This is how things start to get out of control
Also in terrifying news, not related to Trump for a change – India and Pakistan are playing chicken. That’s bad because of the nukes.
Elite troops have launched “surgical strikes” on Pakistan-based terrorists in the contested territory of Kashmir, India said on Thursday, in a major escalation of a deepening crisis between the nuclear-armed rivals.
The Indian army said troops conducted multiple nighttime raids across the line of control (LOC), the ceasefire line agreed in 1972 that divides the Himalayan region, to attack militants preparing to cross into Indian-controlled territory.
That’s bad.
Zahid Hussain, a Pakistani security analyst, described Thursday’s attacks as a “very serious escalation”. “We have seen firing on the line of control before, but this is much more dangerous in the context of the rising tension between the two sides,” he said. “I am not saying that this could lead to a full state confrontation, but this is how things start to get out of control.”
India last announced it had conducted cross-border strikes in June 2015, when it targeted rebel camps in Myanmar in response to an ambush that killed at least 18 Indian soldiers in the north-eastern state of Manipur. Delhi described the raid as unprecedented at the time and signalled similar tactics could be used along its western border with Pakistan.
On Wednesday, in a sign of deepening Pakistani isolation in the region, India and three other countries announced they would boycot the forthcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit, which was scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November.
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has also raised the possibility of Delhi altering or walking away from a major river-sharing agreement that permits Pakistan to draw water from three rivers that flow downstream from India, providing water to 65% of the country’s landmass.
It doesn’t help that religious zealots are in power in both countries.
This is the problem with mutually assured destruction. Sooner or later, you run the risk that someone will actually use the nukes.
As bad as it is, I genuinely don’t believe that nukes are going to be brought into play, unless there’s a full-blown attempt by either side (probably India) to completely invade and subdue the other nation. Short of that, both sides know that firing one nuke means they both suffer irrevocably.
That said, the human suffering that can mount from this sort of escalating tension doesn’t need nukes to be devastating. And the presence of MAD means that a hot war could drag on interminably–neither side wanting to provoke the other into final annihilation, but both willing to throw bodies into the gristmill of the front lines. And any perceived foreign support for one side will lead to anger on the other–in the case of Pakistan, we know damned well where that will lead. (India doesn’t have a record of harboring or sponsoring anti-Western terrorists, as far as I know, but Pakistan, obviously, is happy to turn a blind eye to such.)
I actually agree with that. One big problem, though, is that the threat of nukes can give politicians in other parts of the world bargaining power to enhance certain….questionable…techniques, and keep the constant state of the military arms race accelerating. Fear mongers here in the US can use this to justify all sorts of policies that shouldn’t even be considered.
This isn’t totally disconnected from Trump, though.
He’s in *favor* of nuclear proliferation. He’d be fine with dozens of mutually hostile states with nukes pointed at each other all around the globe.
Samantha: Trump’s like ooze–his awfulness gets into everything.
iknklast: Oh, I agree there. Especially since it’s a far cry from saying that they wouldn’t launch nukes to saying that they have adequate security to prevent their materials from being misappropriated. The more people who have them (thanks, Trump!), the more likely it is that someone sufficiently warped will get ahold of one and then we’re all in the shit.