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The eternal India-Pakistan conflict is heating up, again. A car bomb at a tourist attraction in Delhi killed 14 people yesterday. Today a car bomb in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad killed 12 people. India and Pakistan are both blaming each other for the respective attacks, and credible open-source intel accounts on Twitter are reporting large mobilizations of troops heading towards the border.
To me it seems that relations between the countries have been on a downward slide for the last ten years. While I’m not certain that this particular incident will be the big one, the increasing regularity and intensity of the skirmishes is on a worrying trend down.
This doesn’t come at a good time for Pakistan, which is increasingly having a hard time holding its western mountain territories against the Taliban. India has recently been cultivating ties with the Taliban, seeking their own proxies of militant crazies to counterbalance the ones Pakistan has in Kashmir. In the event of a war Pakistan could find itself sandwiched between the Indian army and the Taliban forces in the mountain regions.
Counterintuitively, this kind of lousy poker hand could make Pakistan more likely to seek a major conflict. There are many, many conflicts throughout history that were instigated by a party that was in a bad situation, because it’s better to roll the dice now before your position gets even worse.
And of course there are probably 400 or so fission weapons between the two, in the several-hundred kiloton range. I believe the subcontinent is the single likeliest place on earth to see a nuclear conflict start, more than Eastern Europe or the Middle East.
I'm Indian, so obviously biased. But, is there credible evidence that India funds terrorists within Pakistan ?
India's beef is with the Pakistani military, first and foremost. An unstable Pakistan is one that needs more military, and therefore such a state is of no benefit to India. India craves a quiet Pakistan. One that does its own thing and leaves India alone. The Pakistani army holds a uniquely self-destructive ideology. A hot border, self-destructiveness and nukes are a trifecta that India wants no part of.
I wish it was different. But, Asim Munir, Pakistan's new leader is a hard-line
self-destructionist.-Field Marshall for life, Asim Munir.
Looks like the attackers were armed by Afghanistan, but Pakistan wants to drag India in with it. After all, that's the only narrative that works to the army's benefit. The Pakistani Taliban (who took ownership) takes direct inspiration from the Afghan Taliban who were directly trained by Pakistani military (ISI specifically). Reminds me of Hillary's infamous banger : "You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors".
In the absence of evidence, I'm going to disregard Pakistani claims about 'India funded terrorists'.
This one is more interesting. From the looks of it, a dozen or so attacks were planned and this was the only one that succeeded. Thankfully, most of the plans were intercepted early and the contraband was seized. India has the benefit of catching many of the culprits alive, so more evidence should come out with time.
In Indian media, the story is being sold as a case of Indian success (at stopping 90+% of the planned attacks) rather than one of Pakistani terror. My read is that India does not want another war at this moment. There are no major state elections coming, so increased nationalism at the expense of economy is worthless to Modi. Op Sindoor was forced on Modi because of the performative cruelty of the attackers. This attack's significance was more intellectual than emotional. The attackers were muslim doctors, a bad look for educated muslims. The attack took place outside Kashmir, violating a long held understanding between the Indian and Pakistani intelligence services of keeping the proxy war limited to Kashmir.
In Pakistan, Munir has been saber-rattling since the day of the ceasefire. His posturing has gotten more and more aggressive with every day. I'm worried that he thinks he has to force another war to flip the narrative around Op Sindhoor. Pakistani military has a history of aggressive leaders. But, Munir feels kooky in a way that's different from Musharraf or Bajwa. He has some of Zia's insanity, and that scares me.
I think this occasion will be a nothing burger. That being said, it indicates a steady increase in the likelihood of a hot war with Pakistan sometime in the next few years.
I don’t necessarily take the Pakistani government’s claims at face value either. But to some extent it doesn’t matter what the truth is, just what the government thinks or claims is the truth. It certainly would not be the first time a country went to war on paper thin evidence.
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