Posted on 05/30/2002 4:25:59 PM PDT by Pokey78
Jack Straw's departure from the Indian sub-continent - without securing concessions from either Pakistan or India - has left the situation where it stood on his arrival: the prospect of war and peace still hangs in the balance. India may launch punitive air attacks and commando raids against the camps of Kashmiri and Pakistani militants based in Azad or Pakistani Kashmir. Pakistan would retaliate against army bases in Indian Kashmir.
After weeks of fighting, with neither side being able to claim an advantage in the high mountainous terrain and as both become bogged down in raids and counter-raids across the disputed Line of Control, one side may attempt to break the logjam by crossing the international border and launching an invasion. Yesterday's cross-border shelling and the attack by Islamic militants on an Indian police station is another step towards war.
Or India may carry out a naval blockade of Pakistan's only artery to the outside world - the port of Karachi. India's huge advantage in troops and armour would quickly win it territory, which may force a desperate Pakistani military to use missile-launched tactical nuclear weapons on Indian forces.
The 55-year dispute over Kashmir, a legacy of the partition of British India in 1947, has led to two wars, many crises, military mobilisations, threats and counter-threats, which have lulled the international community into believing that this is an oft-repeated shadow dance. In fact, never has the situation been so fraught with danger as it is now.
The world is changed after September 11 and the international war against terrorism. India is furious that the world has ignored Pakistan-based Islamic extremists, who continued with their bloody terrorism in India and Kashmir even after September 11. India says it cannot join the world in fighting al-Qa'eda when the world ignores these attacks on its own soil. At the same time India believes that it can ignore the plight of the Kashmiri people, who have suffered 40,000 dead over the past 12 years of conflict. So India has used the global war on terrorism to push back dialogue with the Kashmiris.
Pakistan's military regime believed that it could comfortably carry out a U-turn on its support of the Taliban and join the US alliance to topple them, while the world and India would turn away from Islamabad's support for Kashmiri and Pakistani militants, who have turned the Kashmiris' genuine political struggle for self-determination into a jihad. The army's refusal to understand how much the world had changed after September 11 and its failure to offer anything other than militancy and terrorism in Kashmir gave India just the opportunity it sought to deal finally with Pakistan.
President Pervaiz Musharraf divides militants into three camps: al-Qa'eda and the Taliban; the sectarian extremists inside the country who have butchered thousands of innocent Pakistanis; and the "freedom fighters" of Kashmir. The world has now told him forcefully that there are no such distinctions. The Pakistani militant groups that fight in Kashmir also fought for the Taliban and al-Qa'eda in Afghanistan. The 29 Arab al-Qa'eda operatives arrested in Pakistani cities last month were being given sanctuary and safe houses by the largest Pakistani group fighting in Kashmir. All these groups are now closely interlinked, no matter how the Pakistani state tries to differentiate between them.
The Pakistan military's poor tactics have now turned the world against Pakistan. India has won the international community to its side and isolated Pakistan - but that has not made it amenable to de-escalating tensions, as there is a wider agenda. The hardline Hindu fundamentalist wing of the ruling BJP party has long argued that Pakistan has to be militarily beaten, so that it never again rises to question India's hegemony in South Asia. For them, the issue is not merely terrorism, but beating Pakistan into a final submission.
To his credit, the moderate Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has twice taken major initiatives to talk to Pakistan. His inability to succeed has led to a strengthening of the Hindu fundamentalist wing. The BJP's recent electoral defeats in regional elections and the killing of some 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat state by Hindu fundamentalists have further weakened Mr Vajpayee's influence on the New Delhi power-brokers.
Gen Musharraf is also on the ropes. Last month's rigged referendum making him president for the next five years, fears of a rigged general election in October and the army's unwillingness to share real power with civilians have turned all the major political parties against him and continued army rule. For the first time in Pakistan's history, and with the experience of three wars with India, people are not rallying around the army to defend the motherland, but are demanding Gen Musharraf's resignation. Many people in both countries believe that he and the BJP would prefer the diversion of a limited war to the continued weakening of their political positions at home.
Meanwhile, the trivialisation of nuclear war by both armies and their macho ideologies - jihad and martyrdom on the one side, Hindu fundamentalism on the other - coupled with the elite's refusal to educate their public about the horrors of nuclear conflict, only add to the dangers. Many Pakistanis think a nuclear bomb just makes a bigger bang than an ordinary one.
So all these factors have come together to produce a crisis which is unprecedented, even in the constantly crisis ridden sub-continent. The danger of war is greater than it has ever been.
No one side is seeing the logic of a climb-down. And so enormous is the lack of communication between the two sides that anything could spark a conflict - a missile test gone wrong, another terrorist attack or a macho junior officer on the Line of Control wanting to teach his opponent a lesson. The need for international intervention has never been greater, not just to prevent a war but to force the two sides finally to resolve the Kashmir dispute.
Saudi wants to become a nuclear power before Iran and Iraq, and it has hundreds of billion$ to shop the world markets. Iran is buying N.K. medium range weapon systems; Saudi wants Chinese/USA via Bill Clinton medium/long range (read Europe) missles. Israel is in for a hot war.
The very dirty nuke technolgy of the Paki/Indian warheads will create a lasting Hell on earth. Assuming many weapons will be knocked out from frist strike EMP, the combined throw might be less than a dozen combined. "Instant" deaths would be 10-12 million with ten times that by winter. Most food stocks and fetile fields and water will be contaminated. That is the news that Rumy will likely deliver.
7th Century fervor with 20th Century weapons - If this global Pan-Islamic War gets out of hand, our Ohio class boats may come home empty.
Close, but not quite. In fact, Serbia accepted the terms of Austria's ultimatum of 23 July 1914, but Austria declared war anyway.
The text of the ultimatum can be found here, and Serbia's reply here.
One of the (many) unlearned lessons of the Great War is that there is a watershed moment when war becomes inevitable. On the one side, there is still room for diplomacy, concessions, and peacemakers. On the other side, the logic of events is irresistible, and there is nothing anyone can do to avert catastrophe.
In my opinion, for what it's worth, the statement yesterday by the Indian minister Naidhu that "not even an inch of Kashmir would be conceded" was the moment at which we crossed the watershed. I am deeply pessimistic.
No big deal... our "Safeguard" could have probably killed an ICBM 60 miles above the earth surface; we had the things loaded with a 400 kiloton nuclear warhead (the basic idea is, if you vaporize everything in a 2-3 miles radius, you're gonna hit the incoming bogie).
So, it ain't like we really needed Soviet "Galosh" technology, we were probably just wanting to compare notes and see how good the Russian version was.
Trouble is, the EM Pulse from the interceptor's warheads tends to blind their own radars. So, your system can't be 100% accurate against a MIRV attack; it degrades it's own targeting ability with each interceptor blast. Of course, since all nuclear blasts produce EM Pulse, Russia "Galosh" suffers from the same deficiency. But, I guess the Russkies figure a even a half-blind Ballistic Missile defense is better than none, so they kept the one around Moscow up and running.
The feild for China is not ripe yet. Turmoil or not, they are not assured of a victory over Taiwan.
Most Chinese 'thinkers' assume the war over Taiwan will occur around 2020.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Rumsfeld told them "come across that Strait and we nuke you." He wasn't kidding either.
What the author is really saying is.....
time for the US to pony up big bucks and military pizza-delivery.
BS
Let them kill each other, we have our own problems to solve
To my knowledge there is not deployment of ABM missile tech to India, although the Indians have adept technicians working on this at the moment. Remember most of the Indian missile tech (from their IRBMs to some of the air to air missiles are indigenous designs).
Hence i really do not know, although i do not think so. Russia seems 'jealous' of their capabilities.
I wonder why?(scoff alert)
The chance of China actually attacking IMO is low, except for maybe a temper tantrum of sorts like in 1996.
With Bush in Office and an assured knock em down drag em out fight, it would delay the Chinese doctrine of overwhelming force against Taiwan for a really long time.
Plus social unrest has a lot to do with things...as well as a change of Party control.
Agreed. I'd be shocked if Russia sold a "Galosh" to India.
Simply because i doubt the US would allow any nation to send Nukes to another, even to Taiwan. And the Taiwanese would not dare accept nukes since they rely on the US for primary protection; and as for the Indians they would not risk annoying the US govt at such a perilious time.
Thus i doubt it, unless it is very hush hush.
I believe you are correct, however...I also believe that the one thing that will keep this from happening is that Pakistan has to know it will be swatted like a bug if it uses nuclear weapons against India. They don't stand a chance against a truly pissed off Indian response.
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