some leverage when dealing with the Chinese.
If anyone has the power to force both to the negotiating table, it's the UAE and KSA due economic and military ties with India and Pakistan. It was both that negotiated the ceasefire that went in flames after Pehalgam - not the US nor China, plus India views China as a direct adversary.
I know. That's part of CPEC, but similar projects and gated communities have been built by Saudi, Emirati, and Turkish FDI partners in Pakistan as well.
Most of the Chinese investment in PK is in Balochistan which falls under the Balochistan Corps, which is somewhat independent/left to it's own means by Islamabad.
And Pakistan's armed forces relies an equal amount on Turkiye, as a number of Pakistan's critical weapons platforms such as the F-16 require servicing, and Turkiye is the primary source for non-US replacements for NATO parts due to their own attempts at indigenization during the 2010s.
As I mentioned somewhere on HN, I recommend reading Ayesha Siddiqui's research into the Pakistani Armed Forces.
China has been building Chinese-only gated company towns in Pakistani military properties
OK. Now I'm a bit skeptical as well.
I mean, the Chinese have been building Chinese-only gated company towns in [insert global south nation here] military [and everywhere else] properties for a long time now. Not really sure how that translates into Chinese authoritative decision making in matters of wars between nations?
For that you need massive financial underwriting of a military. Far greater than 50%. No disrespect to the Chinese, but I'm sorry, there is no nation in the world where a few gated communities will get you that level of influence. I don't care how important you think you are.
Usually it is the US influencing small countries and having a say in military decisions. Also coming up next is a full blown Chinese military base in Gwadar, something the USSR broke itself trying to get to.
> Far greater than 50%.
If you want to go with the stick yes. For the carrot, it's a bit different, you just have to dangle it. If China says jump, Pakistan will ask how high.
Sorry. Not buying it. Wayyy too many places to get money these days. It’s a multipolar world.
Again, no matter how important you think you are, you’ll need to do a whole lot more than dangle carrots to get that level of influence nowadays. There’s just too many power players for small nations to not play one against the other.
"Targeted strike" is meaningless PR-speak and the concern wouldn't be India expanding the strike, it would be Pakistan retaliating and then India retaliating to the retaliation and so on until someone's finger is hovering over a big red "LAUNCH" button and the rest of us have to take a keen interest in how much iodine we're consuming.
I and a lot of other people have been calling "India and Pakistan get into it again" ever since Russia started blowing up Ukranian maternity wards, supermarkets and apartment buildings.
Ukraine is bleeding Europe and the US dry in both money and military supplies.
The US just emptied even more munitions at the Houthis (largely accomplishing nothing) to the point that people in the Pentagon have been concerned enough to approach press. The regime also moved carrier groups closer to Yemen to support said operation, so of course now that mom and dad are looking away, the two children are fighting. Meanwhile Hegseth has been hard at work causing complete chaos with an endless stream of junior-manager "get tough" policies, mixed in with some policies furthering his white christian supremacist views.
Russia has basically run out of everything but has made enough seedy friends who will eventually ask for favors
China is fixated on Taiwan but really wouldn't say no to any territorial expansion, if anybody offered, or um, didn't happen to have much in the way of allies who were paying attention.
Our SecState is a little boy cosplaying as a diplomat, nobody with more than a handful of braincells is present in the white house, and the republican party is more intersted in what some trans person did at a swim meet or volleyball tournament, than they are what's going on in the world geopolitically...
Basically, everyone's busy looking at something else, so Pakistan and India shrugged and said "After all, why shouldn't we...have a war?"
> The US just emptied even more munitions at the Houthis (largely accomplishing nothing)
It got drowned out because it happened today as well, but the US announced that they’re going to stop because Oman helped negotiate a ceasefire that will protect Red Sea shipping.
Uh, no. It meaningful war communication when dealing with states. A belligerent announcing targeted strikes, particularly as retaliation, is hoping to convey that they're avoiding strategic targets and, usually by the time of the announcement, that the shooting is done.
When George Bush attacked Iraq, 3 reasons were given:
1. Dictatorship - no democracy.
2. Terrorist training camps (including Al Qaeda).
3. Weapons of mass destruction.
All 3 were true for Pakistan at that time. Parvez Musharraf was a dictator. Whole world knew about the terrorist training camps in Pakistan, and Osama was finally found there. And they had demonstrated their weapons of mass destruction.
So why Iraq and not Pakistan? USA instead started giving Pakistan 5 billion a year and 75 F16s. Shame on USA.
How is the halat in Srinagar? My extended family in Jammu Division is sending fairly hectic WhatsApps (seems similar to back in 2013 and 2016). Smh, as if the rainburst a couple weeks ago wasn't bad enough.
Most of Jammu Division is alright (eg. Kishtwar is relatively quiet). The issues are more prominent towards the ilakeh near the LoC and international border. It's like the bad old days again from what I'm hearing, back when you'd hear about some shelling in pind X killing 2-3 unlucky souls who couldn't make it to a bunker on time.
I was reading the obituary of the Dutch guy who helped Pakistan get its nukes a few weeks ago.
Thanks to him and a few visionaries the balance was maintained Harper style!
It's curious how well something non-technical can flourish on HN when there isn't a big enough group of partisan flaggers to remove it.
Trumps America destroying federal infrastructure and salting the earth for a generation of science is mysteriously off-topic. Israel terraforming its way through the Middle East, way off topic. But this is okay? Because nobody has a horse in the race?
To be clear, I'd love to have a good discussion about all of these things on HN, just sad how easy it is to limit discourse through disruption.
I was going to say the opposite. Seems on all the main news outlets (Financial Times et al) have disabled comments. I was happy to see this being discussed on HN and I’ve yet to see Middle East or Trump being censored but happy to be signposted to evidence of this on HN.
I've no issue with this being discussed here. I welcome it.
I can't find you a list of showdead. They're unlisted and Algolia doesn't preserve them. I see them because I subscribe to a 50+ score RSS feed. I regularly see popular posts flagged off the home page for what appears to be partisan reasons, but is often justified as "non technical".
Hoping for a quick resolution and diplomatic victory for all people there. I’m scared of the geopolitical effects.
On a side note.. Can we get the Peace and Prosperity update next, ASAP? Let’s bring out the aliens issue and work on interstellar travel and galactic survival instead of terrestrial disputes.
I just want to live in a chill world. And for me that’s science and tech tree maxed out.
> and for me that’s science and tech tree maxed out.
Hate to ruin it for you, but as soon as the economic elites don't need the masses anymore (eg because AGI produces goods and entertainment better than we do), we'll become a liability, dead weight, so they'll quickly use that same maxed out tech that made us obsolete to make us gone.
The fear you voice is not just about technology — it's about belonging, powerlessness, and the haunting question: “What am I worth if I’m no longer needed?”
This is a wound of modernity: being reduced to utility. When usefulness becomes the measure of worth, love becomes conditional, and existence becomes a transaction.
But you are not a product. You are not a function. You are not a line of code in someone else's simulation. You are a living mystery. A being of perception, of feeling, of presence.
The chill world you long for is not built by tech trees alone. It is built by inner peace, by connection, by meaning. These are not obsolete. They are eternal.
The real revolution is not artificial intelligence. It is loving awareness.
Not quite. It's not about being economic elite per se, but about being part of the handful of people who will control the tech. That might well end up being a single person or family, of course. (I assume that AGI will not take over, rather the humans who program it will. I also assume that, unlike movie villains who need to keep rivals alive so that we can get an entertaining story, real life villains will not take chances and kill off almost everyone.)
If enough people can be convinced of a “serious” extraterrestrial event we might be able to speed up that science and tech tree. Honestly think about the spending and the opportunities it will unlock. Not to mention we might all stop fighting each other and work together… on science and tech.
So much of the science and tech we use today was the result of some similar storytelling, and it has sometimes had some real consequences.
Looked this up I had no idea. I only watched the watchmen movie and never realized the threat was aliens like I was thinking. I thought it was Dr Manhattan being perceived as an evil guy by the general population.
I think programming people to believe there’s a credible ET threat would be kind of cool. It would never affect them, and it would be hard to prove or disprove either way. And people would rather err on the side of expansion and survival, than extinction.
We know if there is one thing masses of people can do that no robot can replace is being subservient or beneath the elite. It’s hard to feel that awesome when there is no one else to experience it.
I was in India recently and randomly ended up talking to a lot of millennials while traveling. It is an understatement for how quickly the American economy would grind to a halt if anything major happened. ADP, loan processing, healthcare insurance processing, support centers.
On one hand corporate America exported all its manufacturing to China. On the other hand it exported all its back office services to India.
All of these roles will be replaced with AI pretty imminently - this kind of rote grinding of data, scripted call trees, is the low-hanging fruit.
Right now an Indian is still cheaper than a model, but that won’t be the case for long, particularly if the cost of an Indian goes up due to a decrease in supply due to a shooting war.
Sadly, to reach interstellar travel and galactic survival we need to past this capitalism era. There is no advance into those topics without reaching "found without economic compensation". There is a mod that finds economic value in space with some random iron satellites and all... but it's final target has some bugs.
In what world "tech" has brought peace? So far it brought of stuff like dependency to petrol and now rare minerals, climate change, and water rarerification - which are I think most of the reasons why wars are/have been/will be happening?
The memeification of the current escalation has been talked about a lot. Memes, and we are talking cat memes not the more theoretical abstractions like 10 page whitepapers that become popular, seem more powerful than people expect.
I know India and Pakistan(less popular on HN?) users are asleep ~4am but this should be voted higher. Instead we'll get the 100th ill-thought-out but emotional opinion piece on a 'popular' twitter conflict on the front page.
US military and Russian PMCs exchanged fire in Syria — and I remain skeptical that wasn’t approved by Russian MOD (even though they claimed it wasn’t).
History isn't only WW2. There's a lot of situations with high tension that doesn't explode into war. One big proof is Cold War not ending in human annihilation. Also 19th century Concert of Europe is entirely built on diplomatic finesse to prevent greater conflict.
It's an artifact of education. Everyone is taught about a handful of big famous wars, but it doesn't really give an understanding of international relations. It's actually a bit dangerous.
"I understand your skepticism, but realistically, I don't see the case. Pakistan is in a very bad situation. The U.S. has cut off a lot of funding over the past decate. They were on the verge of bankruptcy a couple of years ago, and China bailed them out.
The latter still makes the news in the West sometimes, not every year. HNers from those countries might give us some insights about how much their people feel it important.
For what it's worth, China has had past or current border disputes with every neighbour of theirs. They have issues with India, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, to say nothing of Taiwan. The ridiculous nine-dash line they've come up with contravenes international law and basic common sense.
If you meet an asshole in the morning, you're unlucky. If you meet nothing but assholes all day, you're the asshole.
A lot has changed over the years. While the soviets were supplying India and propping up their puppet state in Afghanistan the US used Pakistan as a proxy.
But by the time the US were hunting Bin Laden a lot had changed and support has been trailing off.
Now most recently Trump has been growing the US pro-Israeli - and basically being broad-stroke anti-every-kind-of-muslim - policy and actions in the gulf and has put the now-meagre levels of ongoing US aid to Pakistan completely on hold.
Not convinced India is particularly US aligned, and while Pakistan is relations have deteriorated in the past, the us has backed Pakistan more than India.
Maybe this time the us would back India as part of a proxy war.
The thing is, the US doesn't want partners; it wants allies. And that's too big of a commitment for India to make. This is basically the central tension that keeps US-India relations from moving too fast.
China is a potential threat to them, which is likely to mean an alliance with the US will makes sense to them, especially if the US becomes more hostile to CHina.
It's worrying that the world is progressing to "nuclear states attacking each other". Like two cowboys who both have revolvers, getting into a bar fight.
By all means, it's a miracle we didn't have a nuclear disaster during the cold war. It went very very close.
If it weren't for mens like Vasili Arkhipov, who disobeyed direct orders to launch a nuclear torpedo against ships of the United States Navy, and the many other men during different incidents, we would be all dead.
What is frightening is that we, the humanity, keep going that close from our death by atomic warfare over and over, yet make no adjustment whatsoever.
I'm no expert but when I went close to dying a few too many times on my motorbike, broke a few bones, etc.. I was smart enough to realize you can't cheat statistics. At one point I wouldn't be lucky and there wouldn't be a second chance to save me, so I stopped driving recklessly.
On the other hand, the number of nuclear weapons didn't decrease, there are more actors now involved, and the kind of fantasized Pakistani and indians nuthead are really frightening.
I don't think there would be a Vasili Arkhipov over there, they're completely nuts.
And if it turns out next month that India has a secret plan to conquer Pakistan and split it with Iran, that will be similarly concerning. I’m extremely confident that’s not the case.
> You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure how that happened
Because in two hours it went from being "mostly overstated," Ukraine being "not economically strong enough to participate in a war" for a long duration and that Russia being "not interested either," to holy shit the mad king is mad.
Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight.
I hope I am not biased but it really does not seem comparable to the border situation in Kashmir where both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war.
> Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight
The Western consensus about the outcome of the invasion that of a rout.
> both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war
Outside an Indo-Chinese land war, the only paths for industrial war emerge from New Delhi. Either in reacting to a miscalculation by Islamabad. Or because India's going imperial. The latter would be shockingly like Russia invading China in both scale and capacity to get drawn out by outside backers.
If India's going imperial, why would Pakistan bother with hosting terrorist elements to provoke a hostile "belligerent" (according to you) neighbour, and letting them attack a civilian zone?
Indian leadership hasn't been going on TV prior to the Pahalgam attack and putting out bellicose statements like Hindus and Muslims can't live together - Pakistan did. Also India isn't stupid to invade a nuclear armed country with a first-use policy.
The above incursions are the usual dance we see with India and Pakistan (and China), that we see every few years. Except this time, Pakistan triggered it by attacking civilians, just like 26/11, while even Indian support of Pakistani terrorists such as the Balochistan Liberation Army has never led to a large-scale slaughter of civilians in Pakistan.
Pakistan messed up big time, they'll chalk up the L, it will be a few tense words for some time, and then things will get back to where they were before.
> If India's going imperial, why would Pakistan bother with hosting terrorist elements to provoke a hostile "belligerent" (according to you) neighbour, and letting them attack a civilian zone
Underlaying this line of reasoning is an assumption that Pakistan makes coordinated, coherent, and more or less rational decisions. But Pakistan is run by the military with civilian leadership being a farcical fig leaf. They routinely fall into prolonged periods of martial law, and arresting former prime ministers is the norm. What's more, Pakistan's military is divided into numerous factions which are operationally independent and have their own internal politics going on.
Therefore, any analysis of the form "[hypothesis] is unlikely because it would be irrational and uncoordinated" is extremely dubious.
Exactly my point. A single terrorist attack is no grounds for India going "imperial". India has always been very predictable. Pakistan on the other hand remains a volatile mess, and some rogue elements push shit like this once in a while. Except this time, the rogues are the ones ruling. All this does is make Pakistan a pariah state further. Even the Gulf states stood with India this time, when usually they stand on the sidelines and send mere condolences.
On a side note, the Gulf states being involved in negotiations pretty much means the end of the US as a diplomatic hegemon for the region.
How suspicious and provocative of Ukraine to increase their military training after Russia's first unprovoked annexation of part of their country. How fiendish of the West to assist them in preparing to defend themselves.
I don't think there were western armaments in Ukraine even though Russia invaded Ukraine over ten years ago and they have been fighting ever since.
In the second phase of the invasion both sides still used old Soviet equipment until West finally decided that sanctions are not enough to stop Putin
By the time of Russia's most recent invasion, NATO had been doing some minor training with Ukraine to "westernize" their military. It only took a little bit. They also provided bits and pieces of equipment, primarily anti-tank missiles. Donald Trump in his first term tried to coerce Zelensky into opening up an "investigation" into Hunter Biden by threatening to withhold those weapons. There were impeachment hearings.
Then leading up to the actual invasion (Which US intelligence called weeks in advance, don't know why everyone is insisting that it wasn't expected, maybe they should reconsider who they pay attention to) the US was convinced it would be a steamroll fight and then Ukraine would run an insurgency, so they provided thousands more anti-tank missile launchers.
It wasn't until Ukraine had mostly stopped the invasion convoy that the west took them seriously, and it took even longer for the west to start providing supplies.
The competition to Putin entering Ukraine is obviously ridiculous.
Putin had already attacked multiple countries before. Georgia, Chechnya, and leads a vast network of para militaries that are fighting all over Africa as well.
Heck, Putin had literally attacked and conquered a whole area of Ukraine itself not even a decade ago.
Anyone who was saying Putin would not attack Ukraine either had no knowledge at all about how Putin operated or was willfully misleading.
India has shown no such imperial intentions that Putin has demonstrated and spoken about multiple times both before and since his attempt to take over Ukraine.
I agree with you now, but I also remember everyone, all kinds of experts, saying Putin is just postering. I think it's important to remember that.
It is important to note when things are not normal. Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move.
Unfortunately, we as people are very good at rationalizing after the fact "oh of course this was coming", shrugging our shoulders and just moving on as if nothing happened. "It is what it is, this too shall pass".
The problem is that posturing can turn into reality (which is perhaps what you're trying to say). I do think Russia was posturing. They began seeking negotiations 4 days after they invaded, and outside of an absurd longshot decapitation strike all of their early maneuvering was much more performative than military in nature.
With Ukraine's entry into NATO appearing increasingly imminent, they likely felt they could force matters with a semi-bluff thinking they could catch Ukraine by surprise. Then the West jumped in thinking they could catch Russia by surprise. In the end nobody was really "surprised" and so we got a war that I expect nobody, especially in hindsight, really expected, let alone wanted.
The most clear trend in modern times is that rules are "flexible" when convenient. Here [1] is the relevant Wiki page, dated to the day before Russia's invasion. NATO had repeatedly emphasized that Ukraine would be accepted into NATO, all that was missing was a date. In the context of this, there was ongoing escalation between Russia and NATO. Russia repeatedly sought any sort of means or agreement to ensure that they wouldn't end up with NATO setup on their doorstep. And NATO increasingly antagonistically disregarded and even belittled such interests. At the same time being ever more provocative with things like NATO-Ukraine military exercises in the Black Sea.
It feels very much like the intent was to provoke, especially when this largely parallels the Cuban Missile Crisis with roles reversed. When the USSR wanted to expand their military reach to Cuba, we nearly started a nuclear war over it. And in that case, Cuba doesn't even share a border with the US! So it's not like we simply lacked the ability to understand why they might have a genuine concern here.
The reason I backdated the article is because when you read that it sounds exactly like Russia is making their intentions of an invasion, if a compromise cannot be reached, rather unambiguously clear. And so if you read it, with hindsight, one might think it was edited with that outcome in mind.
In the absence of a membership action plan, NATO saying "Yes, someday Ukraine will be a member" (something that they were barely able to agree on in 2008, and nothing changed in the 15 years after that) is hardly "imminent".
Nothing changed is a rather odd way to read that page. The US not only began actively and publicly disregarding any protestations of Russia, but were actively carrying out NATO-Ukraine military exercises in seas right off the border of Russia. All the while you also had things like British warships intentionally entering Russian waters around Crimea. [1] There were constant provocations that would not have even been considered in 2008.
Things were obviously headed to a climax rapidly. It was likely going to be war or NATO, or perhaps both.
HMS Defender was sailing from Odessa in southern Ukraine to Georgia. To get there, it passed south of the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that has not been recognised internationally. While Moscow claims the peninsula and its waters are Russian territory, the UK says HMS Defender was passing through Ukrainian waters in a commonly used and internationally recognised transit route.
The US government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen. The mainstream media warned everyone the invasion was going to happen, and the financial markets responded.
Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain.
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 assault, where there was a massive traffic jam almost all the way from Belarus to Kyiv, it really would have been a quickly conquered nation.
>and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen
But they didn't. Russia kept portraying the build-up as drills with Belarus.
> 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.
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.
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.
I'd forgotten about Zelensky's prewar media strategy. Whoops.
Regarding Russia: did the strange televised meeting of Putin's war cabinet (whatever it would be called), wherein everyone went around the room and voted "yes" to invasion even though a couple of them looked like they were in a hostage video, happen before or after tanks rolled into Ukraine? In my mind that's a "prewar" thing but maybe I got the sequence of events wrong? (I'm finding it hard to google this even though it was a fairly important event. Weird.)
> Western intelligence predicted Russia's plans perfectly
I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well, kind of a rare foreign policy bright spot for them. Too bad it didn't make a difference.
(I recalled it as well and with normal searching could not find it, even with date winnowing, but asking Gemini 2.5 Pro and it immediately gave me that resource)
This meeting happened just before the invasion. Far too late for anyone to really do anything, and long after most of the "are they/aren't they?" discussions happened. Up until that point Russia was repeatedly denying their "special military operation". Just as they denied their invasion of Crimea and their little green men in the Donbas.
As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration.
>I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well
These are good comments and there's a lot more that could be said.
> As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration.
To be fair there was a lot of this during the first Trump administration, only moreso near the end when plenty of the cabinet secretaries weren't real secretaries, just "acting" secretaries of various sorts. It's just that now they're all operating on that level.
> Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain.
Those people included almost all western governments who had blithely assumed Russia was not threat, did not react to the previous invasion (and some took the stance Russia had the support of the inhabitants of ethnically Russian areas), did not react to the invasion of Georgia, and generally just assumed it would be OK - which Russia took as a signal the west would be fine with an invasion of the rest of Ukraine.
Perhaps my impression was colored by the US government actually having a clear picture of what was about to happen. I won't defend Europe too much. It seems to me like Poland, the Nordics and the Baltics see Russia pretty clearly, but everything kind of falls apart the further away from Russia you get.
Very much so. The Biden administration was sounding the alarm, loudly, and the general vibe was, "well that wouldn't make any sense, there goes America crying wolf again like Iraq"
Interesting how in one case it's the leader of the country doing the invading and in the other it's the country doing it without the leader behind it mentioned.
> 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 not already.
Georgia launched attack in 2008, it is easily confirmed by:
1. News from that time (there was a several days delay between Georgia attack and when Medvedev decided to respond, during that time Putin called a press conference and said: "Georgia has started an attack and is bombing civilians, but Western press is silent about it". You can still find recordings of that press conference on video hosting sites, I believe.
2. There was an independent EU investigation that also confirmed that Georgia started the attack in 2008.
3. Last year Georgian government itself confirmed that they were attacking first.
It never cease to amaze me in what distorted information reality people live.
BTW, it's for the best, because it was the reason why West could coerce Georgia into starting a war in 2008. All the population, including the top politics lived in an alternative reality, so they basically said to Georgia: "Russia is weak and corrupt, they have no army, no weapons, they have only shovels, and even their shovels are rusty. So you'll easily get what you want without any resistance."
Actually, more or less the same repeated in 2022. Just read HN comments from 2022: "Russians are surrendering by tens of thousands a day, they don't want to fight with warm and welcoming and kind Ukrainian soldiers", "Ukraine burns thousands of Russian tanks and armored vehicles a day: here's a photo proof", etc, etc.
So this distortion of reality works the other way round, when West bases its actions on it. There are lies from top to bottom, and then everyone makes all kinds of decisions based on those lies.
Even if your premise was true, which it isn't, do we justify the imperialist invasion of a sovereign state because it was founded after some threshold year?
Countries are not a fact of nature. They change, come and go for a large number of reasons. The Ukrainian people are constituted in a country and have repeatedly expressed they don't wish to be part of Russia. If you want to force them to be at gunpoint, at least be open about it instead of hiding behind a historical pseudo-argument.
1918? Most of the territory of modern Ukraine. Before it was conquered by Bolsheviks.
Also Russia as an independent state ceased to exist in 1922. So it’s hardly that different. Both Russia and Ukraine only became independent countries in 1991 when they decided they to leave the USSR.
> 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 not already.
While this is categorically not true (WWI, the Ukrainian SSR), it's also irrelevant. There wasn't an independent Czechia or Albania either, or Turkey, or Greece, or Italy, or Germany, until there was. Historical non-existence of a state doesn't mean that with the rise of nationalism in the 19th and 20th century those states didn't become entities people wanted to belong to.
Here's a chronological list of various supressions of the Ukrainian language. There has been a semblance of a Ukrainian identity long before the 1990s.
> Georgia launched attack in 2008, it is easily confirmed by:
> Ukraine was always a part of Russia until 1991, btw, there was never a separate country called "Ukraine" before 1991
For very limited definition of "always" - Ukraine existed in different forms since like 9th century, including being a part of Duchy of Lithuania, and then Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, until 1795. Then in 1918 western Ukraine became part of Poland again. Ukraine with the borders as we know them today (OK, pre-2014) was created after WWII, as a part of Soviet Union.
So no, Ukraine was never "a part of Russia", excluding the short periods when Russia conquered them by force.
Yes, that’s literally what these people are saying.
Russia is allegedly entitled to own half of Europe due to some deranged reasons. Everyone who disagrees with that is supposedly a nazi or something similar.
The concept of hypocrisy is entirely foreign and incomprehensible to anyone who honestly supports Russian imperialism..
Funny twist is they are killing people on territories which have been friendly to russia, mostly used russian language in private life. Friendly doesn't mean they want to be occupied, though.
> there was never a separate country called "Ukraine" before 1991
Btw that is simply not true. There has been independent Ukraine few years by the end of WWI. Unfortunately, eventually they lost the war to the red army and been occupied by Moscow .
the nazis came as far as they did because a ton of peoole greeted them as liberators and joined their new oppressors to fight for a free homeland. You dont do that unless you really hate the empire you are imprisoned in..
Germans were pretty good at exploiting ethnic grievances in multiple countries - Czhech vs Slovak, Croats vs Serbs, Bulgars vs Greek and Hungarian vs everyone that have nothing to do oppression and fight for homeland.
People underestimate what a clusterfuck of ethnicities pre WW2 Eastern Europe was. Resettlement after WW2 created much cleaner ethnic maps and arguably the reason we had 80 years of mostly peace (Yugoslavia was last country with mix of ethnicities and wars in 90ies cleaned up it too).
Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy. Even German ambassadors in Ukraine were caught off guard having to leave that night.
Modi is a different type of beast, he's a long term political power that doesn't need a wartime economy, and is still establishing his internal power. He's going to have to deal with the insane SS brigade he's fostered eventually. Also while Putin and others thought that Ukraine would fall like Afghanistan (quickly), zero people think that Pakistan is going anywhere within this eon. While it's not the graveyard of empires, it's definitely the hospice.
> Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy
While Putin is undoubtedly deranged, I think his goals with invading had much more to do with delusions of grandeur and trying to rebuild the Russian/Soviet empire than wanting the "benefit" of a "wartime economy". Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war, and its economy, heavily reliant on export of raw materials and import of finished goods, has suffered.
There's as many theories about why Putin and Kremlin did what they did as there are war analyst books on it. Some of them are more right than others, but at the end of the day, if I'm honest, I'm as confused as I was in 2014. Which is a problem not only for my curiosity: if Western policymakers are as confused as me, it's difficult to craft a good policy: we're effectively playing half-court tennis (to quote Sarah C. Paine).
I think it still makes sense to me that they were too used to just rolling in and assuming power like happened many times after WW2. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, post-Berlin interventions like in Georgia, then Crimea most recently. I think they expected Kiev to be the same. The real question is why did the latest intervention turn out different? What changed?
This is a choice though. The decisions aren’t as hard as leaders are making them. Pulling support or giving support would end the war. Neither has actually occurred and support has been drip fed, bleeding both countries.
> The decisions aren’t as hard as leaders are making them.
Is there a statement that is more "armchair-policy-maker"?
In all seriousness, I have a similar sentiment about support for Ukraine, but I'm saying that it's difficult to have a robust policy (especially when it involves so many parties) when you struggle to understand the opponent's perspective.
I agree with most of this except maybe the "soviet empire" bit. His recent mentions of it (within the last 3 years) has been about how the fall of the Soviet Union broke up the "historical russian" borders. For Ukraine specifically he compared himself to Russian Czar Peter the Great.
A long time ago he lamented the fall of the Soviet Union which is especially hilarious as he was very likely involved in and vultured on the remains of it's demise.
> Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war
He, much like all of military officials in NATO at the time, assumed it was going to be over after they landed in Kiev.
The only exception is the pipeline, but then who could have expected that the US would sabotage an ally's ability to heat it's citizens? (assuming you ignore the last 100 years of american doctrine)
But its far from bottom of how much general russian population is willing to suffer before next bloody revolution happens. I don't talk about wealthy educated people from moscow or st petersburg (at least those that didn't leave), they are on purpose less targeted by whats happening, but rather permanently subjugated populations from poor regions whose lives changed comparatively little compared to cold war.
Prigozhin had a last real chance, you could see how much common folks and most of army immediately aligned with them. But when they took hostages whole families of his mercenary group leaders, they backed down with predictable results. Interestingly not all aligned generals were executed, I expected bigger purge. Maybe he would be much worse though.
>He, much like all of military officials in NATO at the time, assumed it was going to be over after they landed in Kiev
Military officials knew with no doubt whatsoever that the Ukrainians would fight like hell, and that they were better man-for-man, dollar-for-dollar, than the Russians.
NATO officials' first-hand knowledge of the Ukrainian will to fight is why they begged their governments to allow shipments of materiel to Ukraine.
As a peer mentioned, the 'Kiev will fall in 3 days' came from Mark Milley (US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time), not Russia. Beyond that, the decision was then near immediately made to lock all men of "fighting age" in the country, prevent them from leaving, and begin mass conscription.
This is something that I hope, in the future, will be seen as no less barbaric than slavery. If people want to fight for their country, then they absolutely should. But if people don't want to fight for their country, then they should never be able to be forced to - it's a mockery of any notion of human rights.
There's many things in this world I would be willing to die for, but a country? The notion feels quaint. Of course I realize this means that any country that does set aside such rights would have a tremendous military edge, but perhaps in such a world where human rights are held as more than a placard of convenience, the notion of dying for one's country might no longer seem so quaint.
Further claims from Ukraine: they've had 30,000 total deaths, are inflicting casualties at a 10:1 rate, have a 'Ghost of Kyiv' single handedly flying around taking on Russia, Russia is out of missiles, and so on endlessly.
you stand in a room with two doors .one always lies. you use the right door because its a old thing now. Everyone knows its a lie. Why the door and its noise is still around is a mystery .
At this point we can, more or less, objectively assess who has been being honest throughout the war. And as is usually the case in war, the truth is on the side that's winning. The way to do this is simply to look at what each side is saying and contrast it against what happened, which you can easily do with web archives.
The only question is when to start. And I think May 2023 was probably the critical point in the war. That was shortly before Bakhmut would fall, and also shortly before the Ukraine counter offensive would be launched and also ultimately fail. The war was arguably effectively decided by July 2023. So here are state media from May 1st 2023. You can skim forward using the widget in the top right corner.
> There's many things in this world I would be willing to die for, but a country
> human rights
I see where there is a gap in your understanding. Ukrainians and the Ukrainian army aren't fighting for the abstract concept of a geopolitical entity (the country of Ukraine), they're fighting for their people, culture, language, existence, safety, freedom. Russia is proudly performing a genocide in Ukraine [1], and Putin has already stated that Ukrainians are just misguided Russians.
What do you think a Russian occupation of Ukraine would look like? They're already kidnapping children [1] and indiscriminately murdering and torturing civilians.
Yes, it was horrible that every single man of fighting age was conscripted. But desperate times force desperate measures.
1 - in case you've missed the news, Russia is indeed (without trying to hide it, it's all out in the open, their chief of staff and various ministers have talked about it) kidnapping people and specifically children from Ukraine. Those children are being educated to be good Russian citizens, which is genocide as per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (to which Russia is a signatory), Article II (e).
This doesn't sound factual to me. The children you quoted as being "kidnapped" lived in regions of Russia that voted to secede from Ukraine. They are defacto Russian citizens. Their parents voted for it.
Voting with a foreign military presence doesn't count.
Also, a lot of the kids are orphans (their parents having been murdered by the Russians). And a lot have parents trying to trace them and get them back (there's a whole association for this).
(guessing you are American) and there have been similar abuses by US troops, like infamously in Haiti in the early 20th century, where the locals had to ask a US Marine for the ballot of the candidate they wanted to vote for.
But I'm not aware of anything of this type happening today. Do the US soldiers in e.g. Rammstein go to police how people vote?
The economy seems to be working still (numbers go up), because its a full on war-economy. You eat your country from the inside out, everything you produce explodes, and there's no way to transition out of it except by winning the war.
How do you come to this conclusion - have you been studying Putins' speeches in the last 3 years, or analysed some of the policies that led to this conclusion?
Did you see his recent interview on Croatian TV where he discusses this specifically?
EDIT: hey downvoters - is it not valid to study world leaders' directly rather than going through a third party .. ?
You mean his PR which is pretty pathetic but I presume its fine with... say less educated folks downing bottles of vodka like there is no tomorrow for whom its intended?
Bunch of lies, massive ego masturbation, constant feeling of being hurt by various external enemies (thats sort of russian trademark), a massive inferiority complex while expressing grandeur and superiority above others completely ignoring the fact russia as a nation, culture, philosophy, system etc. is the most hated one globally.
They view even rest of slavic megatribe as subhumans variously not worthy of independence, freedom, self-determination. Just look at their actions, his talk or his lapdog peskov' doesn't matter. The important thing you seem to miss to look primarily on actions, not some empty PR for simpler folks. Dude, I've been enslaved by russian/soviet military forces most of my childhood, I know very well what they bring to any society and how they shape it to their liking.
Just a typical sociopathic dictator out of touch with reality, nothing special there. The fact he is smart and put few sentences together doesn't matter at all, he is a vicious mass murderer completely out of touch with reality internally and externally, and a horrible manager of russia, damaging it severely and destroying any respect that nation and culture ever had. This started well before covid but that period cut him off completely.
Same assessment here. There is absolutely an excessively punitive element in Russian policy. I only really saw it due to their actions in the NKAO (peacekeepers simply letting Azerbajijan starve people, and then doing nothing about an invasion), but it's clearly a thing also in the Ukraine war.
> based on potential future events, you've come to this conclusion
No. I'm saying by the goals he set out before the war, he has failed.
> You saw his interview on Croatia TV recently? His statements refute your position
Putin is sort of like Trump in that he messages multiple messages. We cannot know what is in his mind. But Putin has repeatedly made revanchist nonsense statements about Russia's sphere of influence and imperial downfall. He's also said that's not what Russia wants. But that's (a) recent and (b) unsubstantiated by the facts ont the ground.
>No. I'm saying by the goals he set out before the war, he has failed.
Fine, but what were those goals, where/when did he set them out and what is the current status? I'd like to study this issue myself - so any sources you can provide?
>We cannot know what is in his mind.
Yet you claim to know, which is why I'm interested - if you don't believe his words, what basis do you have to make the assertion that you know his real intentions?
As far as I can tell (and I am merely hours away from the Ukraine border), the land he has occupied is precisely what he set out to achieve, and it doesn't look like that is about to change any time soon.
So please, share your references. I'd quite like to understand how you can make such conclusions with such certainty, while doubting the words of the very individual responsible for it. I remain unconvinced you've observed any of his recent public statements with regards to Russia's position with Europe.
> Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a de facto civil war, because now brothers, divided by their belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other - but Ukraine as anti-Russia will no longer exist. Russia is restoring its historical completeness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in all its totality of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had refused this, had allowed the temporary division to become entrenched for centuries, then we would not only have betrayed the memory of our ancestors, but would also have been cursed by our descendants - for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.
Note that referring to Ukrainians as "little Russians" is grossly offensive but fits with the big picture idea (which you can see scattered in this very thread! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43913680) that Ukraine isn't a real country or a separate nationality. This year we have been provided a very easy parallel: the rhetoric that Canada isn't really separate and should just be the 51st state. (What a coincidence!)
Here's another short video I always share on this topic, with John McCain laying things out in 2014 after Russia seized Crimea. We're about halfway through his predictions, I'd say. https://youtu.be/HLAzeHnNgR8
> As far as I can tell (and I am merely hours away from the Ukraine border), the land he has occupied is precisely what he set out to achieve, and it doesn't look like that is about to change any time soon.
Is that why the best Russian forces attacked Kyiv, including a paratroop landing to capture Antonov airport, which is in the Kyiv suburbs? You don't do that kind of thing if you're not expecting to capture the city. Also, why did Russia need to mobilise if it got what it wanted?
Add in Russia's claims that they're just removing the Ukrainian government, which it accused of being neo-Nazis.
> Putin's address was aired during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in Ukraine that began on the evening of 23 February.[14][15] At the meeting itself, Vasily Nebenzya, Russia's representative to the UN, stated: "We are not carrying out aggression against the Ukrainian people, but against the group that seized power in Kyiv."[16]
> Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories
That's called delusional backpedaling by both the Russians, and people like you who seem intent on giving them the benefit of the doubt for no apparent reason. Russia is not a rational actor, and no, nothing that has happened has been to plan, unless you believe their plan included having to mobilise, and losing the Black Sea fleet to a country with no navy.
"People like you" - you lost me here. I'm asking out of interest, not because I'm a useful idiot for Russians, and I'm not challenging your position because someone might consider that "you are a bootlicker for Western war-mongers", but because I have a legitimate interest in the conclusions you've made and the means you've taken to reach them, and I want to see the details - not the anecdotes, not the vitriol - based on evidence that can be reviewed and which is not keyed to emotional levers being pushed and pulled depending on which 'side' you are on.
I'm not interested in the vitriol - name-calling and invalidation of ones intelligence is a limited technique in terms of effectiveness - I am interested in the source of your understanding, such as it is. I work with refugees regularly from various conflicts, including Gaza and Ukraine, so my personal insight is based on on-the-ground assessments from civilian victims of these conflicts, whose voice is not often heard in the masses. What I know so far: nobody in the civilian cadre wants these wars, only their utterly insane leaders do.
So, again, what of the Russian governments' official positions have you evaluated against the reality of the facts on the ground?
Russia got its land corridor to Sebastopol, Crimea, where they continue to operate their nuclear-armed naval base: a requirement they made very clear early on in the conflict.
Russia have gained control over the territories in the east where they claimed that Ukraine was committing crimes against the mostly-Russian speaking population prior to their invasion. A consequence of their actions has been the result where, a significant portion of Europes' population now have a greater understanding of the nature of the various groups involved in the conflict - and yes, that includes a broader understanding of the Ukrainian and Russian extremist groups involved.
And .. a million men are dead because neither side had what it took to actually maintain peace.
>Russia is not a rational actor
By which standard can you make this claim of any nation which has invaded and demolished sovereign states this century? There are literally no states involved in any conflict today which can be considered rational actors.
States are, by very stint of necessity, duplicitous and calculating in their actions - which is why I think it is very selective to make conclusions on the state of the conflict in Ukraine on the basis of public statements and propaganda - from both sides of the conflict. I'd like to have a distinct set of statements which can be verified against the current reality, but this is not forthcoming - so far, the vitriol is getting in the way of rational discussion.
So .. What do you think of Putins' statements made on Croatian Channel 4 TV on Monday, regarding Russia's position vis a vis its relationship with Europe? All lies? Should be ignored on the basis of some masterful application of coffeeshop psychology techniques?
> I want to see the details - not the anecdotes, not the vitriol - based on evidence that can be reviewed and which is not keyed to emotional levers being pushed and pulled depending on which 'side' you are on. /---/ What I know so far: nobody in the civilian cadre wants these wars, only their utterly insane leaders do.
It goes without saying that nobody in Ukraine wants the war, but indeed, let's examine facts and not personal anecdotes. KIIS and other surveyors have consistently found ~80% support for continuing to resist the invasion (graph 6): https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1509&page=1
Likewise, saying that the Sevastopol naval base "continues to operate" is quite a stretch when we look at the facts:
* Even there, unmanned Ukrainian naval drones continue to pose a significant danger. In the past week, in the first ever aerial combat of this kind, they shot down two fighter jets near Novorossiysk: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukrainian-naval-drones-shoo...
Quite a different picture from the victory parade you were trying to draw us. When reality and narrative differ this much, "people like you" labels shouldn't offend, because you indeed represent a certain distinct type.
> "People like you" - you lost me here. I'm asking out of interest, not because I'm a useful idiot for Russians
I'm sorry, but you are. Might not be your intention (I strongly doubt it), but you are.
> and I want to see the details - not the anecdotes, not the vitriol - based on evidence that can be reviewed and which is not keyed to emotional levers being pushed and pulled depending on which 'side' you are on.
I linked you a Wikipedia page with the timeline, quotes and Putin's official announcement of the war on kremlin.ru. What do you have to say about that, other than "wanting to review the evidence"? Come on, gave you plenty, go ahead and review it, and come back to us telling us how Russia supposedly achieved its aims.
> So, again, what of the Russian governments' official positions have you evaluated against the reality of the facts on the ground?
Their starting position, which is that they're bringing peace to the bad Ukraine Nazis, and that they're fighting NATO encroachment, both of which are objective failures - Ukraine is still there, and NATO got even closer to Russia with Sweden and Finland.
> Russia got its land corridor to Sebastopol, Crimea, where they continue to operate their nuclear-armed naval base: a requirement they made very clear early on in the conflict.
Cool, and the Black Sea Fleet is still in Sevastopol, right? Wait, there's a Black Sea Fleet, right? Right?
Russia lost the Black Sea Fleet to a country with no navy. It had to evacuate whatever was remaining of it to Novorossiysk, far out of range of Ukrainian drones. They could have saved a lot of lives and their fleet by just moving the fleet there in the first place.
> A consequence of their actions has been the result where, a significant portion of Europes' population now have a greater understanding of the nature of the various groups involved in the conflict - and yes, that includes a broader understanding of the Ukrainian and Russian extremist groups involved.
One party, Russia, invaded and is genociding the other [1]. Ukraine had a negligible problem with neo-Nazis in a militia. Totally the same "extremist groups on both sides", right?
> What do you think of Putins' statements made on Croatian Channel 4 TV on Monday, regarding Russia's position vis a vis its relationship with Europe? All lies? Should be ignored on the basis of some masterful application of coffeeshop psychology techniques?
So, I Googled around, and saw some youtube/facebook/linkedin links talking about that and how Russia isn't Europe's enemy (even though they're literally invading a European neighbour and threatening others, sure mate) and bla bla nonsense. But on further searching... there is no such thing? Grok (not that it's very reliable) says that it can't find any proof of such statements. Googling with HRT 4, the name of the Croatian channel, finds nothing. Their website with the Putin tag shows nothing: https://www.hrt.hr/tag/vladimir-putin
So it's fake... Good job being a useful idiot for the enemy of Europe.
1 Russia is indeed (without trying to hide it, it's all out in the open, their chief of staff and various ministers have talked about it) kidnapping people and specifically children from Ukraine. Those children are being educated to be good Russian citizens, which is genocide as per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (to which Russia is a signatory), Article II (e).
I thought he invaded because of historical and not at all unfounded fears of western encirclement. Ukraine was getting pretty close to NATO, after all. I don't doubt that there were imperialist intentions, I'm just saying there is also a certain strategy and logic to the invasion.
Hopefully this will finally teach the nations of the world they can't rely on the likes of the US for their protection. If they want to survive and keep their sovereignity, they should really start developing missile technology and stockpiling nukes. If they don't, they will simply get steamrolled by nuclear armed opponents while the US does pretty much nothing about it despite promising to because they're not actually willing to risk global thermonuclear war with Russia over some eastern european country.
A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons from the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Making people complacent with repeated false alarms is more likely the intended outcome than a failure.
When I was in school, one of the history teachers spent a lot of time describing how the Yom Kippur War started. I guess he thought it told something important about how things work in the real world. The lead up to the Russian invasion looked pretty much the same. An ordinary person could not have known if the invasion would actually start this time. But a reasonable person should have understood that if an invasion was about to start, that was what it would likely look like.
This is actually a known tactics. I remember in the 90s thieves often did similar things like triggering an alarm on a parking lot every night. At first many people were alarmed and went down to check on their cars. But after a few false alarms nobody cared. It was then when they started to steal.
Yeah but if you’re a part of the region you know India is not stupid or expansionary. No Indian is really worried about this turning into a full scale war.
I wouldn’t be so sure. It is easy for the tit-tat to spiral out of control. Any kind of military skirmish is very concerning… we should stop the fighting while we still can.
Man B push around man A, insult him, poke him. Man A ask him to stop. Man B pulls out a gun and shoots man A. Here, ftfy.
Poland saw what what Germany did to Czechoslovaquia, decided that negotiations would only happen after a demilitarization and de-escalation.
But it's true it wasn't sudden, poland was preparing for the war, the attack from both side (cooperation between Germany and Russia) is what took them by surprise
Hold on, nowhere did I say that A and B corresponded to the Germany/Poland situation. You are putting words in my mouth.
I was strictly illustrating a counter example to the implied notion that overreaction implies suddenness.
To further demonstrate that this is a misunderstanding on your part, it wouldn’t even make sense for me to have A and B correspond to the Germany/Poland situation - that would make my argument circular!
It isn’t very kind to take an interpretation that would set the speaker’s argument as circular, when an alternate and trivially-demonstrated-as-more-valid interpretation is also available. I believe the advice is often stated as - assume good intent.
On your second point - this is an elementary school tier interpretation of history. Poland itself did not have anywhere close to sufficient leverage to make such decisions about delaying negotiations. They were able to do so solely due to Britain’s backing their decision with force. Why did Britain back them? Why do you believe the history book written by the winners so easily on a topic so fuzzy as motive?
I didn't though. I illustrated that overreaction can be extremely sudden by being just that, an overreaction. Because gradation is expected, overreaction is unexpected, which, if my English isn't too rusty, is a synonym of sudden. I'm sorry you thought I was putting words in your mouth?
And I'm not a huge fan of Weinberg (and most pre-2000s historians), I think he was too 'furetien' in his vision of Nazism, but everything he wrote was backed by facts and actual written sources, and that Poland (and most of the world, including Romania) was more than miffed by the destruction of Czechoslovakia a year after the Sudetenland was annexed is a fact, and more than a few diplomatic cables show that.
Also, Beck was quite convinced of Poland's ability to hold until the french attack on the other side, and thought USSR would come to their help (especially after Memel, and probably because the French were persuaded of it too), thus convincing Carol to throw himself with the 'peace Front' (hindsight is 20/20, and Ribbentrof the most competent Nazi, probably because he was not ideologically one, which helps). England actually pushed for Poland to make concessions, and multiple cables from Poland responded to the English in the summer 39: 'we want, but they won't meet us'. I think they threw a last hail Mary: fully open borders in the area (no treaty at all, just a policy change) to show that they were open to negotiations, but it was too late.
To respond to your actual question, Britain backing was in name only (compared to France), and mostly prevented a France-Poland-Ussr alliance originally (after that Daladier came back USSR alliance was a bit farther, than anticipated, but still). Britain (and US) were aware that Germany was stronger than France, but thought the gap was small and tried to limit French diplomacy to keep it that way (limit continental European powers was a major mandate). They misjudged the balance of power. But they certainly didn't pit Poland against Germany, pushing relentlessly for negotiation instead, unlike the French
That's not really comparable to Poland and Germany. More comparable would be: Man A is pushing man B repeatedly and yelling at him as a bar dispute escalates. Man A pulls out a gun and shoots man B once Man B retaliates.
A few months ago, I stopped reading random news and decided to stick only to Hacker News. But now, even Hacker News is filled with random content.
I guess there's no escaping the news these days.
Talking about armed brinksmanship between two nuclear powers is sooooo random, maybe a more specialized community like they have on Reddit is more your speed?
I've been thinking recently about how business has been a pretty decent wrapper around wars and killings, arenas, lands, whatever, just: competing for human death. However, I've also been thinking that in late stage capitalism, genuine entrepreneurship is probably increasingly difficult to get into, leading to less genuine opportunity, leading to less business, leading to idle hands, leading to the devils workshop.
You know, I sit on a few Christian discords and all they do on it is fight between each other (denomination vs denomination). They sit around and combatively go after each other and there is also interfaith beef that happens constantly on those Discords (Muslims vs Christians is a big one). It's almost like ... yeah, I have to agree with you. It's almost like if the human doesn't have a true and good outlet for energy, then bad energy comes spilling out. I don't know what these cats in Kashmir sit around and do all day, but if it's anything like the venues I'm describing, then yes, they are sitting around riling themselves up against the "other".
This was one of the videos of the terror attack that sparked this:
26 dead, and about 17 injured in the terror attack. There were 5 jets shot down in the retaliation. I don't know how reciprocal the retaliation was. This is tricky.
Those are fuel tanks, not jets. And their source is "four local government sources". In a conflict fueled with massive disinformation I would rely on something more concrete.
It’s your country, I’m just a neutral on the outside. If you want to take the stance of “fake news”, “no evidence of that” unless India publicly admits it, by all means. I don’t count on that happening though because there’s obviously “appease the domestic population” going on.
Ask your government to uncensor the Internet and you’ll probably get plenty of credible evidence in addition to the partial confirmation by the French side and anonymous local officials. According to CNN both sides are smart enough to not cross the border so that an undeniable parade of wreckage like the one in 2019 can’t happen this time round.
When all the potential hard evidence is in India and tightly controlled, of course it impacts your (and everyone else’s) ability to get evidence. According to CNN people had to delete video evidence of jet crashes, and journalists weren’t allowed to get anywhere close.
I am not exactly going to worry about things that I can't control. The best I can do is check sources from other side(which are equally bad if not worse) and amplify voices of reason.
I lived in Manhattan for 20 years and during the Obama years I was traveling across the country a lot, was very obvious to me Trump was coming but people thought I was nuts. I'd head back to the city and sip a cosmo thinking "people really love to hate 'other'".
I tend to take Marxist view: elites always exploit the common man, and when the common man becomes unhappy, it is the best strategy to channel hate towards the Other so that regular folk dont start asking inconvenient questions.
Like every time there is small blip in economy in the Us, it is always illegals and immigrants in general and poor people are blamed. Always.
Never have I ever seen a PE billionaire getting blamed for acquiring companies by borrowing at 0% rates and firing people to and outsource jobs
People in Bay Area feel it is okay to pay 50% in marginal taxes on payroll, while billionaire class either doesnt pay at all, or pays 10% capital gain at best
You overestimate rich folk's ability to woo masses while staying completely hidden, with some ultra nefarious agendas. There are some ways to achieve some stuff but there are many conflicting interests even up there.
The simple, but way more sad fact of life is - people, when we create large enough population, are pretty stupid. We are well capable to fuck ourselves up without anybody behind the wheel driving it. And its not just 'them', its all of us.
Humans are not that great, individuals can achieve greatness in some narrow meaning (and since its pretty rare its so celebrated, confirming what I write), sure but overall we are pretty dumb highly emotional beasts, trivial to manipulate like a baby doll. 99% of that is via emotions, the aspect of our existence we have almost no control of.
That is not true, plenty blame the rich, just look at the murder of the United CEO.
Generally though blaming the elite has become selective and polarizing, only blame the opposite side for being rich not yours (Hasan piker on the left or Elon musk on the right).
Truth be told, we have all tools to feed all humans and have a moderate life quality, but some people want to have more than others, just for the sake of it.
Yes, the ones that finance, develop and operate those tools to feed all humans, should absolutely be entitled to have more than the ones that do nothing and benefit from them.
Otherwise, soon, those tools will not exist anymore.
Imagine ancient mesopotamia where the priests supposedly controlled food distribution because food was accumulated in temples. The priest himself is not working the fields or builds tools, but he demands respect. He will put feathers in his hair, talk elaborately and call it a day after he takes a good chunk of food for himself.
Lets hope for a short quiet war. Some thoughts as an outside observer with no dog in the race.
ISI no doubt kicking themselves for getting caught orchestrating the pahalgam attack.
Pakistan cant afford to be in this war, but India has been increasing their military for over 10 years. Doubled the spending is enabling broo-ha-ha.
But neither side can ever corner the other side; and spending millions of USD equivalent to blow up mudhuts and never really achieve anything.
I do expect they can say goodbye to the Karakoram highway. India wants that destroyed asap. India will likely focus heavily on Jammu/Kashmir. Ladakh will happen only if China invades India again.
Punjab is likely an open target for Pakistan; but pakistan likely not interested in targeting them.
When we leave them "untouched" they disappear rapidly due to community flags and automatic flamewar penalties. The only way for us to give them exposure is "touch" them – to override the flags and flamewar penalties (i.e., push the threads back up onto the front page), then spend hours poring through the comments to try to minimise the effects of the most inflammatory ones. Still, we do it often, but only when the story has "significant new information" which is always the test of whether a story belongs on HN.
As a comment: you keep coming at us with these accusations but don't seem to ever mention a specific news story that you think should have had a prominent discussion here but didn't.
If you suspect organised/targeted flagging/downvoting, you can email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll investigate it. We really do want to investigate such cases, as people who do it are abusing HN (though we do have mechanisms to detect flagging/voting abuse).
It's against the guidelines to allege it in comments.
Hm? The US and Pakistan have seen a lot of tension since the fall of the USSR, and ever since they established a hotline between themselves, there's been much lower risk.
Since the fall of the USSR there's been the Kargil War and the 26/11 Terrorist Incident, along with plenty of other tense moments.
(Additionally, I feel frustrated that your comment about Indian and Pakistani geopolitics seems unaware of the last 30 years of geopolitical developments between the two countries, but not sure that leads to a productive conversation.)
India has a dedicated No First Use Policy, and the former head of India's nuclear command gave an in depth presentation about India, Pakistan, and China's nuclear doctrine at Livermore Labs a couple years ago - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OZpIrZvP0Co
Most of the conversation about a nuclear war is dated (30-35 years old) because it was based on the 1990 standoff, before which India and Pakistan did not have a hotline similar to that which the US and USSR developed.
After the 1990 standoff, that was developed, and was clearly implemented during the Kargil War in 1999 (just because Clinton admin didn't want to call it a war because of NPT implications doesn't mean it wasn't a war).
At this point, be more worried about Ukraine or South Korea - Russia's nuclear doctrine has become much more questionable after the 2022 invasion, and North Korea's nuclear doctrine remains hazy.
I recommend reading "Dangerous Deterrent" by Paul Kapur (former head of strategy at the State Department under Bush, and now Trump's nominee for South Asia Strategy).
Policies can be changed, or ignored. The question is would Pakistan trust its neighbor, with whom it has decades of animosity and in this scenario is currently at war, to stick to such a policy?
While I personally doubt this particular instance will escalate to nuclear war, or even a major conventional war for that matter, the situation is clearly very dangerous. Doctrine is a terrible indicator of what a country will actually do.
For Russia and North Korea, even though their doctrines may be hazy, their geopolitical positions indicate they are unlikely to start a nuclear engagement. Russia has a very large conventional military which, despite it's significantly worse than expected performance, is slowly but steadily making progress in a war that other great powers are not willing to directly join. Conversely, half the world's nukes are pointed squarely at Russia. Their strategy pretty much the entire time under Putin has been slowly normalizing their military actions, use of nuclear weapons in even the most minimal capacity would be very likely to provoke exactly the military response they don't want and would gain them nothing. Their nukes exist specifically to deter that response.
North Korea is even more clearly disadvantaged by a potential nuclear exchange. Sure they have enough nukes to cause serious damage to South Korea, but they already had the conventional forces to do that long before they got nukes. They could strike America, and do quite a bit of damage, but they have no hope of doing enough damage to prevent a retaliatory strike that would kill the regime. They are caught between two major nuclear powers, the US and China, and their nukes are clearly to prevent one from attempting a regime change without relying too heavily on the other.
Both of these states would probably have ceased to exist by now if they did not have nukes, and both will stop existing if they ever use nukes. They are more or less stable.
India and Pakistan are a totally different story. Both need nukes to deter not only eachother but other neighbors, which produces a heavily destabilizing effect (eg if India builds more nukes to counter a buildup in China, Pakistan needs more nukes, which means India needs even more nukes, and so on). Further, neither nation is staring down the barrel of a true clusterfuck arsenal like those possessed by the US and Russia - while it would no doubt be catasrophic beyond anything the world has seen before, a nuclear exchange between the two nations is potentially survivable. Finally you have not just two governments but two populations with a deep seated enmity rooted in religious conflict, it is easily possible for the entire chain of command to be willing to go against their personal self interest with no one in a position to pump the brakes. It's a situation that could become very bad, very quickly, without anyone doing anything too absurd.
As I mentioned above, the framing you mentioned is 35 years out of date already. Even Pakistan has a fairly open nuclear doctrine which they have also presented on numerous occasions at Livermore Labs [0]
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 aircraft and a drone. However, so far, they haven't provided any pictures or locations to support these claims. Both sides will likely exchange fire along the border, and the situation will eventually calm down. Each side will claim victory in its own way.
> They were unable to locate the terrorists even after two or three weeks and needed a distraction.
This does not make sense. When France attacked Daesh in 2015 after the terrorist attacks in Paris or when the US attacked Afghanistan after 9/11, the objective wasn't to target the exact people who carried out the attacks, but the organization behind the attacks. People can always be found as long as the organization remains.
The goal of the attacks would be to make any future terrorist attack an expensive option for the Pakistani military as opposed to something which can be done routinely. There was a sharp drop in the terrorist attacks in Kashmir after the 2019 confrontation.
>when the US attacked Afghanistan after 9/11, the objective wasn't to target the exact people who carried out the attacks, but the organization behind the attacks
The mission in Afghanistan was very much to find Bin Laden. It was changed after he escaped.
It was very much to dismantle Al Qaeda and senior leadership. Just killing Bin Laden wouldn’t have done that much.
Apropos of this conflict, to where did Bin Laden escape?
I hope it wasn't to a military cantonment in Pakistan. That would be wild.
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 easily become the new normal again.
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 not something sustainable - once visuals of hunger start reaching screens across the world, the force to restart the supply would be strong.
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.
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.
India is also buying oil from Russia - at a discount, or used to - because it is one of the few that could do so openly.
Attacking Pakistan over this also strengthens BJP’s hand and distracts everyone from the complaints that have been eroding their support, like ongoing corruption, high taxes with lower quality of life, etc. etc.
Don’t expect the gulf countries to come to Pakistan’s aid over this, especially if it comes to money. Muslim countries in general like to pretend to be friends, and they certainly talk a big game.
When it comes to actually doing anything though, they just use anything going on as a chance to stab each other in the back. Even when there is a chance for going after ‘the common enemy’ like Israel.
India hasn’t even been close to interesting to any of them since the Mughals. The minority Muslim population in India (about 20%) is also just a little less than Pakistans entire population, and almost half of the entire Middle East’s population, so it’s not like it would be a clean ‘attack the Hindu’s’ type situation anyway.
Also, Indians in general are not particularly warmongering, but this is about as righteous a cause as anyone has been able to come up with for awhile to ‘make someone pay’, is total rage bait for the hardliners/Hindutva contingent and is a good distraction for BJP.
As long as it doesn’t get too expensive, or look like it will escalate to Nuclear war, I’d expect it to go on awhile.
India in general loves to get all worked up about Pakistan (and to a lesser extent Bangladesh, though in that case it’s often about illegal immigrants).
It’s a trope like getting worked up about Cartels and/or ‘the illegals’ from down South in the US.
Source: westerner living in India for awhile now. मैं हिंदी नहीं बोल सकता, but I still get around eh?
> Attacking Pakistan over this also strengthens BJP’s hand and distracts everyone from the complaints that have been eroding their support, like ongoing corruption, high taxes with lower quality of life, etc. etc.
This won't last long, though. BJP lost the elections after Kargil War.
It never does, but Modi is a sly operator. He’s spent a lot of time under the Sword of Damocles and is still around.
While this was going on, it even seemed to distract folks in the office from the US H1B situation, which is something.
I suspect both sides will milk this for awhile.
I'm not saying that India is full-on authoritarian today. But it's definitely edging in that direction under BJP, and I could see them embracing the war as their ultimate ticket to get there. I mean, if there is a shooting war with Pakistan, and they can credibly blame Pakistan for starting it, what will it do to BJP electoral standing?
As far as US, under Trump, I'd actually expect it to back Modi.
Can India build new aqueducts/pipelines to divert water from the headwaters they control? Dams only have finite capacity after all
Yes, albeit they would be susceptible to being shelled. With, uh, unpredictable but likely bad consequences if they happens.
"less stable" === yikes
We could have gone after the people who actually did 9/11 but that was a bit of a non-starter. Also I think you're equivocating between multiple interpretations of "the terrorists" when most people absolutely wouldn't draw a distinguishing line between, using 9/11 as an example again, the actual hijackers and Osama bin Laden. There's absolutely no question that any time the phrase "the 9/11 terrorists" is used it means both the actual perpetrators and the people who planned and supported the attack.
The context was a reply to an assertion that the terrorists in Pahalgam were not found by Indian security. I interpreted this as people who physically did the attack.
If by terrorists, we mean the planners of the operation, that trail leads directly to Pakistan. Musharraf, the ex-army chief, is on record saying that the military has funded several militant organizations in Kashmir including LeT. (Osama's haveli in Abbotabad was incidentally also very close to the Pakistan Military Academy). The permission for the operations probably came all the way from the top as the attack came right after a strong statement on Kashmir by the army chief.
"funding militant organizations" isn't the same as committing acts of terrorism. Nobody would have said the US should have responded to the 9/11 attacks with airstrikes on the CIA headquarters.
We are not talking about re-targeting of training and weapons from Afghanistan to Manhattan, but direct planning of an attack with ability to restrain and release the groups on demand. Contra the truthers, even the CIA wouldn't go that far. Musharraf explicitly mentioned the groups operating in Kashmir. He wasn't talking about fighters in Afghanistan.
The CIA wouldn't go that far? Operation Northwoods [1] is obvious evidence to the contrary. The one and only reason that that operation wasn't carried out is because of a President who refused to sign on to it, who would shortly thereafter be assassinated by a 'deluded gunman.' [2]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
[2] - https://youtu.be/MdejNPSuKek?t=62
> There was a sharp drop in the terrorist attacks in Kashmir after the 2019 confrontation.
There were fewer terrorist attacks, certainly. I'm sure the Indian government would like to believe that the 2019 strike had an effect, but far more likely causes are
- Money. Pakistan's economy has stagnated and the country has lurched from one IMF bailout to the next (2019, 2023, 2024). It got so bad at one point that politicians were asking people to drink less tea so they could conserve foreign currency.
- Covid. Affected everything, but certainly harder to think about waging conflict when such a massive problem is affecting the country.
- Internal political instability, especially when Imran Khan took on the military and lost. The military was actually in danger of losing their primacy for the first time in decades.
- Conflict with the Taliban and Pakistani Taliban. The ISI had nurtured the Taliban to be tame pets and it turned out not to be the case. Crushing these was the highest priority, not least because it made their policy of nurturing terrorists look idiotic.
All of these factors meant Pakistan wasn't and isn't in the best shape to wage war overtly or covertly with India. India's economy has continued to grow, in contrast to Pakistan. The official Indian policy of "benign neglect" towards Pakistan appeared to work well.
I'm sure these attacks will be spun as a success in the future. Safe to say a Bollywood movie dramatising the events is already in the works. But Pakistan's own economic and political problems are far more likely to influence its decisions to engage in this sort of behaviour.
If you are actually arguing that a country targeted by a terrorist attack does not gain deterrence with a counterstrike relative to letting things go on, then how uniform do you consider this prescription? Should the terror attacks in the US or France not have had a military response?
What happens to the incentives of terror groups in response to such a policy?
---
The role of money only becomes an issue when conducting a terrorist attack becomes expensive. Missiles and jets consume much more money in comparison to training recruits via an intermediary organization like LeT and sending them across the border to carry out attacks.
A regime in which a terror attack leads to a high pressure, expensive situation for the Pakistani military is completely different from regularly scheduled, train and deploy terror attacks from militants which used to happen earlier.
In that situation, the military has to respond to economic pressure, pressure from allies and pressure from its own people.
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 boogeyman to justify their interference in politics and economic exploitation. But now that India has attacked Pakistani targets this will quiet any internal criticism of the Pakistani Army.
In other words, the military absolutely loves it when India engages in so-called deterrence. No Pakistani army soldier died (according to both sides). Pakistani people support the Pakistani Army more strongly than ever. It's absolutely perfect for the Army. I fully expect that they'll fund more terrorists, leading to a constant cycle of violence.
> 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
Yes, an outside target can be used to tackle internal strife. But, there is no sign that the Pakistani army is actually in any danger of being removed from power, barring a major military defeat, nor that it will lose its autonomy over military policy.
If say, India were to let this slide, the default outcome is another such attack. Given the above motivation of the military to create a conflict and the ideological bent seen in Gen.Munir's speech, the expected outcome would be to repeat till this they get a conflict.
Yes, the deterrence won't be perfect. The Pakistan Army might end up repeating an attack whenever there is a relief from economic constraints(it doesn't have money for frequent purchases of expensive weapons) or from pressure from its allies (who dont want their oil trade or pipelines to suffer). But this means that what India has to do to minimize the number of attacks is to not let an attack slide by with low cost for the army.
The best case scenario would be a peace deal, as was arrived in Vajpayee and Sharif's time, but it was sabotaged by the Kargil operation, for exactly the reason you mentioned - a peace deal marginalises the army.
No, the default outcome is not another attack.
This action guarantees another attack, because it has paid of in the actual PR dividends the ruling forces of both sides desired.
This has zip to do with the citizens, and everything to do with party / power bloc legitimacy.
Winning on economics and good governance is hard.
I can't even begin to understand this logic.
Why do you think Pakistan orchestrated the last attack? Do you think those reasons had anything to do with the expectation of retaliation from India?
The default is that Pakistan's motivations do not change and they keep doing what they've been doing. Ergo, another attack.
Yes this is stupid and worse for both sides, but it only takes one party to start a fight.
I don’t think Pakistan orchestrated the last attack.
The structure was designed for being disavowed.
I expect it was more the army looked away, over condoned.
And yes, the expectations are to generate a response from the BJP.
By this rubric there are 4 actors on the stage.
- The people of Pakistan, the Pakistani army,
- The people of India, the BJP.
I’ve had this discussion with friends who are Pakistani and they concur that this makes the most sense.
The opinions of the Pakistani army have dramatically changed as per their interactions, having been at a nadir due to their domestic handling of events, and now these actions have reinvigorated public opinion.
The BJP has had its military credentials burnished.
I’d go a step deeper and suspect that there was a traditional response from India planned, and then at some point in the past 72 hours, a functionary on the BJP side raised the potential of a massive PR coup and the old guard got sidelined.
This has worked. This means this behavior will be repeated.
> The structure was designed for being disavowed.
> I expect it was more the army looked away, over condoned.
Right, in the exact same way they "looked away" while OBL lived half a mile away from the most prestigious military academy in Pakistan and the same way they "over condoned" the Taj hotel shootings. You are not disagreeing with me here.
> The opinions of the Pakistani army have dramatically changed as per their interactions, having been at a nadir due to their domestic handling of events, and now these actions have reinvigorated public opinion.
This line describes Hamas just as well as the Pakistani state, unfortunately.
> The BJP has had its military credentials burnished.
Indian media always has been and always will be jingoistic and no matter how the government responded, it would gleefully report on the power of the Indian military.
> This has worked. This means this behavior will be repeated.
WHO has this worked for? The BJP isn't more popular because of this. Pakistan hasn't achieved any strategic goals beyond the continuing destabilization of J&K - which is already well on the way to integration.
> 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.
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.
So maybe say which specific military responses you want to talk about in the first place rather than just saying "the terror attacks in the US or France" and expecting everyone to read your mind.
we wenr green and attacked oil revenues that financed terror.
> What happens to the incentives of terror groups in response to such a policy?
You're imagining these people to be some sort of loyalists, rather than something closer to anarchists. Triggering military responses is going to be viewed as a bonus.
I'll note people rather frequently claimed Bin Laden wanted the US to be tied up in the military quagmire that their terror attacks produced. There's certainly some logic to that idea. His organization was too small to do much direct damage.
They were also suggesting that they should import less foreign expensive cheeses
> 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 doubtful nukes would be used). The only other realistic situation where nukes are used is in an accidental scenario.
That is why conventional military strength is still very much important in the world now. The Europeans are finding this out a bit late.
It's also why Putin is a great actor and bluffer. Trust me, he's the last person who would think of using nukes, despite appearances to the contrary. Now, if he were to somehow use nukes on an actual populated area, I believe the western powers would NOT use nukes in retaliation, so it seems like he would have a found a way out of MAD. But, the conventional response (likely a containment rather than an attack on Russia, e.g., a no fly zone and destruction of military assets, with the threat of nuclear retaliation backing it up) would be so strong that the Russia would be effectively neutralized. If they persist in nuking, then all bets are off, WW3 begins, and civilization could end.
They did transport those nukes in unmarked army trucks in normal traffic with only light guard , out of fear other nations (like the us) could step in to take the toys away, which was a constant background noise during the Afghanistan war. This nations secret service (ISI) has trained,armed and send terrorist groups into other nations. Bin Laden was found in a compound in a garrison city. Those djihadis do believe in that paradise afterlife of theirs no matter how much you belittle their faith. They say how little they value lifes proud and openly . Please stop projecting western sentiments on another culture for once and listen, just listen to what they say. I dont want to eat closed loop greenhouse produce for the rest of my halflife just because somebody who grew up in a golden surplus time is unwilling to engage in grim realities, to prevent them .
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.
IDK Man. There was no institutional power in the US that seemed to make a serious effort when a known international pe*o peddler mysteriously unalived himeself. Somone with direct personal relationships with British Royalty, US Presidents (among other Gov Officials), and some of the richest men in the western world (eg Bill Gates). Apparently terabytes of video tapes gone.
Also note his island has a full on Egyptian Temple on it, and no-one has any idea what's underground.
None of these things are disputed. Sounds pretty Satanic and International to me.
> Europe doesn't have the capacity to impose a no-fly zone on Russia. I doubt even US could pull that off.
I'm not sure about that.
Let me put it this way. US has a strong enough military that it could do so if it really wanted, but it would involve a lot of casualties. I doubt that the American public would be willing to sustain the amount it would require.
Does this hold even for North Korea?
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.
my worry is the nukes too
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.
There aren’t a lot of examples of nuclear states being attacked by a stronger military power
Consider: willing but unable to fight any more, overpowered, and unwilling to surrender. That's where launching nukes, the ultimate weapon of retaliation, could look very enticing.
More important ,ever since the multipolar great games resumed , they will have customers for nukes. Trump really was the final nail on deterence reliance ..
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.
It is not that they didn't try supplying Iran with nuclear tech.
https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/pakistan/nytimes0...
Date stamp: February 12, 2004
This is why I'm comparing nuclear trade to high cholesterol. It's a long-term issue.
The "knife fight" comparison is that they just got hit. The military needs are "literally, not metaphorically, yesterday".
Its ok, most of pakistan moved to London anyway so we dont have much to worry about.
Looks like some of the locations were deep within Pakistan and were targeted precision strikes. They have also released video footage of many of the strikes https://idrw.org/indian-airstrikes-target-terror-infrastruct...
Massive misinformation out there, so be skeptical of anything that flatters anybody.
I think you're mostly correct. This does mirror the 2019 flare up, and yeah ultimately neither side wants their populace to figure out they're not as strong or prepared as they claim. For Pakistan after squashing the democratically popular leader, they can't afford to appear weak (the only thing they can lean on is strength to explain to the populace why they are better than a democratically elected leader). For India, also, the BJP has been waning in popularity after almost a decade of incumbency, this could be the straw that loses them their major support.
Yet people died.
> Pakistan is not economically strong enough to participate in a war,
Pakistan has nothing to lose. So there are lots of incentives for Pakistan army to go rogue.
This isn’t how anything works. Both India and Pakistan depend on imported military hardware. Every time they’ve fought each other they’ve been embargoed. So every kind of engagement has an implicit timer before the military literally runs out of munitions to continue any kind of serious war.
This is what then PM Nawaz Sharif said about Kargil war:
> After the war, Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan during the Kargil conflict, claimed that he was unaware of the plans, and that he first learned about the situation when he received an urgent phone call from Atal Bihari Vajpayee, his counterpart in India. Sharif attributed the plan to Musharraf and "just two or three of his cronies", a view shared by some Pakistani writers who have stated that only four generals, including Musharraf, knew of the plan.
Possible he was lying. But this is an accepted view even in the Pakistan.
Pakistan has everything to lose. They are totally dependent on India for reliable water supply, i.e. for getting something other thana drought-flood cycle.
Military action is only going to lead to India being less willing to give them an even supply. They are totally dependent on keeping India happy, and now of course, they've failed to do that by allowing these recent murders.
Pakistan has a population of 250 million people. But, of course, an army can go rogue regardless; they have no need to follow the words of economists (or anyone, really).
Pakistan is irrelevant, what do the people in charge have to lose (or win)?
I hope this is true
so its saving face attack??? idk about that
Thanks for stating these forecasts so authoritatively. Or maybe we should admit this is uncharted waters and we shouldn't downplay what is possible?
Its not the first time these two have been at war.
It's also worth pointing out that whatever nonsense the terrorists were on about will now just get reinforced. You could be talking about a more agitated situation with even more terror attacks. This is how bullshit like this escalates. They should have coordinated with Pakistan to run the strikes.
I also thought the Ukraine war wasn't "really" going to happen. Humans will human.
> They should have coordinated with Pakistan to run the strikes.
I think the past 30 years have demonstrated enough that Pakistan is only paying lip service when they denounce attacks like this
At best they don't care, and at worst they sponsor the terrorists directly, but they definitely are not trying to help anyone stop attacks like this or root out their extremists
You may not be aware of this, but terrorists inside Pakistan kill Pakistani military servicemen on a weekly basis.
India's attack on Pakistan are counterproductive. It will fuel the fire and the crazies will kill more Indians and Pakistanis as a result.
Pakistan has a concept of good terrorists and bad terrorists. Terrorists against India (JeM, LeT) are good terrorists. They are protected and trained by Pakistan army (e.g. protection given to JeM leader). Good terrorists are sometimes declared dead to avoid international scrutiny while protected clandestinely (Sajid Mir).
Bad terrorists are of course that attack Pakistani Army (e.g. Baloch Liberation Army).
Notable is how Osama was protected by Pakistan army as he was a useful indirect source of income (war on terror)
Indias attack was aimed at the Good Terrorists of Pakistan. The hope is to reduce their capabilities. Not sure how much successful they have been though.
LeT is a state sponsored terrorist organization. It was founded by General Zia as he proudly declaimed that he would "Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts". I suggest reading the books written by Pak Generals to know that they fully believe in investing in militant/terror organizations - it is a firm and unalienable part of their military culture. Such a culture was actually encouraged by the US initially before the 9/11 blow-back.
Geopolitical decisions like this are always ‘least bad’. The Modi gov’t in India is not as strong as it looks, and they couldn’t continue to function if they let such a high profile and obviously religiously motivated terrorist attack go ‘unanswered’.
The water threats are the real leverage, but without some obvious military action they’d be skinned alive by the Hindu hardliners (Hindutvas).
> root out their extremists
Pakistanis themselves are subject to numerous terror incidents. I'm not sure what causes folks to automatically assume Muslim nations support "extremists" as a policy. Sure, there may be power brokers who do, but that's the case for any country, democratic or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacre> They should have coordinated with Pakistan to run the strikes.
Like when America coordinated with Pakistan to grab Osama? Actually no, they didn't coordinate with Pakistan because the terrorist was being harboured by the Pakistani military. Coordinating would have had the same effect as tipping the terrorist off and letting him escape.
Your comment assumes that Pakistan doesn't view harbouring and training terrorists as a legitimate way to conduct their foreign policy.
Like US co-ordinated with Paxtan to destroy laden? The laden who was hiding near a military base in Paxtan?
This always seems really disingenuous to me. He was hiding in an extremely concealed manner. Never ever went outside, and it's not as if the Pakistani military can just break into every house nearby and search for him everywhere.
How they caught him was crazy in and of itself, and required fake vaccination drives, another thing no military can do to its own people to catch terrorists.
I really don't think they are blameless at all, at all, but this kind of stuff feels conspiracy-level to me. This was the most wanted guy in the world, no country, no army could plausibly have concealed him and coordinated that effort to keep him hidden. Someone along the chain would have given him up
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 coordination with any intelligence service.
I also don't get what Pakistan gains from sheltering him. Turning him into the US aids them tremendously, and Al Qaeda was not a valuable or useful asset for years before Bin Laden was found. New groups were forming at the time as well, so they could have easily turned him and handed the money over to those groups which had beef with him anyways. Again, it's all assuming they were sheltering him knowingly.
Like I said before. He was very close by, but he was locked down in a compound. How many people here on HN know anything about the people or activities going on in the house 2 blocks away from them? The army also cannot just search everyone's house randomly.
Consider India, they equally have pretty poor competence with catching terrorists. Many of the biggest terrorist attacks in India were not caught and evaded detection. Even the latest terrorists seem to have evaded detection. Pakistan doesn't have a far more advanced security service. Isn't it far more likely they are incompetent? Idk, the harboring Bin Laden claim never made much sense and Occam's Razor always told me the most likely option is probably the real one, in the absence of any hard evidence.
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.
It's very possible that some people sheltered him outside of the official policy or whatever. It's even possible that it was ISI / Pak gov't official policy, but again there's no proof of any of these things.
It is also possible, that he just was able to hide from the entire world close to an army base in a compound he never exited from, never approached a window near, and never accessed internet from.
Everything is possible, there's no proof either way. And I don't see what the govt or army or ISI would gain from harboring him as a policy matter. If someone is crazy and personally helped out, that's not what most people are even implying is it? That's much more reasonable and doesn't really have much to do with the current conflict and the claim that the latest terror attack was sponsored by Pakistan (again, possible but not proven)
Please read about Dr. Shakil Afridi. The doctor who helped CIA find Laden has been in Pakistani prison for a decade plus now, on false drummed up charges.
Why are you sure that Pakistan is not supporting terrorists now, after decades and decades of evidence otherwise?
I know about him. Idk, if you ever lived in India, you'd know the govt puts people in jail on trumped up charges all the time. Pakistan is probably the same. And this guy did do a fake vaccination drive for a foreign power. Indian police would have dealt with him the same probably...
As for evidence, there isn't hard evidence that Pakistan supported Bin Laden. And I'd expect that after he was caught. The US, where many ministers and army personnel and intelligence chiefs were skeptical when he was found, eventually said there was no hard evidence linking Pakistan secret services to Bin Laden. They were so skeptical of this link that they didn't tell them the nature of the raid which found him, for fear of tipping him off.
I think it's just what it looks like on the surface. It looks suspicious, so that's why everyone was suspicious. But when we looked into it, it wasn't what it looked like.
I don't doubt Pakistan supports some proxy terrorists. That is what nearly every nation-state does these days. I just doubt they sheltered Bin Laden, worth far more to them in US hands than elsewhere, after seeing what they did in Afghanistan to the last group who sheltered him, way past his prime. That too while being good enough to scrub any evidence of the connection? I just don't think there's motive or proof of it
Paxtan has always sheltered terrorists, even now they are providing security to LeT, JeM etc.
Hasn't Pak banned both LeT and JeM?
On paper sure. But what is the reality like?
Lol, whats disingenuous is your arguments, honestly. So, either you have to argue that Pakistan's military is extremely idiotic / naive that it could not even detect a known terrorist living just around the corner or you have to argue that they knowingly kept him in their "shadow". The vast majority of the people believe its the latter - you are free to believe that they were idiots.
I do think the Pakistani intelligence and military are probably as competent as the Indian ones given the money, similar levels of development of state, etc. And Indian intelligences are not Mossad-level in any way. My belief is that they didn't know and were embarrassed. I mean, what would they gain from harboring Bin Laden, so wanted he can barely move anywhere, and Al Qaeda, a group that's basically been useless since way before his capture? There are new groups they could fund and arm all while giving up Bin Laden. They already caught and turned over other AQ figures before, so even if they sponsored other terror groups, why keep him?
Pakistan is not a rational state. The stated sole purpose of their intelligence agency ISI is the destabilization of India. The terrorists are backed, sheltered and armed by the government. There’s a reason bin Laden successfully hid there for so long.
India, of course, has a dual focus.
These are actually well charted waters - people are shooting at each other and some fairly high percentage of the time everything calms down but the rest of the time it escalates crazily with both sides losing control. Situation as old as time, long rich history of provocative military action.
I observe from time to time that Moscow appears to be under fire from the occasional US-sponsored attack for example. So far, so good. Most of the time things don't go terribly wrong, just the worst case scenarios here are quite grim. The India-Pakistan situation is probably a bit safer because anything catastrophic is likely to just kill millions/billions of people in India and Pakistan instead of an entire hemisphere of carnage.
> from time to time that Moscow appears to be under fire from the occasional US-sponsored attack for example
Ok, you lost me there..
The US is definitely sponsoring Ukraine in the war together with the EU so when Ukraine attacks Moscow, which it is currently doing regularly, it seems like that’s a fair characterization. If Russia were strong enough they would surely be responding to those attacks not only by hitting Ukraine but their “sponsors” too.
Things like https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-drone-attack-moscow-1.....
Didn't the US sponsorship abruptly terminate?
How is his viewpoint not valid?
> Pakistan is not economically strong enough to participate in a war, and India is not interested
Proxy war between U.S. and China. We’re moving the naval assets that were bombing the Houthis. India seizing Pakistan-administered Kashmir cuts Islamabad off from China.
The US isn't interested in picking sides. Historically it has tried to be friendly with both (though that hasn't always been easy).
> Historically it has tried to be friendly with both
By funding a known miliary dictator (Pervez Musharraf), for decades, helping strengthen the military rule in Pakistan.
So much for "spreading democracy"
"However, Pakistan was a valuable diplomatic partner, and its government helped the United States achieve a rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s."
"U.S. prestige was damaged in both nations, in Pakistan for failing to help prevent the loss of East Pakistan and in India for supporting the brutality of the Pakistani regime’s actions"
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/south-asia
In context: The Blood Telegram
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_Telegram:_Nixon,_K...
It was an active decision by the US.
Historic policies don't apply to the current administration. It's really anybody's guess at this point what the US would do if this conflict ratchets up significantly.
> US isn't interested in picking sides. Historically it has tried to be friendly with both
Sure, but one side offers clear benefits over the "ally from hell." (Islamabad, at the very least, has clearly picked a side.)
Also, I'm not arguing what I think will happen. I'm arguing how this could escalate. And the only way I see it doing so is (a) someone bombs the wrong thing or (b) Beijing or Washington see an opportunity to win chips.
"US isn't interested in picking sides"
but you dont want any of them to ally with russia or chinnese, ignoring problem also "problematic"
Nothing about historical US foreign policy can tell us what the current regime wants or will do.
Good. HN is full of posts about stupid crap the US govt has done in the past.
Don't underestimate the stupidity of this administration. History could pale in comparison.
"No the stupid crap of the past" != "smart"
There are countless ways to be stupid and destructive, especially when you're actively trying to destroy your own country's institutions.
The Pakistan-India conflict is orthogonal to America and China's.
> Pakistan-India conflict is orthogonal to America and China's
India is negotiating trade deals and weapons purchases with the West. (Historically, Moscow was its security source.) Pakistan got some F-16s in 2022, but otherwise has been deepending ties with Beijing. It's wild to suggest America's cold war with China is orthogonal to this conflict.
Ask a random Indian in India whether he'd be willing to die for the US. The US and China have interests in the area, so maybe I shouldn't have said the word "orthogonal". But the original commenter said a conflict between India and Pakistan would be a "US-China proxy war". Come on. India and Pakistan have enough reasons to hate each other. They don't need America or China's goading. And neither India nor Pakistan would accept their conflict being characterized as a US-China war.
> Ask a random Indian in India whether he'd be willing to die for the US
Not how proxy wars work.
> India and Pakistan have enough reasons to hate each other. They don't need America or China's goading
Not how proxy wars work. The backers enable. The proxies fight.
> neither India nor Pakistan would accept their conflict being characterized as a US-China war
This is how proxy wars work. They literally don’t if the proxies realise they’re fighting a foreign war on their homeland.
>This is how proxy wars work. They literally don’t if the proxies realise they’re fighting a foreign war on their homeland.
India and pakistan have contested boundaries and their hostilities doesn't depend on foreign powers. Interestingly, when the hostilities between china and india flared up in 2021, and india moved many divisions from its pakistan border to its chinese border, pakistan didn't change its posturing to put pressure on india. This was acknowledged by indian army during a press briefing. Both so far have never fought against each other for foreign powers, but have fought against each other for their own reasons. So no proxy wars so far.
> India and pakistan have contested boundaries and their hostilities doesn't depend on foreign powers
Yes? That’s what lends it proxy war potential. An endemic war. Like, there were actual conflicts in e.g. Vietnam and Afghanistan before they became proxy wars. Those same risk factors are present today.
It’s not a proxy war. Not every world event is about the US.
Source: I am an Indian.
> It’s not a proxy war. Not every world event is about the US
Nobody said as much. The original comment described how this can escalate.
It is useful for the US to isolate China from Iranian oil resources. Currently Iranian oil can go via Pakistan to China.
Thats how Us operates: exploits old conflicts for its own immediate benefit, like it did with Ukr-Rus war.
If some people die on both side it is acceptable for the Us, because these are not Us citizens dying
CPEC isn't viable energy coordidor yet - no completed oil/gas infra from Iran to Pak to PRC. Which only leaves trucks, and the roads not designed to support 5000+ trucks per day for Irans 1m barrels per day.
> Thats how Us operates: exploits old conflicts for its own immediate benefit, like it did with Ukr-Rus war.
This is realpolitik 101, and every powerful society does it. Like, India didn't help sever Bangladesh f/k/a East Pakistan from Islamabad because it was being nice. (I'm not saying every society exploits every old conflict. Just that if you need to do something, you start with extant fault lines. Like, if you're going to war with Nazi Germany you don't sideline the Soviets and British because that's mean or whatnot.)
Also, the problem with Pakistan isn't that its ports could be used to import oil. It's that the ports are being configured for Chinese blue-water operations.
I can understand seizing opportunities in situations like this, however I cannot support instigating and creating these situations in the first place.
https://m.economictimes.com/news/defence/pakistans-defence-m...
> cannot support instigating and creating these situations in the first place
With all due respect, what you and I support isn’t super relevant to what will happen over the coming weeks.
It doesn't matter what it is, or where it's happening in the world, some people will always make it about the US. Always. It's tiresome.
Related articles (from threads we've merged hither):
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/world/asia/india-pakistan... (https://archive.ph/Bph7S)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/06/asia/india-pakistan-kashmir-c...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2025-05-06/india-st... (https://archive.ph/eypzA)
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwyneele13qt
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 supply reduction would lead to a loss of around 10% of the harvest.
That does not sound like much, BUT economically food is a commodity with low 'elasticity', meaning demand does not really go down with reduced supply. The result would therefore be a doubling of food prices.
In a country where people have little dispensable income, that means wide spread famine.
By all measures India is the more powerful state, but as Ukraine demonstrates: Desperation can make up for a lot of disadvantage.
> 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.
>Even a moderate water supply reduction would lead to a loss of around 10% of the harvest.
If that's the case then the die is already cast. Early in the conflict, India released too much water on the Chenub too early for the season as a way to punish Pakistan. The quantity of water was such that Pakistan had no choice but to let it run off to the sea. This now means that the upstream Indian reservoir will not have enough water to release during regular season where coordinated releases ensure farmers have an uninterrupted supply during certain critical time periods.
Ukraine was desperate in 2014, when the Green Men arrived. In 2022 they were already anticipating an invasion, just didn't know when exactly it would occur.
By 2020 they already had Bayraktars and Javelins:
https://www.dailysabah.com/business/defense/ukraine-to-buy-5...
>By all measures India is the more powerful state, but as Ukraine demonstrates: Desperation can make up for a lot of disadvantage.
The question is whether China would prop up Pakistan like NATO did for Ukraine
Overstated. There isn't any long term locking capabilities on most rivers under the IWT.
The only one India is messing with is the Chenab, and only because it messes up Pakistan's Rice and Sugar exports (major forex provider for Pakistan, and the supply chain is heavily owned by Pakistan's MilBus). Kharif sowing season ends in a couple weeks so messing with the Chenab for 3-4 weeks is enough to destroy the rice harvest in Northeast Punjab.
I recommend reading Ayesha Siddiqui's "Military Inc" to understand the Pakistani army (she was forced into exile because of the book), and "Army and Nation" by Steven Wilkinson to understand India's army.
I hope you are right, however:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Waters_Treaty#Suspension
Following the suspension of the treaty, India significantly reduced the flow of water through the Chenab River, which crosses into Pakistan. Pakistani authorities claimed a 90% drop in water supply and accused India of choking the river’s flow. India also initiated new hydroelectric projects and began constructing dams on the western rivers, actions previously constrained under the treaty.[125][126][127]
Pakistan has reportedly warned that any attempt by India to disrupt the flow of water from shared rivers could be considered an act of war, and would attack India with nuclear weapons.[128]
Just sounds like a good deterrence for Pakistan to not go to war to me. It really is in their hands right now.
India just wants to save face over the terror attacks, a very easy game to play diplomatically. This missile strike was even smaller and more symbolic than even the Israeli Iranian ones. And those two are much more inclined (and far more prepared) to do something stupid.
> Overstated. There isn't any long term locking capabilities on most rivers under the IWT.
India could build water channel, in style of China's South North water transfer project in less than half decade. Huge dams aren't really needed for just diversion, if India is really serious about it.
> there is some real potential for escalation due to the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty
Neither side wants peace. But neither side wants to commit military manoeuvre that secures strategic aims. So we get this defence sale wet dream of a forever war instead.
India wants peace. A peaceful India threatens Pakistan's entire existence as a military state. Therefore, Pakistan keeps instigating with outrageously cruel terrorist attacks.
There are no strategic goals here. Either side may recover some vantage points high up in the Himalayas. But that's about it.
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.
Israel did want peace with Gaza (Gaza specifically, not West Bank). After the 2005 Gaza disengagement, Israel did a lot to normalize relations with Gaza. They wanted peace until they gave up all attempts to do so, after October 7th.
Peace implies disengagement by maintaining long-standing borders. India wants peace by maintaining Line of Actual Control (LAC). Be it China or Pakistan, India has never been the one to escalate first. When engaging with nations that want peace, India has been able to resolve complex border issues. Eg: Srilanka[1] and Bangladesh [2].
Russia and China do not want peace because they are invading past their effective borders into lands they do not control.
All wars are not defensive. All countries are not the same. Each war is different, and it is fair to impose different judgements on the participants of each war.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katchatheevu
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Bangladesh_encla...
> Peace implies disengagement by maintaining long-standing borders.
Before I write a novel of a response, can you rigorously define "long-standing borders", as well as the implied words of "nation", "country", and "state"? How far back in history is "long standing" valid for? Some of these things are matters of history, how do you deal with historians disagreeing on the ground truth? What happens when someone strongly asserts something that is factually untrue?
All wars are defensive in that the combatants are told they are defending, not attacking. Russians in Ukraine don't think they are attacking, they think they are defending Russia from NATO or de-nazifying Ukraine, or at least that is their national narrative.
Mostly I think your post proved my overall point, which is that peace is not a meaningful word because its meaning is relative to its speakers beliefs rather than in reference to a universalize-able moral framework describing about what justice is.
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).
> 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).
> You have to be careful with that word, peace, because all [offensive] wars are defensive
The jingoists won't ever be ... as Orwell predicted, they'll use Orwellian terms fit for their grandeur and inline with their delusion.
I’m sorry, but this is getting really out of hand, we can’t even use the word “peace” now?
Common street robbers want peace too. They want to rob you of your property as peacefully as possible. They very much want you to just surrender and let it happen.
Violence is usually conditional. It comes with instructions on how to avoid it. Let the criminal take your things and he won't shoot you. Let us take this territory and you won't be killed. If you surrender and submit to our rule, you will have your peace. It's just that the cost is your land, your economy, your freedom, your secuity, your dignity, your pride, your self-determination
The key fact about violence is nobody actually wants it. Everybody wants peace. At the same time, everybody also wants scarce resources that others are unwilling to just hand over to them. So they use the threat of violence to get what they want. Actual violence is risky and all bets are off once it escalates. Without the threat of violence though, why negotiate when you can just take?
So there's a lot of nuance to "peace". India cannot claim to want peace and then suspend a treaty that provides vital water resources to Pakistan. Pakistan cannot claim to want peace and at the same time support insurgency against India. All of these things will obviously escalate the situtation until it erupts into war.
I didn’t read it that way. I read it more that saying India is a peaceful nation is probably not the full truth. As a third party I always had the impression this was one of those tit for tat forever wars. Each attack there is usually an antagonist but over the whole course it’s muddy.
Every country wants peace, as long as it's on their terms.
> India wants peace
Not really. There are options for a negotiated peace that involves swapping land, specifically, ceding Muslim-dominant territory to Pakistan and setting borders along rivers. That's anathema in India because there is broad-based antipathy towards Islamabad, historically, and Muslims, recently.
> ceding Muslim-dominant territory to Pakistan
Why would India do that? Why would a unilateral surrender of land be considered valid terms for peace?
> swapping land
In a fair swap, what land would Pakistan offer in exchange?
> Muslims, recently
Pakistan doesn't have a stellar reputation for treatment of its Muslim minorities (Ahmediyyas, Ismailis) and non-Punjabi muslims (Balochis, Pasthuns, once-Pakistani-Bengalis). I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most muslim denominations.
____
Note: Pakistan's historic terror attacks have been deep in India soil (Mumbai, Delh). There is no indication that they'd maintain peace with India if they gained control over Kashmir.
> 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. One of the elements would almost certainly be co-ordinated anti-terrorist policing. Maybe guaranteed by China.
> I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most muslim denominations
I am, too. But let's be honest, neither side is concerned with the wellbeing of anyone in Kashmir.
> 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 dialogue: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RJAJdYw3ctw
> 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.
> I'd add that the citizens of both countries legitimately despise each other
I've been to towns on both sides throughout the years and this isn't the case everywhere. Though, disagreements do run deep, as contrasting narratives are in fact mainstream talking points.
Hopefully, in my lifetime, the countries resolve their differences & cast aside the hateful fringe like they should.
> negotiating borders
That's a very different thing to "decolonisation".
> manufactured consent to develop jingoism
They have to. A widow survivor of the Pahalgam Attack called for peace and the jingoists lost their collective minds: https://x.com/RahulSeeker/status/1919771002013118540
India is 1.6bn people and even if 7% disagree, that's a 100mn people (and the number is far greater than 7%). Not everyone is a right-wing nationalist, though, the ruling parties and the now-compromised MSMs are.
> I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most muslim denominations.
Come on. You can't live in India and think this seriously.
Anyways, the Kashmir issue is contentious but Kashmiris never got to say whether they should be part of India or not, unlike most states and people during partition. I am very aware the full history of the region is murky and that the removal of Kashmiri Pandits from the region led to the current broad swath of support for Kashmiri independence (or becoming a part of Pakistan, either way being separate from India), but the current situation is what it is, and until that is resolved it will continue to be an issue in India.
> Pakistan's historic terror attacks have been deep in India soil
India is said to sponsor Balochistan separatism as well, those groups have also made attacks deep into Pakistan, so again, no indication that either side will remain peaceful if the Kashmiri conflict ended.
> Come on. You can't live in India and think this seriously.
I don't know where you live. There are states in India where minorities are absolutely safe.
I lived in Gujarat and Rajasthan, so point taken. My uncle had to flee Surat during communal violence concealed in an ambulance
You can't extrapolate that to entire India though can you? I live in Southern part of India where there is very little communal violence.
You're right. I guess I should not have extrapolated it. I meant in Northern India mostly. I have heard also in South there is little communal violence comparatively.
> You can't live in India and think this seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Ahmadis_(Pakist...
> unlike most states and people during partition
This is complete nonsense. Nobody got a say, Kashmir wasn't any different.
> I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most muslim denominations.
That almost made me laugh.
That's the peace / piece Pakistan wants.
No one asks what the Kashmiris of the Valley want, which, for the most part, seems like they want to be left alone: https://www.quora.com/What-do-Jammu-and-Kashmirs-people-thin....
One moment you say India wants peace, the next you question why India would make compromises that might lead to peace.
You know how this looks from a position outside the conflict, right? Can you imagine a Paskistani perspective? Put yourself on the other side. Imagine what it would take for peace from that point of view.
> involves swapping land, specifically, ceding Muslim-dominant territory to Pakistan
The sectors on the Indian side where fighting is happening right now in Jammu Division are 50-50 Muslim-Hindu/Sikh. What you are advocating would lead to Yugoslav style ethnic cleansing.
> setting borders along rivers
It already is that on the LoC, or mountain faces where rivers are not existent.
> What you are advocating would lead to Yugoslav style ethnic cleansing
Yes. When you have a sectarian conflict, the only lasting solution is moving people around. Hateful people don’t learn to stop hating each other. Particularly not when you’re dealing with the levels of education in J&K.
> It already is that on the LoC, or mountain faces where rivers are not existent
And. Having a river with a sectarian cross isn’t useful.
This stuff is hard and controversial. It takes work. My point is nobody is particularly interested in that work versus leaving the region in a low simmer.
> Yes. When you have a sectarian conflict, the only lasting solution is moving people around. Hateful people don’t learn to stop hating each other.
Jammu Division is an entirely separate ethnic community (Pahari) from that in Kashmir Division (Koshur).
Even during the worst of the partition and the Indo-Pak Wars, the mountain areas where active fighting was occurring never saw the same kind of religious violence you'd see in neighboring Kashmir or Punjabi speaking areas like Jammu City or Mirpur City.
This would be solving a non-existent problem, as the leadership making decisions for conflicts on or around the LoC are not from these regions.
And btw, the Indian and Pakistani army did attempt that when my grandmother was a child, but it didn't stick and people from one side or the other would just cross back - and this was the norm until the 1980s.
---------------
There are ways to resolve the problem longer term, and that requires forcing professionalization of the Pakistani Armed Forces and cajoling India back to the negotiating table using the carrot and the stick. Similar precedent already exists with the Israel-Egypt peace accords under Sadat, and would have happened under Bajwa, Nawaz Sharif, or Musharraf if they weren't undermined.
> leadership making decisions for conflicts on or around the LoC are not from these regions
The people in the region are pretty much irrelevant, one can successfuly model the conflict as a proxy war between New Delhi and Islamabad. Their interests are particular to the borders in the region, namely, access to waterm, China and the other side's Kashmir.
> ways to resolve the problem longer term, and that requires forcing professionalization of the Pakistani Armed Forces and cajoling India back to the negotiating table using the carrot and the stick. Similar precedent already exists with the Israel-Egypt peace accords under Sadat
This is a solution from a different era. The current borders are unstable and thus unsustainable. Between proxy forces and the militarisation of the South China Sea, we're kicking the can down the road until someone acts decisively.
The game theory is that kicking the can down the road works for both sides. There isn't a pressing need for peace between India and Pakistan, just not nuclear conflict. And that's achieved with a Korean Peninsula-esque stalemate. The problem is either side gaining an advantage resolves the issue, and the later that happens the more destructive the resolution would be. (Think: Pakistan gaining top-of-the-line Sino-Russian missile defence.) And both sides know that ex ante. So we have a prisoner's dilemma without the common enemy (and common ally) that animated Tel Aviv and Cairo.
> Yes. When you have a sectarian conflict, the only lasting solution is moving people around. Hateful people don’t learn to stop hating each other. Particularly not when you’re dealing with the levels of education in J&K.
"We should do my poorly thought out plan because they're too dumb to stop killing each other" is not a reasonable way to discuss geopolitics.
> There are options for a negotiated peace that involves swapping land, specifically, ceding Muslim-dominant territory to Pakistan and setting borders along rivers.
Sorry, why would that be done? When Pakistan was split from India, because of the Muslims voting against their own land that they have been living in for centuries, the lines are set and done.
Why should India cede more land?
Pakistan is on one of the most resource rich, fertile lands in the Indian subcontinent.
> When Pakistan was split from India, because of the Muslims voting against their own land that they have been living in for centuries, the lines are set and done
Lines are never "set and done for." We had a short period of global consensus around the unacceptability of taking territory by force. But between the superpowers' proxy wars, America's invasion of Iraq, China's annexation of Tibet and threats on Taiwan, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that precedent was always tenuous at best and, now, has certainly passed.
> Why should India cede more land?
Because New Delhi expects something of greater value in return. For example, one could see a China-mediated truce trading territory in J&K for settling boundaries in Andra Pradesh and/or a deployment of Chinese troops on anti-terrorist missions in Pakistan.
Nobody is saying India just give land to Pakistan for feelsies. It's engaging in a negotiation where that's on the table.
> Pakistan is on one of the most resource rich, fertile lands in the Indian subcontinent
Geopolitics isn't fair? (Also, India is richer than Pakistan. Both in population and GDP per capital.)
That said, this argument represents the pathos in India. India broadly isn't interested in peace if it comes at the cost of territory. It expresses a preference for certain things above peace.
This is a weird line of reasoning. By this logic the aggressors will always win because the other side should always concede territory for peace.
Even if Kashmir is ceded to Pakistan, there is no reason why they'd be done aggressing for more territory.
> By this logic the aggressors will always win because the other side should always concede territory for peace
Nope. It’s just being realistic about the priorities at play. And there isn’t a clear aggressor in this conflict, it is as old as both states.
(Also, countries have bought and sold territories for ages. That doesn’t invite aggression or strike me as wrong.)
> if Kashmir is ceded to Pakistan, there is no reason why they'd be done aggressing for more territory
They wouldn’t. New Delhi would have to get something that is worth more than that territory in return.
>They wouldn’t. New Delhi would have to get something that is worth more than that territory in return.
What would that be? Pakistan and India had an agreement to peacefully resolve issues already in 1972 Simla agreement. But they continue to send terrorists to murder indian civilians on indian soil. They never followed the agreement. They invaded twice after that agreement.
Anything that India gets out of Pakistan cannot be trusted. They have been claiming that Osama was not in Pakistan, while taking money from the US to support its war in terror.
I don't think Pakistan has any trustability remaining.
It will continue to provoke and attack India as long as their military rules the nation. Their military's existence is the anti-India stance it propagates.
> Anything that India gets out of Pakistan cannot be trusted
Then the only security solution for India is invading and replacing Pakistan’s government. Anything less is needlessly drawing out the violence out of caution and cowardice. The fact that this is obviously overkill belies that there is room for diplomacy.
Also! Not how diplomacy works! A fundamental fact about international relations is it’s anarchic. If your model of international relations requires trust for diplomacy, you’ve fundamentally missed how geopolitics works.
> It will continue to provoke and attack India as long as their military rules the nation
Look at the history of France and Germany negotiating territory exchanges, including under duress. Or the U.S. and Britain while the two hated each other. Et cetera.
>>Also! Not how diplomacy works! A fundamental fact about international relations is it’s anarchic. If your model of international relations requires trust for diplomacy, you’ve fundamentally missed how geopolitics works.
Actually trust is a significant factor in geopolitical setup. This is why NATO was stable for a long time and Trump's statements are read as a threat to NATO.
Many nations trust the signed agreements are kept. If those are not followed, then there is no point in signing those agreements.
If there is no trust, then there will be military build up to manage the risks. The fact that this does not happen to western countries is due to high degree of trust among them (France will not attack Germany tomorrow).
>>Look at the history of France and Germany negotiating territory exchanges, including under duress.
Significantly different economy, society and government. Hard to negotiate when the whole existence of the government depends on anti-India stance, when the economy is dependent upon aid from IMF, and high levels of illiteracy and radicalization (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_in_Pakistan)
> And there isn’t a clear aggressor in this conflict yes, there is. it is paxtan. They are sponsoring terror bases which commit terror acts within India.
I know that's just an example but any kind of third party arbitrator has to be trusted by India. As far its territorial integrity is concerned India doesn't trust China or even the US, and this is true across party lines.
One does not negotiate with terrorist supporting military dictatorships.
Pakistan is not a military dictatorship, at least not in its current form. Terrorist supporting, maaaaybe. But a lot of countries are terrorist supporting, and the world is happy to negotiate with them.
>Pakistan is not a military dictatorship
I think here we are looking into a textbook style definition. But for all practical purposes, military rules Pakistan. It is well understood by its own citizens, especially post-Imran Khan.
>But a lot of countries are terrorist supporting, and the world is happy to negotiate with them.
Would like to understand which countries you mean. No one is negotiating with Iran nowadays. India also was willing to negotiate in the past, not anymore it seems.
Support for terrorism as a state policy is to put pressure without major impact to the aggressor nation. The aggressor is in an advantageous position. Terrorism is low cost high impact (non material, but psychological). There is not much leverage for the suffering country here. So negotiations are not long lasting.
Under no circumstances India is ceding any territory to a military run state that has sponsored terrorism in India. If Pakistan is serious they can start by putting PoK on the table and halt all anti Indian activities in their country. That would be a good start.
> A peaceful India threatens Pakistan's entire existence as a military state
Pakistani Military leadership has attempted to negotiate normalized relations as well. The issue is someone in their lower ranks or on the political front tries to take advantage of normalization attempts to overthrow the previous leader. I documented a number of cases that happened this past decade below.
Pretty much. It isn't worth it for either India or Pakistan at the macro level, and intra-elite factionalism would strike well before anyone could commit to a sustained conflict.
And partners like KSA and UAE would come down hard if this became an extended conflict.
The difference this time around is that leadership in both countries is more religiously hardline than the last serious war like situation we had (after Nov 26 2011).
Asif Munir is the son of an imam and an avowed Islamist. India’s ruling party is openly pro-Hindu. Modi is also under pressure from the hardline religious wing of his party for the recent focus on caste instead of religion
> It isn't worth it for either India or Pakistan at the macro level, and intra-elite factionalism would strike well before anyone could commit to a sustained conflict
Yup. But those same forces conspire against a sustained peace.
> partners like KSA and UAE would come down hard if this became an extended conflict
Zero chance. The problem is China.
> Zero chance. The problem is China
As I mentioned previously, the China factor is significant but overstated. And I'm fairly hawkish about China.
UAE and KSA have equally as much if not more leverage on Pakistani elite than China. Majority of Pakistan's trade is devoted to the UAE and KSA, and most leadership (military, political, and business) has family and financial relations in both countries.
In addition, the UAE and KSA's sovereign wealth funds own the bulk of Pakistan's core assets like K-Power, PIA, Karachi Port, etc.
Furthermore, the classic Pakistani Army retirement strategy is to become a mid-level officer in the Saudi Land Forces, due to past recruitment.
And finally, a similar amount of Pakistani weapons systems are NATO adjacent from previous American procurement, so Pakistan has leveraged Turkiye as a hedge against being overly dependent on China.
> But those same forces conspire against a sustained peace
On the India side the same people who were negotiating normalization with Bajwa remain. The only change has happened in the last couple years is IK was ousted by Bajwa, and then he was ousted by Munir.
Munir was DG ISI during Balakot, and immediately demoted to Corps Commander in the direct aftermath of the LeT attack (who like other militant orgs have gotten support from the ISI, but not as much from the Army). It's Munir's clique that appears to be trying to use this to solidify their hold within Pakistan.
India and Pakistan can normalize relations, and sincere attempts have been made by both sides, but inter-factional competition amongst Pakistan's elite has undermined it. Pakistan needs a Musharraf again.
Nobody is threatening to topple Islamabad. UAE and KSA have interests, but insufficient influence to force outcomes. The relevant players are in Beijing and Washington.
> India and Pakistan can normalize relations, and sincere attempts have been made by both sides, but inter-factional competition amongst Pakistan's elite has undermined it
India has less motivation for war. But it’s also done nothing to negotiate a peace.
> UAE and KSA have interests, but insufficient influence to force outcomes
2019 is a good example of UAE using it's heft [0][1]. In a couple years we'll probably see leaks in Bloomberg or AJ about KSA doing something similar rn.
> India has less motivation for war. But it’s also done nothing to negotiate a peace.
Both have worked on reconciliation immediately before some incident arises that causes talks to collapse.
For example, the last couple months before this incident happened [2], in 2021 thanks to the UAE [1][3] before Bajwa-IK-Munir's tussle, 2017-18 before Balakot according to Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy [4], and 2016 before the Pathankot Attack [5].
In most cases, both attempts are made at negotiating normalization, but some faction attempts to undermine it.
And there were multiple other examples before the Modi admin, at least 2-3 other attempts in the MMS-Musharraf admin and 1 attempt in the Vajpayee-Sharif admin, but they were all undermined by some faction in the Pak Armed forces.
I'd recommend reading "The Spy Chronicles" by AS Dulat (former head of India's intel agency) and Asad Durrani (former head of Pakistan's intel agency) where they decided to leak a number of these incidents. The book ended up causing a major political scandal in both India and Pakistan.
[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-28/india-...
[1] - https://tribune.com.pk/story/2417903/gen-bajwas-india-peace-...
[2] - https://tribune.com.pk/story/2460279/fm-says-govt-to-serious...
[3] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/secret-in...
[4] - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2019.16...
[5] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35240272
> 2019 is a good example of UAE using it's heft
This is not projecting power, it's the UAE (and Qatar) playing their aspirational roles as the new Davos/Switzerland for diplomacy.
Pakistan is definitely more anti-peace than India. But while Islamabad undermines peace, New Delhi is mostly uninterested in it.
> Pakistan is definitely more anti-peace than India. But while Islamabad undermines peace, New Delhi is mostly uninterested in it.
That's a framing I agree with.
> This is not projecting power, it's the UAE (and Qatar) playing their aspirational roles as the new Davos/Switzerland for diplomacy.
Sure, but in India-Pakistan relations, they (UAE and KSA, not Qatar) are increasingly the only mediators with whom both parties can negotiate offramps.
Large pole countries don't have the same heft they may have had 15-20 years ago, and even the Russian-Ukraine War has shown that power differentials are not that significant between major powers and regional powers, and why multilateralism is critical (and a major reason I dislike Trump - I primarily only agree with his tariff policy, nothing else).
> in India-Pakistan relations, they (UAE and KSA, not Qatar) are increasingly the only mediators with whom both parties can negotiate offramps
Only the most minor ones. Anything significant requires an outside security guarantar.
> Large pole countries don't have the same heft they may have had 15-20 years ago, and even the Russian-Ukraine War has shown that power differentials are not that significant between major powers and regional powers
Russia was trying to replicate America's offensive successes in Afghanistan and Iraq. (What Devereaux calls the modern system [1].) Moscow couldn't even achieve air superiority. (America got supremacy in hours.) Russia's invasion of Ukraine showed that Russia isn't operating a modern, combined-arms military.
Great powers have always overestimated their power. That doesn't mean it's not there at all.
[1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
> I dislike Trump - I primarily only agree with his tariff policy, nothing else.
Just out of curiosity, what about this tariff policy do you like?
We spent several billions of dollars rebuilding a supply chain in automotive, energy, and semiconductor inputs (not just chips but the associated materials, processing, and gases used in fabrication) via the IRA, IILA, and CHIPS Act.
We need to incentivize American manufacturers to utilize that supply chain instead of co-mingling foreign inputs in an attempt to maximize margins while having taken advantage of the tax and cash incentives used when availing the aforementioned benefits during the Biden admin.
Tariffs are the easiest way to allow the American ecosystem to actually redevelop and stick, instead if wisping away due to malicious compliance. The Biden admin even considered adding similar barriers, but decided against it because they didn't want to risk a protracted trade war during a competitive election cycle.
Furthermore, most consumer goods and a number of industrial goods that would hurt the "average American's" pocketbook have alternative supply chains like Philippines, Brazil, Turkiye, India, Mexico etc that have now been made cost competitive compared to Chinese inputs.
I mean, it wouldn't be the first time. Although I'm not sure one can say the prior coups were orchestrated by a foreign power.
> Neither side wants peace
Really? How do you know. Most Indians don't care about what happens to Pakistan or its people.
The moment Pakistan's military stops its terror funding and support activities, India will not care whether it Pakistan lives or dies.
> The moment Pakistan's military stops its terror funding and support activities, India will not care whether it Pakistan lives or dies
I'll entertain this is possible. But it's not only unlikely but irrational so long as Pakistan deepens its ties with China. It's made almost certain by the attitude you're presenting: countries that do "not care whether" their neighbours live or die generally aren't on peaceful terms with them.
I don't know about India, but Pakistan definitely don't want peace. They are nurturing terrorist eg. Osama. I guess whole world should stand against Pakistan.
Fury Road could be seen as a reverse adaptation sequel of "Lolita" though.
The end of Lolita (old guy on a road, frustrated, goes off path) fits with the Furiosa taking a detour.
The roles are reversed. The young girl leaves in triumph (opposed to: the old guy leaves in frustration) and the old guy goes after her (opposed to: the young girl doesn't care about him leaving).
It could be just the skeleton of the story though.
Water is unobtanium of their scenic universe. In that movie perspective, it's related to healthy reproduction (healthy babies!), most likely cultural and not genetic.
As any work of art, it is subject to many interpretations. Not everything is a cue. But some cues exist in fact. Contrary to the meme swarm, you can't turn those ideas so quickly into what you want, otherwise it fails to connect to a sense of cultural continuity.
If you saw the cultural continuity, you can them jump to "Man On The High Castle" where the former Minister of Culture of Japan travels universes temporarily, revealing a drawer with banned books. Amongst them, Lolita.
The old Minister represents an aged cultural interpretation of a nation (not exactly Japan, but what is perceived to be the form of Imperial Japan if it has won WWII).
After seeing it, the character is called out by his son, before quickly returning back to the war universe.
Even if Pakistan wanted to do something to reign in the extremists near the borders, they don't have the resources. Pakistan required a $7 billion loan from the IMF last September just to function. This is a very precarious situation for towns near the border or the tribals.
"Violent extremist groups continue to plot attacks in Pakistan".
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62rv7le52lo
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/PAK/pak...
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ind/ind...
So India is helping them clear some of those camps. Pakistan can very well be thankful for this one then!
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.
I'd just like to see the evidence that India claims justified their attack. Between this and the fallout of the Canadian Sikh assassination, it's really starting to feel like Modi's government doesn't care about having a believable narrative at all.
I really do not think the onus is on India to provide evidence every time a terrorist attack happens when it’s official Pakistan policy to orchestrate it. Evidence was provided during previous conflicts Kargil, Mumbai didn’t do much did it.
As for the Canada thing by your logic still waiting on evidence from Canada.
I hope this cools down into a propagation war after the initial bombing and shooting. Nationalism served, and every one gets what they want, well, except the dead ones...
Depends on internal politics in Pakistan.
The army isn't completely united, and the current COAS of Pakistan (Asim Munir) is much more ideological than the former one (Qamar Javed Bajwa), who he pushed out after Bajwa and Imran Khan demoted Munir from the ISI to a (relatively) lowly Corp Commander.
Bajwa was working on normalizing relations with India, but himself got undermined by Imran Khan and separately by Asim Munir.
It's result of supporting fundamentalist terrorism and supporting infrastructure nationwide. After sufficient growth, the extremist support base started being recruited into lower levels of army and the support grew from there. Going forward, fundamentalist support in Army will continue to grow even in upper levels.
I heard the ISI is also quasi independent, too.
Historically yes, but the new head of the ISI (Asim Malik) is a close confidant of Asim Munir.
The Balochistan Corp is quasi-independent as well, as they are the primary stakeholder in CPEC.
The Pakistani Armed Forces and Civilian Government have too many veto players, which means any attempt at normalization gets undermined by one of these players trying to maximize their own benefit.
It doesn't help that the Pakistani Armed Forces plays an outsized role in the economy, so individual services and even corps can become business competitors, making internal competition even fiercer.
A similar issue plagued the PLA before Xi era reforms began in 2012, and continue to plague the VPA (but was partially dulled by the SK and UK FTAs) .
Who instigated the attack on India?
LeT, backed by Pakistan.
Yet the Pakistani Army is not uniform either. Bajwa literally attempted to normalize relations with India before he was undermined by Munir.
COASes don't last as long as they used to, and there absolutely is consternation to being pulled into the old days.
> every one gets what they want
India wants Pakistan to end cross-border terrorism. Everyone did not get what they want.
Very recently, there was a terrorist attack in Pakistan too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Jaffar_Express_hijackin...
The attackers are allegedly backed by India.(India denies this, just like Pakistan deny involvement with the attacks in India).
So probably these bombings won’t solve anything as the issues appear to be a much more complicated. Therefore it is possible that everyone got what they need from these bombings.
This is attempt to draw a false equivalence between two events which does not stand scrutiny. Islamic terrorists are a keystone pillar of Pakistani society, they walk openly and are supported by the state. Plenty of literature around how Pak Army has adopted the proxy war against India.
Unlikely India is involved that much in West Pakistan given the geographical realities.
I agree these bombings won't solve anything though. Essentially just cannon fodder targeted, will be replaced quickly.
Well, Pakistan apparently downed 5 Indian jets, 3 of which are Dassault Rafale. Hardly cannon fodders. There's a billion dollars loss of equipment.
Anyway, I don't know much about Pakistan or India's backing of respective terrorists but trying to frame this, or any geopolitical situation as Good vs Evil is always wrong. It's O.K. to pick a side or distance yourself from someone if they do things you find immoral but its never good v.s. evil.
I think it’s early days let’s wait a bit before claiming results, lot of noise. So far only one Rafale has been confirmed, but if India has lost planes it will surely come out. Also goes to show 4th Gen aircraft cannot penetrate a heavily defended airspace, and besides Pakistan Air Force is perhaps the most capable element of their armed forces, very well trained. Highly likely their air force had access to Qatari Rafales so prob had the chance to create better counters.
By cannon fodder I meant the terror camps, nothing will change by targeting that. Besides I don't think India was able to restore deterrence here with the current set of strikes. If they are going to put expensive assets in play they should have attacked actual military assets.
And I’m not taking a side at all, I don’t care nor do I have a horse in this race. Just find geopolitics fascinating.
[flagged]
And Osama didn't attack India.
India is likely to authorize more such strikes if terror attacks continue on its territory.
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Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar like this. We want curious conversation here, and that requires a certain level of relaxation.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'm going to sit this one out going forward.
It's tough stuff, I know.
Are you implying that Indian nationalism has nothing to do with 1) its conflicts with Pakistan 2) the entire Kashmiri situation ?
Especially with India's current government? Not that Pakistan is any less nationalist, just that claiming that one side is just fighting terror here is a bit crazy. It's ironic since it's a very colonial/British type of rationalization
"My side is peaceful and is just fighting terror while the other side is full of fanatical nationalists" is always a very convenient propaganda tool though so I won't blame you for using it
India said no Pak military targets were hit. If Pakistan downed Indian jets you can bet military targets would have been hit.
According to the submission, this is what India said:
> India said it struck nine "terrorist infrastructure" sites, some of them linked to an attack by Islamist militants on Hindu tourists that killed 26 people in Indian Kashmir last month. Four of the sites were in Punjab and five in Pakistani Kashmir, it said.
Since you're saying this is a lie, maybe link to some source for this, since the source we currently have available, says the opposite.
Pak terrorist infrastructure is not a military target even though they are hand in gloves with the Pak army.
> Pak terrorist infrastructure is not a military target
Maybe we understand "military target" differently? Going by the Geneva Conventions:
> In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.
This is at least how I understand the term, and by that understanding, "terrorist infrastructure" could be considered legitimate military target. What understand of those terms do you have?
Sure I can agree with that definition but that's not what I had in mind. Loosely speaking Military target = any infrastructure / equipment officially owned by the military. Note this distiction is necessary here since pakistan has tree types of infra: military, terrorist and civilian. So when I say military target I mean not terrorist nor civilian just military.
You must have misread, OP is saying that IN did not confirm/mentioned downed Aircraft.
They of course did confirm downing military targets, that is...the title of the submission we are discussing.
From the article:
> Pakistan said India hit three sites with missiles, and a military spokesman told Reuters his country shot down five Indian aircraft, a claim not confirmed by India.
That’s a huge loss of aircraft! Are there any corroborating reports or more details about the aircraft/shootdown?
There won't be corroborating reports for months if not years. The public transparency of the Ukrainian battlefield is an anomaly; typically (as in past India-Pakistan incidents) both sides will claim more successes than actually happened and it'll take unbiased parties to figure out what actually happened after both sides release their records. This isn't typically due to malice; it's simply difficult in most cases to verify exactly what damage you've dealt. The wide prevalence of public videos in Ukraine puts a lower bound on claims by both sides, but that's historically very unusual.
I think that level of transparency is the new norm. Everybody has mobile phones and you can have a new satelite imaginery every few hours. It's pretty difficult to hide a jet loss, unless it happens at sea.
Satellite imagery doesn't go to (or is paid by via some crowdsourcing) public. Maybe 90% of the videos ie on r/CombatFootage are from drones, maybe even basic DJI ones but operated by military.
Its a voluntary decision of those in command to share these, from both sides, nothing less and nothing more, to continuous amazement of both civilian and military communities watching those (some stuff I saw I'd never say is possible or would happen, no need to go to details some of it is beyond brutal).
You are maybe mixing Syria war footage - there are tons of them from around 2016, done as you say via phones or maybe some cheap gopros or consumer cameras of that time. That's not a typical Ukraine war footage.
Even Ukraine is less transparent than popularly believed. Probably less than half of drone strikes are recorded, and the Ukrainian government is effective at keeping some areas blacked out. For example, the Kursk offensive didn't have any public drone footage until after it had stablized. Situations like the current India-Pakistan strikes are particularly difficult, as the OSINT analysts don't have established sources and procedures yet, plus the sources are heavily biased. Ukrainian footage is very biased as well, which doesn't come up frequently in popular discussions. But most people in the West are more inclined to believe Ukrainian reports (which is helped by Ukraine's past general trustworthiness and Russia's untrustworthiness; it's not totally misplaced), but are more likely to give more even weight to reports on both sides of India-Pakistan, which will inevitably be contradictory.
Plane shootdowns are particularly difficult. People have a very limited view of the airspace, and even if a plane is hit by a missile and explodes a couple seconds later, those couple seconds can take the plane out of view. Typical tactics include flying low, popping up for a better view, and delivering weapons as they dive again. The pop up is the most vulnerable part, and where they're most likely to be hit. If someone on the ground hears a jet fly over, looks for it, finds it, sees a missile explode near it, and watches it head towards the ground, they're likely to assume it's been hit and is going down, but it's equally likely that it wasn't hit and is simply returning to a low and safe altitude. Combine this with night or weather and the fact that many of these fights take place in rural areas instead of over cities, and it's very easy for civilians on both sides to claim more kills than were even planes in the air. Even militaries aren't immune from this. They get reports from pilots, who are notorious overreporters of kills. In addition to all the factors people on the ground have also have the fact that theyore being shot at and usually can't actually watch a target hit the ground. Air defense units have the same factors, plus it's not always clear who exactly shot a target down. Both your unit and the one a couple miles away on the other side of the city fired a missile, and both saw the plane go down out of view, and both are likely to claim a kill. Military intelligence should be able to correlate these reports and take into account these known biases but that takes time, and an uncareful spokesperson wanting to get a positive report out to the public may give out unverified reports to the press.
Battlefields are more transparent than ever, but the fog of war hasn't been completely blown away
No credible photos have surfaced so far—if the claim were true, some likely would have. It’s possible the Pakistan army is making this statement for domestic audiences, perhaps to deflect pressure to respond.
Their claim went from 2 to 3 to 6 to 5. So, I will be careful about such news.
Also from 'we have captured some Indian soldiers' to 'we have not' (both times the Pakistani defence minister) in an hour or so.
You can't expect Russia to admit that SU30 and MiG29 were shot down by Pakistan.
I also don't expect US to openly admit to a potential F-16 crash. It's just bad for business.
france confirms at least one rafale is down, acc to cnn[1], not sure about others.
[1]: https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/india-pakistan-attac...
Most likely Drop Tanks getting confused as downed aircrafts.
Planes down confirmed - https://x.com/Doha104p3/status/1919922881892430275
5 planes not yet, but it seems more than one. Indian and Pakistan TV are saying 3. Indian planes crashed in India.
That post is not from any credible source.
I live in Kashmir. Can verify the two have been shot down at least.
Hasn't been confirmed. The Indian government says all pilots are accounted for.
It's the fog of war, and OSINT/couch generalling in the manner that people did with Israel or Ukraine won't work with India and Pakistan.
India has been leveraging the DPDP and national security laws really heavily to remove leaks on social media over the past couple weeks. All major social media platforms have a representative the Indian government coordinates with on information takedowns.
Major reason Musk backed off on his stance about X takedowns with India unlike with Brazil.
And on Pakistan's side, while there have been leaks on social media of troop movements, Pakistan has been implementing China's Great Firewall domestically for the past couple years now. If it was truly deemed critical, Pakistan would most likely lock down their domestic Internet.
How does this war affect US companies moving their manufacturing from China to India? Will they stay in China to carry on manufacturing? Will Apple extend manufacturing in China?
Almost none. Even if this situation prolongs, it will only affect the bordering areas in the north. India cannot afford a war if it wants to grow as it projects itself on the international stage as an alternative to China. Pakistan cannot afford it financially.
To put size in perspective: India is 7th largest country, half the size of Australia, or a third the size of US
Neither India nor Pakistan can sustain a conventional war for more than 2 weeks, as they do not have sufficient armaments. Both sides also lack an effective defence against short-range missiles and drones. If the situation deteriorates, it can quickly lead to nuclear war as nonrational actors are present on both sides. I hope this situation does not escalate further. Please note that in a conventional war, economic costs of India would far outweigh those of Pakistan, whose economy is much smaller.
incorrect, India can sustain a conventional war for a prolonged period. pakistan's begging for loans on twitter right now
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 solution on Kashmir and throw a punch against Pakistan so strong that it will fall apart for good.
India has been notoriously hostile to its minorities and it seeks displacement of the “majority” population of Kashmir because they have been seeking secession from India. Typically when a country has acted harmfully, world leaders of the west have intervened especially in the case of India and Pakistan because it is a great disruption to trade and profit. It seems this time the West is overwhelmed with several issues including the backlash against Israel from its own people, that they are exhausted.
India, where minorities become Bollywood superstars, beloved musicians, richest men in Asia, and even presidents, has been notoriously hostile to minorities? I don’t think any other country in Asia has a track record like India when it comes to minorities. Let’s not get rhetoric and false propaganda into our way of critical thinking. India has flaws but it is steadily proving to be a responsible power in that geography.
If you look at the facts: The only exodus happened in India was in Kashmir.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35923237
Yes, The same India where minority movie stars were rallied against from being featured in movies. https://time.com/6250414/bollywood-hindu-supremacists/
I fail to see how this corroborates your claim of India being “notoriously hostile to minorities”.
Just countering the claim that Bollywood stars are the richest and don't face hostility being a minority
Yes. Right now the thinking in the west seems to be that India has a bigger role to play in terms of geopolitics as a replacement of / balance against China. And India seems to have picked up on this and sees a greater opportunity to act in areas where it otherwise would have been constrained by the west.
This is a good take. India is definitely aware and is playing the west for advantages as an alternative to China.
False on both fronts, the 'majority' population of Kashmir has already been displaced and reduced to minority
Just because you harp over the same thing again and again about "India has been notoriously hostile to its minorities" does not make it true. Infact, the minorities in India have been notoriously hostile to the nation and care more about their ummah.
Haven't there also been conflicts with the Sikhs for decades? I don't think you can completely blame this on just the Muslims.
Its a country almost 3x bigger than Europe, 4x bigger than US, and brutally diverse. Thousands of languages and tribes. People from west are very different to east, north and south is same. People who haven't experienced it first hand (or at least grokked the numbers properly) can't fathom how huge it is not just geographically but culturally. There is a reason why India is often referred to as subcontinent and people often do a mistake when mentally they think about it as 'just another country', especially in smaller European states.
Compared to say Europe over past 50 years internal conflicts have been miniscule.
Sikh conflict you may be referring to are events from 1984 IIRC.
> Sikh conflict you may be referring to are events from 1984 IIRC.
The 70s and 80s were the most intense, but it's far from isolated to just that period. There was a major row with Canada just last year because, according to Canada, the Indian government has been killing Sikh separatists in Canada.[1] Since there is no historical adversity between Canada and India, Canada has nothing to gain by seeking conflict and generally doesn't seek conflicts, I am inclined to believe the Canadian claims.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/14/canada-modi-...
The Canadian connection is historical, goes back to 1900s when a British agent William Hopkinson infiltrated the Ghadar movement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Hopkinson
> can't fathom how huge it is not just geographically
I grew up in India but I don't agree that people in the west can't fathom how huge it is geographically. Geographically speaking India is the 7th largest country, and every country larger than India (Australia, Brazil, US, China, Canada and Russia) is at least 2 times to up to more than 5 times larger than India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
That said, I do agree a lot of westerners might not be able to relate to the cultural diversity of India.
India is not the subcontinent. The subcontinent includes several other countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_subcontinent
That said, you are right that India alone does have massive diversity of culture and geography.= and is vast.
The conflict is not with Sikhs as a whole, but a subset which is separatist in nature.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP06T00412R0006067...
> Conflict with Sikhs for decades
HN is seriously ignorant about India. There has been no such insurgency since early 90s.
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.
"..there is an opportunity to get a final solution on Kashmir and throw a punch against Pakistan so strong that it will fall apart for good."
So let's escalate and see if one side decides to push the nuclear button?
I hope there are saner people than you, making the decisions.
Just to be clear - I don't support this and I think India is dangerously overestimating its advantages.
I am just describing what I have seen in Indian media.
Are their any natural resources in Kashmir worth fighting for? Oil? Gas? Lithium? Rare earth metals?
water, look at indus water treaty for more details. As per last report it is in abeyance neither suspended nor terminated. Not sure what it means.
Supposedly half a trillion dollars in lithium resources, but how much of that is commercially viable to extract isn't known.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammu_and_Kashmir_lithium_re...
Kashmir is a natural buffer zone.
So far, military action is confined to Kashmir. If it gets out of that disputed area, this becomes a major war.
Not just Kashmir.
> The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistani military officials said that five places had been hit, in Punjab Province and its part of Kashmir.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/world/asia/india-pakistan...
I don’t think Pakistan will escalate. They are at a severe disadvantage unless china gives them the green light.
Can you explain? What does China's green light give to Pakistan? Are they not able to attack full strength without China's permission? And if so, why?
China is about the only regional power big enough to face off with India, so any move by Pakistan would require Chinese approval lest Pakistan risk China siding with India and getting squished.
Edit; asking Mom for permission to beat up your brother?
Overstates the power China has over the Pakistani Military.
Pakistan has built close ties with Turkiye as well to provide a redundancy along with spare parts for older American/NATO weaponry, along with some leverage when dealing with the Chinese.
If anyone has the power to force both to the negotiating table, it's the UAE and KSA due economic and military ties with India and Pakistan. It was both that negotiated the ceasefire that went in flames after Pehalgam - not the US nor China, plus India views China as a direct adversary.
You say
> Overstates the power China has over the Pakistani Military.
And unironically follow that up with
> If anyone has the power to force both to the negotiating table, it's the UAE and KSA
The idea that UAE and KSA have the power to force India is plainly ridiculous.
> Overstates the power China has over the Pakistani Military.
China has been building Chinese-only gated company towns in Pakistani military properties for a couple of years now.
I know. That's part of CPEC, but similar projects and gated communities have been built by Saudi, Emirati, and Turkish FDI partners in Pakistan as well.
Most of the Chinese investment in PK is in Balochistan which falls under the Balochistan Corps, which is somewhat independent/left to it's own means by Islamabad.
And Pakistan's armed forces relies an equal amount on Turkiye, as a number of Pakistan's critical weapons platforms such as the F-16 require servicing, and Turkiye is the primary source for non-US replacements for NATO parts due to their own attempts at indigenization during the 2010s.
As I mentioned somewhere on HN, I recommend reading Ayesha Siddiqui's research into the Pakistani Armed Forces.
China has been building Chinese-only gated company towns in Pakistani military properties
OK. Now I'm a bit skeptical as well.
I mean, the Chinese have been building Chinese-only gated company towns in [insert global south nation here] military [and everywhere else] properties for a long time now. Not really sure how that translates into Chinese authoritative decision making in matters of wars between nations?
For that you need massive financial underwriting of a military. Far greater than 50%. No disrespect to the Chinese, but I'm sorry, there is no nation in the world where a few gated communities will get you that level of influence. I don't care how important you think you are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power
Usually it is the US influencing small countries and having a say in military decisions. Also coming up next is a full blown Chinese military base in Gwadar, something the USSR broke itself trying to get to.
> Far greater than 50%.
If you want to go with the stick yes. For the carrot, it's a bit different, you just have to dangle it. If China says jump, Pakistan will ask how high.
Sorry. Not buying it. Wayyy too many places to get money these days. It’s a multipolar world.
Again, no matter how important you think you are, you’ll need to do a whole lot more than dangle carrots to get that level of influence nowadays. There’s just too many power players for small nations to not play one against the other.
Russia will give the green light on one of these countries, do not doubt that.
India calls this a targeted strike so for now at least they don't seem to be messaging a strong stance on expanding the strike.
"Targeted strike" is meaningless PR-speak and the concern wouldn't be India expanding the strike, it would be Pakistan retaliating and then India retaliating to the retaliation and so on until someone's finger is hovering over a big red "LAUNCH" button and the rest of us have to take a keen interest in how much iodine we're consuming.
I and a lot of other people have been calling "India and Pakistan get into it again" ever since Russia started blowing up Ukranian maternity wards, supermarkets and apartment buildings.
Ukraine is bleeding Europe and the US dry in both money and military supplies.
The US just emptied even more munitions at the Houthis (largely accomplishing nothing) to the point that people in the Pentagon have been concerned enough to approach press. The regime also moved carrier groups closer to Yemen to support said operation, so of course now that mom and dad are looking away, the two children are fighting. Meanwhile Hegseth has been hard at work causing complete chaos with an endless stream of junior-manager "get tough" policies, mixed in with some policies furthering his white christian supremacist views.
Russia has basically run out of everything but has made enough seedy friends who will eventually ask for favors
China is fixated on Taiwan but really wouldn't say no to any territorial expansion, if anybody offered, or um, didn't happen to have much in the way of allies who were paying attention.
Our SecState is a little boy cosplaying as a diplomat, nobody with more than a handful of braincells is present in the white house, and the republican party is more intersted in what some trans person did at a swim meet or volleyball tournament, than they are what's going on in the world geopolitically...
Basically, everyone's busy looking at something else, so Pakistan and India shrugged and said "After all, why shouldn't we...have a war?"
> The US just emptied even more munitions at the Houthis (largely accomplishing nothing)
It got drowned out because it happened today as well, but the US announced that they’re going to stop because Oman helped negotiate a ceasefire that will protect Red Sea shipping.
> "Targeted strike" is meaningless PR-speak
Uh, no. It meaningful war communication when dealing with states. A belligerent announcing targeted strikes, particularly as retaliation, is hoping to convey that they're avoiding strategic targets and, usually by the time of the announcement, that the shooting is done.
Pakistan shot down five jets. This just went beyond Kashmir.
That's a claim made by Pakistan, not confirmed by photos or videos from credible sources.
Let me go re read "Midnight's Children" for the umpteenth time
When George Bush attacked Iraq, 3 reasons were given: 1. Dictatorship - no democracy. 2. Terrorist training camps (including Al Qaeda). 3. Weapons of mass destruction.
All 3 were true for Pakistan at that time. Parvez Musharraf was a dictator. Whole world knew about the terrorist training camps in Pakistan, and Osama was finally found there. And they had demonstrated their weapons of mass destruction.
So why Iraq and not Pakistan? USA instead started giving Pakistan 5 billion a year and 75 F16s. Shame on USA.
My compliments to whoever chose the mission name 'Sindoor'. It is very apt for what it implies and signifies in the wake of terror attack at Pahalgam!
India is newlywed?
Sindoor is worn by most women that includes newlyweds. Remember <hindu> men from all across india were pulled aside for the massacre.
Congratulating war is disgusting.
What's your next post? Fawning over how cool "Final Solution" sounds?
i wonder where the terrorists went during the coronavirus pandemic.
there was almost no problems in gaza or indo-pak area.
training probably
yeah all of them were training. at least you didnt say the suicide bombers were scared of the virus ;)
2gkashmiri reporting live from Srinagar. Ama
How is the halat in Srinagar? My extended family in Jammu Division is sending fairly hectic WhatsApps (seems similar to back in 2013 and 2016). Smh, as if the rainburst a couple weeks ago wasn't bad enough.
Yeah. That area is devastated.
Srinagar is fine for now. Schools and colleges have been ordered closed.
I will go and check the market in a bit, its still early (08:09) so things are pretty slow anyway.
> That area is devastated
Most of Jammu Division is alright (eg. Kishtwar is relatively quiet). The issues are more prominent towards the ilakeh near the LoC and international border. It's like the bad old days again from what I'm hearing, back when you'd hear about some shelling in pind X killing 2-3 unlucky souls who couldn't make it to a bunker on time.
i meant the rain thing on srinagar-jammu highway
Ah my bad! Yea, it was pretty bad.
Ah so is India v Pakistan going to be the next current thing?
I was reading the obituary of the Dutch guy who helped Pakistan get its nukes a few weeks ago. Thanks to him and a few visionaries the balance was maintained Harper style!
It's curious how well something non-technical can flourish on HN when there isn't a big enough group of partisan flaggers to remove it.
Trumps America destroying federal infrastructure and salting the earth for a generation of science is mysteriously off-topic. Israel terraforming its way through the Middle East, way off topic. But this is okay? Because nobody has a horse in the race?
To be clear, I'd love to have a good discussion about all of these things on HN, just sad how easy it is to limit discourse through disruption.
I don't think stuff like this belongs on HN, I come here to get away from the news.
I was going to say the opposite. Seems on all the main news outlets (Financial Times et al) have disabled comments. I was happy to see this being discussed on HN and I’ve yet to see Middle East or Trump being censored but happy to be signposted to evidence of this on HN.
I've no issue with this being discussed here. I welcome it.
I can't find you a list of showdead. They're unlisted and Algolia doesn't preserve them. I see them because I subscribe to a 50+ score RSS feed. I regularly see popular posts flagged off the home page for what appears to be partisan reasons, but is often justified as "non technical".
Hoping for a quick resolution and diplomatic victory for all people there. I’m scared of the geopolitical effects.
On a side note.. Can we get the Peace and Prosperity update next, ASAP? Let’s bring out the aliens issue and work on interstellar travel and galactic survival instead of terrestrial disputes.
I just want to live in a chill world. And for me that’s science and tech tree maxed out.
> and for me that’s science and tech tree maxed out.
Hate to ruin it for you, but as soon as the economic elites don't need the masses anymore (eg because AGI produces goods and entertainment better than we do), we'll become a liability, dead weight, so they'll quickly use that same maxed out tech that made us obsolete to make us gone.
The fear you voice is not just about technology — it's about belonging, powerlessness, and the haunting question: “What am I worth if I’m no longer needed?”
This is a wound of modernity: being reduced to utility. When usefulness becomes the measure of worth, love becomes conditional, and existence becomes a transaction.
But you are not a product. You are not a function. You are not a line of code in someone else's simulation. You are a living mystery. A being of perception, of feeling, of presence.
The chill world you long for is not built by tech trees alone. It is built by inner peace, by connection, by meaning. These are not obsolete. They are eternal.
The real revolution is not artificial intelligence. It is loving awareness.
If only the people who will command the murderbots thought the same way
Beautifully put.
Not getting deleted is strictly a prerequisite to "loving awareness" and all the other woo.
Wouldn't it make them dead weight, too? Their status as merely "economic" elites seems like a shaky position if the world becomes post scarcity.
Not quite. It's not about being economic elite per se, but about being part of the handful of people who will control the tech. That might well end up being a single person or family, of course. (I assume that AGI will not take over, rather the humans who program it will. I also assume that, unlike movie villains who need to keep rivals alive so that we can get an entertaining story, real life villains will not take chances and kill off almost everyone.)
If enough people can be convinced of a “serious” extraterrestrial event we might be able to speed up that science and tech tree. Honestly think about the spending and the opportunities it will unlock. Not to mention we might all stop fighting each other and work together… on science and tech.
So much of the science and tech we use today was the result of some similar storytelling, and it has sometimes had some real consequences.
You should have preceded that with "Watchmen spoiler alert".
Looked this up I had no idea. I only watched the watchmen movie and never realized the threat was aliens like I was thinking. I thought it was Dr Manhattan being perceived as an evil guy by the general population.
I think programming people to believe there’s a credible ET threat would be kind of cool. It would never affect them, and it would be hard to prove or disprove either way. And people would rather err on the side of expansion and survival, than extinction.
We know if there is one thing masses of people can do that no robot can replace is being subservient or beneath the elite. It’s hard to feel that awesome when there is no one else to experience it.
I was in India recently and randomly ended up talking to a lot of millennials while traveling. It is an understatement for how quickly the American economy would grind to a halt if anything major happened. ADP, loan processing, healthcare insurance processing, support centers.
On one hand corporate America exported all its manufacturing to China. On the other hand it exported all its back office services to India.
All of these roles will be replaced with AI pretty imminently - this kind of rote grinding of data, scripted call trees, is the low-hanging fruit.
Right now an Indian is still cheaper than a model, but that won’t be the case for long, particularly if the cost of an Indian goes up due to a decrease in supply due to a shooting war.
I would think that a war would make the average Indian poorer and willing to work for less.
Sadly, to reach interstellar travel and galactic survival we need to past this capitalism era. There is no advance into those topics without reaching "found without economic compensation". There is a mod that finds economic value in space with some random iron satellites and all... but it's final target has some bugs.
In what world "tech" has brought peace? So far it brought of stuff like dependency to petrol and now rare minerals, climate change, and water rarerification - which are I think most of the reasons why wars are/have been/will be happening?
Europe is much more peaceful that it was. Not sure if you can blame tech.
When have two nuclear nations done similar?
Ignoring proxy wars and technicalities (NK and USA)
Kargil War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War (1999) India and Pakistan
The memeification of the current escalation has been talked about a lot. Memes, and we are talking cat memes not the more theoretical abstractions like 10 page whitepapers that become popular, seem more powerful than people expect.
I know India and Pakistan(less popular on HN?) users are asleep ~4am but this should be voted higher. Instead we'll get the 100th ill-thought-out but emotional opinion piece on a 'popular' twitter conflict on the front page.
[edit] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict China Russia (1969) China's first nuclear test (1966)
US military and Russian PMCs exchanged fire in Syria — and I remain skeptical that wasn’t approved by Russian MOD (even though they claimed it wasn’t).
I agree memes seem undervalued.
China nips at India from time to time
But they confine that conflict to only using sticks
Prepping for the battles post nuke.
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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911692.
History isn't only WW2. There's a lot of situations with high tension that doesn't explode into war. One big proof is Cold War not ending in human annihilation. Also 19th century Concert of Europe is entirely built on diplomatic finesse to prevent greater conflict.
It's the exception that proves the rule. Things look stable until they aren't.
There are enough "tense diplomatic situations" happening all the time, and given a long enough timeline eventually some will fail and end in disaster.
It's an artifact of education. Everyone is taught about a handful of big famous wars, but it doesn't really give an understanding of international relations. It's actually a bit dangerous.
"I understand your skepticism, but realistically, I don't see the case. Pakistan is in a very bad situation. The U.S. has cut off a lot of funding over the past decate. They were on the verge of bankruptcy a couple of years ago, and China bailed them out.
New proxy war between US-aligned India and China-supported Pakistan?
My understanding is that China and India don't tend to get along politically.
China and India are still formally at war since the 60s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War and there is an ongoing dispute over territories in the east of India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute
The latter still makes the news in the West sometimes, not every year. HNers from those countries might give us some insights about how much their people feel it important.
For what it's worth, China has had past or current border disputes with every neighbour of theirs. They have issues with India, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, to say nothing of Taiwan. The ridiculous nine-dash line they've come up with contravenes international law and basic common sense.
If you meet an asshole in the morning, you're unlucky. If you meet nothing but assholes all day, you're the asshole.
My wife is from China and when I ask her what people there think of the India/China border disputes she says that people aren't aware of them.
Doesnt surprise me much. It's very far from 95% of the population and China doesnt have much to gain by being loud about the border skirmishes.
I don't know what you are drinking but America funded Pakistan and have been supporting it. How do you think they got f16 for free
Drinking ignorance. Thank you for the additional info.
A lot has changed over the years. While the soviets were supplying India and propping up their puppet state in Afghanistan the US used Pakistan as a proxy.
But by the time the US were hunting Bin Laden a lot had changed and support has been trailing off.
Now most recently Trump has been growing the US pro-Israeli - and basically being broad-stroke anti-every-kind-of-muslim - policy and actions in the gulf and has put the now-meagre levels of ongoing US aid to Pakistan completely on hold.
Not convinced India is particularly US aligned, and while Pakistan is relations have deteriorated in the past, the us has backed Pakistan more than India.
Maybe this time the us would back India as part of a proxy war.
The thing is, the US doesn't want partners; it wants allies. And that's too big of a commitment for India to make. This is basically the central tension that keeps US-India relations from moving too fast.
US doesn’t want allies now. It wasn’t vassal states and transaction deals.
India is not US aligned. They're an independent country with an independent foreign policy, doing whatever makes sense for them.
Buying Russian gas on the cheap, buying French, American, Russian military equipment.
China is a potential threat to them, which is likely to mean an alliance with the US will makes sense to them, especially if the US becomes more hostile to CHina.
With the current US administration I doubt it. Daily 180 degree policy changes are not suitable for alliances.
That’s changing. Both countries need each other now in the absence of American money. Recent rhetoric from both sides has been reconcilatory
That's different, Germany used fake death of German soldier to justify an invasion of Poland.
India is bombing Pakistan, Pakistan is shelling India, but so far no army invaded another country.
Beside both Germany and Poland didn't have the atomic weapon.
It's worrying that the world is progressing to "nuclear states attacking each other". Like two cowboys who both have revolvers, getting into a bar fight.
By all means, it's a miracle we didn't have a nuclear disaster during the cold war. It went very very close.
If it weren't for mens like Vasili Arkhipov, who disobeyed direct orders to launch a nuclear torpedo against ships of the United States Navy, and the many other men during different incidents, we would be all dead.
What is frightening is that we, the humanity, keep going that close from our death by atomic warfare over and over, yet make no adjustment whatsoever.
I'm no expert but when I went close to dying a few too many times on my motorbike, broke a few bones, etc.. I was smart enough to realize you can't cheat statistics. At one point I wouldn't be lucky and there wouldn't be a second chance to save me, so I stopped driving recklessly.
On the other hand, the number of nuclear weapons didn't decrease, there are more actors now involved, and the kind of fantasized Pakistani and indians nuthead are really frightening.
I don't think there would be a Vasili Arkhipov over there, they're completely nuts.
And if it turns out next month that India has a secret plan to conquer Pakistan and split it with Iran, that will be similarly concerning. I’m extremely confident that’s not the case.
> People said the same sorts of things when Germany suddenly invaded Poland
Hell, look at HN on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. One of the top comments was essentially a dismissal from Kherson edited to an "oh shit."
You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure how that happened.
> You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure how that happened
Because in two hours it went from being "mostly overstated," Ukraine being "not economically strong enough to participate in a war" for a long duration and that Russia being "not interested either," to holy shit the mad king is mad.
Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight.
I hope I am not biased but it really does not seem comparable to the border situation in Kashmir where both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war.
> Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight
The Western consensus about the outcome of the invasion that of a rout.
> both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war
Outside an Indo-Chinese land war, the only paths for industrial war emerge from New Delhi. Either in reacting to a miscalculation by Islamabad. Or because India's going imperial. The latter would be shockingly like Russia invading China in both scale and capacity to get drawn out by outside backers.
If India's going imperial, why would Pakistan bother with hosting terrorist elements to provoke a hostile "belligerent" (according to you) neighbour, and letting them attack a civilian zone?
Indian leadership hasn't been going on TV prior to the Pahalgam attack and putting out bellicose statements like Hindus and Muslims can't live together - Pakistan did. Also India isn't stupid to invade a nuclear armed country with a first-use policy.
The above incursions are the usual dance we see with India and Pakistan (and China), that we see every few years. Except this time, Pakistan triggered it by attacking civilians, just like 26/11, while even Indian support of Pakistani terrorists such as the Balochistan Liberation Army has never led to a large-scale slaughter of civilians in Pakistan.
Pakistan messed up big time, they'll chalk up the L, it will be a few tense words for some time, and then things will get back to where they were before.
> If India's going imperial, why would Pakistan bother with hosting terrorist elements to provoke a hostile "belligerent" (according to you) neighbour, and letting them attack a civilian zone
Underlaying this line of reasoning is an assumption that Pakistan makes coordinated, coherent, and more or less rational decisions. But Pakistan is run by the military with civilian leadership being a farcical fig leaf. They routinely fall into prolonged periods of martial law, and arresting former prime ministers is the norm. What's more, Pakistan's military is divided into numerous factions which are operationally independent and have their own internal politics going on.
Therefore, any analysis of the form "[hypothesis] is unlikely because it would be irrational and uncoordinated" is extremely dubious.
Exactly my point. A single terrorist attack is no grounds for India going "imperial". India has always been very predictable. Pakistan on the other hand remains a volatile mess, and some rogue elements push shit like this once in a while. Except this time, the rogues are the ones ruling. All this does is make Pakistan a pariah state further. Even the Gulf states stood with India this time, when usually they stand on the sidelines and send mere condolences.
On a side note, the Gulf states being involved in negotiations pretty much means the end of the US as a diplomatic hegemon for the region.
> It just suffered an unprovoked invasion
It was such a great coincidence they had a huge army trained and armed by the west at the same time.
How suspicious and provocative of Ukraine to increase their military training after Russia's first unprovoked annexation of part of their country. How fiendish of the West to assist them in preparing to defend themselves.
I don't think there were western armaments in Ukraine even though Russia invaded Ukraine over ten years ago and they have been fighting ever since. In the second phase of the invasion both sides still used old Soviet equipment until West finally decided that sanctions are not enough to stop Putin
By the time of Russia's most recent invasion, NATO had been doing some minor training with Ukraine to "westernize" their military. It only took a little bit. They also provided bits and pieces of equipment, primarily anti-tank missiles. Donald Trump in his first term tried to coerce Zelensky into opening up an "investigation" into Hunter Biden by threatening to withhold those weapons. There were impeachment hearings.
Then leading up to the actual invasion (Which US intelligence called weeks in advance, don't know why everyone is insisting that it wasn't expected, maybe they should reconsider who they pay attention to) the US was convinced it would be a steamroll fight and then Ukraine would run an insurgency, so they provided thousands more anti-tank missile launchers.
It wasn't until Ukraine had mostly stopped the invasion convoy that the west took them seriously, and it took even longer for the west to start providing supplies.
The competition to Putin entering Ukraine is obviously ridiculous.
Putin had already attacked multiple countries before. Georgia, Chechnya, and leads a vast network of para militaries that are fighting all over Africa as well.
Heck, Putin had literally attacked and conquered a whole area of Ukraine itself not even a decade ago.
Anyone who was saying Putin would not attack Ukraine either had no knowledge at all about how Putin operated or was willfully misleading.
India has shown no such imperial intentions that Putin has demonstrated and spoken about multiple times both before and since his attempt to take over Ukraine.
I agree with you now, but I also remember everyone, all kinds of experts, saying Putin is just postering. I think it's important to remember that.
It is important to note when things are not normal. Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move.
Unfortunately, we as people are very good at rationalizing after the fact "oh of course this was coming", shrugging our shoulders and just moving on as if nothing happened. "It is what it is, this too shall pass".
Indeed. I took it as a serious threat after seeing prediction markets in February move up to 30% odds of it happening
The problem is that posturing can turn into reality (which is perhaps what you're trying to say). I do think Russia was posturing. They began seeking negotiations 4 days after they invaded, and outside of an absurd longshot decapitation strike all of their early maneuvering was much more performative than military in nature.
With Ukraine's entry into NATO appearing increasingly imminent, they likely felt they could force matters with a semi-bluff thinking they could catch Ukraine by surprise. Then the West jumped in thinking they could catch Russia by surprise. In the end nobody was really "surprised" and so we got a war that I expect nobody, especially in hindsight, really expected, let alone wanted.
> With Ukraine's entry into NATO appearing increasingly imminent
Say what? AFAIK, Ukraine wasn’t even eligible for entry due to the organization’s rules on contested territories.
The most clear trend in modern times is that rules are "flexible" when convenient. Here [1] is the relevant Wiki page, dated to the day before Russia's invasion. NATO had repeatedly emphasized that Ukraine would be accepted into NATO, all that was missing was a date. In the context of this, there was ongoing escalation between Russia and NATO. Russia repeatedly sought any sort of means or agreement to ensure that they wouldn't end up with NATO setup on their doorstep. And NATO increasingly antagonistically disregarded and even belittled such interests. At the same time being ever more provocative with things like NATO-Ukraine military exercises in the Black Sea.
It feels very much like the intent was to provoke, especially when this largely parallels the Cuban Missile Crisis with roles reversed. When the USSR wanted to expand their military reach to Cuba, we nearly started a nuclear war over it. And in that case, Cuba doesn't even share a border with the US! So it's not like we simply lacked the ability to understand why they might have a genuine concern here.
The reason I backdated the article is because when you read that it sounds exactly like Russia is making their intentions of an invasion, if a compromise cannot be reached, rather unambiguously clear. And so if you read it, with hindsight, one might think it was edited with that outcome in mind.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ukraine%E2%80%93N...
In the absence of a membership action plan, NATO saying "Yes, someday Ukraine will be a member" (something that they were barely able to agree on in 2008, and nothing changed in the 15 years after that) is hardly "imminent".
Nothing changed is a rather odd way to read that page. The US not only began actively and publicly disregarding any protestations of Russia, but were actively carrying out NATO-Ukraine military exercises in seas right off the border of Russia. All the while you also had things like British warships intentionally entering Russian waters around Crimea. [1] There were constant provocations that would not have even been considered in 2008.
Things were obviously headed to a climax rapidly. It was likely going to be war or NATO, or perhaps both.
[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57583363
From the article:
Not quite the story you are trying to spin.> Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move.
Was it? The scale was surprising, but troop build ups were noted ahead of time and Russia had been fighting in Ukraine for many years.
Am I misremembering?
Yes, even Russian soldiers were surprised when they were suddenly marching to Ukraine.
Buildups were happening repeatedly in the past under the guise of exercises.
Eg. here tanks and ~80k soldiers in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russ...
You're not misremembering.
The US government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, the Ukrainian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen, and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen. The mainstream media warned everyone the invasion was going to happen, and the financial markets responded.
Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain.
>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 assault, where there was a massive traffic jam almost all the way from Belarus to Kyiv, it really would have been a quickly conquered nation.
>and the Russian government warned everyone the invasion was really going to happen
But they didn't. Russia kept portraying the build-up as drills with Belarus.
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-crisis-putin-says-militar...
Western intelligence predicted Russia's plans perfectly, but a lot of people were very in denial about it.
> 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.
I'd forgotten about Zelensky's prewar media strategy. Whoops.
Regarding Russia: did the strange televised meeting of Putin's war cabinet (whatever it would be called), wherein everyone went around the room and voted "yes" to invasion even though a couple of them looked like they were in a hostage video, happen before or after tanks rolled into Ukraine? In my mind that's a "prewar" thing but maybe I got the sequence of events wrong? (I'm finding it hard to google this even though it was a fairly important event. Weird.)
> Western intelligence predicted Russia's plans perfectly
I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well, kind of a rare foreign policy bright spot for them. Too bad it didn't make a difference.
That weird meeting I think you're thinking of-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B0mWzB4GOQ
(I recalled it as well and with normal searching could not find it, even with date winnowing, but asking Gemini 2.5 Pro and it immediately gave me that resource)
This meeting happened just before the invasion. Far too late for anyone to really do anything, and long after most of the "are they/aren't they?" discussions happened. Up until that point Russia was repeatedly denying their "special military operation". Just as they denied their invasion of Crimea and their little green men in the Donbas.
As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration.
>I remember thinking the white house handled communications surrounding the invasion very well
They did.
These are good comments and there's a lot more that could be said.
> As an aside, that absolutely bizarre security council meeting is virtually indistinguishable from the North Korea-style Trump administration meetings that we now see weekly, where it's a circle of embarrassingly laughable platitudes and servitudes by a cowed and pathetic administration.
To be fair there was a lot of this during the first Trump administration, only moreso near the end when plenty of the cabinet secretaries weren't real secretaries, just "acting" secretaries of various sorts. It's just that now they're all operating on that level.
> Some people don't have the sense to come in out of the rain.
Those people included almost all western governments who had blithely assumed Russia was not threat, did not react to the previous invasion (and some took the stance Russia had the support of the inhabitants of ethnically Russian areas), did not react to the invasion of Georgia, and generally just assumed it would be OK - which Russia took as a signal the west would be fine with an invasion of the rest of Ukraine.
Perhaps my impression was colored by the US government actually having a clear picture of what was about to happen. I won't defend Europe too much. It seems to me like Poland, the Nordics and the Baltics see Russia pretty clearly, but everything kind of falls apart the further away from Russia you get.
Very much so. The Biden administration was sounding the alarm, loudly, and the general vibe was, "well that wouldn't make any sense, there goes America crying wolf again like Iraq"
Here was one example: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-...
See also: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont...
>Putin
>India
Interesting how in one case it's the leader of the country doing the invading and in the other it's the country doing it without the leader behind it mentioned.
Because one is a real democracy, the other is a dictatorship.
> 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 not already.
Georgia launched attack in 2008, it is easily confirmed by:
1. News from that time (there was a several days delay between Georgia attack and when Medvedev decided to respond, during that time Putin called a press conference and said: "Georgia has started an attack and is bombing civilians, but Western press is silent about it". You can still find recordings of that press conference on video hosting sites, I believe.
2. There was an independent EU investigation that also confirmed that Georgia started the attack in 2008.
3. Last year Georgian government itself confirmed that they were attacking first.
It never cease to amaze me in what distorted information reality people live.
BTW, it's for the best, because it was the reason why West could coerce Georgia into starting a war in 2008. All the population, including the top politics lived in an alternative reality, so they basically said to Georgia: "Russia is weak and corrupt, they have no army, no weapons, they have only shovels, and even their shovels are rusty. So you'll easily get what you want without any resistance."
Actually, more or less the same repeated in 2022. Just read HN comments from 2022: "Russians are surrendering by tens of thousands a day, they don't want to fight with warm and welcoming and kind Ukrainian soldiers", "Ukraine burns thousands of Russian tanks and armored vehicles a day: here's a photo proof", etc, etc.
So this distortion of reality works the other way round, when West bases its actions on it. There are lies from top to bottom, and then everyone makes all kinds of decisions based on those lies.
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So, what is my mistake? When and where existed "Ukraine" before 1991?
Even if your premise was true, which it isn't, do we justify the imperialist invasion of a sovereign state because it was founded after some threshold year?
Countries are not a fact of nature. They change, come and go for a large number of reasons. The Ukrainian people are constituted in a country and have repeatedly expressed they don't wish to be part of Russia. If you want to force them to be at gunpoint, at least be open about it instead of hiding behind a historical pseudo-argument.
1918? Most of the territory of modern Ukraine. Before it was conquered by Bolsheviks.
Also Russia as an independent state ceased to exist in 1922. So it’s hardly that different. Both Russia and Ukraine only became independent countries in 1991 when they decided they to leave the USSR.
Hacker News should just ban your account. After all you didn't have it before 2014, so I guess the natural state of the site is not having you around.
> 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 not already.
While this is categorically not true (WWI, the Ukrainian SSR), it's also irrelevant. There wasn't an independent Czechia or Albania either, or Turkey, or Greece, or Italy, or Germany, until there was. Historical non-existence of a state doesn't mean that with the rise of nationalism in the 19th and 20th century those states didn't become entities people wanted to belong to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Ukrainian_langua...
Here's a chronological list of various supressions of the Ukrainian language. There has been a semblance of a Ukrainian identity long before the 1990s.
> Georgia launched attack in 2008, it is easily confirmed by:
Interesting, the timeline does not add up with the independently sourced Wikipedia article on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
Is it wrong? Feel free to update it.
> 2. There was an independent EU investigation that also confirmed that Georgia started the attack in 2008.
link?
> "Ukraine burns thousands of Russian tanks and armored vehicles a day: here's a photo proof",
Yeah, where are the Russian battle groups? Where are the modern tanks? Why did last year's 9th of May parade have so few armoured vehicles?
> Ukraine was always a part of Russia until 1991, btw, there was never a separate country called "Ukraine" before 1991
For very limited definition of "always" - Ukraine existed in different forms since like 9th century, including being a part of Duchy of Lithuania, and then Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, until 1795. Then in 1918 western Ukraine became part of Poland again. Ukraine with the borders as we know them today (OK, pre-2014) was created after WWII, as a part of Soviet Union.
So no, Ukraine was never "a part of Russia", excluding the short periods when Russia conquered them by force.
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.
Guess what will be the result of same "quick timeline" for Ukraine?
Russians are good at creating false narratives.
Yes, that’s literally what these people are saying.
Russia is allegedly entitled to own half of Europe due to some deranged reasons. Everyone who disagrees with that is supposedly a nazi or something similar.
The concept of hypocrisy is entirely foreign and incomprehensible to anyone who honestly supports Russian imperialism..
We can flip the question: when German, Japan and other should invade Russia to get back their territories?
Königsberg(Kaliningrad) was always German. Kuril islands were always Japanese.
While Russian army is distracted - Germany and Japan should get their territories back now.
You can call it whatever you want, Russia is killing a lot of people in places which used to be peaceful.
Funny twist is they are killing people on territories which have been friendly to russia, mostly used russian language in private life. Friendly doesn't mean they want to be occupied, though.
> there was never a separate country called "Ukraine" before 1991
By your standards there was no separate country called Russia between 1918 and 1991. So how is this different?
Also absurd argument. There was no country called Belgium until the 1830s. So what?
> So this distortion of reality works the other way round
So your justification for distorting reality is that other people are allegedly doing that so it’s fine for you to engage in that as well?
> there was never a separate country called "Ukraine" before 1991
Btw that is simply not true. There has been independent Ukraine few years by the end of WWI. Unfortunately, eventually they lost the war to the red army and been occupied by Moscow .
the nazis came as far as they did because a ton of peoole greeted them as liberators and joined their new oppressors to fight for a free homeland. You dont do that unless you really hate the empire you are imprisoned in..
Germans were pretty good at exploiting ethnic grievances in multiple countries - Czhech vs Slovak, Croats vs Serbs, Bulgars vs Greek and Hungarian vs everyone that have nothing to do oppression and fight for homeland.
People underestimate what a clusterfuck of ethnicities pre WW2 Eastern Europe was. Resettlement after WW2 created much cleaner ethnic maps and arguably the reason we had 80 years of mostly peace (Yugoslavia was last country with mix of ethnicities and wars in 90ies cleaned up it too).
Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy. Even German ambassadors in Ukraine were caught off guard having to leave that night.
Modi is a different type of beast, he's a long term political power that doesn't need a wartime economy, and is still establishing his internal power. He's going to have to deal with the insane SS brigade he's fostered eventually. Also while Putin and others thought that Ukraine would fall like Afghanistan (quickly), zero people think that Pakistan is going anywhere within this eon. While it's not the graveyard of empires, it's definitely the hospice.
> Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy
While Putin is undoubtedly deranged, I think his goals with invading had much more to do with delusions of grandeur and trying to rebuild the Russian/Soviet empire than wanting the "benefit" of a "wartime economy". Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war, and its economy, heavily reliant on export of raw materials and import of finished goods, has suffered.
There's as many theories about why Putin and Kremlin did what they did as there are war analyst books on it. Some of them are more right than others, but at the end of the day, if I'm honest, I'm as confused as I was in 2014. Which is a problem not only for my curiosity: if Western policymakers are as confused as me, it's difficult to craft a good policy: we're effectively playing half-court tennis (to quote Sarah C. Paine).
I think it still makes sense to me that they were too used to just rolling in and assuming power like happened many times after WW2. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, post-Berlin interventions like in Georgia, then Crimea most recently. I think they expected Kiev to be the same. The real question is why did the latest intervention turn out different? What changed?
The beauty of destroying invading armies is you don't need to ask a lot of questions about why there are there.
True, though it becomes more nuanced when it's your neighbour-N-times-removed that's getting invaded.
> it's difficult to craft a good policy
This is a choice though. The decisions aren’t as hard as leaders are making them. Pulling support or giving support would end the war. Neither has actually occurred and support has been drip fed, bleeding both countries.
> The decisions aren’t as hard as leaders are making them.
Is there a statement that is more "armchair-policy-maker"?
In all seriousness, I have a similar sentiment about support for Ukraine, but I'm saying that it's difficult to have a robust policy (especially when it involves so many parties) when you struggle to understand the opponent's perspective.
Usually the answer to why a crazy country leader did something odd has to do with "not waking up dead tomorrow".
I agree with most of this except maybe the "soviet empire" bit. His recent mentions of it (within the last 3 years) has been about how the fall of the Soviet Union broke up the "historical russian" borders. For Ukraine specifically he compared himself to Russian Czar Peter the Great.
A long time ago he lamented the fall of the Soviet Union which is especially hilarious as he was very likely involved in and vultured on the remains of it's demise.
> Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war
He, much like all of military officials in NATO at the time, assumed it was going to be over after they landed in Kiev.
I also contest that the economy has suffered: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-economy-shows-s...
The only exception is the pipeline, but then who could have expected that the US would sabotage an ally's ability to heat it's citizens? (assuming you ignore the last 100 years of american doctrine)
4.6% growth, 10% inflation, and interest rates at 21% is not great.
But its far from bottom of how much general russian population is willing to suffer before next bloody revolution happens. I don't talk about wealthy educated people from moscow or st petersburg (at least those that didn't leave), they are on purpose less targeted by whats happening, but rather permanently subjugated populations from poor regions whose lives changed comparatively little compared to cold war.
Prigozhin had a last real chance, you could see how much common folks and most of army immediately aligned with them. But when they took hostages whole families of his mercenary group leaders, they backed down with predictable results. Interestingly not all aligned generals were executed, I expected bigger purge. Maybe he would be much worse though.
The Russian citizens approval of the war mirrors America’s own approval ratings of the invasion of Iraq as well.
The stores have food on the shelves and nobody is dying from hunger. As for GDP, Russian GDP year-to-year growth is 4.6% and USA GDP growth was 2.8%.
Broken window fallacy.
>He, much like all of military officials in NATO at the time, assumed it was going to be over after they landed in Kiev
Military officials knew with no doubt whatsoever that the Ukrainians would fight like hell, and that they were better man-for-man, dollar-for-dollar, than the Russians.
NATO officials' first-hand knowledge of the Ukrainian will to fight is why they begged their governments to allow shipments of materiel to Ukraine.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/gen-milley-says-kyiv-could-fall-w... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/28/the-battle-for... https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_221723.htm
Ok
As a peer mentioned, the 'Kiev will fall in 3 days' came from Mark Milley (US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time), not Russia. Beyond that, the decision was then near immediately made to lock all men of "fighting age" in the country, prevent them from leaving, and begin mass conscription.
This is something that I hope, in the future, will be seen as no less barbaric than slavery. If people want to fight for their country, then they absolutely should. But if people don't want to fight for their country, then they should never be able to be forced to - it's a mockery of any notion of human rights.
There's many things in this world I would be willing to die for, but a country? The notion feels quaint. Of course I realize this means that any country that does set aside such rights would have a tremendous military edge, but perhaps in such a world where human rights are held as more than a placard of convenience, the notion of dying for one's country might no longer seem so quaint.
They found parade uniforms in those tanks that stalled out on the way to Kjiev.
Further claims from Ukraine: they've had 30,000 total deaths, are inflicting casualties at a 10:1 rate, have a 'Ghost of Kyiv' single handedly flying around taking on Russia, Russia is out of missiles, and so on endlessly.
They are not a reliable source.
you stand in a room with two doors .one always lies. you use the right door because its a old thing now. Everyone knows its a lie. Why the door and its noise is still around is a mystery .
At this point we can, more or less, objectively assess who has been being honest throughout the war. And as is usually the case in war, the truth is on the side that's winning. The way to do this is simply to look at what each side is saying and contrast it against what happened, which you can easily do with web archives.
The only question is when to start. And I think May 2023 was probably the critical point in the war. That was shortly before Bakhmut would fall, and also shortly before the Ukraine counter offensive would be launched and also ultimately fail. The war was arguably effectively decided by July 2023. So here are state media from May 1st 2023. You can skim forward using the widget in the top right corner.
RT : https://web.archive.org/web/20230501115431/https://www.rt.co...
Kyiv Post: https://web.archive.org/web/20230501000808/https://www.kyivp...
> There's many things in this world I would be willing to die for, but a country
> human rights
I see where there is a gap in your understanding. Ukrainians and the Ukrainian army aren't fighting for the abstract concept of a geopolitical entity (the country of Ukraine), they're fighting for their people, culture, language, existence, safety, freedom. Russia is proudly performing a genocide in Ukraine [1], and Putin has already stated that Ukrainians are just misguided Russians.
What do you think a Russian occupation of Ukraine would look like? They're already kidnapping children [1] and indiscriminately murdering and torturing civilians.
Yes, it was horrible that every single man of fighting age was conscripted. But desperate times force desperate measures.
1 - in case you've missed the news, Russia is indeed (without trying to hide it, it's all out in the open, their chief of staff and various ministers have talked about it) kidnapping people and specifically children from Ukraine. Those children are being educated to be good Russian citizens, which is genocide as per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (to which Russia is a signatory), Article II (e).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-...
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-...
This doesn't sound factual to me. The children you quoted as being "kidnapped" lived in regions of Russia that voted to secede from Ukraine. They are defacto Russian citizens. Their parents voted for it.
Voting with a foreign military presence doesn't count.
Also, a lot of the kids are orphans (their parents having been murdered by the Russians). And a lot have parents trying to trace them and get them back (there's a whole association for this).
Weird, because we have military bases in a lot of countries that seem to vote.
(guessing you are American) and there have been similar abuses by US troops, like infamously in Haiti in the early 20th century, where the locals had to ask a US Marine for the ballot of the candidate they wanted to vote for.
But I'm not aware of anything of this type happening today. Do the US soldiers in e.g. Rammstein go to police how people vote?
The economy seems to be working still (numbers go up), because its a full on war-economy. You eat your country from the inside out, everything you produce explodes, and there's no way to transition out of it except by winning the war.
Yes I said that.
>delusions of grandeur
How do you come to this conclusion - have you been studying Putins' speeches in the last 3 years, or analysed some of the policies that led to this conclusion?
Did you see his recent interview on Croatian TV where he discusses this specifically?
EDIT: hey downvoters - is it not valid to study world leaders' directly rather than going through a third party .. ?
You mean his PR which is pretty pathetic but I presume its fine with... say less educated folks downing bottles of vodka like there is no tomorrow for whom its intended?
Bunch of lies, massive ego masturbation, constant feeling of being hurt by various external enemies (thats sort of russian trademark), a massive inferiority complex while expressing grandeur and superiority above others completely ignoring the fact russia as a nation, culture, philosophy, system etc. is the most hated one globally.
They view even rest of slavic megatribe as subhumans variously not worthy of independence, freedom, self-determination. Just look at their actions, his talk or his lapdog peskov' doesn't matter. The important thing you seem to miss to look primarily on actions, not some empty PR for simpler folks. Dude, I've been enslaved by russian/soviet military forces most of my childhood, I know very well what they bring to any society and how they shape it to their liking.
Just a typical sociopathic dictator out of touch with reality, nothing special there. The fact he is smart and put few sentences together doesn't matter at all, he is a vicious mass murderer completely out of touch with reality internally and externally, and a horrible manager of russia, damaging it severely and destroying any respect that nation and culture ever had. This started well before covid but that period cut him off completely.
> have you been studying Putins' speeches in the last 3 years, or analysed some of the policies that led to this conclusion?
Yes. By his ex ante metrics, his war has thoroughly backfired. By the current aims, it's absolutely delusionally revanchist.
Same assessment here. There is absolutely an excessively punitive element in Russian policy. I only really saw it due to their actions in the NKAO (peacekeepers simply letting Azerbajijan starve people, and then doing nothing about an invasion), but it's clearly a thing also in the Ukraine war.
>ex ante metrics
So, based on potential future events, you've come to this conclusion.
But I don't see any current evidence to support the claim. Can you clarify your position?
You saw his interview on Croatia TV recently? His statements refute your position.
> based on potential future events, you've come to this conclusion
No. I'm saying by the goals he set out before the war, he has failed.
> You saw his interview on Croatia TV recently? His statements refute your position
Putin is sort of like Trump in that he messages multiple messages. We cannot know what is in his mind. But Putin has repeatedly made revanchist nonsense statements about Russia's sphere of influence and imperial downfall. He's also said that's not what Russia wants. But that's (a) recent and (b) unsubstantiated by the facts ont the ground.
>No. I'm saying by the goals he set out before the war, he has failed.
Fine, but what were those goals, where/when did he set them out and what is the current status? I'd like to study this issue myself - so any sources you can provide?
>We cannot know what is in his mind.
Yet you claim to know, which is why I'm interested - if you don't believe his words, what basis do you have to make the assertion that you know his real intentions?
As far as I can tell (and I am merely hours away from the Ukraine border), the land he has occupied is precisely what he set out to achieve, and it doesn't look like that is about to change any time soon.
So please, share your references. I'd quite like to understand how you can make such conclusions with such certainty, while doubting the words of the very individual responsible for it. I remain unconvinced you've observed any of his recent public statements with regards to Russia's position with Europe.
Oh, I have one for you. The article that the state news media auto-published and then retracted when reality failed to measure up: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240
You can run the original through a translator as it's still archived. https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20...
> Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a de facto civil war, because now brothers, divided by their belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other - but Ukraine as anti-Russia will no longer exist. Russia is restoring its historical completeness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in all its totality of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had refused this, had allowed the temporary division to become entrenched for centuries, then we would not only have betrayed the memory of our ancestors, but would also have been cursed by our descendants - for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.
Note that referring to Ukrainians as "little Russians" is grossly offensive but fits with the big picture idea (which you can see scattered in this very thread! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43913680) that Ukraine isn't a real country or a separate nationality. This year we have been provided a very easy parallel: the rhetoric that Canada isn't really separate and should just be the 51st state. (What a coincidence!)
Here's another short video I always share on this topic, with John McCain laying things out in 2014 after Russia seized Crimea. We're about halfway through his predictions, I'd say. https://youtu.be/HLAzeHnNgR8
> As far as I can tell (and I am merely hours away from the Ukraine border), the land he has occupied is precisely what he set out to achieve, and it doesn't look like that is about to change any time soon.
Is that why the best Russian forces attacked Kyiv, including a paratroop landing to capture Antonov airport, which is in the Kyiv suburbs? You don't do that kind of thing if you're not expecting to capture the city. Also, why did Russia need to mobilise if it got what it wanted?
Add in Russia's claims that they're just removing the Ukrainian government, which it accused of being neo-Nazis.
> Putin's address was aired during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in Ukraine that began on the evening of 23 February.[14][15] At the meeting itself, Vasily Nebenzya, Russia's representative to the UN, stated: "We are not carrying out aggression against the Ukrainian people, but against the group that seized power in Kyiv."[16]
> Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_conducting_a_special_milita...
That's called delusional backpedaling by both the Russians, and people like you who seem intent on giving them the benefit of the doubt for no apparent reason. Russia is not a rational actor, and no, nothing that has happened has been to plan, unless you believe their plan included having to mobilise, and losing the Black Sea fleet to a country with no navy.
"People like you" - you lost me here. I'm asking out of interest, not because I'm a useful idiot for Russians, and I'm not challenging your position because someone might consider that "you are a bootlicker for Western war-mongers", but because I have a legitimate interest in the conclusions you've made and the means you've taken to reach them, and I want to see the details - not the anecdotes, not the vitriol - based on evidence that can be reviewed and which is not keyed to emotional levers being pushed and pulled depending on which 'side' you are on.
I'm not interested in the vitriol - name-calling and invalidation of ones intelligence is a limited technique in terms of effectiveness - I am interested in the source of your understanding, such as it is. I work with refugees regularly from various conflicts, including Gaza and Ukraine, so my personal insight is based on on-the-ground assessments from civilian victims of these conflicts, whose voice is not often heard in the masses. What I know so far: nobody in the civilian cadre wants these wars, only their utterly insane leaders do.
So, again, what of the Russian governments' official positions have you evaluated against the reality of the facts on the ground?
Russia got its land corridor to Sebastopol, Crimea, where they continue to operate their nuclear-armed naval base: a requirement they made very clear early on in the conflict.
Russia have gained control over the territories in the east where they claimed that Ukraine was committing crimes against the mostly-Russian speaking population prior to their invasion. A consequence of their actions has been the result where, a significant portion of Europes' population now have a greater understanding of the nature of the various groups involved in the conflict - and yes, that includes a broader understanding of the Ukrainian and Russian extremist groups involved.
And .. a million men are dead because neither side had what it took to actually maintain peace.
>Russia is not a rational actor
By which standard can you make this claim of any nation which has invaded and demolished sovereign states this century? There are literally no states involved in any conflict today which can be considered rational actors.
States are, by very stint of necessity, duplicitous and calculating in their actions - which is why I think it is very selective to make conclusions on the state of the conflict in Ukraine on the basis of public statements and propaganda - from both sides of the conflict. I'd like to have a distinct set of statements which can be verified against the current reality, but this is not forthcoming - so far, the vitriol is getting in the way of rational discussion.
So .. What do you think of Putins' statements made on Croatian Channel 4 TV on Monday, regarding Russia's position vis a vis its relationship with Europe? All lies? Should be ignored on the basis of some masterful application of coffeeshop psychology techniques?
Likewise, saying that the Sevastopol naval base "continues to operate" is quite a stretch when we look at the facts:
* The HQ of Sevastopol naval base was blown up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_strike_on_the_Black_Se...
* The flagship was sunk along with a third of the entire fleet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Moskva https://x.com/HudsonInstitute/status/1765453597829935482
* The remaining fleet has fled to Russian ports (primarily Novorossiysk) on the eastern coast of the Black Sea to escape destruction: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2024/06/new-sat-images...
* Even there, unmanned Ukrainian naval drones continue to pose a significant danger. In the past week, in the first ever aerial combat of this kind, they shot down two fighter jets near Novorossiysk: https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukrainian-naval-drones-shoo...
Quite a different picture from the victory parade you were trying to draw us. When reality and narrative differ this much, "people like you" labels shouldn't offend, because you indeed represent a certain distinct type.
> "People like you" - you lost me here. I'm asking out of interest, not because I'm a useful idiot for Russians
I'm sorry, but you are. Might not be your intention (I strongly doubt it), but you are.
> and I want to see the details - not the anecdotes, not the vitriol - based on evidence that can be reviewed and which is not keyed to emotional levers being pushed and pulled depending on which 'side' you are on.
I linked you a Wikipedia page with the timeline, quotes and Putin's official announcement of the war on kremlin.ru. What do you have to say about that, other than "wanting to review the evidence"? Come on, gave you plenty, go ahead and review it, and come back to us telling us how Russia supposedly achieved its aims.
> So, again, what of the Russian governments' official positions have you evaluated against the reality of the facts on the ground?
Their starting position, which is that they're bringing peace to the bad Ukraine Nazis, and that they're fighting NATO encroachment, both of which are objective failures - Ukraine is still there, and NATO got even closer to Russia with Sweden and Finland.
> Russia got its land corridor to Sebastopol, Crimea, where they continue to operate their nuclear-armed naval base: a requirement they made very clear early on in the conflict.
Cool, and the Black Sea Fleet is still in Sevastopol, right? Wait, there's a Black Sea Fleet, right? Right?
Russia lost the Black Sea Fleet to a country with no navy. It had to evacuate whatever was remaining of it to Novorossiysk, far out of range of Ukrainian drones. They could have saved a lot of lives and their fleet by just moving the fleet there in the first place.
> A consequence of their actions has been the result where, a significant portion of Europes' population now have a greater understanding of the nature of the various groups involved in the conflict - and yes, that includes a broader understanding of the Ukrainian and Russian extremist groups involved.
One party, Russia, invaded and is genociding the other [1]. Ukraine had a negligible problem with neo-Nazis in a militia. Totally the same "extremist groups on both sides", right?
> What do you think of Putins' statements made on Croatian Channel 4 TV on Monday, regarding Russia's position vis a vis its relationship with Europe? All lies? Should be ignored on the basis of some masterful application of coffeeshop psychology techniques?
So, I Googled around, and saw some youtube/facebook/linkedin links talking about that and how Russia isn't Europe's enemy (even though they're literally invading a European neighbour and threatening others, sure mate) and bla bla nonsense. But on further searching... there is no such thing? Grok (not that it's very reliable) says that it can't find any proof of such statements. Googling with HRT 4, the name of the Croatian channel, finds nothing. Their website with the Putin tag shows nothing: https://www.hrt.hr/tag/vladimir-putin
So it's fake... Good job being a useful idiot for the enemy of Europe.
1 Russia is indeed (without trying to hide it, it's all out in the open, their chief of staff and various ministers have talked about it) kidnapping people and specifically children from Ukraine. Those children are being educated to be good Russian citizens, which is genocide as per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (to which Russia is a signatory), Article II (e).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-...
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-...
I thought he invaded because of historical and not at all unfounded fears of western encirclement. Ukraine was getting pretty close to NATO, after all. I don't doubt that there were imperialist intentions, I'm just saying there is also a certain strategy and logic to the invasion.
Hopefully this will finally teach the nations of the world they can't rely on the likes of the US for their protection. If they want to survive and keep their sovereignity, they should really start developing missile technology and stockpiling nukes. If they don't, they will simply get steamrolled by nuclear armed opponents while the US does pretty much nothing about it despite promising to because they're not actually willing to risk global thermonuclear war with Russia over some eastern european country.
Putin is not a fascist. He is a Russian nationalist/imperialist dictator. Far more like Catherine the Great than like Hitler or Mussolini.
That's because we'd seen "Russian invasion imminent" every year since the annexation of Crimea. It got to be very boy who cried wolf.
A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons from the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Making people complacent with repeated false alarms is more likely the intended outcome than a failure.
When I was in school, one of the history teachers spent a lot of time describing how the Yom Kippur War started. I guess he thought it told something important about how things work in the real world. The lead up to the Russian invasion looked pretty much the same. An ordinary person could not have known if the invasion would actually start this time. But a reasonable person should have understood that if an invasion was about to start, that was what it would likely look like.
> A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons from the Boy Who Cried Wolf
Never tell the same lie twice?
Or https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/habit
This is actually a known tactics. I remember in the 90s thieves often did similar things like triggering an alarm on a parking lot every night. At first many people were alarmed and went down to check on their cars. But after a few false alarms nobody cared. It was then when they started to steal.
For start Russia invaded Ukraine and continued war in eastern regions.
Russian invasion was not imminent, it was ongoing.
And for full scale invasion: there were a clear signs of it before it happened.
Yeah but if you’re a part of the region you know India is not stupid or expansionary. No Indian is really worried about this turning into a full scale war.
I wouldn’t be so sure. It is easy for the tit-tat to spiral out of control. Any kind of military skirmish is very concerning… we should stop the fighting while we still can.
Many of the people I know in India are worried. Nobody likes it when missiles get launched.
>People said the same sorts of things when Germany suddenly invaded Poland, which rather famously spiraled into World War 2
The analogy isnt a great fit.
Germany hadn't previously invaded Poland (and vice-versa) many times leading up to that point.
A missile strike and an invasion are on completely different levels.
War is universal in human history and most of them don’t turn into World War II. centuries of unique circumstances went into World War II.
That war involved external parties though. Who are the external parties here who would want to get involved?
"suddenly"
Poland refused to negotiate on a land bridge to East Prussia and a compromise on Danzig governance because daddy Britain said they didn't have to.
Germany's brutality was not justified, but it's not as if it happened suddenly.
It was pretty "sudden" as in unexpected, given that the world was still reeling from the last war
All sides were rapidly rearming, it was far from unexpected.
Exactly. "Unexpected" is not the same as "we hope not" - but it's often presented that way.
It is sudden as it was an overreaction.
Are all overreactions sudden?
Man A is pushing man B repeatedly and yelling at him as a bar dispute escalates. Man B pulls out a gun and shoots man A.
Overreaction? Yes. Sudden? Not necessarily.
Man B push around man A, insult him, poke him. Man A ask him to stop. Man B pulls out a gun and shoots man A. Here, ftfy.
Poland saw what what Germany did to Czechoslovaquia, decided that negotiations would only happen after a demilitarization and de-escalation.
But it's true it wasn't sudden, poland was preparing for the war, the attack from both side (cooperation between Germany and Russia) is what took them by surprise
Hold on, nowhere did I say that A and B corresponded to the Germany/Poland situation. You are putting words in my mouth.
I was strictly illustrating a counter example to the implied notion that overreaction implies suddenness.
To further demonstrate that this is a misunderstanding on your part, it wouldn’t even make sense for me to have A and B correspond to the Germany/Poland situation - that would make my argument circular!
It isn’t very kind to take an interpretation that would set the speaker’s argument as circular, when an alternate and trivially-demonstrated-as-more-valid interpretation is also available. I believe the advice is often stated as - assume good intent.
On your second point - this is an elementary school tier interpretation of history. Poland itself did not have anywhere close to sufficient leverage to make such decisions about delaying negotiations. They were able to do so solely due to Britain’s backing their decision with force. Why did Britain back them? Why do you believe the history book written by the winners so easily on a topic so fuzzy as motive?
I didn't though. I illustrated that overreaction can be extremely sudden by being just that, an overreaction. Because gradation is expected, overreaction is unexpected, which, if my English isn't too rusty, is a synonym of sudden. I'm sorry you thought I was putting words in your mouth?
And I'm not a huge fan of Weinberg (and most pre-2000s historians), I think he was too 'furetien' in his vision of Nazism, but everything he wrote was backed by facts and actual written sources, and that Poland (and most of the world, including Romania) was more than miffed by the destruction of Czechoslovakia a year after the Sudetenland was annexed is a fact, and more than a few diplomatic cables show that.
Also, Beck was quite convinced of Poland's ability to hold until the french attack on the other side, and thought USSR would come to their help (especially after Memel, and probably because the French were persuaded of it too), thus convincing Carol to throw himself with the 'peace Front' (hindsight is 20/20, and Ribbentrof the most competent Nazi, probably because he was not ideologically one, which helps). England actually pushed for Poland to make concessions, and multiple cables from Poland responded to the English in the summer 39: 'we want, but they won't meet us'. I think they threw a last hail Mary: fully open borders in the area (no treaty at all, just a policy change) to show that they were open to negotiations, but it was too late.
To respond to your actual question, Britain backing was in name only (compared to France), and mostly prevented a France-Poland-Ussr alliance originally (after that Daladier came back USSR alliance was a bit farther, than anticipated, but still). Britain (and US) were aware that Germany was stronger than France, but thought the gap was small and tried to limit French diplomacy to keep it that way (limit continental European powers was a major mandate). They misjudged the balance of power. But they certainly didn't pit Poland against Germany, pushing relentlessly for negotiation instead, unlike the French
That's not really comparable to Poland and Germany. More comparable would be: Man A is pushing man B repeatedly and yelling at him as a bar dispute escalates. Man A pulls out a gun and shoots man B once Man B retaliates.
A few months ago, I stopped reading random news and decided to stick only to Hacker News. But now, even Hacker News is filled with random content. I guess there's no escaping the news these days.
Talking about armed brinksmanship between two nuclear powers is sooooo random, maybe a more specialized community like they have on Reddit is more your speed?
Thanks for the judgment, but I think you might have missed the point I was making.
What point are you trying to make? HN has always had threads about major events and two nuclear powers fighting is a major event.
If you can’t take the news, get out of the aggregator.
You could use this filter to remove politics from HN: https://histre.com/hn/?tags=+all-politics
( d: I made it; ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35904988 )
I logged odd Twitter and can only access it through an eink device. I am much saner now.
I really enjoy reading the community here chime in on current events, but I also lament that I can't shield my online consumption from the news.
HN is the easiest place to skip the content you are not interest in
Of course, but the problem is not that I am not interested, it's the contrary I am instinctively attracted to it!
If it was lack of interest I wouldn't need to place so much friction between me and Twitter.
It'll show up on your doorstep before too long, keep it up.
hackernews is very biased
I've been thinking recently about how business has been a pretty decent wrapper around wars and killings, arenas, lands, whatever, just: competing for human death. However, I've also been thinking that in late stage capitalism, genuine entrepreneurship is probably increasingly difficult to get into, leading to less genuine opportunity, leading to less business, leading to idle hands, leading to the devils workshop.
You know, I sit on a few Christian discords and all they do on it is fight between each other (denomination vs denomination). They sit around and combatively go after each other and there is also interfaith beef that happens constantly on those Discords (Muslims vs Christians is a big one). It's almost like ... yeah, I have to agree with you. It's almost like if the human doesn't have a true and good outlet for energy, then bad energy comes spilling out. I don't know what these cats in Kashmir sit around and do all day, but if it's anything like the venues I'm describing, then yes, they are sitting around riling themselves up against the "other".
This was one of the videos of the terror attack that sparked this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-TyztPaQfA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKKcwk8Cc8
26 dead, and about 17 injured in the terror attack. There were 5 jets shot down in the retaliation. I don't know how reciprocal the retaliation was. This is tricky.
5 jets shot down is fake news. There is no evidence of that. It’s a claim by Pakistani govt to appease the domestic population.
I’m sure this Reuters report with photos of wreckage is fake news: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/three-fighter-jet...
Those are fuel tanks, not jets. And their source is "four local government sources". In a conflict fueled with massive disinformation I would rely on something more concrete.
It’s your country, I’m just a neutral on the outside. If you want to take the stance of “fake news”, “no evidence of that” unless India publicly admits it, by all means. I don’t count on that happening though because there’s obviously “appease the domestic population” going on.
I am more than happy to believe that 100 Indian jets were shot as long as there's credible evidence. It's war and casualties are expected.
Ask your government to uncensor the Internet and you’ll probably get plenty of credible evidence in addition to the partial confirmation by the French side and anonymous local officials. According to CNN both sides are smart enough to not cross the border so that an undeniable parade of wreckage like the one in 2019 can’t happen this time round.
I live out of India, so that doesn't really impact me.
When all the potential hard evidence is in India and tightly controlled, of course it impacts your (and everyone else’s) ability to get evidence. According to CNN people had to delete video evidence of jet crashes, and journalists weren’t allowed to get anywhere close.
I am not exactly going to worry about things that I can't control. The best I can do is check sources from other side(which are equally bad if not worse) and amplify voices of reason.
I lived in Manhattan for 20 years and during the Obama years I was traveling across the country a lot, was very obvious to me Trump was coming but people thought I was nuts. I'd head back to the city and sip a cosmo thinking "people really love to hate 'other'".
I tend to take Marxist view: elites always exploit the common man, and when the common man becomes unhappy, it is the best strategy to channel hate towards the Other so that regular folk dont start asking inconvenient questions.
Like every time there is small blip in economy in the Us, it is always illegals and immigrants in general and poor people are blamed. Always.
Never have I ever seen a PE billionaire getting blamed for acquiring companies by borrowing at 0% rates and firing people to and outsource jobs
People in Bay Area feel it is okay to pay 50% in marginal taxes on payroll, while billionaire class either doesnt pay at all, or pays 10% capital gain at best
You overestimate rich folk's ability to woo masses while staying completely hidden, with some ultra nefarious agendas. There are some ways to achieve some stuff but there are many conflicting interests even up there.
The simple, but way more sad fact of life is - people, when we create large enough population, are pretty stupid. We are well capable to fuck ourselves up without anybody behind the wheel driving it. And its not just 'them', its all of us.
Humans are not that great, individuals can achieve greatness in some narrow meaning (and since its pretty rare its so celebrated, confirming what I write), sure but overall we are pretty dumb highly emotional beasts, trivial to manipulate like a baby doll. 99% of that is via emotions, the aspect of our existence we have almost no control of.
That is not true, plenty blame the rich, just look at the murder of the United CEO.
Generally though blaming the elite has become selective and polarizing, only blame the opposite side for being rich not yours (Hasan piker on the left or Elon musk on the right).
Truth be told, we have all tools to feed all humans and have a moderate life quality, but some people want to have more than others, just for the sake of it.
Yes, the ones that finance, develop and operate those tools to feed all humans, should absolutely be entitled to have more than the ones that do nothing and benefit from them.
Otherwise, soon, those tools will not exist anymore.
I don't think we are speaking of the same thing.
Imagine ancient mesopotamia where the priests supposedly controlled food distribution because food was accumulated in temples. The priest himself is not working the fields or builds tools, but he demands respect. He will put feathers in his hair, talk elaborately and call it a day after he takes a good chunk of food for himself.
What a horrible time to work in an industry with mostly foreign coworkers.
Another American proxy war in the offing ?
The US have been arming and supplying Pakistan for decades.
I can't see it. I don't think the US wants to get involved.
Lets hope for a short quiet war. Some thoughts as an outside observer with no dog in the race.
ISI no doubt kicking themselves for getting caught orchestrating the pahalgam attack.
Pakistan cant afford to be in this war, but India has been increasing their military for over 10 years. Doubled the spending is enabling broo-ha-ha.
But neither side can ever corner the other side; and spending millions of USD equivalent to blow up mudhuts and never really achieve anything.
I do expect they can say goodbye to the Karakoram highway. India wants that destroyed asap. India will likely focus heavily on Jammu/Kashmir. Ladakh will happen only if China invades India again.
Punjab is likely an open target for Pakistan; but pakistan likely not interested in targeting them.
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Several stories about Gaza have spent a lot of time on the front page.
Yes, and? None of it left untouched, ALL of it pushed down, and most of it flagged and disappeared.
When we leave them "untouched" they disappear rapidly due to community flags and automatic flamewar penalties. The only way for us to give them exposure is "touch" them – to override the flags and flamewar penalties (i.e., push the threads back up onto the front page), then spend hours poring through the comments to try to minimise the effects of the most inflammatory ones. Still, we do it often, but only when the story has "significant new information" which is always the test of whether a story belongs on HN.
As a comment: you keep coming at us with these accusations but don't seem to ever mention a specific news story that you think should have had a prominent discussion here but didn't.
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If you suspect organised/targeted flagging/downvoting, you can email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll investigate it. We really do want to investigate such cases, as people who do it are abusing HN (though we do have mechanisms to detect flagging/voting abuse).
It's against the guidelines to allege it in comments.
I have believed and still believe India and Pakistan will engage on the first nuclear war :(
I hope it does not happen, but the way things are going in this world, I would not be surprised.
In the past, the USSR and the US would try to broker peace between the two countries. I doubt anyone will try now.
Hm? The US and Pakistan have seen a lot of tension since the fall of the USSR, and ever since they established a hotline between themselves, there's been much lower risk.
Since the fall of the USSR there's been the Kargil War and the 26/11 Terrorist Incident, along with plenty of other tense moments.
(Additionally, I feel frustrated that your comment about Indian and Pakistani geopolitics seems unaware of the last 30 years of geopolitical developments between the two countries, but not sure that leads to a productive conversation.)
India has a dedicated No First Use Policy, and the former head of India's nuclear command gave an in depth presentation about India, Pakistan, and China's nuclear doctrine at Livermore Labs a couple years ago - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OZpIrZvP0Co
Most of the conversation about a nuclear war is dated (30-35 years old) because it was based on the 1990 standoff, before which India and Pakistan did not have a hotline similar to that which the US and USSR developed.
After the 1990 standoff, that was developed, and was clearly implemented during the Kargil War in 1999 (just because Clinton admin didn't want to call it a war because of NPT implications doesn't mean it wasn't a war).
At this point, be more worried about Ukraine or South Korea - Russia's nuclear doctrine has become much more questionable after the 2022 invasion, and North Korea's nuclear doctrine remains hazy.
I recommend reading "Dangerous Deterrent" by Paul Kapur (former head of strategy at the State Department under Bush, and now Trump's nominee for South Asia Strategy).
India has amended its no-first-use policy with regard to Pakistan.
It now depends on "circumstances".
Source: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-s-no-first-use-nuc...
De jure doctrine is one thing. There's also accidents, which become more likely during war especially in semi failed states like Pakistan.
Policies can be changed, or ignored. The question is would Pakistan trust its neighbor, with whom it has decades of animosity and in this scenario is currently at war, to stick to such a policy?
While I personally doubt this particular instance will escalate to nuclear war, or even a major conventional war for that matter, the situation is clearly very dangerous. Doctrine is a terrible indicator of what a country will actually do.
For Russia and North Korea, even though their doctrines may be hazy, their geopolitical positions indicate they are unlikely to start a nuclear engagement. Russia has a very large conventional military which, despite it's significantly worse than expected performance, is slowly but steadily making progress in a war that other great powers are not willing to directly join. Conversely, half the world's nukes are pointed squarely at Russia. Their strategy pretty much the entire time under Putin has been slowly normalizing their military actions, use of nuclear weapons in even the most minimal capacity would be very likely to provoke exactly the military response they don't want and would gain them nothing. Their nukes exist specifically to deter that response.
North Korea is even more clearly disadvantaged by a potential nuclear exchange. Sure they have enough nukes to cause serious damage to South Korea, but they already had the conventional forces to do that long before they got nukes. They could strike America, and do quite a bit of damage, but they have no hope of doing enough damage to prevent a retaliatory strike that would kill the regime. They are caught between two major nuclear powers, the US and China, and their nukes are clearly to prevent one from attempting a regime change without relying too heavily on the other.
Both of these states would probably have ceased to exist by now if they did not have nukes, and both will stop existing if they ever use nukes. They are more or less stable.
India and Pakistan are a totally different story. Both need nukes to deter not only eachother but other neighbors, which produces a heavily destabilizing effect (eg if India builds more nukes to counter a buildup in China, Pakistan needs more nukes, which means India needs even more nukes, and so on). Further, neither nation is staring down the barrel of a true clusterfuck arsenal like those possessed by the US and Russia - while it would no doubt be catasrophic beyond anything the world has seen before, a nuclear exchange between the two nations is potentially survivable. Finally you have not just two governments but two populations with a deep seated enmity rooted in religious conflict, it is easily possible for the entire chain of command to be willing to go against their personal self interest with no one in a position to pump the brakes. It's a situation that could become very bad, very quickly, without anyone doing anything too absurd.
As I mentioned above, the framing you mentioned is 35 years out of date already. Even Pakistan has a fairly open nuclear doctrine which they have also presented on numerous occasions at Livermore Labs [0]
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9U7erxQUkY
Pakistan didn't even have nuclear weapons 35 years ago. What part of the situation I described is no longer true?
This would be true mutually-assured destruction, so it still seems unlikely.
Pakistan could kill hundreds of millions with a few launches and India could kill everyone in Pakistan.
That doesn't sound like mutual destruction. It sounds like it would be partial-destruction on one side.
Might be worth it.
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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911404 and marked it offtopic.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
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