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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   496 thread views

Transnational Thursday for April 24, 2025

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Pakistan-Indian strife

There was a terror attack in Indian Kashmir, likely stemming from Pakistani intelligence (they all come from Pakistani intelligence in that part of the world).

India has announced measures targeting Pakistan, a day after 26 people were killed by gunmen at a Himalayan tourist attraction in Indian-administered Kashmir.

They include the closure of the main border crossing linking the two countries, the suspension of a landmark water-sharing treaty, the expulsion of diplomats and an order for some Pakistani visa holders to leave within 48 hours.

India also said it would suspend the Indus Water Treaty - a treaty that has been in place since 1960 and survived decades of hostile diplomacy.

The treaty gives India control over the eastern rivers, and Pakistan the western ones, of the Indus river and its tributaries. The agreement stipulates that India must, with few exceptions, allow water from the western rivers to flow downstream into Pakistan.

Both sides have also been cancelling visas and expelling diplomats willy-nilly:

India and Pakistan have announced tit-for-tat suspensions of visas for each other's citizens with immediate effect in the aftermath of the deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir that killed at least 26 people.

Pakistan on Thursday cancelled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all India-owned or India-operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India including to and from any third country. Islamabad also reportedly expelled all Indian defence, air and naval attaches.

In a statement issued at around the same time, India's foreign ministry said all visas issued to Pakistani nationals would be revoked with effect from Sunday. It advised Indian citizens not to travel to Pakistan, and for any Indian citizens in Pakistan to leave as soon as possible.

Goes to show that you can just do things as a state, you can expel whole peoples if you want. On the other hand, India doesn't have the state apparatus needed to actually get rid of them AFAIK. America as a whole has the power but not the will, India has the will but not the power.

https://x.com/Osint613/status/1915364624335098031

India has deployed its INS Vikrant aircraft carrier to the Arabian Sea.

https://x.com/Osint613/status/1915521996353360267

Reports of cross-border shelling and light arms fire between India and Pakistan in the Leepa Valley, Kashmir.

In spite of all this, I'm betting on 'nothingburger'. There have been bigger terror attacks in the past, there have been countless skirmishes in Kashmir, jets have been shot down... India doesn't really have the means to stop the water flowing down to Pakistan (imagine being a worker on such a damming project in Kashmir of all places, you'd need to sleep with both eyes open).

Also, the Indian military isn't that strong. They're stronger than Pakistan but not that much stronger, they lost the last aerial skirmish. What were they doing still flying the Mig-21 in 2019, let alone in combat? It was obsolete 40 years ago! Pakistan has similarly ancient equipment in places but also a decent amount of modern Chinese gear. There may be a certain level of national wealth/ambition that paradoxically diminishes combat power. Pakistan is humble enough not to try and develop everything themselves, so they get local-built Chinese jets, US jets... India has great power pretensions and so embarks on expensive domestic military R&D projects while also buying a smorgasbord of foreign equipment as the domestic projects underperform or are delayed due to resource limitations. You need those capabilities to be a great power but it's not cheap!

Few corrections, observations and 'smells' that imply this time it may be different.

1. It's overt - The attack was claimed by the Resistance Front (Lashkar-e-Taiba LeT). Pakistan operates many terrorist cells in the Kashmir area with different levels of overt and covert involvement. LeT is about as overt as Pakistani intelligence involvement gets. Why be so obvious ? It's so overt that Pakistan's defense minister almost let the mask slip off.(ignore the twitter handle, video is real)

2. It's timely - Last week, the new Pakistani General Munir (defacto leader) gave a fiery speech highlighting Pakistan's militant islam identity, Kashmir and Hindu-Muslim strife. It was big new in India even before the attack. Makes it look like Pakistan really want war.

After indiscriminate firing in the beginning, terrorists singled out non-Muslims to kill them. Separately, sources told CNN-News 18 that terrorists checked people for circumcision (this part is unsubstantiated) and asked people to recite ‘kalma’ to identify non-Muslims and shot them (is substantiated) — ‘kalma’ in Islam is a declaration of faith and serves as the allegiance to God. Those who could not recite it were deemed non-Muslims and were shot.

3. It's cruel - The pointed slaughter of Hindus has everyone pissed. I mean, really ? How comically evil can you be ? Almost as if Pakistan is provoking war.

There have been bigger terror attacks in the past

No. Which brings me to #4 and #5

4. It's extreme - The last time as many civilians died to Pakistani terror attack was during 26/11/2008. (India's 9/11). The only reason India did not go to war back then was because Congress's pro-muslim stance makes it impossible for them to sell aggressive rhetoric towards Pakistanis.

5. It's the right people - Unlike the congress, a war with Pakistan comes with better optics for Modi. Both Modi and Munir are seen as hardline strongmen, more conservative than their predecessors during 26/11.

India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers” and would “pursue them to the ends of the earth. The time has come to raze whatever is left of the haven of terrorists.

6. It's the right signals - The military build up is higher than usual. America has taken a suspiciously weak stance in condemning Pakistan & Modi has said surprisingly little (when it is saber rattling, nations take strong stances. When it is real, they hedge). In such situations, Modi jumps on it and makes strong statements. This time is eerie silence. Like the calm before a storm. In time of silence, the words that get spoken are more important. Modi made a speech in English. The speech was for the world, not Indians. His phrasing was ominous. I expect there to be cross border action at the very least.

7. It's the right incentives - India is internally stable, while Pakistan is in crisis. Pakistan uses war to stabilize their nation. India avoids war because it risks destabilization in Kashmir. This time around, local Kashmiris have been silent. India feels confident that a hot border won't hurt its stability.

All in all. While this may still be a nothing burger. There are indications that this time may be different.

What I expect will happen:

In wars, nations have desired outcomes. India and Pakistan do not want land on either side of the border. Primarily, Pakistan wants to destabilize Indian-Kashmir and India wants to stabilize it. Likewise, India wants to destabilize Pakistani-Kashmir.

Short term - Full scale war is unlikely to impossible. Air strikes are near guaranteed. Given the non-commital language adopted by Modi, I expect an un-easy calm and sudden retaliation. Pakistan is reeling from internal strife. Modi has time. If Modi is feeling it, he can try to secure new vantage points near the line of control, but that seems unlikely.

Long term - Hindus will continue to be aggressively resettled back into the valley. Security levels will stay high. Ie. Freedoms of non-BJP operatives will stay limited in Kashmir. Infrastructure development will similarly continue. Kashmir's stability after the attack will come as a huge relief to Modi. It lends credence to the idea that Pakistan has ran out of traditional avenues (saber rattling, funding local opposition and activism for Kashmir's independence) for retaliation. The abeyance of water-rights agreements with Pakistan would allow for resumption of various half-built dams.

It's so overt that Pakistan's defense minister almost let the mask slip off.(ignore the twitter handle, video is real)

What the hell? His argument is 'we're only a state sponsor of terrorism because the West trained us to be'?

Well, I guess the pressure's off Hegseth with Defense Ministers like this bumbling around.

Even in their own fantasy, they cast themselves not as the hero, not even as the villain, but as the disloyal servant of the villain.

I've had a few moments where I thought I was watching fake videos or Indian propaganda. Then looked into it and turned out the Terrorists/Pakistanis are really that comically evil.

No wonder The Boys fell off after season 2. Can't compete with reality.

Airstrikes and more skirmishing on the border that doesn't end in a major war isn't particularly significant as an outcome. Even the Kargil War was a nothingburger, there were no major consequences besides India-Pakistan relations remaining very bad.

ISI is sure to direct great effort into blowing up any dams that threaten Pakistani water, that's actually in their core national interest. If the Indus starts to be choked off, then that would be a major event but it seems unlikely.

Shutting off the river is a very big deal if it stays that way. They didn’t even do that during the 2019 war IIRC.

The rivers are already shut off for all intents and purposes. Pushing it further can set scary precedents in the sub-continent.

India could go upstream and cut off rivers at the source, but Pakistan's best friend (China) controls even more important rivers upstream. If China did a tit-for-tat than India would lose a lot more than they'd gain.

It's the main reason I consider Indian inaction to the Chinese annexation of Tibet to be the worst strategic misstep of a newly independent India. And for those who say 'India did not have the resources', Tibet is a defenders dream. All supply lines are cutoff for half the year. You can't lay siege, you can't set up shop, you can't invade. Well, I have enough reasons to dislike Nehru already. But here's one more.

In the months surrounding the People’s Liberation Army’s October 1950 entry into Tibet, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru read the same cable traffic yet drew radically different conclusions. Patel’s 7 November 1950 memorandum to Nehru warned that Tibet’s fall would erase the Himalayan buffer, expose India’s “almost undefended” northern flank, and reveal “China’s carefully laid plan to establish its domination” across Asia. Nehru, by contrast, saw the episode as unwelcome but unavoidable; he registered a formal protest, yet pressed ahead with recognizing the People’s Republic of China, advocating its U.N. seat, and negotiating the 1954 Panchsheel Agreement. Their divergent assessments shaped Indian policy for a decade and still frame today’s debate on how the annexation might have been answered differently. (sauce - O3 mini with search)

Ofc Patel was on the right side of history. Everything I read about him makes him seem like a 'Lee Kwan Yew' style pragmatic statesman that India needed. But ofc, Nehru chose naive optimism as he always did. Oh, how I wish the man had just gone to Cambridge and been a brown Francis Fukuyama instead.

https://catholicvote.org/record-number-cardinal-electors-logistical-challenge-conclave/

With a conclave coming up(I plan to do weekly updates in the transnational thursdays until it starts), time to cover the first SNAFU- there are more cardinals participating than the number of rooms to house them. See, cardinals are housed in the Domus Sanctae Marthae(you might also see it referred to as the Casa Santa Marta, the Italian name, or more rarely as the St Martha house). There are 129 rooms and 134 or 135 cardinals participating, maybe 136 if the rumors are true about Becciu. But pope Francis had resided in the Casa Santa Marta rather than the apostolic palace, and that space- at least his personal chambers, but possibly more than that- will be sealed off, unavailable to the cardinals.

Likely this will be resolved by having some cardinals either share rooms or sleep in the cells built into St. Peter's basilica for the purpose when the cap on cardinal elector numbers was lower. Cardinals get assigned rooms by lottery, so there's no way to use this for political advantage, but it will make the previous administration look bad.

https://catholicvote.org/college-of-cardinals-holds-third-general-congregation/

The college of cardinals has completed its third(of nine) convocations before the start of a conclave. This is an unusually rapid timetable and the dean of the college of cardinals, Cardinal Re, has been criticized for this by Cardinal Zen, who is influential but not voting. This likely points to starting the conclave at the earliest possible date(May 6 unless all 135 electors arrive earlier- which is highly unlikely).

https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/the-cardinals-becciu-test

Disgraced cardinal Becciu is now insisting that he will participate in the conclave, despite having resigned his voting rights in 2020 due to criminality. It is unclear what the cardinals will do about it- his cartoonish corruption was a scandal for Pope Francis in his pontificate, so it's not like he's popular, but who's going to actually deal with him is unclear.

It is unclear what the cardinals will do about it- his cartoonish corruption was a scandal for Pope Francis in his pontificate, so it's not like he's popular, but who's going to actually deal with him is unclear.

This prompts an interesting question for me -- who's actually in charge? If some sort of major crisis happens, or some terrorist incident happens that disrupts the conclave, or something especially dire, who coordinates the response? Who is empowered to make sure things run properly?

There are a number of candidates. Cardinal Re, cardinal Parolin, and cardinal Farrel are likely to be making the major decisions which can’t be put off.

Which one actually does something about the Catholic version of blagojevich is probably more a matter of personalities than constitutions.

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