I hope this cools down into a propagation war after the initial bombing and shooting. Nationalism served, and every one gets what they want, well, except the dead ones...
The army isn't completely united, and the current COAS of Pakistan (Asim Munir) is much more ideological than the former one (Qamar Javed Bajwa), who he pushed out after Bajwa and Imran Khan demoted Munir from the ISI to a (relatively) lowly Corp Commander.
Bajwa was working on normalizing relations with India, but himself got undermined by Imran Khan and separately by Asim Munir.
It's result of supporting fundamentalist terrorism and supporting infrastructure nationwide. After sufficient growth, the extremist support base started being recruited into lower levels of army and the support grew from there. Going forward, fundamentalist support in Army will continue to grow even in upper levels.
Historically yes, but the new head of the ISI (Asim Malik) is a close confidant of Asim Munir.
The Balochistan Corp is quasi-independent as well, as they are the primary stakeholder in CPEC.
The Pakistani Armed Forces and Civilian Government have too many veto players, which means any attempt at normalization gets undermined by one of these players trying to maximize their own benefit.
It doesn't help that the Pakistani Armed Forces plays an outsized role in the economy, so individual services and even corps can become business competitors, making internal competition even fiercer.
A similar issue plagued the PLA before Xi era reforms began in 2012, and continue to plague the VPA (but was partially dulled by the SK and UK FTAs) .
The attackers are allegedly backed by India.(India denies this, just like Pakistan deny involvement with the attacks in India).
So probably these bombings won’t solve anything as the issues appear to be a much more complicated. Therefore it is possible that everyone got what they need from these bombings.
This is attempt to draw a false equivalence between two events which does not stand scrutiny. Islamic terrorists are a keystone pillar of Pakistani society, they walk openly and are supported by the state. Plenty of literature around how Pak Army has adopted the proxy war against India.
Unlikely India is involved that much in West Pakistan given the geographical realities.
I agree these bombings won't solve anything though. Essentially just cannon fodder targeted, will be replaced quickly.
Well, Pakistan apparently downed 5 Indian jets, 3 of which are Dassault Rafale. Hardly cannon fodders. There's a billion dollars loss of equipment.
Anyway, I don't know much about Pakistan or India's backing of respective terrorists but trying to frame this, or any geopolitical situation as Good vs Evil is always wrong. It's O.K. to pick a side or distance yourself from someone if they do things you find immoral but its never good v.s. evil.
I think it’s early days let’s wait a bit before claiming results, lot of noise. So far only one Rafale has been confirmed, but if India has lost planes it will surely come out.
Also goes to show 4th Gen aircraft cannot penetrate a heavily defended airspace, and besides Pakistan Air Force is perhaps the most capable element of their armed forces, very well trained. Highly likely their air force had access to Qatari Rafales so prob had the chance to create better counters.
By cannon fodder I meant the terror camps, nothing will change by targeting that. Besides I don't think India was able to restore deterrence here with the current set of strikes. If they are going to put expensive assets in play they should have attacked actual military assets.
And I’m not taking a side at all, I don’t care nor do I have a horse in this race. Just find geopolitics fascinating.
India wants instability in Pakistan and seeks its fragmentation. It has been trying to promote a revolution in Sindh for a long time. Balochistan is second.
This model was used against Soviets, to break up a nuclear country by ruining it financially then enticing it into war.
India has supported jihadi groups in Kashmir to spur conflict in the country so it can have reasons to wage war. This is proven since late 90s.
India has always been a hostile conquering force, with its seizure of Hyderabad in 1951 and seizure of Sikkim in 1949. OTOH, Pakistan gave up territories with majority Hindu populations if it desired to join India.
Why bother? What do you think would be the HN reaction if the attack in pahalgam played out in any western country? I would love to see CNN and others report about jingoism and nationalism then. CNN still called the terrorists, militants, it's a wierd hatred. The hypocrisy is so strong it's almost inhuman.
Are you implying that Indian nationalism has nothing to do with 1) its conflicts with Pakistan 2) the entire Kashmiri situation ?
Especially with India's current government? Not that Pakistan is any less nationalist, just that claiming that one side is just fighting terror here is a bit crazy. It's ironic since it's a very colonial/British type of rationalization
"My side is peaceful and is just fighting terror while the other side is full of fanatical nationalists" is always a very convenient propaganda tool though so I won't blame you for using it
Are your sources mostly Indian sources? Do you think those are somehow less biased than whatever sources I use?
Also you can check my post history if you really want to, I always call out "we are just fighting terror" arguments.
But still, I hope you realize that what India sees as terrorism in this case (which means Kashmiri separatism, which again I agree is mostly a Pakistani funded thing) is very tied to Indian nationalism.
Obviously the Kashmir is used by Pakistan as a way to destabilize its opponent (they don't particularly care about Kashmiri emancipation lol). But India would never recognize any form of separatism (peaceful or violent) from the Kashmir anyways, and will label it as terrorism anyways regardless. Just like the British did to justify putting down any rebellion in the British Raj for example.
Now, India has obvious the right to protect its national integrity but it still makes said war against terror incredibly nationalistic, since terror is (broadly) defined as anything that goes against national unity.
I said I'll refrain from replying in this post anymore (apologies dang) but I'll just close it with this at the risk doxxing myself as I may have mentioned the following in another forum.
> But India would never recognize any form of separatism (peaceful or violent) from the Kashmir anyways, and will label it as terrorism anyways regardless
It was never limited to within kashmir. Other parts of India were also attacked over the years.
> But still, I hope you realize that what India sees as terrorism in this case (which means Kashmiri separatism, which again I agree is mostly a Pakistani funded thing) is very tied to Indian nationalism.
> since terror is defined as anything that goes against national unity.
I don't care or subscribe to how Indian or western media defines terrorism. If you see yourselves as freedom-fighter deal with the supposed occupying military force not its citizens. For me terrorism is just any deliberate attack aimed to harm innocent civilians.
I've missed becoming a victim of terror attack that killed atleast 40 people because I was late by mere 15 mins. It took long time to recover from that "What If". No citizen should fear stepping out in their own country. That is what terrorism is for me.
I hear you, but it's the other way around: when such posts appear, commenters need to be aware of their emotional reactions and (let's say) organize them in a way that respects the spirit of the community: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
This of course is far from easy, but it's what we all (including the admins) need to do.
