more on privilege-escalation attack

Oh please Steinn stop encouraging conspiracy theorists who have story that is in search of facts! Invoking "nuclear war" at the drop of a hat is ridiculous. There never was a serious threat of a war much less a nuclear war. See for example this article in The Economist

Especially - "The alacrity with which the Pakistani army rushed to embrace the threat of an Indian military reprisal was remarkable. In fact, India did not explicitly threaten any such thing."

Note that all the talk about this came from the Pakistani side and was a convenient distraction from the actual issues at hand. Conspiracy theorists willingly play into those hands.

While there is no doubt that there are elements which would like to provoke a war it does take two to tango. To imply that there are no thoughtful parties that do not realize the implications of going to war is downright patronizing. Forget "nuclear war" there are plenty of responsible people that realize that even a completely decisive conventional war raises the uncomfortable question of, "what next?" Not everyone is cowboy Bush ...

And pointing to Kashmir as the sole/primary motivation is also ill-informed couch potato analysis. Read the statements/manifestos by various groups like the LeT. They explicitly state they have a problem with the very idea/State of India. Kashmir is one rallying cry, amongst a host of others. Note that the LeT that is lazily called a Kashmiri group by much of the mainstream (US) press is mostly a Pakistani Punjabi group with few Kashmiris.

So, please stop feeding the trolls.

hey
what took you so long?!

what I find interesting, and why I read what Alex says, is not that India might have gone to war, but that someone allegedly tried to get them to

if nothing else, knowing that people are trying to spoof diplomacy at tense moments is useful

there is also the question of whether India was actually needed, contrary to popular wisdom it only takes one to start a war, it takes two to stop it

If I said work would you believe it?

I took the bait anyway :-)

The problem is the entire episode till the threat being supposedly taken seriously happened in Pakistan and India wasn't involved at all. In any case I would wager that many such threats are around such events and responsible people take it with the requisite grains of salt. The song and dance around this is unwarranted.

The only way this could have devolved into a "nuclear war" is if someone unilaterally broke into the armory and started lobbing nuclear bombs. That indeed can't be stopped. But anyone with the inclination and wherewhithal to do that doesn't need an elaborate setup. At least such characters do not have access ... yet? (shudder). But that is very different scenario from provoking war that escalates.

If you really want a conspiracy theory I'll point out that the Indian cricket team was supposed to tour Pakistan and the Sri Lankans attacked yesterday substituted at the last minute. Now if that had been India instead ... I shudder to think of the consequences. But it would be a far greater provocation than the scenario laid out above.

I didn't say, or imply, that India was in any way involved.

We know for a fact that the Pakistan Air Force was placed on quick-reaction alert. We also know that somebody posed as the Indian foreign ministry to threaten Pakistan, presumably in the hope their response would provoke India. We further know, based on the evidence the Indian side placed in the public domain, that the attackers set up a fairly complicated VoIP rig for their own use.

> presumably in the hope their response would provoke India.

Sigh! "India is the only country in the world which has a clear no first use ..." From Wikipedia, but plenty of corroboration elsewhere

And there in fact has been many skirmishes and one war in Kargil in 1999 after the 1998 nuclear tests by both in 1998. The Indian Army took heavy casualties by fighting uphill precisely because it didn't want to cross in Pakistan and cause a greater conflagration. And before you say it wasn't a war check this out from your neck of the woods. Note "three of their FOUR wars".

Do you have any idea how long and complicated the India Pakistan border is, and where the troops are stationed? This isn't the Risk board where a full fledged war breaks out instantaneously and devolves into "nuclear war" at the drop of a hat.

The problem with jumping up and down and shouting attention getting "nuclear war" is that it ignores more boring but ultimately far more crucial day to day events. The general public in Pakistan has never supported the fundamentalist fringes directly (see election results). But turn a blind eye to dedicated cadres with guns and you have the SWAT valley situation and worse.

And as for Kashmir being the focal point/panacea care to explain why a bunch of Pakistanis from Punjab attacked the Jewish center in Mumbai? It is easy to get young men worked up about perceived wrongs in distant (and not so distant) places. This is no different from young men in the American hinterlands getting all worked about "Eye-rak" and Saddam with 70% thinking they were connected with 9/11.

Sigh! "India is the only country in the world which has a clear no first use ..."

Indeed. They were trying to provoke Pakistan into striking first, or at least doing things that look very like preparing to strike first.

Note "three of their FOUR wars".

News; your politicians are not perfect and India shares responsibility for the conflict. It takes two to tango.

Do you have any idea how long and complicated the India Pakistan border is, and where the troops are stationed?

Yes.

And the only way that would have happened is if the Pakistan lobbed nuclear weapons right at the outset. I don't actually think that the people in power in Pakistan (now) are irresponsibly itching for a nuclear war. Might change if the radicals take over, which is the far more dangerous problem.

>News; your politicians are not perfect and India shares >responsibility for the conflict. It takes two to tango.

Excellent misdirection! Pray when did I suggest anything of the sort? You are the one equating the issues between the Indian and Pakistani STATE to that allegedly espoused by a bunch of gun toting terrorists by saying that's the basic cause. Do listen to the wide ranging rants by the Mumbai perpetrators in calls to TV stations.

And if you want to devolve to name calling do note that the borders were drawn up at independence in a few weeks by a lawyer who had never visited India before, left before the implementation, and destroyed the papers that detailed his "logic". Apparently British cartographers are as competent as the politicians.