Pakistan Using Heavy Shells - a First Since Ceasefire Agreement: Sources

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Its called realpolitik and to be honest you can't blame them for being hypocritical as thats the smart thing to do.

I would buy that argument if permanent UNSC membership (even with the veto) actually gave India some significant and tangible advantage - it just doesn't, not in today's world where Indian security and economic interests are already largely in alignment with most of the P5. Is there any single UNSC led policy you can point to that India would have been alone in vetoing, over the last ten years?

This desire for permanent UNSC membership with the veto is nothing more than India demonstrating pettiness and insecurity, masked in an attitude of arrogance and peevishness, on the global stage. It is, to paraphrase @Spectre, India going through 'teenage angst and insecurities'.

My primary motivation in joining PDF was to understand a little bit about Pakistan's psyche but so far I am more confused than ever

It's easy - we're all different!

That said, you will come to realize that a certain 'common thread' runs through many Pakistanis - it is (surprise surprise) based on religion and in many ways a critical part of those dangerous contradictions I referenced.

 

[Spectre]

It's easy - we're all different!

That said, you will come to realize that a certain 'common thread' runs through many Pakistanis - it is (surprise surprise) based on religion and in many ways a critical part of those dangerous contradictions I referenced.

Individually humans are a nightmare to predict but in groups they can be expected to act predictably, greater the number of people more accurate is the behavorial profiling and pattern analysis. Give me a group of 100 Indians from a homogeneous group and I can be statistically accurate in predicting the behavior of that mob.

Religion, Politics, Fanaticism etc in-fact makes the analysis much easier as it is just another observable and quantifiable data point to model the behavior. Collectivist societies are a breeze to model and individualistic like US are a tad more difficult

The issue here is something else, which is beyond my grasp as of now.

 

[Armstrong]

I would buy that argument if permanent UNSC membership (even with the veto) actually gave India some significant and tangible advantage - it just doesn't, not in today's world where Indian security and economic interests are already largely in alignment with most of the P5. Is there any single UNSC led policy you can point to that India would have been alone in vetoing, over the last ten years?

This desire for permanent UNSC membership with the veto is nothing more than India demonstrating pettiness and insecurity, masked in an attitude of arrogance and peevishness, on the global stage. It is, to paraphrase @Spectre, India going through 'teenage angst and insecurities'.

You underestimate the power of the coveted 'veto' !

Plus tis true that India or more so Indians have fallen in love with their own legend and truly think of themselves as some sort of the second coming of a mythical Maha Bharat that never was. That self-belief is most certainly perpetuated by economic growth, a fortuitous geo-strategic alignment of various things and a remarkably good PR where India the land besought with a myriad challenges and then some more plays second fiddle - if not further down the pecking order - to the Incredible India - the ancient and exotic land which is a paragon of modernity meeting tradition.

But can we blame them for being smart, resourceful and having the right nuisance value ?

 

[kadamba-warrior]

You know what could've determined whether Pakistanis were really up to no good or whether the Indians were up to their usual shenanigans ? A certain UN organ called UNMOGIP but maybe the Indians think that having World Yoga Days declared is a much better use of the world's premier international organization conceived for dispute resolution and inter-state cooperation than sifting fact from fiction in a dispute involving two nuclear armed rivals with years of acrimony and distrust between them.

Well, when you guys equate any talks on Kashmir to "handing over Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter", what is the point of having any talks? How would any talks resolve the matter when, according to you, the "outcome" is fixed?

And how exactly is "World Yoga Day" related to the topic at hand?

Nobody on the Indian side is deluded enough to believe that handing Kashmir over to you guys, would help India get a seat at the UNSC High table. Heck, I don't even believe that it would end all the enmity between India and Pakistan - for it will only embolden the islamists on your side (and other separatists on our side as well) to start demanding for more territories. Remember Gazwa-e-Hind?

Like I always say, Kashmir is not just a piece of land for India. It is the cornerstone that holds Indian union together. Take Kashmir away, you might as well see a breakup of Indian union!

And hence, India shall/will NEVER willingly part with Kashmir. Not in its entirety, anyway.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The issue here is something else, which is beyond my grasp as of now.

My curiosity is piqued - are you suggesting that the 'herd mentality' you would expect in the environment of this particular forum isn't consistently present as you would expect?

 

[Spectre]

You underestimate the power of the coveted 'veto' !

Plus tis true that India or more so Indians have fallen in love with their own legend and truly think of themselves as some sort of the second coming of a mythical Maha Bharat that never was. That self-belief is most certainly perpetuated by economic growth, a fortuitous geo-strategic alignment of various things and a remarkably good PR where India the land besought with a myriad challenges and then some more plays second fiddle - if not further down the pecking order - to the Incredible India - the ancient and exotic land which is a paragon of modernity meeting tradition.

But can we blame them for being smart, resourceful and having the right nuisance value ?

Earth to Mr. Armstrong - Wake Up!

Which India are you talking about? A collection of assorted nutties have given you an entirely wrong perception of India.

The modern Indian youth is jaded, cynical and extremely savvy, they don't give two hoots about our mythical past and other golden sparrow BS. No one on the street cares one whiff about UNSC membership which happens to be a pet project of IFS.

The reliance on the false glorification of India in form of India Shining led to humiliating defeat of previous BJP government. Populace cares about one thing that is Jobs and Money.

My curiosity is piqued - are you suggesting that the 'herd mentality' you would expect in the environment of this particular forum isn't consistently present as you would expect?

Chinese and Indians which are the other two numerically significant groups behave very predictably in foreign forums like PDF and in their own Nationalistic forums. Pakistanis not so much.

Herd mentality is a very limited term to describe it, people do not have to follow each other mindlessly but their actions converge and resonate usually leading to significant portion of society progressing in one direction.

For eg: Renaissance, Dark Ages, 1960s in US etc.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

But can we blame them for being smart, resourceful and having the right nuisance value ?

I can blame them for the last, since I see no reason to put up with 'nuisance value'.

I should not have been so broad and categorical with my comment about the 'veto being useless'. The veto does still have some relevance for countries like Pakistan and China, given that their security and foreign policy goals diverge significantly from those of the P4 at times. I can absolutely see the utility in Pakistan having a veto in the UNSC, given that we really only have one country (China) acting in support of those interests, and that's not much of a cushion. However, the veto is absolutely overrated in today's world for countries like India, whose major economic, security and foreign policy interests are already in alignment with most of the P5 - between the Russians, NATO and China, India's interests in the UNSC are covered.

Of course Pakistan is not at all likely to get the veto, given it's current domestic issues, and Pakistanis are not fools to think Pakistan has the slightest chance in its current state, but I think many Pakistanis continue to see value in the veto because they still think of the world as multi-polar, with the poles viciously opposing each other ala the Cold War. It's why we see so many refrains along the lines of 'Pakistan should join with Russia and dump the US, Pakistan should form an alliance with Russia and China to counter the US and India', and of course on the religious nut-job side we have the refrains of 'uniting with the Ummah and opposing the entire world'.

This line of thought is outdated in my view. Thankfully, I see Pakistan's establishment pursuing a different course - building and maintaining relationships with Russia, China, the US and Europe and, despite the angry demands at times from some sections of our geo-political commentariat to dump X and join Y block, building relationships on common interests.

Even the Russians, with all their bad behavior and periodic temper tantrums (wake up, pick a fight with another small former Soviet satellite State, invade and occupy said State) haven't been able to upset the global economic and security balance. Putin will eventually fade away (here is to hoping he doesn't have Robert Mugabe's genes), and with him will arrive a hastening of the end of the last remaining vestiges of the Soviet era muscular Russian nationalism. With the Russians mellowing out, and the Chinese focused on stabilizing their economy and maintaining their economic gains, there really isn't time nor the resources (or there shouldn't be) for playing countries and 'blocs' against each other.

Hamid Gul passed away the other day - he was an icon of the Cold War in many ways, so perhaps it is fitting that he passed away at a time when the successor State of his Cold War nemesis has been defeated yet again, though not quite as spectacularly and obviously as post-Afghan Jihad, and without the need for any major military intervention on the part of the West. And with his passing we should also move away from viewing the global order through the Cold War era prism of existentially antagonistic blocs/poles.

 

[Spectre]

I can blame them for the last, since I see no reason to put up with 'nuisance value'.

I should not have been so broad and categorical with my comment about the 'veto being useless'. The veto does still have some relevance for countries like Pakistan and China, given that their security and foreign policy goals diverge significantly from those of the P4 at times. I can absolutely see the utility in Pakistan having a veto in the UNSC, given that we really only have one country (China) acting in support of those interests, and that's not much of a cushion. However, the veto is absolutely overrated in today's world for countries like India, whose major economic, security and foreign policy interests are already in alignment with most of the P5 - between the Russians, NATO and China, India's interests in the UNSC are covered.

Of course Pakistan is not at all likely to get the veto, given it's current domestic issues, and Pakistanis are not fools to think Pakistan has the slightest chance in its current state, but I think many Pakistanis continue to see value in the veto because they still think of the world as multi-polar, with the poles viciously opposing each other ala the Cold War. It's why we see so many refrains along the lines of 'Pakistan should join with Russia and dump the US, Pakistan should form an alliance with Russia and China to counter the US and India', and of course on the religious nut-job side we have the refrains of 'uniting with the Ummah and opposing the entire world'.

This line of thought is outdated in my view. Thankfully, I see Pakistan's establishment pursuing a different course - building and maintaining relationships with Russia, China, the US and Europe and, despite the angry demands at times from some sections of our geo-political commentariat to dump X and join Y block, building relationships on common interests.

Even the Russians, with all their bad behavior and periodic temper tantrums (wake up, pick a fight with another small former Soviet satellite State, invade and occupy said State) haven't been able to upset the global economic and security balance. Putin will eventually fade away (here is to hoping he doesn't have Robert Mugabe's genes), and with him will arrive a hastening of the end of the last remaining vestiges of the Soviet era muscular Russian nationalism. With the Russians mellowing out, and the Chinese focused on stabilizing their economy and maintaining their economic gains, there really isn't time nor the resources (or there shouldn't be) for playing countries and 'blocs' against each other.

Hamid Gul passed away the other day - he was an icon of the Cold War in many ways, so perhaps it is fitting that he passed away at a time when the successor State of his Cold War nemesis has been defeated yet again, though not quite as spectacularly and obviously as post-Afghan Jihad, and without the need for any major military intervention on the part of the West. And with his passing we should also move away from viewing the global order through the Cold War era prism of existentially antagonistic blocs/poles.

My view of the global geo-politics situation is diverges from yours quite a bit.

There is going to be a huge scramble for resources in Asia - Oil, Water and Land for habitation and food. The frame of reference is 2030 onwards. The population projections makes this fact irrefutable. No Nation is going to take a back seat - Not India, Not China, Not Pakistan.

Alliances are need of the hour and you see re-positioning of cold - war era allegiances taking place. To be neutral in this coming great game is to be left behind. A post WW2 division of primacy can take place b/w US and China with US withdrawing completely from Asia in return of dominance of over Western Europe and North and South America in the situation US doesn't get firm Alliance from India.

India is cognizant of this fact as unless India brings something substantial to the table i.e. Anti - China/Russia position it would get no cheese from US and China and India are each too big to co-exist in the same space so no alliances here. Hence you would see India shifting from its ages old non alignment policy towards US, Japan and company.

I worry a lot for my future grand kids

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Chinese and Indians which are the other two numerically significant groups behave very predictably in foreign forums like PDF and in their own Nationalistic forums. Pakistanis not so much.

Herd mentality is a very limited term to describe it, people do not have to follow each other mindlessly but their actions converge and resonate usually leading to significant portion of society progressing in one direction.

For eg: Renaissance, Dark Ages, 1960s in US etc.

I find your observation interesting, because I made a somewhat similar observation in my early years of joining the forum in an exchange with some Indian members. The observation itself came about because of the atmosphere of the forum and the lively debates with Indians. What sparked it was a separate observation that Indian debaters had this cornucopia of Pakistani sources to reference on topics like Pakistan's governance failures in East Pakistan, the role of Pakistan's military in undermining the growth of the country, the role of Pakistan's military in supporting terrorism, that Pakistan's military was lying about everything you could think of - because you're pretty much guaranteed to find a politician, journalist, social worker or former military officer (several in fact) who will make statements about events and policies that contradict the official military and/or government position and also, many times, contradict all the other aforementioned luminaries. Take Kargil for example - we've got Nawaz Sharif claiming 4000 Pakistani soldiers dead. Even the Indian Army doesn't break 1000 Pakistanis dead in their high end estimates. And then, aside from Nawaz Sharif, we've got various other personalities, military and non-military, whose estimates run the entire range of a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand.

It's like the country has diarrhea mouth or something - we just cant stop blabbing without thinking, verifying our facts and ensuring that national interests are not damaged. Now that last part is a double-edged sword - I'm quite critical of the Indian and US media/intelligentsia because questioning the Establishment line (beyond comfortably defined limits) makes you a target in various ways and dooms you to eventual irrelevance. A good example of 'towing the Establishment line', on foreign policy at least, is the US media and their role in the Iraq war and their continued role in maintaining a reasonable level of public support for Israel -- but I'm diverging ---

Any way, the point I made in that observation years ago was that Pakistan's public discourse is much more diverse and open to criticism of the Establishment, open to criticism of the idea/ideology of Pakistan itself than the discourse in India or the US. A major reason for that is the military itself - if it hadn't carried out military coups, hung elected politicians and presided over the East Pakistan debacle Pakistan might not have had a vibrant 'liberal/leftist' intelligentsia that has no qualms about washing our dirty linen in public, criticism about giving easy ammunition to online Indian debaters be damned. In fact, the military leadership inadvertently screwed itself over twice because the religious extremists that were created and the religious conservatism that the Saudis were allowed to propagate has resulted in this 'Islamist intelligentsia' that also openly criticizes the Pakistani Establishment - the liberals rage about the Establishment perpetuating regressive religious ideology while the Islamists rage about the Establishment pandering to the US and promoting 'Western values', and of course you still have all the hues of gray in between.

And I'll end my own bout of diarrhea mouth with that.

 

[Basel]

India should also target pakistanis with Bofor guns and MBRLs.

If PA is using 120mm Mortar then there is a reason for that and it is heavy damage of civilian houses with unknown Civilians injured of dead as India is also using heavy firepower, Pakistani media is not covering this deeply but they reported yesterday that all Ambulances of Kotli District (which is big & important city AJK) have been called in to Nakyal area. I hope PA use laser guided shells this time for precision strikes.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Well, when you guys equate any talks on Kashmir to "handing over Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter", what is the point of having any talks? How would any talks resolve the matter when, according to you, the "outcome" is fixed?

How is the outcome 'fixed', unless you believe that the majority of the residents (including displaced Hindu pandits) would vote for Pakistan in a plebiscite?

Nobody on the Indian side is deluded enough to believe that handing Kashmir over to you guys, would help India get a seat at the UNSC High table. Heck, I don't even believe that it would end all the enmity between India and Pakistan - for it will only embolden the islamists on your side (and other separatists on our side as well) to start demanding for more territories. Remember Gazwa-e-Hind?

'Ghazwa-e-Hind' is an outdated meme, as is 'Strategic Depth' - they continue to live long past their shelf life because some 'analysts/commentators' find them useful in presenting a simplistic caricature of Pakistan while grappling (and failing) with the complex Pakistani and regional dynamics. Others realize these memes are outdated but use them calculatedly in building up an anti-Pakistan narrative since they are the ideological twins of Pakistan's Ghazwa-e-Hind types.

Pakistan's territorial disputes with India are well documented, and Pakistan has never seriously pursued policies or strategies (formally or informally) that suggest a desire to grab Indian territory beyond what is already claimed. If Pakistan, or powerful elements in Pakistan, had any intention of using the resolution of the Kashmir dispute as a launch pad for additional territorial gains, you would have seen Pakistan bring up the issue of Junagadh much more forcefully on the international level.

 

[Stephen Cohen]

If PA is using 120mm Mortar then there is a reason for that and it is heavy damage of civilian houses with unknown Civilians injured of dead as India is also using heavy firepower, Pakistani media is not covering this deeply but they reported yesterday that all Ambulances of Kotli District (which is big & important city AJK) have been called in to Nakyal area. I hope PA use laser guided shells this time for precision strikes.

Let us move UPWARDS ; to 155 mm ; shall we

 

[Spectre]

I find your observation interesting, because I made a somewhat similar observation in my early years of joining the forum in an exchange with some Indian members. The observation itself came about because of the atmosphere of the forum and the lively debates with Indians. What sparked it was a separate observation that Indian debaters had this cornucopia of Pakistani sources to reference on topics like Pakistan's governance failures in East Pakistan, the role of Pakistan's military in undermining the growth of the country, the role of Pakistan's military in supporting terrorism, that Pakistan's military was lying about everything you could think of - because you're pretty much guaranteed to find a politician, journalist, social worker or former military officer (several in fact) who will make statements about events and policies that contradict the official military and/or government position and also, many times, contradict all the other aforementioned luminaries. Take Kargil for example - we've got Nawaz Sharif claiming 4000 Pakistani soldiers dead. Even the Indian Army doesn't break 1000 Pakistanis dead in their high end estimates. And then, aside from Nawaz Sharif, we've got various other personalities, military and non-military, whose estimates run the entire range of a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand.

It's like the country has diarrhea mouth or something - we just cant stop blabbing without thinking, verifying our facts and ensuring that national interests are not damaged. Now that last part is a double-edged sword - I'm quite critical of the Indian and US media/intelligentsia because questioning the Establishment line (beyond comfortably defined limits) makes you a target in various ways and dooms you to eventual irrelevance. A good example of 'towing the Establishment line', on foreign policy at least, is the US media and their role in the Iraq war and their continued role in maintaining a reasonable level of public support for Israel -- but I'm diverging ---

Any way, the point I made in that observation years ago was that Pakistan's public discourse is much more diverse and open to criticism of the Establishment, open to criticism of the idea/ideology of Pakistan itself than the discourse in India or the US. A major reason for that is the military itself - if it hadn't carried out military coups, hung elected politicians and presided over the East Pakistan debacle Pakistan might not have had a vibrant 'liberal/leftist' intelligentsia that has no qualms about washing our dirty linen in public, criticism about giving easy ammunition to online Indian debaters be damned. In fact, the military leadership inadvertently screwed itself over twice because the religious extremists that were created and the religious conservatism that the Saudis were allowed to propagate has resulted in this 'Islamist intelligentsia' that also openly criticizes the Pakistani Establishment - the liberals rage about the Establishment perpetuating regressive religious ideology while the Islamists rage about the Establishment pandering to the US and promoting 'Western values', and of course you still have all the hues of gray in between.

And I'll end my own bout of diarrhea mouth with that.

There is a lively debate in India and USA too, Iraq war for eg was highly unpopular post- facto.

That said the interesting thing is kind of society and experiences you have had, there shouldn't be this kind of debate. Pakistan should be like Iraq or Syria.

Why it isn't is a mystery.

There is very potent alchemical mixture of passivity which comes from Indian heritage along with aggressiveness which is a hallmark of Islamic identity which to my opinion has allowed Pakistan neither to be subsumed by India nor to be blown apart by internal civil - war and external influences. It is flexible yet rigid like steel.

The above is my gut feeling, I have to somehow make a valid hypothesis out of it.

 

[Stephen Cohen]

If Pakistan, or powerful elements in Pakistan, had any intention of using the resolution of the Kashmir dispute as a launch pad for additional territorial gains, you would have seen Pakistan bring up the issue of Junagadh much more forcefully on the international level.

You can HARDLY extract a statement on Kashmir from OIC

One statement a year ; maximum ; is what OIC issues regarding Kashmir

With Regards to JUNAGADH ; you are simply stretching the point

And while you are at it ; what about Hyderabad ; that was a more brazen conquest
on India's part

 

[Basel]

India wants economic progress in the rigion. But Pakistan wants to destroy herself.

Its the opposite mister.