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Notes -
What are the escalation probabilities on this?
You can't fight Pakistan for the same reason you don't pick fights with a pig. Pakistan doesn't point a gun towards you. Pakistan points a gun and its own head and threatens to shoot. Every Indo-Pakistani war was started by Pakistan, because India has nothing to gain from it.
War doesn't work, because war creates unpopular deaths for India while creating martyrs in Pakistan.
Economic retaliation doesn't work because Pakistan has no economy to speak of. Resource bottlenecking doesn't work because they are already on the verge of famine. Anything more will mean civilian deaths.
Full decoupling does not work because we have long borders. The US can't enforce a border with Mexico, and that's all flat land. Imagine trying to maintain a border up in the Himalayas. Don't even get me started on their nukes.
The failed state of Pakistan is a nuisance past redemption.
If Pakistani leadership stopped to think for a second, they'd realize that India is their natural trading partner. Afterall, these trade routes go back millennia. Karachi is clearly aching for maritime trade with India's west coast. Lahore is 30 miles from Amritsar. Faisalabad is 100 miles from Amritsar.
Geographically, Pakistan's urban areas hug India in the same way Canada's hug the USA. Can you imagine if Canada arbitrarily decided to have zero trade ties with India. Yes, Pakistan is client state to China and could trade with them. But China is too far. Beijing is closer to Anchorage than it is Islamabad. After 100 years of poisoning the well, I am aware that India-Pakistan peace is broken for good. But, what a waste.
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