Polemic®

India now has a bona fide second strike capability, but Pakistan does not. This shifts the balance of power in the region towards a stronger MAD equilibrium between China and India, but it also shifts it decidedly in favor of India in Indo-Pakistani relations. Back in November, I wrote that without these, they had no [...]

More on the strategic nuclear balance from the Navy: The asymmetries of strategic depth and offensive military capability give India an operational advantage, and may create a situation in which India’s conventional ground or air forces come into contact with Pakistan’s strategic nuclear forces. Pakistan’s shorter-range Hatf 3/M-11 ballistic missiles must be stationed fairly far [...]

On November 27, 2008, just after midnight, I wrote: To say this is fnord al Qaeda fnord is accurate but imprecise. It may be connected to the larger Qaeda movement, but the point of destablizing India is a different, though related, front in their jihad. Pakistan is now on the verge of becoming a failed [...]

Nightline says that this attack caught Indian services “off guard.” It appears to have caught America off guard as well, because it’s all over. But the thing is, India has been heating up for a while, as Juan Cole explains. The Subcontinent has been a hobby of mine for over 10 years. I have dozens [...]