The Yorkshire Ranter poses an interesting take on the Mumbai attack
A couple of you who are reading this need to go read that, think and understand, if you haven't already.
You know who you are.
The starting point is a spoofed phone call made earlier to Pakistan, purporting to be from the Indian foreign ministry, threatening war.
The conjecture is that the Mumbai attack was a step in a privilege-escalation attack to try, presumably, to trigger a war through a man-in-the-middle spoof corrupting the flow of information.
Each escalation lowers barriers to war, and shortens time scales to react. Unless the interval is long enough and diplomacy fast enough and intense enough to de-escalate.
If this is right, and the third party still has resources, there should now be an escalatory attack on the Pakistan side, which either corrupts information flow or lowers internal barriers to overreaction - followed by another escalatory attack in India, to try to push them over the edge while Pakistan is in disarray.
This takes cleverness, resources and timing.
Hopefully it is just overanalysis of unrelated events.
On the other hand there are apparently 15-20 Pakistani trained attackers "missing", somewhere.
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This is hardly news to anyone who is familiar with the history and politics of that part of the world. In fact it has been the obvious conclusion that many in the subcontinent reached a while ago. Though the phone call being the main event is a bit of hyperbole. That this suggestion (whether or not it is actually true) can be passed off as some sort of interesting new idea is an indictment of the pathetically amateurish coverage of the events and the situation by the media, both print and electronic. There are significant elements within Pakistani officialdom (not just rogue elements) whose purpose is well served by a war. The phone companies involved probably didn't even need to be of the el cheapo variety for this to unfold.
The thought that there are parties interested in starting a war is not new.
That the Mumbai attack might be part of a more sophisticated strategem (more than just brutalization of the attack) and possibly part of an ongoing multi-stage attack is interesting.
Particularly if the structure of the strategy is identified.
Anyway, if the coverage is poor, then encourage more coverage.
There are always all sorts of claims made through messages to the media and governments after attacks such as this. The only (scary) difference in this case appears to be the gullibility of those at the receiving end. This is the Sarah Palin campaign, with possible consequences.
Also as far as I know, there has been no Indian military alert as the article you link to asserts. With very deliberate statements saying as much.
What's more telling is the apparent response to the perceived threat. Call and complain to Condi Rice. Any guesses on whose billions keeps the country going?
There have been media reports in the last couple of days that the Indian Air Force is on high alert and that there has been partial mobilization.
Don't know how reliable these reports are.
The same reports regarding the phone call mention that as a result, the PakAF was placed on a high alert condition, up to the point that they had standing CAPs up over Islamabad.
You are just proving my point about the media. Did said reports mention that there were fears of airborne terrorist attacks a few days ago:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Now_Indian_skies_in_terror_cro…
http://www.theage.com.au/world/terror-attack-fear-at-indian-airports-20…
In any case it's but natural for the IAF to be on high alert, but mass mobilizations pointing towards war is a figment of some in the media's imagination. Note the statement in parliament by the very foreign minister who was at the center of the hoax playing down the war option.
http://www.ptinews.com/pti\ptisite.nsf/0/D583F1F8020EACCC6525751C0043B606?OpenDocument
The fact is much of the media in this country usually strings together some random combination of India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Hindu, Muslim, Nuclear weapons, and war into their "reporting" regardless of the incident in question. There's a patronizing, poor buggers can't be trusted not to go into war with nuclear weapons tone to it. Do you really think folks on the ground who will be affected by war are unaware of how ghastly an option it is ... and need to be reminded by game theory how important it is to try and avoid it? Is war still a possibility? Of course. But it's not at the top of the list. And the reality is ... that for all practical purposes it's the US that is in a low intensity war with Pakistan at the moment. I don't remember seeing articles describing those two "nuclear weapons states" at war. Do you?
crude google shows an Intel Daily report in Sep '08, an Heritage Foundation article and Global Security all show recent articles discussing clashes between US and Pakistan forces and the danger of escalation. There were reports in 2007 that Musharraf had threatened the US with nuclear weapons if cross-border incidents escalated.
I previously blogged on stories that US Special Forces were in situ to seize Pakistani nukes in case of conflict or government collapse.
Yes, people worry about an escalating was between India and Pakistan - there have been three shooting wars on the border in the last 60 years, and several smaller clashes. Both nations are nuclear, and there is active concern that Pakistan does not have Permissive Action Links or equivalent controls on their nuked, they are also very vulnerable to the Indian Armed Forces, which, quite frankly, look like they'd squish Pakistan in a conventional conflict now.
Pakistan also has severe economic and political instability and an internal faction that apparently might be actively interested in provoking war. Possibly including war with the US.
However a large fraction of US media articles in the last week have been reassuring about how they think there will NOT be a war between India and Pakistan.
Four wars, not three! There was a full fledged shooting war in Kargil in 1999, after both countries had officially declared nuclear capabilities. The Indian forces fought uphill to retake mountain peaks and took very heavy casualties in the process when it would have been easier to enter Pakistani territory and cut them off. Precisely to avert a larger war. How often have you seen this *very* restrained response reported?
Of course you've talked about larger issues, but I am talking about the mass media (anyway, my fellow astronomers are many sigma outliers on the world awareness scale ... in a good way).
The perpetrators were likely as interested in provoking communal clashes in India as an outright war. The only heartwarming aspect in all this is the very strong stand taken by the Indian Muslim community to vociferously say not in our name, and the (so far) peaceful but strongly united response in India.
But yes, Pakistan is at a dangerous crossroads. People in the neighborhood have warned of it for a few decades. Handing over billions of $$s to prop up dictators and their army with little or no discussion is short sighted and hasn't helped.
I was counting '99 as a "skirmish"...
India has been very restrained, I hope they remain so, and I guess the point of the posts was to note the hint that there is planned escalation of provokation.
But clearly there is an element, within Pakistan, with resources, which is actively seeking to "broaden the conflict".
That should capture the essence.
No issues at all with you overall take. Only quibble is with some of the accepted generalizations.
> I was counting '99 as a "skirmish"...
Never understood why. Both 47-48 & 99 were fought within the confines of Kashmir. The former involved a ragtag bunch of tribal fighters. The casualties were similar/higher in 99. So why is one a skirmish (it's called a war in India)? One plausible explanation is that it spoils the media narrative of a hair-trigger nuclear war alert.