[HN Gopher] India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pak...
___________________________________________________________________
India launches attack on 9 sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Jammu
and Kashmir
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/world/asia/india-pakistan-
attacks.html (https://archive.ph/Bph7S)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/06/asia/india-pakistan-kashmir-
conflict-hnk-intl https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-
blog/2025-05-06/india-strikes-pakistan-after-kashmir-attack
(https://archive.ph/eypzA)
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwyneele13qt
Author : alephnerd
Score : 465 points
Date : 2025-05-06 20:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| Animats wrote:
| So far, military action is confined to Kashmir. If it gets out of
| that disputed area, this becomes a major war.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| 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...
| nothercastle wrote:
| I don't think Pakistan will escalate. They are at a severe
| disadvantage unless china gives them the green light.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| 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?
| snypher wrote:
| 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?
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| fooker wrote:
| > 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _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.
| fooker wrote:
| 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.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| 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.
| unmole wrote:
| 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.
| ivape wrote:
| Russia will give the green light on one of these countries,
| do not doubt that.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| 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.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| "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?"
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _" 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.
| ivape wrote:
| Pakistan shot down five jets. This just went beyond Kashmir.
| breadwinner wrote:
| That's a claim made by Pakistan, not confirmed by photos or
| videos from credible sources.
| aaron695 wrote:
| 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)
| redwood wrote:
| China nips at India from time to time
| rcpt wrote:
| But they confine that conflict to only using sticks
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Prepping for the battles post nuke.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| 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.
| dang wrote:
| 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
| jmclnx wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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).
| jjk166 wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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
| energy123 wrote:
| De jure doctrine is one thing. There's also accidents, which
| become more likely during war especially in semi failed
| states like Pakistan.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| 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.)
| smt88 wrote:
| 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.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| 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...
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Who instigated the attack on India?
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| mayama wrote:
| 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.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I heard the ISI is also quasi independent, too.
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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) .
| devsda wrote:
| [flagged]
| mardifoufs wrote:
| 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
| dang wrote:
| 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
| devsda wrote:
| I'm going to sit this one out going forward.
| dang wrote:
| It's tough stuff, I know.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| > every one gets what they want
|
| India wants Pakistan to end cross-border terrorism. Everyone
| did not get what they want.
| mrtksn wrote:
| 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.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| It was not India that harboured Osama Bin Laden for a
| decade.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| India is likely to authorize more such strikes if terror
| attacks continue on its territory.
| seatac76 wrote:
| 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.
| mrtksn wrote:
| 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.
| seatac76 wrote:
| 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.
| digitalPhonix wrote:
| 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?
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| breadwinner wrote:
| 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.
| aaron695 wrote:
| 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.
| breadwinner wrote:
| That post is not from any credible source.
| ranger207 wrote:
| 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.
| empiko wrote:
| 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.
| jajko wrote:
| 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.
| ranger207 wrote:
| 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
| curiosity42 wrote:
| Most likely Drop Tanks getting confused as downed aircrafts.
| unstuck3958 wrote:
| I live in Kashmir. Can verify the two have been shot down at
| least.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| Their claim went from 2 to 3 to 6 to 5. So, I will be careful
| about such news.
| OJFord wrote:
| Also from 'we have captured some Indian soldiers' to 'we have
| not' (both times the Pakistani defence minister) in an hour
| or so.
| ryzvonusef wrote:
| 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...
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| 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?
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| 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]
| dmix wrote:
| 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.
| mayama wrote:
| > 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.
| alganet wrote:
| 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.
| alganet wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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/10.1080/1479985
| 5.2019.16...
|
| [5] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35240272
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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...
| cheema33 wrote:
| > 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?
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| saagarjha wrote:
| 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.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| 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
| screye wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > 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.
| screye wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _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
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _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.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| > 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.
| leosanchez wrote:
| > 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.
| unmole wrote:
| > You can't live in India and think this seriously.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Ahmadis_(Pak
| ist...
|
| > unlike most states and people during partition
|
| This is complete nonsense. Nobody got a say, Kashmir
| wasn't any different.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| > I'm inclined to consider India a safer nation for most
| muslim denominations.
|
| That almost made me laugh.
| ignoramous wrote:
| 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....
| barrkel wrote:
| 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.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| pkd wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| ivell wrote:
| >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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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_.
| ivell wrote:
| >>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)
| kumarvvr wrote:
| One does not negotiate with terrorist supporting military
| dictatorships.
| saagarjha wrote:
| 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.
| ivell wrote:
| >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.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| 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.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| 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.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| 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.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _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.
| coryfklein wrote:
| I'm sorry, but this is getting really out of hand, we
| can't even use the word "peace" now?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| 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.
| infecto wrote:
| 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.
| SetTheorist wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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).
| cogman10 wrote:
| 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).
| screye wrote:
| 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%93Banglades
| h_encla...
| rfrey wrote:
| Every country wants peace, as long as it's on their terms.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| > 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| cute_boi wrote:
| 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.
| niemandhier wrote:
| 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.
| Tade0 wrote:
| 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...
| roncesvalles wrote:
| >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.
| sdsd wrote:
| >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
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| 2gkashmiri reporting live from Srinagar. Ama
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i meant the rain thing on srinagar-jammu highway
| alephnerd wrote:
| Ah my bad! Yea, it was pretty bad.
| neom wrote:
| 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.
| ivape wrote:
| 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.
| neom wrote:
| 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'".
| slt2021 wrote:
| 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
| 0dayz wrote:
| 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).
| jajko wrote:
| 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.
| anukin wrote:
| 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.
| oefrha wrote:
| I'm sure this Reuters report with photos of wreckage is
| fake news: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-
| pacific/three-fighter-jet...
| sbmthakur wrote:
| 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.
| oefrha wrote:
| 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.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| 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.
| xkcd1963 wrote:
| 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.
| wtcactus wrote:
| 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.
| nblgbg wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| sandspar wrote:
| The Pakistan-India conflict is orthogonal to America and
| China's.
| slt2021 wrote:
| 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
| maxglute wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| slt2021 wrote:
| 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...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| lazyeye wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| sandspar wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| random42 wrote:
| It's not a proxy war. Not every world event is about the
| US.
|
| Source: I am an Indian.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| air3y wrote:
| >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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| The US isn't interested in picking sides. Historically it has
| tried to be friendly with both (though that hasn't always
| been easy).
| smt88 wrote:
| Nothing about historical US foreign policy can tell us what
| the current regime wants or will do.
| happyopossum wrote:
| Good. HN is full of posts about stupid crap the US govt
| has done in the past.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Don't underestimate the stupidity of this administration.
| History could pale in comparison.
| smt88 wrote:
| "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.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| "US isn't interested in picking sides"
|
| but you dont want any of them to ally with russia or
| chinnese, ignoring problem also "problematic"
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| 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.
| hackandthink wrote:
| "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
| ivell wrote:
| In context: The Blood Telegram
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_Telegram:_Nixon
| ,_K...
|
| It was an active decision by the US.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| > 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"
| pokstad wrote:
| Thanks for stating these forecasts so authoritatively. Or maybe
| we should admit this is uncharted waters and we shouldn't
| downplay what is possible?
| ivape wrote:
| 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.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > 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
| cheema33 wrote:
| 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.
| lazide wrote:
| 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).
| ivell wrote:
| 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.
| lenkite wrote:
| 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.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _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.
| 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.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massac
| re
| dd_xplore wrote:
| Like US co-ordinated with Paxtan to destroy laden? The
| laden who was hiding near a military base in Paxtan?
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| 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
| ganarajpr wrote:
| 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.
| dd_xplore wrote:
| Paxtan has always sheltered terrorists, even now they are
| providing security to LeT, JeM etc.
| ignoramous wrote:
| Hasn't Pak banned _both_ LeT and JeM?
| legolas2412 wrote:
| On paper sure. But what is the reality like?
| Brigand wrote:
| 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...
| legolas2412 wrote:
| 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?
| dyauspitr wrote:
| 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.
| saagarjha wrote:
| India, of course, has a dual focus.
| nindalf wrote:
| > 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.
| roenxi wrote:
| 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.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > from time to time that Moscow appears to be under fire
| from the occasional US-sponsored attack for example
|
| Ok, you lost me there..
| roenxi wrote:
| Things like https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-drone-
| attack-moscow-1.....
| xkcd1963 wrote:
| How is his viewpoint not valid?
| brabel wrote:
| 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.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Didn't the US sponsorship abruptly terminate?
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Its not the first time these two have been at war.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| so its saving face attack??? idk about that
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| 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.
| th3iedkid wrote:
| 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...
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Massive misinformation out there, so be skeptical of anything
| that flatters anybody.
| jjude wrote:
| > 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.
| pm90 wrote:
| 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.
| jjude wrote:
| 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.
| saagarjha wrote:
| 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).
| impossiblefork wrote:
| 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.
| conradfr wrote:
| Pakistan is irrelevant, what do the people in charge have to
| lose (or win)?
| enugu wrote:
| > 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.
| lazide wrote:
| 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.
| enugu wrote:
| 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.
| lazide wrote:
| 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?
| enugu wrote:
| 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.
| m0llusk wrote:
| "less stable" === yikes
| rendang wrote:
| Can India build new aqueducts/pipelines to divert water
| from the headwaters they control? Dams only have finite
| capacity after all
| lazide wrote:
| Yes, albeit they would be susceptible to being shelled.
| With, uh, unpredictable but likely bad consequences if
| they happens.
| nindalf wrote:
| > 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.
| enugu wrote:
| 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.
| nindalf wrote:
| 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.
| spwa4 wrote:
| > 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.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| 5 million years
| enugu wrote:
| 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.
| lmm wrote:
| > 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.
| enugu wrote:
| 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.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| > 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.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| They were also suggesting that they should import less
| foreign expensive cheeses
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _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.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| Apropos of this conflict, to where did Bin Laden escape?
| profsummergig wrote:
| I hope it wasn't to a military cantonment in Pakistan.
| That would be wild.
| pwthornton wrote:
| It was very much to dismantle Al Qaeda and senior
| leadership. Just killing Bin Laden wouldn't have done that
| much.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| 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.
| enugu wrote:
| 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.
| dmurray wrote:
| "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.
| enugu wrote:
| 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.
| krisoft wrote:
| > 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.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| More important ,ever since the multipolar great games resumed
| , they will have customers for nukes. Trump really was the
| final nail on deterence reliance ..
| ben_w wrote:
| That may be a long-term problem, but right now it's like
| worrying about high cholesterol during a knife fight.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| 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.
| ben_w wrote:
| 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.
| ivell wrote:
| It is not that they didn't try supplying Iran with
| nuclear tech.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/pakistan/nytim
| es0...
| ben_w wrote:
| 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".
| karaterobot wrote:
| 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.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| There aren't a lot of examples of nuclear states being
| attacked by a stronger military power
| nine_k wrote:
| 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.
| stuckinhell wrote:
| my worry is the nukes too
| profsummergig wrote:
| We should wait till after nukes are dropped, maybe a few
| decades after, to judge whether it was a good or bad thing.
|
| Japan did better after nukes.
|
| I'm not saying that they're necessarily a good thing. But
| they _can_ be a good thing.
|
| (Source: _[before the inevitable downvotes]_ am Indian.)
| prmph wrote:
| 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.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| 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 .
| badc0ffee wrote:
| Does this hold even for North Korea?
| ponector wrote:
| 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.
| conradfr wrote:
| Yet people died.
| Guptos wrote:
| I hope this is true
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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."
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| 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.
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| 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)
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| 4.6% growth, 10% inflation, and interest rates at 21% is
| not great.
| jajko wrote:
| 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.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| The Russian citizens approval of the war mirrors
| America's own approval ratings of the invasion of Iraq as
| well.
| codedokode wrote:
| 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%.
| ahoka wrote:
| Broken window fallacy.
| navane wrote:
| 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.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| Yes I said that.
| os2warpman wrote:
| >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.
| krainboltgreene wrote:
| 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
| somenameforme wrote:
| 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.
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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_Rus
| so-...
|
| https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atroci
| ty-...
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| 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.
| sofixa wrote:
| 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).
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| They found parade uniforms in those tanks that stalled
| out on the way to Kjiev.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| 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.
| aa-jv wrote:
| >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
| .. ?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| aa-jv wrote:
| >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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| aa-jv wrote:
| >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.
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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_mil
| ita...
|
| 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.
| aa-jv wrote:
| "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?
| mopsi wrote:
| > 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:
|
| * The HQ of Sevastopol naval base was blown up: https://e
| n.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.
| sofixa wrote:
| > "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_Rus
| so-...
|
| https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atroci
| ty-...
| anonymars wrote:
| 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/2022022605115
| 4/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!)
| anonymars wrote:
| 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
| impossiblefork wrote:
| 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.
| jajko wrote:
| 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.
| dmos62 wrote:
| 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).
| lostlogin wrote:
| > 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.
| dmos62 wrote:
| > 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.
| foobarian wrote:
| 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?
| dboreham wrote:
| Usually the answer to why a crazy country leader did
| something odd has to do with "not waking up dead
| tomorrow".
| wbl wrote:
| The beauty of destroying invading armies is you don't
| need to ask a lot of questions about why there are there.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| 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.
| graemep wrote:
| Putin is not a fascist. He is a Russian
| nationalist/imperialist dictator. Far more like Catherine
| the Great than like Hitler or Mussolini.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure
| how that happened.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| vesinisa wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _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.
| fakedang wrote:
| 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.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _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.
| fakedang wrote:
| 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.
| owebmaster wrote:
| > 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.
| gmokki wrote:
| 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
| mrguyorama wrote:
| 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.
| lmm wrote:
| 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.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| 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.
| jltsiren wrote:
| 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.
| chgs wrote:
| > A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons
| from the Boy Who Cried Wolf
|
| Never tell the same lie twice?
| ben_w wrote:
| Or https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/habit
| benterix wrote:
| 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.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| 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.
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| 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.
| navane wrote:
| 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".
| lostlogin wrote:
| > 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?
| megous wrote:
| 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...
| anonymars wrote:
| 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...
| justin66 wrote:
| 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.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >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.
| justin66 wrote:
| 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.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| 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.
| justin66 wrote:
| 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.
| viraptor wrote:
| > 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...
| llm_nerd wrote:
| 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.
| graemep wrote:
| > 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.
| justin66 wrote:
| 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.
| __s wrote:
| Indeed. I took it as a serious threat after seeing
| prediction markets in February move up to 30% odds of it
| happening
| somenameforme wrote:
| 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.
| macintux wrote:
| > 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.
| somenameforme wrote:
| 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...
| macintux wrote:
| 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".
| somenameforme wrote:
| 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
| mopsi wrote:
| From the article: 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.
|
| Not quite the story you are trying to spin.
| anticodon wrote:
| > 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.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| You can call it whatever you want, Russia is killing a
| lot of people in places which used to be peaceful.
| ponector wrote:
| 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.
| saagarjha wrote:
| [flagged]
| anticodon wrote:
| So, what is my mistake? When and where existed "Ukraine"
| before 1991?
| saagarjha wrote:
| 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.
| agubelu wrote:
| 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.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| 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.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| [flagged]
| ponector wrote:
| Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania were always part of "Russia".
| Would you suggest they should be invaded as soon as
| Ukraine is fully occupied?
| wqaatwt wrote:
| 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..
| ponector wrote:
| We can flip the question: when German, Japan and other
| should invade Russia to get back their territories?
|
| Konigsberg(Kaliningrad) was always German. Kuril islands
| were always Japanese.
|
| While Russian army is distracted - Germany and Japan
| should get their territories back now.
| wqaatwt wrote:
| > 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?
| ponector wrote:
| > 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 .
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| 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..
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| 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).
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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_lan
| gua...
|
| 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?
| Detrytus wrote:
| > 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.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| >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.
| criddell wrote:
| Because one is a real democracy, the other is a
| dictatorship.
| nblgbg wrote:
| "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.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| 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.
| pmontra wrote:
| 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.
| nindalf wrote:
| 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.
| Symmetry wrote:
| 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.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| 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.
| xlinux wrote:
| 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
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Drinking ignorance. Thank you for the additional info.
| willvarfar wrote:
| 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.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| That's changing. Both countries need each other now in the
| absence of American money. Recent rhetoric from both sides
| has been reconcilatory
| sofixa wrote:
| 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.
| graemep wrote:
| 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.
| generic92034 wrote:
| With the current US administration I doubt it. Daily 180
| degree policy changes are not suitable for alliances.
| chgs wrote:
| 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.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| 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.
| chgs wrote:
| US doesn't want allies now. It wasn't vassal states and
| transaction deals.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| "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.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| It is sudden as it was an overreaction.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| 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.
| orwin wrote:
| 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
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| 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?
| nsavage wrote:
| 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.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| It was pretty "sudden" as in unexpected, given that the world
| was still reeling from the last war
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| All sides were rapidly rearming, it was far from
| unexpected.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly. "Unexpected" is not the same as "we hope not" -
| but it's often presented that way.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| 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.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| 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.
| pm90 wrote:
| 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.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Many of the people I know in India _are_ worried. Nobody
| likes it when missiles get launched.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| 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.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| 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.
| mcmoor wrote:
| 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| 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.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| That war involved external parties though. Who are the external
| parties here who would want to get involved?
| rayiner wrote:
| 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.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| >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.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911692.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| What a horrible time to work in an industry with mostly foreign
| coworkers.
| su8898 wrote:
| 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.
| huevosabio wrote:
| 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.
| bdangubic wrote:
| HN is the easiest place to skip the content you are not
| interest in
| huevosabio wrote:
| 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.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| 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?
| su8898 wrote:
| Thanks for the judgment, but I think you might have missed
| the point I was making.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| What point are you trying to make? HN has always had
| threads about major events and two nuclear powers fighting
| is a major event.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| If you can't take the news, get out of the aggregator.
| xkcd1963 wrote:
| hackernews is very biased
| bravetraveler wrote:
| It'll show up on your doorstep before too long, keep it up.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| 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 )
| kumarvvr wrote:
| [flagged]
| tomhow wrote:
| 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._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| skc wrote:
| Let me go re read "Midnight's Children" for the umpteenth time
| babyent wrote:
| 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.
| throw63 wrote:
| > 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.
| iwontberude wrote:
| 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.
| babyent wrote:
| 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.
| lelanthran wrote:
| You should have preceded that with "Watchmen spoiler
| alert".
| liefde wrote:
| 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.
| danman114 wrote:
| Beautifully put.
| Kinrany wrote:
| Not getting deleted is strictly a prerequisite to "loving
| awareness" and all the other woo.
| IsTom wrote:
| If only the people who will command the murderbots thought
| the same way
| sdsd wrote:
| 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.
| abhiyerra wrote:
| 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.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| 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.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I would think that a war would make the average Indian
| poorer and willing to work for less.
| forty wrote:
| 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?
| tim333 wrote:
| Europe is much more peaceful that it was. Not sure if you can
| blame tech.
| Malcolmlisk wrote:
| 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.
| KnuthIsGod wrote:
| Another American proxy war in the offing ?
|
| The US have been arming and supplying Pakistan for decades.
| tim333 wrote:
| I can't see it. I don't think the US wants to get involved.
| amai wrote:
| Are their any natural resources in Kashmir worth fighting for?
| Oil? Gas? Lithium? Rare earth metals?
| newusertoday wrote:
| 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.
| Hilift wrote:
| Kashmir is a natural buffer zone.
| Aloisius wrote:
| 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...
| ptek wrote:
| 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?
| sanmon3186 wrote:
| 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.
| __s wrote:
| To put size in perspective: India is 7th largest country,
| half the size of Australia, or a third the size of US
| chvid wrote:
| 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.
| nashashmi wrote:
| 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.
| chvid wrote:
| 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.
| aurareturn wrote:
| This is a good take. India is definitely aware and is
| playing the west for advantages as an alternative to China.
| ngc248 wrote:
| 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.
| arp242 wrote:
| Haven't there also been conflicts with the Sikhs for
| decades? I don't think you can completely blame this on
| just the Muslims.
| jajko wrote:
| 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.
| arp242 wrote:
| > 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-...
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| 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
| nelblu wrote:
| > 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.wikipe
| dia.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.
| graemep wrote:
| 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.
| ngc248 wrote:
| 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...
| throwaway642012 wrote:
| > Conflict with Sikhs for decades
|
| HN is seriously ignorant about India. There has been no
| such insurgency since early 90s.
| throwaway642012 wrote:
| 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
| nashashmi wrote:
| Yes, The same India where minority movie stars were rallied
| against from being featured in movies.
| https://time.com/6250414/bollywood-hindu-supremacists/
| throwaway642012 wrote:
| I fail to see how this corroborates your claim of India
| being "notoriously hostile to minorities".
| nashashmi wrote:
| Just countering the claim that Bollywood stars are the
| richest and don't face hostility being a minority
| cheema33 wrote:
| "..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.
| chvid wrote:
| 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.
| seatac76 wrote:
| 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.
| gps372 wrote:
| 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!
| suprjami wrote:
| Congratulating war is disgusting.
|
| What's your next post? Fawning over how cool "Final Solution"
| sounds?
| saagarjha wrote:
| India is newlywed?
| tinuviel wrote:
| Sindoor is worn by most women that includes newlyweds.
| Remember <hindu> men from all across india were pulled aside
| for the massacre.
| oliwarner wrote:
| 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.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| 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.
| oliwarner wrote:
| 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".
| seatac76 wrote:
| I don't think stuff like this belongs on HN, I come here to get
| away from the news.
| incomingpain wrote:
| 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.
| cake-rusk wrote:
| India said no Pak military targets were hit. If Pakistan downed
| Indian jets you can bet military targets would have been hit.
| diggan wrote:
| 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.
| Reubachi wrote:
| 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.
| cake-rusk wrote:
| Pak terrorist infrastructure is not a military target even
| though they are hand in gloves with the Pak army.
| diggan wrote:
| > 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?
| cake-rusk wrote:
| 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.
| anuraj wrote:
| 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.
| uwagar wrote:
| i wonder where the terrorists went during the coronavirus
| pandemic.
|
| there was almost no problems in gaza or indo-pak area.
| seatac76 wrote:
| 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.
| bigyabai wrote:
| 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.
| seatac76 wrote:
| 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.
| whatsupdog wrote:
| 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.
| neets wrote:
| Ah so is India v Pakistan going to be the next current thing?
| Hilift wrote:
| 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...
| bikezen wrote:
| Funny how this seems to have remained unflagged for 22 hours at
| time of this comment, but all the Gaza content was immediately
| flagged and pushed down...
| mountainriver wrote:
| The flagging on HN needs to be fixed in general. I've had the
| most innocuous posts flagged for seemingly no reason and pushed
| down on their way up.
|
| I'm half convinced it was just competitors using it to suppress
| us
| Neonlicht wrote:
| 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!
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