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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   992 thread views

Transnational Thursday for April 24, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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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!

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.

Pakistan's best friend (China)

Why is China Pakistan's best friend? They oppress their own Muslims quite brutally, and generally have zero tolerance to any ideology that can compete with the Party. Do they just think they own Pakistan as a counterweight to India and a stepping stone to dominating Asia, and Pakistan is happy to be owned?

China is fine with nation-wise oppression of minorities. They have no issues with oppression of Muslims in China, Hindus in Pakistan or the Chinese in Malaysia.

Second, the Muslim identity is primarily an Arab identity. East-Asian and great-lake-African muslims are oppressed all the time, and global Islam does not care. (note: North African islam is not the same as Subsaharan islam). These are the Muslims that matter to other muslims.

Do they just think they own Pakistan as a counterweight to India

Yes. It's less friends, and more that Pakistan is a client state of China. Pakistan is Turtle to China's Vince.

and Pakistan is happy to be owned?

No, but what option do they (Pakistani Army) have ? IMF isn't giving new loans anymore. Even the Saudis stopped giving freebees. Big daddy China is all that's left. Anything to be in opposition to India.

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