{"id":618,"date":"2002-05-21T14:14:52","date_gmt":"2002-05-21T21:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mossback.org\/archives\/2002\/05\/all-out-war-on-the-subcontinent\/"},"modified":"2002-05-21T14:14:52","modified_gmt":"2002-05-21T21:14:52","slug":"all-out-war-on-the-subcontinent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/2002\/05\/21\/all-out-war-on-the-subcontinent\/","title":{"rendered":"All-out war on the Subcontinent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t— The Kolkata Libertarian<\/a> believes that all-out nuclear war between India and Pakistan is a distinct possibility, for a number of reasons that he mentions. Among these:<\/p>\n

\nIndia does not possess the surgical-strike capabilities of the U.S., which means that it’s going to be an all-or-nothing set of scenarios when the two sides go to war. If the Indian military had the technological, logistical and operational means with which to wage a low-level offensive battle, they would have had it over with last December. Instead, they have resorted to the only available response – the threat of large-scale war on multiple fronts, followed by the inevitable tit-for-tat nuclear response. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We all like to think, here in the West, that nuclear war is too horrible for anyone but a madman to seriously contemplate. The pressures on Musharraf and the tensions within his country and between Pakistan and its neighbors are such that going completely crazy would be a short trip for the dude. The situation over there is much more serious that most Americans think, and much more serious than the situation in the Middle East. Colin Powell should forget about the Israelis and concentrate on averting tragedy on the Indian Subcontinent right now.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the reason that religious fanaticism is so strong in Pakistan has to do with national identity. This country was thrown together at the time of Indian independence as a payoff to Jinna for his role in the swaraj struggle (correction: to keep him from making trouble in India post-independence.) The name “Pakistan” combines an acronym made up of the three ethnic groups (Pashtun, Afghani, Kashmiri) with the Indo-European word for “land”, “stan.” The only common bond in Pakistan is Islam, which becomes fanatical when called upon to act as a national value system and not just something you do at the Mosque on Friday. It’s an old-timey creed, in other words.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

— The Kolkata Libertarian believes that all-out nuclear war between India and Pakistan is a distinct possibility, for a number of reasons that he mentions. Among these: India does not possess the surgical-strike capabilities of the U.S., which means that it’s going to be an all-or-nothing set of scenarios when the two sides go to … Continue reading “All-out war on the Subcontinent”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbifyw-9Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}