This is an important and informative, but biased and flawed, argument.
Firstly, this post is way too soft on Clinton, Bush, and Obama for our cynical (and seemingly counterproductive, at best) relationship with Pakistan. Easy to say in retrospect, I know, but the idea that Pakistan fit into the category of "with friends like these..." was salient even at the time. Pakistan clearly had its hands dirty in terrorism targeting America and American interests even back in the 1990s. Not to mention their *central* role in nuclear proliferation at the time!
And, secondly, this essay bizarrely doesn't even acknowledge that the Trump Administration (contra brand) not only engaged with this topic, but actually brokered the cease-fire! That certainly makes the Trump-as-isolationist framing more complex and reveals something that's been discussed about the Trump Administration's foreign policy: that it contains multitudes, at best, and is an incoherent mess, at worst. Either way, *somebody* in the Trump Admistration decided that this was important enough to quash very quickly.
Also, wouldn't it be interesting and important to acknowledge the scale of this clash!? It was allegedly actually the biggest dogfight since WWII! At least two top-of-the-line Indian air force jets downed in the melee that involved over a hundred planes. That's paradigm-shifting. Much like the Ukraine land war has been.
"While Islamabad has thanked Washington for facilitating the ceasefire and welcomed Trump’s offer to mediate on the Kashmir dispute with India, New Delhi has not commented on US involvement in the truce or talks at a neutral site."
I can't think of a scenario where Pakistan would be incentived to overstate the role the US played.
Pakistan in general wants to internationalize the issue for decades, while India has preferred to keep it bilateral (due to their differences in relative power), so that may be affecting their incentives as well.
I agree with all that. But I think it just further supports the reporting that Washington actually facilitated the ceasefire and then went further (supporting Geoffrey G's point that Matt ignored this reporting) by offering to mediate talks.
Maybe? It could also mean that Pakistan has an incentive to flatter the US right now to get them more involved, especially since we truly don't know the details of how exactly the talks went down at this early date.
Okay, well here’s a scenario: suppose the US president was a corrupt narcissist with few fixed principles and a reputation for being willing to corrupt US policy in favour of people who do him political or personal favours
You are severely underrating the disruptive role America plays in Pakistani internal politics. Imran Khan made a whole thing about US involvement in his ouster. Obv it’s exaggerated but there’s a leaked diplomatic cable, known as the “cypher,” reportedly detailing a conversation where U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu expressed that relations with Pakistan would improve if Khan were removed, and warned of isolation if he remained in power. After widespread documented allegations of rigging and suppression in 2024 Pakistani elections, Biden admin was eager to let it slide and not use diplomatic condemnation as Pakistani military dictatorship is more pliant for American interests. There’s a whole thing called diplomacy where State Department and not just the DOD conduct foreign policy, outside of the purview of sanctions and military attacks.
The funny thing about Khan is that the army propped him up because they didn’t like Nawaz Sharif (basically due to personality conflicts and resentment over a coup), and Khan just went ahead and turned on them after Bajwa didn’t get his man and threw a hissy fit. Sharif (either one) would have been much less volatile for Bajwa to handle.
Ya, but my point was to highlight American’s role. It’s striking to me how people think there’s nothing to foreign policy besides sanctions and military action. I’m a dove and I think the quality of diplomats has severely deteriorated in America, i think it has something to do with the shift of funding away from State Department and towards DOD and military buildups. Henry Kissinger was a monster and I don’t necessarily agree with Mika Brzezinski’s vision but these were serious thinkers. Hilary Clinton was appointed not for her intellect in FP but for coalition politics and Blinken was extremely unimpressive. Let’s not even get to Trump appointees.
This is one of the biggest problems with Pakistani politics. There is this persistent attempt by Pakistani politicians to paint themselves as pawns of the greater powers, whether they be the US, China, India, Saudi Arabia, or Israel. Somehow Pakistani officials don't have any agency of their own and are just prey to external conspiracies. It's terrible for governance in the country
If anything we should support Pakistan. It looks like they are getting more aggressive due to Indias interesting wealth and support from the USA at least. I think we need Pakistans support in fighting potential terrorist groups in that country and Afghanistan. Who knows if that country will remain “stable “ .
I think people vastly overestimate the Pakistani military junta’s ability to control the “groups” let alone govern. Kind of a bigger problem up there is that it’s like they’re a rider of a very skittish horse. They have some control but could lose it very quickly, and are limited in what intelligence they can provide to India about coming attacks even if they wanted to.
>Firstly, this post is way too soft on Clinton, Bush, and Obama for our cynical (and seemingly counterproductive, at best) relationship with Pakistan.
At least for Bush and Obama the key driver there was military logistics. Evidently if you can't go through Pakistan, it's very difficult and expensive to get equipment to Afghanistan.
My pitch is that Trump's style of authoritarianism is "sultanist" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanism), but Kim Il Sung is included as an example sultanism, so that can be harmonized with "autarkic imperialist."
> And, secondly, this essay bizarrely doesn't even acknowledge that the Trump Administration (contra brand)
It's contra brand for *Trump*, but as we know from his first term, he's so uninterested in foreign policy, he just lets his Sec State do whatever he wants, as long as its not directly involving him, and it sounds like that is what happened here too. Rubio's been shit overall, but he did the right thing here.
There is a key sentence in the post: "we’re now backing an increase in Indian military capacity against Pakistan for reasons that have nothing to do with Pakistan." This isn't totally true. a large part of the reason the US has turned to India is that Pakistan has showed itself to be an incredibly unreliable ally on anything of import and its fixation with military confrontation and claims on Indian territory mean it is very poorly governed thus leading to its economy being a basketcase.
Those are the reasons the US has turned away from Pakistan. But it’s turned to India partly because they’re a natural partner in corralling China and partly for personal reasons between Trump and Modi. Those aren’t about Pakistan at all.
The Trump/Modi bromance is interesting. Trump talked about Modi on the Flagrant podcast (w/ Andrew Schultz and Akaash Singh), and it seemed as if Trump actually liked (or at least respected) Modi.
Bloomberg is reporting that Trump simply took credit for a ceasefire already agreed-to by the Pakistan & Indian militaries, so I think you're a little credulous about Trump's claims
Also, up until recently (I haven't seen data for 2024), Bangladeshi Americans were possibly the most Democrat-aligned ethnic group in America, dating back to Nixon screwing them over and Ted Kennedy standing up for them. So they seem to hold animosity towards Nixon specifically rather than America as a whole. 🤷
I've posted this data before, but Bangladesh seems to be the only Muslim-majority country where a large number of residents are interested in moving to the US. Could be for school, not sure. The data doesn't get more specific than that.
Everyone in Western democracies in somewhere between neutral with pro-Indian sympathies to completely supportive of India. The failure of India to ally with the Western democracies lies with their foreign policy establishment that still harks back to Congress's third world unity idea.
India is both a proud country, and one that is now governed by a shrilly nationalistic party. "Allying with the Western democracies" has traditionally meant "joining a coalition led by the United States" and I don't believe India—the world's largest country (and largest democracy)—is willing to be *led* by anyone (But sure, like most governments, New Delhi is opportunistic, and will seek common cause where it makes sense).
Fun fact: India's GDP in international dollars is now about 60% (SIXTY!) of the size of the USA's. This is not your father's geopolitical landscape.
FWIW, the shrilly nationalist party in question has put in power a foreign policy team that is India's most pro-American one yet.
Otherwise this is fair - but would also note that it has been a while since the US built an alliance or a long-term partnership with a country that was relatively not dependent on us.
I don't think there's that much evidence of a Chinese middle income trap. The classic middle income disease is structurally deficient investment, a government capable of sustaining basic order but not capable of sophisticated management, and a lack of growth at the top of the value chain.
None of these apply to China, which has tons of domestic investment, high levels of state capacity and massive growth in high-tech sectors. There are weaknesses in the Chinese economy but they seem like policy problems rather than structural deficiencies. Even their demographic crisis isn't *that* bad, their birthrate is low but they have quite a few years left of having a large working-age population.
The "middle income trap" seems not as tight as the "NIMBY-deficits-anti-'Abundance'" trap that holds the US. China's pc GDP is still outpacing ours and they will be only marginally harmed by US trade policy which is disaster for us.
" China's pc GDP is still outpacing ours and they will be only marginally harmed by US trade policy which is disaster for us."
This seems way off...? They are incredibly dependent on exports and most of the places in the world with money are becoming increasing unwilling to accept ever increasing amounts of Chinese exports.
I'm not assuming that at all. India could very well get caught in the middle income trap, that's true. But that wouldn't prevent them from having a larger GDP than the United States (any more than this phenomenon has prevented China from passing us).
China could reasonably be considered the world’s most technologically advanced country. It’s deliberately keeping its GDP down in several ways. It’s not in any kind of trap.
The CCP is keeping consumption down deliberately, but doesn't have a button to magically shift that, as its economy and financial system is built around that model. In the short to medium term it's in a bit of a trap as long as the regime is unwilling to take on the adjustment.
No, it's that despite running the economy into the ground, they could STILL win because of cultural issues or electoral malfeasance. That's presumably what Zane is worried about.
Of course the ACA is, basically, the GOP healthcare plan. It was, more or less, a combination of the proposed HEART act (Republican - John Chaffee) and a bunch of "Heritage Foundation" ideas. But if they actually had a more market based proposal, I would be happy to see it.
Matt doesn't make this point, but the growing asymetry in power between the two makes Pakistan not only more reliable on nuclear deterrence but probably more prone to reach to asymmetrical warfare options like the group that started this latest round. Which is bad.
Apart from its reliance on nuclear retaliation (I wouldn't say "deterrence"),* Pakistan seems to be behaving in an irrational manner. India is far larger and far more powerful than Pakistan and the future trends just show that gap growing enormously. A rational state would try to ameliorate the situation by pursuing policies to strengthen its economy (and thus its military) and in the meantime to not go out of its way to antagonize its far more powerful neighbor. Pakistan is doing the reverse of both of those. Man, it must really think its nuclear weapons give it an ace in the hole that allows it to do whatever it wants.
* Or at least not to deter India's use of its own nuclear arsenal. India, the by far superior military power, doesn't need to rely on nukes to defeat Pakistan. Pakistan needs to rely on its nukes to deter an Indian *conventional* victory whereas India would only use its nukes in response to a Pakistani nuclear attack. The huge danger here is Pakistan's temptation for first use of nuclear weapons, aggravated by its underlying weakness and its insane need and desire to provoke and attack India.
I think Pakistan is one of the cases where the fact that a state is not a unitary actor but is rather the emergent product of millions of individuals is much more important. If it were truly a unitary state that could make its own decisions, it could make them more rationally. But when the state keeps getting replaced by the military, or a democratic restoration, or a possible Islamist revolution, or who knows what else, it’s hard for the state to operate in a rational way.
This might be exactly the point you're making, or might just be related:
We tend to think that a nation's foreign policy is driven exclusively by international goals. But a nation's foreign policy is often driven in large part by domestic goals, like keeping various factions (e.g. military, religious fanatics) happy so they don't coup or rebel or vote out the government.
Matt: As I recall (the Substack search function needs a big upgrade), your general view around the US support for Saudi Arabia is that we should stop supporting the Saudis so they will have to make the hard decisions about how to coexist with their Iranian and Yemeni neighbors without relying on the awesome might of the US military.
Why doesn't this thinking also apply to the India / Pakistan situation?
I think, contrary to the other commenters, Matt just finds the US alliance with Saudi Arabia embarrassing because it is a morally bankrupt regime and (like I think many observers) believes that our siding with the Saudi side of the Saudi-Iran split was kind of an unfortunate accident of cold war history and there's no real reason to think Saudi regional hegemony is actually preferable in a substantive sense. India, while dealing with a variety of human rights problems, is certainly no Saudi Arabia.
“Feudal” doesn’t mean “monarchical.” The house of Saud, AFAIK, doesn’t rely on nobles providing their personal armies to the King in return for confirmation of their land tenure.
The India/Pakistan situation seems quite different. Neither relies on "US support" in the manner Saudi Arabia has traditionally done. And both of these countries possess nuclear weapons (and Pakistan moreover has the support of China). Also, one would *hope* they'd be willing "to make the hard decisions about how to coexist" because the alternative might eventually be national suicide. If they cannot see this basic reality themselves, how can outsiders possibly make them see reason?
Other commentators have touched on a few points I would have made, but worth reiterating (what I think) is the full list of reasons why India should be treated differently:
- One noted by other commentators. India is a democracy. A flawed democracy led by a "Trumpy" Hindu Nationalist with some less than savory opinions about non Hindus (and possible real culpability for an actual massacre of Indian Muslims), but a democracy nonetheless. For real politick reasons, we've often not allied with democracies as much as we should have, but in general (despite what Trump says) our country should value countries that are also democracies.
- India's GDP is much larger than Saudi Arabia and quite frankly a much bigger player in the world. To that end, India has much much more to offer economically than Saudi Arabia. The latter has oil and...not much else. India clearly has a thriving (and growing) IT industry. And maybe most importantly, a large cohort of engineers and other well educated graduates...which leads to 3rd point
- If there is a place in the world that we probably want to be encouraging immigration from it's India. To put in crass terms, the ROI of letting in the country Indian college graduates is enormous. And to be realistic about our current restrictionist moment, I'd say India immigrants are much less likely to engender backlash. People are pretty used to at this point Indian doctors, engineers and bosses. To put in even more crass terms, I think even a lot Americans with less than savory views of immigrants put Indians in the "good immigrant" mental bucket. And reality is, even in 2023, Americans were not nearly as restrictionist as Mr. Gestapo Stephen Miller and the rest of the Trump administration clearly is. The fact the administration is slightly underwater on what's supposed to be their strongest issue is pretty good indication that the anti-immigrant backlash was more about "chaos at the border" than it was general "I hate immigrants" (though there is a disturbing number of Americans who I think have that attitude). Closer ties to India, should mean more Indian immigrants which is a good thing.
There other reasons besides that other commentators I think have (or will) touch upon, but that's my list of reasons India is different.
This an excellent laydown of reasonings for favoring India, but in addition having India as part of a cordon sanitaire around China would really change the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. It's unlikely that India would ever become a full ally of the US in the region, like South Korea, but having them be a partner of convenience would be huge.
Note: this is in a world where we have alliances and core national interests we're pursuing. I.e., overtaken by events on Nov. 5 so probably doesn't apply any more.
As I understand Matt's argument, though, it has nothing to do with whether SA is a democracy or their general outlook on life. Instead, he thinks the US support makes them less likely to take whatever steps that are necessary to reduce tensions with Iran.
I'm sympathetic to this view, though not completely in agreement. I do wonder if US support makes India less likely to do a deal with Pakistan, though.
This is a perfect example of a conflict we should stay far, far away from. We have no skin in this game, we've asked India repeatedly to enter various alliances or organizations and while they smile and nod, they haven't done anything. And that's a good thing. If Pakistan and India hurl nukes at each other, that's bad from a humanitarian perspective but isn't remotely related to us. If India wins, that's probably a mild plus for us, but emphasis on mild. Same with Pakistan, in reverse. And if China is involved in helping Pakistan win, well, good luck governing India. It will be their Soviet and American Afghanistan times 100. There's no loss of blood, treasure or reputation if two countries outside the American sphere of influence attack one another.
Nukes makes this everyone's potential problem. But I generally agree. This is one of those situations where humility should guide us.
There is no obvious solution to be brokered, based on each country's view of the importance of a relatively unimportant territorial dispute. Neither country really values its relationship with us so deeply that it would make any concession based on making us happy, And overinvestment by us would more likely lead to an overinvolvement that we can't sustain, don't understand, and will end badly for us.
Especially since there really isn't a foreign policy consensus in the US over what we would exactly want the end state to look like beyond just having a more peaceful status quo, which means we don't have fixed goals in mind we can work towards. That gives us short-term flexibility, but no real way to guide long-term strategy for a deeper engagement.
The exchange of 400 nuclear weapons on the subcontinent could produce “a year without a summer”
“ But in 1816, summer never came to the New England states.
May frost killed off most of the crops in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In June, heavy snow smothered the ground in Albany, New York and Dennysville, Maine, while frost persisted for five consecutive nights in Cape May, New Jersey. The relentless cold weather extended into late summer, in what would have normally been harvest season. In July, lakes and rivers remained frozen as far south as northwestern Pennsylvania, while frost remained in Virginia into late August. Temperatures dipped from above-normal summer temperatures to near-freezing within mere hours. ”
"The exchange of 400 nuclear weapons on the subcontinent could produce 'a year without a summer'”
Source? 400 nuclear weapons would basically be the entire arsenals of India and Pakistan combined and, given the size of most of their nukes, it seems like they would have to be very optimally deployed in manner calculated to generate a nuclear winter scenario rather than how they would actually be used in combat.
Narrator: It's a little-known fact that most Indian call centers are located in salt caverns more than 600 feet below the surface, with NC3-rated telecommunications infrastructure and a minimum six-month supply of food and water.
So your argument is that a depression would be fine, because eventually we’ll recover from it?
I have 100% faith in greed to take care of things in the long run, but that’s kind of cold comfort in the short run.
I think it’s crazy to imply that we could eliminate the sixth largest economy from the globe, and every other country’s economy will recover in a few weeks or months.
This would not be like Covid, where the markets tanked, and then everyone discovered that the supply and demand for goods were still around, just for different goods. This would literally be removing a couple of billion people (and all of those people’s money) from the economy. Even if you think the death toll of a full out nuclear war would only be in the tens of millions (and I’d love to check your math on that), it’d grind their entire economy to a halt. The EMPs alone would basically throw India back to the Stone Age for the forseable future.
If India and Pakistan throw Nukes at each other, it will indeed be bad for us, and not just “remotely bad”. More like “economic catastrophe that could make the Great Depression look like a boom” bad. And that’s not even getting into the potential health/climate effects or the scary potential that other countries also decide to throw around some nukes.
I don’t know that we need to go back to the 80s and everyone having constant existential angst about the world ending due to Nuclear war, but it would help us all to remember that an actual full blown Nuclear war would be a complete and utter disaster for the whole globe, not just a remote humanitarian crisis.
I didn't say it would be a good thing. It would obviously be a terrible thing in the unlikely even this becomes a full on nuclear war. but the worst possible thing we could do right now is to get involved apart form trying to mediate. that will instantly turn this into an uncontrollable global war with every major nuclear power involved. A regional South Asian war is much easier to control/avoid if none of the big players are entwined in it. Russia and Ukraine is still far more likely to trigger a global conflagration, with one nuclear power directly involved and the rest indirectly. and several years in, everyone has shown restraint when it comes to nuclear weapons. the risk from India Pakistan is much lower, and the case for our getting involved in any way is nonexistent.
I guess this is covered by the article, but to restate it in dumbed-down terms that even I can understand, it seems to me that yes we should ally with India, but we want to ally with India against China, not ally with India against Pakistan. The more India is going to direct whatever help we give them toward their beef with Pakistan, the less it's in our interests to give them that help.
"...that even I can understand..."--relatedly, it was wild when Matt wrote "But I think for most Americans, the (basically true) idea that Muslims and Hindus have been at odds in South Asia on-and-off for a long time is roughly their desired level of engagement with the situation." There is no way most Americans know this!!!
"Noah Smith wrote a piece last year making the point that Pakistan should try to quash the beef with India, stop stretching its fiscal resources on military equipment, and try to get more trade going with both India and Bangladesh. This seems like good advice, but every country has its own internal politics to contend with, and I think Pakistan is in an unusually difficult position, because the foundational concept of the state is that Muslim-majority land shouldn’t be ruled by India."
This would not only be in Pakistan's interests, but also in our interests. We'd be much better off if we could somehow make Pakistan happy, rather than having the assistance we give India be frittered away on fighting Pakistan qua China's proxy.
War is bad but I'm not really that worried about nuclear exchanges. Neither side is going to use nukes to resolve a relatively small disputed area, especially not when the other side also has nukes so usage is unlikely to actually result in a strategic victory. I think overall the entire nuclear aspect of this conflict is dramatically overweighted because of its flashiness and apocalyptic imagery (i.e. due to media incentives and the innate narrative sensibilities of the human mind), while Russia-Ukraine proves a long term conventional meat grinder is plenty horrible and fairly sustainable for even quite poor nations.
What will happen is that this will break down the idea of the nuclear deterrent. More and more elites around the world are beginning to realize that, while nuclear weapons are fine for deterring existential threats, they are not exactly useful for managing escalation crisis in disputed regions. Combine that with the collapse of a global hegemon and you're in for much more frequent and bloody conventional conflicts. God preserve us.
As long as Pakistan remains with the military in charge, sure. Pakistan has never had a religious millenarian regime, in all its back and forths between civilian and military government, but there’s nothing guaranteeing that this remains true.
Matt leaves out that early on Pakistan was less “socialist” than India and was naturally growing faster. Plus India placed itself at the head of the “Non Aligned (with the West) Movement.”
Then a military government to shore up support took the country in an Islamic direction (with the help of our wonderful Saudi “allies” who were destabilizing potentially secular Muslim-majority state world wide) which made it much more difficult to consistently and effectively suppress anti-Indian terrorists or providing refuge for the Taliban. [It is no coincidence that Osama ben Laden was found in Pakistan.]
"India started building a strong relationship with the then-Soviet Union in the mid-1950s during the Cold War, then strengthened those ties over conflicts with Pakistan.
The Soviet Union helped mediate a cease-fire between India and Pakistan to end the 1965 war over control of the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. Then, during India’s war with Pakistan in December 1971, the Soviet Union used its veto power to support India at the United Nations, while the U.S. ordered a task force into the Bay of Bengal in support of Pakistan.
India and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of peace, friendship, and cooperation in August 1971. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was replaced by the Treaty of Indo-Russian Friendship and Cooperation in January 1993."
"India started looking for Soviet arms after its bloody war with China in 1962.
In the early 1990s, the USSR represented about 70% of Indian army weapons, 80% of its air force systems, and 85% of its navy platforms.
India bought its first aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, from Russia in 2004. The carrier had served in the former Soviet Union and later in the Russian Navy."
NAM meant you were not in NATO or the Warsaw pact. NAM countries were still closer to one or the other superpower. Philippines were non-aligned, but closer to America than the USSR. Egypt accepted a lot os US support, Syria more USSR support, etc.
And there were others that were quite obviously capitalist. But the point is that they didn’t let their economic system ally them in geopolitics with one of the big two blocs.
For eight years we were forced to listen to Obama pronounce Pakistan as “Pahk-i-stahn” like some undergrad returning from study abroad telling you “It’s actually pronounced: Barth-elona” and what did we get for it? Nothing!
Or maybe the "woke" slur is being defined-down to mean merely "alert" or "capable of minimal cognitive effort". Is it now "woke" to know your right foot from your left?
In this spirit of alternate history questions: was there ever an alternative to partition in which india/pakistan/bangladesh continued on a single independent country? what would it look like now?
There was - the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946. It was basically a weak federal system that would have had an intermediate level of government between federal and state. That level would have been groups of provinces: a) those in northwest of India (basically what is Pakistan+Indian Punjab), b) provinces in the East (what is today West Bengal+Bangladesh+the 7 Sisters), and c) everything else. The "princely states", or the fiefdoms the British hadn't directly annexed, would be allowed to maintain some autonomy within the federal union. Basically, the idea was to accomodate the idea of Pakistan within the federal union.
The problem is that by this point the Muslim League and the Indian Congress had basically 0 trust in each other to make a union like this work. Beyond that, India's founding fathers (correctly imo) believed that the newly independent nation would need a strong central government, and so rejected the plan.
A related counter-factual is if the Congress had proposed that Jinnah be independent India's first leader. Quaid-e-Azam of an undivided India is a much bigger deal and Jinnah would have gone for it. I think the Mahatma would have gone for it too, and could have leaned on Nehru to convince him. As it is Jinnah had terminal tuberculosis and a very short time to live, and Nehru would have succeeded him in a matter of months.
The challenge here is if this would have just made the RSS much more powerful overnight. I kind of wonder if a Leopold Senghor-style solution (having a member of a religious minority as leader to avoid having any of the bigger religious groups jostling for power amongst themselves) would require a leader from a smaller religious group. That would be hard since Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism still draws a lot from Hinduism, the Muslim League was probably too powerful a bloc for their leader to play this role, and a Christian wouldn't have been chosen right after getting independence from the British. That would leave a Zoroastrian or a Bahai leader and there likely wasn't anyone who had enough clout and the demographic needs at the same time.
Akaash below brings up an interesting scenario. Another alternate history is one in which the British government didn't come up with the date of independence (and therefore partition) on a whim during a press conference and stick to that date just to save face.
On social media, there’s definitely a lot of assumptions about how one’s political opponents must be perfectly unified, and must have a perfectly polarized set of things they are supporting. Leftists must support every single Muslim state, and since they call Modi racist they must all support his enemy, and therefore they must be perfectly unified behind Pakistan. (Never mind that George W Bush was big into Pakistan.)
There is definitely a strain of leftism that supports Pakistan as the more modern state that doesn't have caste and is more "rational". Very strong in Britain, where you have lots of leftists who really dislike India and its attempts to create a plurinational state.
I've been quite critical in the past about MY's writing on Asia (and I thought that during its good years, Vox's work on Asia was the weakest part of their coverage across the board), but this was quite a good piece for a non-specialist.
Adding to what FrigidWind said, I strongly suspect it also depends in large part on how long the control has existed.
If Russian forces overran your town a few weeks ago, you're probably either not paying taxes to anyone (because it seems highly unlikely that Russian tax authorities are on the ball enough to get information into their systems that quickly) or -- with modern electronic payroll systems and such -- maybe even still paying taxes to Ukraine (since if your employer and its bank are in Kyiv or somewhere else free of Russian influence, I doubt they'd change their accounting records to treat you as suddenly being employed in Russia).
In the case of Kashmir, on the other hand, the "Line of Control" hasn't moved substantially in decades, so the local populations are almost certainly paying taxes to the country that actually controls the physical location they are situated on.
>I think most people underrate the extent to which the current US-China cold war dynamic drastically increases the odds of wars around the world. Not because either the United States or China particularly wants to see wars break out, but because actors everywhere are increasingly able to rely on US-China antagonism to ensure they have support, almost regardless of what they do.
Thank you. It feels like for the past 5 years everyone in the US has become a China hawk, arguing for deinvestment, tariffs meant to hurt their economy, containment, etc and many portray them in a demonizing light. They then set out a set of policy proposals that would make conflict much more likely with them than keeping them as a partner (albeit on better terms).
The only way to avert conflict is for the United States to pre-emptively concede that China has a right to Taiwan and a sphere of influence in East and Southeast Asia. If we don't want to do that, conflict is inevitable, and thus we should pursue policies that strengthen our hand.
The calculation the US has made is that said decision has already been made by Chinese leadership. I assume the immense and drastic emergence of a bipartisan China hawk consensus is backed by some kind of confidential intelligence, but even based on what is public this calculation makes a lot of sense. China grows more bellicose toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea every year, its military expansion has been incredibly rapid, and the public statements of the party have been very consistent that they do not intend to delay the question of reunification for another generation, and that they will see it resolved peacefully if possible and forcefully if not within the next decade.
The idea that interdependence = deterrence in this conflict is just very outdated and wishful thinking. This is an incredibly nationalist party-state, not a liberal democracy focused on maximizing voters' subjective sense of economic well-being.
To be clear, I do think the US should prepare for that scenario. The US should pursue policies that allow it to build critical items at home or allied nations, have state capacity for weapons, chips, and other strategic items. This is part of deterrence too. What I object to is antagonizing policies that make conflict more likely than not.
"I assume the immense and drastic emergence of a bipartisan China hawk consensus is backed by some kind of confidential intelligence"
This is a big assumption. It could just as easily be the case that people find it politically expedient since Trump was very successful with his "CHINA!' jabs. But even if it were the case, acting as if this were a made decision would surely lead to mistakes. Game theory scenarios in dark rooms does not predict the world reliably, and it's a mistake to assume the are foregone conclusions.
I don't even think that would prevent conflict. An emboldened Chinese naval power would probably start buzzing Hawaii and Samoa. The Russians are already buzzing Alaska. Sadly I think conflict is probably inevitable
We should concede Taiwan once the chips have been reshored somewhere more secure. No consitutency for directly fighting the Chinese in their backyard if general loss of interest in supplying the Ukranians is any indicaiton.
Taiwan will be hard to defend from a PRC takeover attempt and this is unfortunate. But if we simply concede it, then the other, more important states in the region will draw their own conclusions about America's role in the region and either build resistance to China without the US or (far more likely) make accommodations to the PRC that will include excluding America from the region across all kinds of activities.
We're well on the way to this latter alternative under Trump.
So I think that the restrained realist perspective on American strategy is reasonable if we actually choose to pivot in that direction, but on this narrow question I don't think it's that difficult to ensure public support if we choose to pursue a strategy of defending Taiwanese autonomy. To some extent this is already basically guaranteed. There are two paths to a war in Taiwan, and they both require China to directly attack Americans. Americans don't really care about Ukraine that much because they don't understand America's investment in the war. If it can be sold as a war of retribution or containment against China, rather than to defend the interests of the Taiwanese people, it will go much better.
1) China engages in a first-strike action as a prelude to amphibious assault. This will require them to attack American bases in the region, as the only hope of successful amphibious assault is to neutralize America's overwhelming air advantage by destroying planes while they're still on the ground. China can win the sea war, but they have no hope of winning the air war as things currently stand. American planes destroyed, American servicemen killed -> the public is angry and wants revenge, political support guaranteed.
2) China engages in a blockade. America sends in naval relief columns. Either China allows aid to be unloaded, neutering the efficacy of the blockade, or they fire on American aid ships -> the public is angry and wants revenge, political support guaranteed.
This seems an odd conclusion to take from Ukraine. My observation is that if drones continue to advance, it will become ever more difficult for China to take Taiwan. Their best option is likely some type of embargo, but that's also likely to be difficult to maintain.
This is an important and informative, but biased and flawed, argument.
Firstly, this post is way too soft on Clinton, Bush, and Obama for our cynical (and seemingly counterproductive, at best) relationship with Pakistan. Easy to say in retrospect, I know, but the idea that Pakistan fit into the category of "with friends like these..." was salient even at the time. Pakistan clearly had its hands dirty in terrorism targeting America and American interests even back in the 1990s. Not to mention their *central* role in nuclear proliferation at the time!
And, secondly, this essay bizarrely doesn't even acknowledge that the Trump Administration (contra brand) not only engaged with this topic, but actually brokered the cease-fire! That certainly makes the Trump-as-isolationist framing more complex and reveals something that's been discussed about the Trump Administration's foreign policy: that it contains multitudes, at best, and is an incoherent mess, at worst. Either way, *somebody* in the Trump Admistration decided that this was important enough to quash very quickly.
Also, wouldn't it be interesting and important to acknowledge the scale of this clash!? It was allegedly actually the biggest dogfight since WWII! At least two top-of-the-line Indian air force jets downed in the melee that involved over a hundred planes. That's paradigm-shifting. Much like the Ukraine land war has been.
Trump and Rubio claimed the US had brokered the ceasefire but India denied that was the case, so I’m not sure we yet exactly know what took place.
Here's what Al Jazeera is reporting:
"While Islamabad has thanked Washington for facilitating the ceasefire and welcomed Trump’s offer to mediate on the Kashmir dispute with India, New Delhi has not commented on US involvement in the truce or talks at a neutral site."
I can't think of a scenario where Pakistan would be incentived to overstate the role the US played.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/11/fragile-truce-holds-between-india-pakistan-after-days-of-fierce-exchanges
Pakistan in general wants to internationalize the issue for decades, while India has preferred to keep it bilateral (due to their differences in relative power), so that may be affecting their incentives as well.
I agree with all that. But I think it just further supports the reporting that Washington actually facilitated the ceasefire and then went further (supporting Geoffrey G's point that Matt ignored this reporting) by offering to mediate talks.
Maybe? It could also mean that Pakistan has an incentive to flatter the US right now to get them more involved, especially since we truly don't know the details of how exactly the talks went down at this early date.
Everyone is reporting the US facilitated the ceasefire. The WP probably has the best direct quotes:
https://archive.is/0U6fq#selection-527.1-527.59
Okay, well here’s a scenario: suppose the US president was a corrupt narcissist with few fixed principles and a reputation for being willing to corrupt US policy in favour of people who do him political or personal favours
Sounds farfetched -- the Electoral College would kick in to prevent that kind of thing!
What does an alternative vision for our relationship with Pakistan look like? Iran-esque sanctions for their nuclear build up?
You are severely underrating the disruptive role America plays in Pakistani internal politics. Imran Khan made a whole thing about US involvement in his ouster. Obv it’s exaggerated but there’s a leaked diplomatic cable, known as the “cypher,” reportedly detailing a conversation where U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu expressed that relations with Pakistan would improve if Khan were removed, and warned of isolation if he remained in power. After widespread documented allegations of rigging and suppression in 2024 Pakistani elections, Biden admin was eager to let it slide and not use diplomatic condemnation as Pakistani military dictatorship is more pliant for American interests. There’s a whole thing called diplomacy where State Department and not just the DOD conduct foreign policy, outside of the purview of sanctions and military attacks.
The funny thing about Khan is that the army propped him up because they didn’t like Nawaz Sharif (basically due to personality conflicts and resentment over a coup), and Khan just went ahead and turned on them after Bajwa didn’t get his man and threw a hissy fit. Sharif (either one) would have been much less volatile for Bajwa to handle.
Ya, but my point was to highlight American’s role. It’s striking to me how people think there’s nothing to foreign policy besides sanctions and military action. I’m a dove and I think the quality of diplomats has severely deteriorated in America, i think it has something to do with the shift of funding away from State Department and towards DOD and military buildups. Henry Kissinger was a monster and I don’t necessarily agree with Mika Brzezinski’s vision but these were serious thinkers. Hilary Clinton was appointed not for her intellect in FP but for coalition politics and Blinken was extremely unimpressive. Let’s not even get to Trump appointees.
>Mika Brzezinski’s vision
Wow, what a downgrade from Zbigniew!
(Yes, I know, Polish names are hard - seriously kurwa. Stand by for Drosophilist to rap you on the knuckles)
What appointees??🤪
This is one of the biggest problems with Pakistani politics. There is this persistent attempt by Pakistani politicians to paint themselves as pawns of the greater powers, whether they be the US, China, India, Saudi Arabia, or Israel. Somehow Pakistani officials don't have any agency of their own and are just prey to external conspiracies. It's terrible for governance in the country
If anything we should support Pakistan. It looks like they are getting more aggressive due to Indias interesting wealth and support from the USA at least. I think we need Pakistans support in fighting potential terrorist groups in that country and Afghanistan. Who knows if that country will remain “stable “ .
I think people vastly overestimate the Pakistani military junta’s ability to control the “groups” let alone govern. Kind of a bigger problem up there is that it’s like they’re a rider of a very skittish horse. They have some control but could lose it very quickly, and are limited in what intelligence they can provide to India about coming attacks even if they wanted to.
>Firstly, this post is way too soft on Clinton, Bush, and Obama for our cynical (and seemingly counterproductive, at best) relationship with Pakistan.
At least for Bush and Obama the key driver there was military logistics. Evidently if you can't go through Pakistan, it's very difficult and expensive to get equipment to Afghanistan.
Trump isn't an isolationist. He is best described as a "sovereigntist" ("I do what I want").
Autarkic imperialist has a nicer ring and is more specific. Credit to Jeet Heer for the coinage.
My pitch is that Trump's style of authoritarianism is "sultanist" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanism), but Kim Il Sung is included as an example sultanism, so that can be harmonized with "autarkic imperialist."
Basically Kim Il-sung with a bigger army?
Sultanist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanism
The wallet inspector is making his rounds today, please be prepared to hand over your wallet for inspection.
Woah really? I just assumed a couple of jets got tagged by ground based anti air! Any handy links to the details?
> And, secondly, this essay bizarrely doesn't even acknowledge that the Trump Administration (contra brand)
It's contra brand for *Trump*, but as we know from his first term, he's so uninterested in foreign policy, he just lets his Sec State do whatever he wants, as long as its not directly involving him, and it sounds like that is what happened here too. Rubio's been shit overall, but he did the right thing here.
There is a key sentence in the post: "we’re now backing an increase in Indian military capacity against Pakistan for reasons that have nothing to do with Pakistan." This isn't totally true. a large part of the reason the US has turned to India is that Pakistan has showed itself to be an incredibly unreliable ally on anything of import and its fixation with military confrontation and claims on Indian territory mean it is very poorly governed thus leading to its economy being a basketcase.
Those are the reasons the US has turned away from Pakistan. But it’s turned to India partly because they’re a natural partner in corralling China and partly for personal reasons between Trump and Modi. Those aren’t about Pakistan at all.
Also India's wealth, as Matt noted. All else equal, it's better to be allied with the rising power with 5x the GDP than its mortal enemy.
The Trump/Modi bromance is interesting. Trump talked about Modi on the Flagrant podcast (w/ Andrew Schultz and Akaash Singh), and it seemed as if Trump actually liked (or at least respected) Modi.
Sure, but Pakistan has made it easy for them by turning on the US at every opportunity.
Bloomberg is reporting that Trump simply took credit for a ceasefire already agreed-to by the Pakistan & Indian militaries, so I think you're a little credulous about Trump's claims
Random tidbit of information:
In spite of the Nixon administration screwing over Bangladesh, Bangladeshis seems to like us pretty well while Pakistanis hate us. Go figure.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/views-of-the-u-s/
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2015/06/23/1-americas-global-image/
Also, up until recently (I haven't seen data for 2024), Bangladeshi Americans were possibly the most Democrat-aligned ethnic group in America, dating back to Nixon screwing them over and Ted Kennedy standing up for them. So they seem to hold animosity towards Nixon specifically rather than America as a whole. 🤷
I think there is also a pretty long standing tradition of Bangladeshis immigrating to the US for school.
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/212687/coming-america.aspx
I've posted this data before, but Bangladesh seems to be the only Muslim-majority country where a large number of residents are interested in moving to the US. Could be for school, not sure. The data doesn't get more specific than that.
Looking at Hamtramack, I would be astounded if those BD-American #s were true.
Which numbers? Their approval of us or something else?
Sorry, thats regarding the last point on Bangladeshi Americans post 2024
Oh, voting Democrat? No I don't think they do anymore. A ton of Muslims voted for Jill Stein lol a lot of good that did
Everyone in Western democracies in somewhere between neutral with pro-Indian sympathies to completely supportive of India. The failure of India to ally with the Western democracies lies with their foreign policy establishment that still harks back to Congress's third world unity idea.
India is both a proud country, and one that is now governed by a shrilly nationalistic party. "Allying with the Western democracies" has traditionally meant "joining a coalition led by the United States" and I don't believe India—the world's largest country (and largest democracy)—is willing to be *led* by anyone (But sure, like most governments, New Delhi is opportunistic, and will seek common cause where it makes sense).
Fun fact: India's GDP in international dollars is now about 60% (SIXTY!) of the size of the USA's. This is not your father's geopolitical landscape.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
They'll probably bump us to number three by 2040 or so, maybe sooner if MAGA extends its governance into the 2030s.
FWIW, the shrilly nationalist party in question has put in power a foreign policy team that is India's most pro-American one yet.
Otherwise this is fair - but would also note that it has been a while since the US built an alliance or a long-term partnership with a country that was relatively not dependent on us.
Been a while since we built an alliance? NATO has definitely been expanding recently. And the Quad talks are all about getting tighter ties with India
You're missing the latter bit of that sentence. India is much less dependent on the US than Sweden or Finland.
Its not an partnership of equals, but its much closer to parity than any other relationship the US has worked on in living policymaker memory
You are assuming this miss the middle income trap (the same one that is hitting China hard right now.)
I don't think there's that much evidence of a Chinese middle income trap. The classic middle income disease is structurally deficient investment, a government capable of sustaining basic order but not capable of sophisticated management, and a lack of growth at the top of the value chain.
None of these apply to China, which has tons of domestic investment, high levels of state capacity and massive growth in high-tech sectors. There are weaknesses in the Chinese economy but they seem like policy problems rather than structural deficiencies. Even their demographic crisis isn't *that* bad, their birthrate is low but they have quite a few years left of having a large working-age population.
The "middle income trap" seems not as tight as the "NIMBY-deficits-anti-'Abundance'" trap that holds the US. China's pc GDP is still outpacing ours and they will be only marginally harmed by US trade policy which is disaster for us.
" China's pc GDP is still outpacing ours and they will be only marginally harmed by US trade policy which is disaster for us."
This seems way off...? They are incredibly dependent on exports and most of the places in the world with money are becoming increasing unwilling to accept ever increasing amounts of Chinese exports.
China also has issues with TFP growth. Most of their growth has been from capital accumulation.
I'm not assuming that at all. India could very well get caught in the middle income trap, that's true. But that wouldn't prevent them from having a larger GDP than the United States (any more than this phenomenon has prevented China from passing us).
I am pessimistic that many societies get old before they get rich. It is a narrow needle to thread.
China could reasonably be considered the world’s most technologically advanced country. It’s deliberately keeping its GDP down in several ways. It’s not in any kind of trap.
It's deliberately keeping consumer spending suppressed, but not GDP.
Consumer spending is included in GDP
Eh, China's demographics are not good. And its TFR might be lower than it is reporting.
The CCP is keeping consumption down deliberately, but doesn't have a button to magically shift that, as its economy and financial system is built around that model. In the short to medium term it's in a bit of a trap as long as the regime is unwilling to take on the adjustment.
They do have a button. Their currency is 20% under-valued today.
They can’t magically create demand for all the EVs they’re creating, and revaluing their currency would mean reducing int’l demand for their exports
They would be third biggest economy in the world if they got stuck in the middle income trap.
> if MAGA extends its governance into the 2030s
:sobbing:
It's a stretch even to call what they are doing now, "governance." Is the thinking that by 2030, they will have figured it out?
No, it's that despite running the economy into the ground, they could STILL win because of cultural issues or electoral malfeasance. That's presumably what Zane is worried about.
Maybe we will get the GOP alternative to the ACA and get a repeal and replace?
Of course the ACA is, basically, the GOP healthcare plan. It was, more or less, a combination of the proposed HEART act (Republican - John Chaffee) and a bunch of "Heritage Foundation" ideas. But if they actually had a more market based proposal, I would be happy to see it.
Matt doesn't make this point, but the growing asymetry in power between the two makes Pakistan not only more reliable on nuclear deterrence but probably more prone to reach to asymmetrical warfare options like the group that started this latest round. Which is bad.
Apart from its reliance on nuclear retaliation (I wouldn't say "deterrence"),* Pakistan seems to be behaving in an irrational manner. India is far larger and far more powerful than Pakistan and the future trends just show that gap growing enormously. A rational state would try to ameliorate the situation by pursuing policies to strengthen its economy (and thus its military) and in the meantime to not go out of its way to antagonize its far more powerful neighbor. Pakistan is doing the reverse of both of those. Man, it must really think its nuclear weapons give it an ace in the hole that allows it to do whatever it wants.
* Or at least not to deter India's use of its own nuclear arsenal. India, the by far superior military power, doesn't need to rely on nukes to defeat Pakistan. Pakistan needs to rely on its nukes to deter an Indian *conventional* victory whereas India would only use its nukes in response to a Pakistani nuclear attack. The huge danger here is Pakistan's temptation for first use of nuclear weapons, aggravated by its underlying weakness and its insane need and desire to provoke and attack India.
I think Pakistan is one of the cases where the fact that a state is not a unitary actor but is rather the emergent product of millions of individuals is much more important. If it were truly a unitary state that could make its own decisions, it could make them more rationally. But when the state keeps getting replaced by the military, or a democratic restoration, or a possible Islamist revolution, or who knows what else, it’s hard for the state to operate in a rational way.
This might be exactly the point you're making, or might just be related:
We tend to think that a nation's foreign policy is driven exclusively by international goals. But a nation's foreign policy is often driven in large part by domestic goals, like keeping various factions (e.g. military, religious fanatics) happy so they don't coup or rebel or vote out the government.
You mean to say more reliant on nuclear deterrance.
Yes, blaming autocorrect
Right and I think this is why we need to be more even handed with both countries, not just prop up India because they are a counterweight to china.
Matt: As I recall (the Substack search function needs a big upgrade), your general view around the US support for Saudi Arabia is that we should stop supporting the Saudis so they will have to make the hard decisions about how to coexist with their Iranian and Yemeni neighbors without relying on the awesome might of the US military.
Why doesn't this thinking also apply to the India / Pakistan situation?
I think, contrary to the other commenters, Matt just finds the US alliance with Saudi Arabia embarrassing because it is a morally bankrupt regime and (like I think many observers) believes that our siding with the Saudi side of the Saudi-Iran split was kind of an unfortunate accident of cold war history and there's no real reason to think Saudi regional hegemony is actually preferable in a substantive sense. India, while dealing with a variety of human rights problems, is certainly no Saudi Arabia.
I think this is correct. Though I would say that Pakistan is a whole lot like Saudi Arabia.
Even Saudi Arabia doesn't have feudalism.
Umm, Saudi Arabia is a direct feudal state run by a ruling family.
“Feudal” doesn’t mean “monarchical.” The house of Saud, AFAIK, doesn’t rely on nobles providing their personal armies to the King in return for confirmation of their land tenure.
Pakistan doesn't work this way. Its military is way more professional and less feudal than the Saudi military.
The India/Pakistan situation seems quite different. Neither relies on "US support" in the manner Saudi Arabia has traditionally done. And both of these countries possess nuclear weapons (and Pakistan moreover has the support of China). Also, one would *hope* they'd be willing "to make the hard decisions about how to coexist" because the alternative might eventually be national suicide. If they cannot see this basic reality themselves, how can outsiders possibly make them see reason?
Other commentators have touched on a few points I would have made, but worth reiterating (what I think) is the full list of reasons why India should be treated differently:
- One noted by other commentators. India is a democracy. A flawed democracy led by a "Trumpy" Hindu Nationalist with some less than savory opinions about non Hindus (and possible real culpability for an actual massacre of Indian Muslims), but a democracy nonetheless. For real politick reasons, we've often not allied with democracies as much as we should have, but in general (despite what Trump says) our country should value countries that are also democracies.
- India's GDP is much larger than Saudi Arabia and quite frankly a much bigger player in the world. To that end, India has much much more to offer economically than Saudi Arabia. The latter has oil and...not much else. India clearly has a thriving (and growing) IT industry. And maybe most importantly, a large cohort of engineers and other well educated graduates...which leads to 3rd point
- If there is a place in the world that we probably want to be encouraging immigration from it's India. To put in crass terms, the ROI of letting in the country Indian college graduates is enormous. And to be realistic about our current restrictionist moment, I'd say India immigrants are much less likely to engender backlash. People are pretty used to at this point Indian doctors, engineers and bosses. To put in even more crass terms, I think even a lot Americans with less than savory views of immigrants put Indians in the "good immigrant" mental bucket. And reality is, even in 2023, Americans were not nearly as restrictionist as Mr. Gestapo Stephen Miller and the rest of the Trump administration clearly is. The fact the administration is slightly underwater on what's supposed to be their strongest issue is pretty good indication that the anti-immigrant backlash was more about "chaos at the border" than it was general "I hate immigrants" (though there is a disturbing number of Americans who I think have that attitude). Closer ties to India, should mean more Indian immigrants which is a good thing.
There other reasons besides that other commentators I think have (or will) touch upon, but that's my list of reasons India is different.
This an excellent laydown of reasonings for favoring India, but in addition having India as part of a cordon sanitaire around China would really change the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. It's unlikely that India would ever become a full ally of the US in the region, like South Korea, but having them be a partner of convenience would be huge.
Note: this is in a world where we have alliances and core national interests we're pursuing. I.e., overtaken by events on Nov. 5 so probably doesn't apply any more.
As I understand Matt's argument, though, it has nothing to do with whether SA is a democracy or their general outlook on life. Instead, he thinks the US support makes them less likely to take whatever steps that are necessary to reduce tensions with Iran.
I'm sympathetic to this view, though not completely in agreement. I do wonder if US support makes India less likely to do a deal with Pakistan, though.
Because they may fire nuclear weapons at each other?
Nukes maybe?
This is a perfect example of a conflict we should stay far, far away from. We have no skin in this game, we've asked India repeatedly to enter various alliances or organizations and while they smile and nod, they haven't done anything. And that's a good thing. If Pakistan and India hurl nukes at each other, that's bad from a humanitarian perspective but isn't remotely related to us. If India wins, that's probably a mild plus for us, but emphasis on mild. Same with Pakistan, in reverse. And if China is involved in helping Pakistan win, well, good luck governing India. It will be their Soviet and American Afghanistan times 100. There's no loss of blood, treasure or reputation if two countries outside the American sphere of influence attack one another.
Nukes makes this everyone's potential problem. But I generally agree. This is one of those situations where humility should guide us.
There is no obvious solution to be brokered, based on each country's view of the importance of a relatively unimportant territorial dispute. Neither country really values its relationship with us so deeply that it would make any concession based on making us happy, And overinvestment by us would more likely lead to an overinvolvement that we can't sustain, don't understand, and will end badly for us.
Especially since there really isn't a foreign policy consensus in the US over what we would exactly want the end state to look like beyond just having a more peaceful status quo, which means we don't have fixed goals in mind we can work towards. That gives us short-term flexibility, but no real way to guide long-term strategy for a deeper engagement.
The exchange of 400 nuclear weapons on the subcontinent could produce “a year without a summer”
“ But in 1816, summer never came to the New England states.
May frost killed off most of the crops in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In June, heavy snow smothered the ground in Albany, New York and Dennysville, Maine, while frost persisted for five consecutive nights in Cape May, New Jersey. The relentless cold weather extended into late summer, in what would have normally been harvest season. In July, lakes and rivers remained frozen as far south as northwestern Pennsylvania, while frost remained in Virginia into late August. Temperatures dipped from above-normal summer temperatures to near-freezing within mere hours. ”
"The exchange of 400 nuclear weapons on the subcontinent could produce 'a year without a summer'”
Source? 400 nuclear weapons would basically be the entire arsenals of India and Pakistan combined and, given the size of most of their nukes, it seems like they would have to be very optimally deployed in manner calculated to generate a nuclear winter scenario rather than how they would actually be used in combat.
Ya wanna chance it?
I agree: just to be ultimately cold-blooded in our analysis, how would a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan affect the US?
Fewer spam calls for a while.
Narrator: It's a little-known fact that most Indian call centers are located in salt caverns more than 600 feet below the surface, with NC3-rated telecommunications infrastructure and a minimum six-month supply of food and water.
Stock markets would collapse.
Supply chains would be annihilated.
Many fortunes would be lost (not just Indian fortunes), and this would have huge impacts on financial markets, consumer confidence, etc.
It would be a global depression, probably.
And this doesn't even get into what would happen to various forms of insurance.
I think you're underestimating the role of greed in human affairs.
After the initial shock people would turn back to getting theirs.
India and Pakistan just aren't that important to the world economy.
So your argument is that a depression would be fine, because eventually we’ll recover from it?
I have 100% faith in greed to take care of things in the long run, but that’s kind of cold comfort in the short run.
I think it’s crazy to imply that we could eliminate the sixth largest economy from the globe, and every other country’s economy will recover in a few weeks or months.
This would not be like Covid, where the markets tanked, and then everyone discovered that the supply and demand for goods were still around, just for different goods. This would literally be removing a couple of billion people (and all of those people’s money) from the economy. Even if you think the death toll of a full out nuclear war would only be in the tens of millions (and I’d love to check your math on that), it’d grind their entire economy to a halt. The EMPs alone would basically throw India back to the Stone Age for the forseable future.
India's imports from the US and our exports to them are pretty trivial. Their economy is growing but isn't yet a major factor on the world stage.
If India and Pakistan throw Nukes at each other, it will indeed be bad for us, and not just “remotely bad”. More like “economic catastrophe that could make the Great Depression look like a boom” bad. And that’s not even getting into the potential health/climate effects or the scary potential that other countries also decide to throw around some nukes.
I don’t know that we need to go back to the 80s and everyone having constant existential angst about the world ending due to Nuclear war, but it would help us all to remember that an actual full blown Nuclear war would be a complete and utter disaster for the whole globe, not just a remote humanitarian crisis.
I didn't say it would be a good thing. It would obviously be a terrible thing in the unlikely even this becomes a full on nuclear war. but the worst possible thing we could do right now is to get involved apart form trying to mediate. that will instantly turn this into an uncontrollable global war with every major nuclear power involved. A regional South Asian war is much easier to control/avoid if none of the big players are entwined in it. Russia and Ukraine is still far more likely to trigger a global conflagration, with one nuclear power directly involved and the rest indirectly. and several years in, everyone has shown restraint when it comes to nuclear weapons. the risk from India Pakistan is much lower, and the case for our getting involved in any way is nonexistent.
I can think of many such perfect examples but that has rarely stopped the US.
yes, and it felt like Matt wanted us to get involved in yet another one and is disappointed that the consensus seems to be to sit this one out.
I guess this is covered by the article, but to restate it in dumbed-down terms that even I can understand, it seems to me that yes we should ally with India, but we want to ally with India against China, not ally with India against Pakistan. The more India is going to direct whatever help we give them toward their beef with Pakistan, the less it's in our interests to give them that help.
Selling India arms is not "assistance" and woud be trivial if it were.
Pakistan needs to see the US relation with India as fruit of their pro-Islamist, pro-Chinese choices.
"...that even I can understand..."--relatedly, it was wild when Matt wrote "But I think for most Americans, the (basically true) idea that Muslims and Hindus have been at odds in South Asia on-and-off for a long time is roughly their desired level of engagement with the situation." There is no way most Americans know this!!!
In other words, as far as this goes:
"Noah Smith wrote a piece last year making the point that Pakistan should try to quash the beef with India, stop stretching its fiscal resources on military equipment, and try to get more trade going with both India and Bangladesh. This seems like good advice, but every country has its own internal politics to contend with, and I think Pakistan is in an unusually difficult position, because the foundational concept of the state is that Muslim-majority land shouldn’t be ruled by India."
This would not only be in Pakistan's interests, but also in our interests. We'd be much better off if we could somehow make Pakistan happy, rather than having the assistance we give India be frittered away on fighting Pakistan qua China's proxy.
How would we make Pakistan happy? Other than by trashing our ties with India.
This is a key point. There is no way to meet Pakistan's goals, because they are delusional.
War is bad but I'm not really that worried about nuclear exchanges. Neither side is going to use nukes to resolve a relatively small disputed area, especially not when the other side also has nukes so usage is unlikely to actually result in a strategic victory. I think overall the entire nuclear aspect of this conflict is dramatically overweighted because of its flashiness and apocalyptic imagery (i.e. due to media incentives and the innate narrative sensibilities of the human mind), while Russia-Ukraine proves a long term conventional meat grinder is plenty horrible and fairly sustainable for even quite poor nations.
What will happen is that this will break down the idea of the nuclear deterrent. More and more elites around the world are beginning to realize that, while nuclear weapons are fine for deterring existential threats, they are not exactly useful for managing escalation crisis in disputed regions. Combine that with the collapse of a global hegemon and you're in for much more frequent and bloody conventional conflicts. God preserve us.
“ Neither side is going to use nukes to resolve a relatively small disputed area, especially not when the other side also has nukes”
They will if they see the missiles inbound because someone loaded the early warning test file into the production missile defense system by accident.
As long as Pakistan remains with the military in charge, sure. Pakistan has never had a religious millenarian regime, in all its back and forths between civilian and military government, but there’s nothing guaranteeing that this remains true.
Matt leaves out that early on Pakistan was less “socialist” than India and was naturally growing faster. Plus India placed itself at the head of the “Non Aligned (with the West) Movement.”
Then a military government to shore up support took the country in an Islamic direction (with the help of our wonderful Saudi “allies” who were destabilizing potentially secular Muslim-majority state world wide) which made it much more difficult to consistently and effectively suppress anti-Indian terrorists or providing refuge for the Taliban. [It is no coincidence that Osama ben Laden was found in Pakistan.]
“Non Aligned (with the West) Movement.”
That is incorrect. The NAM did not ally with either the US or Russia during the Cold War. That was the whole point.
"India started building a strong relationship with the then-Soviet Union in the mid-1950s during the Cold War, then strengthened those ties over conflicts with Pakistan.
The Soviet Union helped mediate a cease-fire between India and Pakistan to end the 1965 war over control of the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. Then, during India’s war with Pakistan in December 1971, the Soviet Union used its veto power to support India at the United Nations, while the U.S. ordered a task force into the Bay of Bengal in support of Pakistan.
India and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of peace, friendship, and cooperation in August 1971. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was replaced by the Treaty of Indo-Russian Friendship and Cooperation in January 1993."
"India started looking for Soviet arms after its bloody war with China in 1962.
In the early 1990s, the USSR represented about 70% of Indian army weapons, 80% of its air force systems, and 85% of its navy platforms.
India bought its first aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, from Russia in 2004. The carrier had served in the former Soviet Union and later in the Russian Navy."
Yes, sounds very unaligned.
NAM meant you were not in NATO or the Warsaw pact. NAM countries were still closer to one or the other superpower. Philippines were non-aligned, but closer to America than the USSR. Egypt accepted a lot os US support, Syria more USSR support, etc.
My impression was it was a “non-aligned with the big two (ussr nor usa)” movement, but the US didn’t like it.
Also there were post-colonial countries in the NAM who were quite obviously Marxist.
And there were others that were quite obviously capitalist. But the point is that they didn’t let their economic system ally them in geopolitics with one of the big two blocs.
For eight years we were forced to listen to Obama pronounce Pakistan as “Pahk-i-stahn” like some undergrad returning from study abroad telling you “It’s actually pronounced: Barth-elona” and what did we get for it? Nothing!
And "Istanbul" instead of of "Constantinople." The depth of Leftist perversion knows no bounds.
If you ask me, that’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
Why did Constantinople get the works?
Maybe they just liked it better that way.
Even old New York
Was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can't say
Call it what you want, the cats run that city and we can't pronounce it the way they do.
Um, but it’s pronounced “Pahk-i-stahn”
Pronouncing things correctly is (apparently) now considered woke.
that's why I say "Meh-hee-co" when referring to our neighbors to the south
Or maybe the "woke" slur is being defined-down to mean merely "alert" or "capable of minimal cognitive effort". Is it now "woke" to know your right foot from your left?
Correctly in which language?
Reading through this generates a kind of inverse Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
You think you know something about the subject, yet come away learning more from the post and the comments.
In this spirit of alternate history questions: was there ever an alternative to partition in which india/pakistan/bangladesh continued on a single independent country? what would it look like now?
There was - the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946. It was basically a weak federal system that would have had an intermediate level of government between federal and state. That level would have been groups of provinces: a) those in northwest of India (basically what is Pakistan+Indian Punjab), b) provinces in the East (what is today West Bengal+Bangladesh+the 7 Sisters), and c) everything else. The "princely states", or the fiefdoms the British hadn't directly annexed, would be allowed to maintain some autonomy within the federal union. Basically, the idea was to accomodate the idea of Pakistan within the federal union.
The problem is that by this point the Muslim League and the Indian Congress had basically 0 trust in each other to make a union like this work. Beyond that, India's founding fathers (correctly imo) believed that the newly independent nation would need a strong central government, and so rejected the plan.
A related counter-factual is if the Congress had proposed that Jinnah be independent India's first leader. Quaid-e-Azam of an undivided India is a much bigger deal and Jinnah would have gone for it. I think the Mahatma would have gone for it too, and could have leaned on Nehru to convince him. As it is Jinnah had terminal tuberculosis and a very short time to live, and Nehru would have succeeded him in a matter of months.
I doubt Muslims would have been very happy with that turn of events.
The challenge here is if this would have just made the RSS much more powerful overnight. I kind of wonder if a Leopold Senghor-style solution (having a member of a religious minority as leader to avoid having any of the bigger religious groups jostling for power amongst themselves) would require a leader from a smaller religious group. That would be hard since Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism still draws a lot from Hinduism, the Muslim League was probably too powerful a bloc for their leader to play this role, and a Christian wouldn't have been chosen right after getting independence from the British. That would leave a Zoroastrian or a Bahai leader and there likely wasn't anyone who had enough clout and the demographic needs at the same time.
> That would leave a Zoroastrian
I present to you: Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata
Akaash below brings up an interesting scenario. Another alternate history is one in which the British government didn't come up with the date of independence (and therefore partition) on a whim during a press conference and stick to that date just to save face.
One weird social media aspect of this is the Rightist idea that US "Leftists" are supporting Pakistan!
On social media, there’s definitely a lot of assumptions about how one’s political opponents must be perfectly unified, and must have a perfectly polarized set of things they are supporting. Leftists must support every single Muslim state, and since they call Modi racist they must all support his enemy, and therefore they must be perfectly unified behind Pakistan. (Never mind that George W Bush was big into Pakistan.)
But at least they don’t kill Christians for blasphemy.
There is definitely a strain of leftism that supports Pakistan as the more modern state that doesn't have caste and is more "rational". Very strong in Britain, where you have lots of leftists who really dislike India and its attempts to create a plurinational state.
I've been quite critical in the past about MY's writing on Asia (and I thought that during its good years, Vox's work on Asia was the weakest part of their coverage across the board), but this was quite a good piece for a non-specialist.
dumb question but I hope someone will answer:
if you live in a disputed territory (e.g. Kashmir, eastern Ukraine, etc.)...who do you pay taxes to?
Whoever has actual control of your plot of land (and this may not be an organized state but a warlord or a gang).
Adding to what FrigidWind said, I strongly suspect it also depends in large part on how long the control has existed.
If Russian forces overran your town a few weeks ago, you're probably either not paying taxes to anyone (because it seems highly unlikely that Russian tax authorities are on the ball enough to get information into their systems that quickly) or -- with modern electronic payroll systems and such -- maybe even still paying taxes to Ukraine (since if your employer and its bank are in Kyiv or somewhere else free of Russian influence, I doubt they'd change their accounting records to treat you as suddenly being employed in Russia).
In the case of Kashmir, on the other hand, the "Line of Control" hasn't moved substantially in decades, so the local populations are almost certainly paying taxes to the country that actually controls the physical location they are situated on.
>I think most people underrate the extent to which the current US-China cold war dynamic drastically increases the odds of wars around the world. Not because either the United States or China particularly wants to see wars break out, but because actors everywhere are increasingly able to rely on US-China antagonism to ensure they have support, almost regardless of what they do.
Thank you. It feels like for the past 5 years everyone in the US has become a China hawk, arguing for deinvestment, tariffs meant to hurt their economy, containment, etc and many portray them in a demonizing light. They then set out a set of policy proposals that would make conflict much more likely with them than keeping them as a partner (albeit on better terms).
The only way to avert conflict is for the United States to pre-emptively concede that China has a right to Taiwan and a sphere of influence in East and Southeast Asia. If we don't want to do that, conflict is inevitable, and thus we should pursue policies that strengthen our hand.
The more decoupling that the US does from them the easier it will be for China to decide that risking a war is worth it in pursuing those objectives.
The calculation the US has made is that said decision has already been made by Chinese leadership. I assume the immense and drastic emergence of a bipartisan China hawk consensus is backed by some kind of confidential intelligence, but even based on what is public this calculation makes a lot of sense. China grows more bellicose toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea every year, its military expansion has been incredibly rapid, and the public statements of the party have been very consistent that they do not intend to delay the question of reunification for another generation, and that they will see it resolved peacefully if possible and forcefully if not within the next decade.
The idea that interdependence = deterrence in this conflict is just very outdated and wishful thinking. This is an incredibly nationalist party-state, not a liberal democracy focused on maximizing voters' subjective sense of economic well-being.
To be clear, I do think the US should prepare for that scenario. The US should pursue policies that allow it to build critical items at home or allied nations, have state capacity for weapons, chips, and other strategic items. This is part of deterrence too. What I object to is antagonizing policies that make conflict more likely than not.
"I assume the immense and drastic emergence of a bipartisan China hawk consensus is backed by some kind of confidential intelligence"
This is a big assumption. It could just as easily be the case that people find it politically expedient since Trump was very successful with his "CHINA!' jabs. But even if it were the case, acting as if this were a made decision would surely lead to mistakes. Game theory scenarios in dark rooms does not predict the world reliably, and it's a mistake to assume the are foregone conclusions.
I don't even think that would prevent conflict. An emboldened Chinese naval power would probably start buzzing Hawaii and Samoa. The Russians are already buzzing Alaska. Sadly I think conflict is probably inevitable
We should concede Taiwan once the chips have been reshored somewhere more secure. No consitutency for directly fighting the Chinese in their backyard if general loss of interest in supplying the Ukranians is any indicaiton.
Taiwan will be hard to defend from a PRC takeover attempt and this is unfortunate. But if we simply concede it, then the other, more important states in the region will draw their own conclusions about America's role in the region and either build resistance to China without the US or (far more likely) make accommodations to the PRC that will include excluding America from the region across all kinds of activities.
We're well on the way to this latter alternative under Trump.
"But if we simply concede it, then the other, more important states in the region will draw their own conclusions about America's role in the region "
I mean the general US loss of interest in sticking things out should be a clue to them.
So I think that the restrained realist perspective on American strategy is reasonable if we actually choose to pivot in that direction, but on this narrow question I don't think it's that difficult to ensure public support if we choose to pursue a strategy of defending Taiwanese autonomy. To some extent this is already basically guaranteed. There are two paths to a war in Taiwan, and they both require China to directly attack Americans. Americans don't really care about Ukraine that much because they don't understand America's investment in the war. If it can be sold as a war of retribution or containment against China, rather than to defend the interests of the Taiwanese people, it will go much better.
1) China engages in a first-strike action as a prelude to amphibious assault. This will require them to attack American bases in the region, as the only hope of successful amphibious assault is to neutralize America's overwhelming air advantage by destroying planes while they're still on the ground. China can win the sea war, but they have no hope of winning the air war as things currently stand. American planes destroyed, American servicemen killed -> the public is angry and wants revenge, political support guaranteed.
2) China engages in a blockade. America sends in naval relief columns. Either China allows aid to be unloaded, neutering the efficacy of the blockade, or they fire on American aid ships -> the public is angry and wants revenge, political support guaranteed.
This seems an odd conclusion to take from Ukraine. My observation is that if drones continue to advance, it will become ever more difficult for China to take Taiwan. Their best option is likely some type of embargo, but that's also likely to be difficult to maintain.
Wow, I wouldn't want to get into a drone war with China.
If it was going to be a war of some type, drone war seems better than most others...
Think the Chinese can build a lot more drones than any of us can!