Future strategic scenario for the Indian Subcontinent

[brihaspati]

Buner is to the east of Islamabad, and to the SE generally of Swat. The Talebs are being moved into position to take over the Karakorum bridgehead from PRC. The PA can now use them to launch moves on India and Kashmir, which they can completely deny any responsibility for. It cannot happen without PRC prodding either. At one stroke, everyone other than India gains. USA shows to its public that Taleban is the rogue and not TSP or TSPA. PA shows that the Talebs are basically getting moral support because of the so-called "Kashmir problem". UK and PRC both can shout about India not doing enough to gain the confidence of Kashmiri "Muslims".

The statements made by captured militants about Taleban not being involved in the push-ins indicates that PA operatives handling "Indian" operations are actually building up this more focused Jihadi wing of PA for more long ranging operation in Kashmir. At this stage they have to hide the placement of Taleban in the area.

Kayani is clever. He is giving time to the Talebs to get entrenched. To show military initiative, he will allow the Talebs to "retreat", this time in the general direction north. Which means the Talebs can now "officially" move into POK. If urged by the NATO, Kayani can go in "hot" or cool "pursuit" - which simply means pushing the "irregular" Taleb forward to create maximum damage, while the PA comes up behind. Until the last moment, this can then be represented as a move by the PA against "militants". The whole thing can also be used to discredit the mosquito of a "civilian" government.

Moreover in this way, the world can be made to believe temporarily that the Talebs have been pushed away from the heartland of TSP. Al the while the Taleb organization will spread its tentacles further and deeper into the south under the full cover provided by the PA.

[shiv]

I suspect that such individuals suffer from a sense of inferiority in terms of power/ perception of inability to mobilize support for personal power, while at the same time suffering from the contradictory sense of superiority by birth. This perhaps leads to a deep seated hatred and contempt for the "inferior by birth" majority and a secret admiration for the methods of "determined minorities" like that of Islam, which appear to give a formula for successful dominance under such situations. They choose to throw in their lot with such "aggressors".

Yes but which "aggressors" are this group joining? Not Islam. They are joining the West in droves. For a "forward caste" Indian who wants out, the feeling that others are inferior by birth makes him seek those who are his intellectual equals. They often move abroad and wax eloquent on the equality, efficiency and freedom of scholarship that is available in the West. I have many such people in my group of relatives and friends.

There may well have been a time in the past when these people joined Islam - explaining all the "Butts" (Bhats) we find, but currently it is the West.

[Najunamar]

To me one of the reasons the Pakibuns have looked to the east (taken a leaf out of the GOI export policy?) is their inability to extend the gains to the West of the Fak-Ap region. The original goal for Talibunnies to be funded by the US through TSPA was to extend the sphere of influence to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran (in addition to providing Takleef to our Mathrubhoomi). Despite Paki efforts to goad these bunnies to action on the Western front or perhaps because of that they have moves eastward. I believe it is in our interests for the Puki establishment to still have some control while draining Yamrikhan's resources for an extended period of time. The triad of PA/Talibunnies/GOTUS can drain each other out for ~2 years say and IA can move in after the inevitable realization that Pukis pose a threat to humanity dawns on everyone.

[brihaspati]

Shivji,
throwing in lots with Muslims need not be actual conversion into Islam, but your type 3 category of hoping to buy protection and political support in return for unconditional "love".

[Pranav]

21st century security threats :
(x-posted with minor editing from the "Strategic Leadership" thread)

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I don't think its correct to apply medieval paradigms to today's security problems. In the era of ICBMs and cruise missiles a medieval-style land invasion is an impossibility. For example, as the Brahmos CEO Pillai was saying, an opening salvo of 5000 Brahmos missiles can bring an adversary to his knees in minutes, even without going nuclear.

I am certainly not claiming that a salvo of missiles will ensure political control. But I do not believe that in this age, the security of the Indo-Gangetic plains can be assured by control over West Punjab and Sindh, etc. If we maintain a modern defense capability, nobody can mount a medieval-style land invasion. That paradigm does not apply. The immediate threats to the Indo-Gangetic plains, and the rest of India, are of a far different nature to those in medieval times.

In today's age, although we do need modern force projection technologies, we really need to be more concerned about subtler political control - control of the news media, entertainment industry and social science textbooks, election rigging through EVMs, secret networks of people with foreign loyalties, control over monetary policies (i.e. control over the money supply), that sort of thing.

It's not just the "Jihadis". There are also other forces interested in global dominance. It is not an unimaginable scenario that war is triggered between the Jihadis and India using false-flag terrorist attacks and / or "useful idiots".

Also, I mentioned monetary policy. How control over the money supply can be used to gradually take over the whole economy using inflation-deflation cycles - that is a science in itself. It is instructive to look at the plight of the Tatas - they took huge foreign currency loans during an inflationary period to acquire Corus and Jaguar-Land Rover. Now they have to repay those loans during a period of deflation. It is conceivable that they may have to sell chunks of their companies to avoid bankruptcy. The value of a rupee or a dollar is an ephemeral thing. Suzlon, Arcelor-Mittal have similar problems. That is how control over an economy is lost, piece by piece. Fortunately, Indian monetary policy still appears to be under sovereign control, as of now. Those who avoided foreign currency loans have been spared.

[brihaspati]

Weapons and techniology simply allow faster attacks and greater devastation from longer distances. The essential component still remains the populations, societies and their economies that can sustain such conflicts on others as well as on themselves. In spite of all talk of technology, we can see how limited in power compared to natural barriers/terrain/and topoplogy or political and economic realities of societies are so-called modern military techniques.

Maybe in a future SciFi star wars scenario this threshold is going to be crossed. As of now, I do not see any reason to assume that just becuase ICBMS are in play, that the strategic realities of the western frontier of the subcontinent has changed. Most of the time, ICBMS and nukes etc are never used, cannot be used - because of factors which weapons alone cannot wish away. They are there more for deterrence and psychological posturing. It is the population whose control and winning over that is eventually going to decide the future of this part of the subcontinent over the long run.

[brihaspati]

Najunamar wrote
The original goal for Talibunnies to be funded by the US through TSPA was to extend the sphere of influence to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran (in addition to providing Takleef to our Mathrubhoomi). Despite Paki efforts to goad these bunnies to action on the Western front or perhaps because of that they have moves eastward.

Possible. But more likely to have come out of original plans to expand into TSP and India anyway. Talebs were originally created within TSP and by the TSPA, under the excuse of providing fighters for AFG. However, this came in the period when Sunni Wahabi theological expansions were being funded by the Saudis all over Asia, and the US turned a blind eye because it was confident of being able to control it and a good antidote to communism to boot. The legitimacy of this Talebi movement was obtained by Zia by using them against the Soviets. But Zia was simply acting as part of the general Islamic expnasion plans for the subcontinent, probably a reason for his mysterious "loss" once the Americans were sufficiently alarmed and caught on to the game.

Here Chinese and Saudi interests coincide in creating an Islamic power base in the difficult terrain in Southern AFG and northern TSP, that can maintain the separation between India on the one hand and Russia, CAR and Iran on the other. PRC will be neck deep in this, and probably one of the factors in pushing Talebs east to secure the strip leading to the Karakorums.

I believe it is in our interests for the Puki establishment to still have some control while draining Yamrikhan's resources for an extended period of time. The triad of PA/Talibunnies/GOTUS can drain each other out for ~2 years say and IA can move in after the inevitable realization that Pukis pose a threat to humanity dawns on everyone.

No this time, Talebs are the only option left for TSPA. If it fails, it fails in its sole national project of 60 years - the dream of "reconquering" the whole of the subcontinent in the name of Islam. All resources milked from the USA will be concentrated into this one last push into India. They can wait for years to achieve this, but it will be crucial for them to dangle this last hope of justifying the Pakistani national project for the Muslims on the subcontinent.

We cannot even imagine the reaction if this last hope falls flat, and the TSPA leaders know this very well.

[Pranav]

Weapons and techniology simply allow faster attacks and greater devastation from longer distances. The essential component still remains the populations, societies and their economies that can sustain such conflicts on others as well as on themselves. In spite of all talk of technology, we can see how limited in power compared to natural barriers/terrain/and topoplogy or political and economic realities of societies are so-called modern military techniques.

Maybe in a future SciFi star wars scenario this threshold is going to be crossed. As of now, I do not see any reason to assume that just becuase ICBMS are in play, that the strategic realities of the western frontier of the subcontinent has changed. Most of the time, ICBMS and nukes etc are never used, cannot be used - because of factors which weapons alone cannot wish away. They are there more for deterrence and psychological posturing. It is the population whose control and winning over that is eventually going to decide the future of this part of the subcontinent over the long run.

Brihaspati ji, in ancient and medieval times, the threat was a land invasion from the north west.

In the 19th century, the British established control over the subcontinent using different means. The threat in the 19th century was quite different from what it was in the 15th century.

Today, in the 21st century, the nature of the threat has further evolved and is now significantly different to what it was in previous centuries..

[Keshav]

Today, in the 21st century, the nature of the threat has further evolved and is now significantly different to what it was in previous centuries..

What do you think the main threats are in the 21st century?

Other than terrorism, do we really have to worry about other threats?

[Pranav]

What do you think the main threats are in the 21st century?

Other than terrorism, do we really have to worry about other threats?

Here are some of the threats and potential threats of the 21st century:

1. Terrorism emanating from the TSP, aimed at the Indian economy.

2. False-flag terror strikes carried out by entities outside the subcontinent, with a view to trigger war in the subcontinent. This could also take the form of Jihadi "useful idiots" being clandestinely facilitated by external entities.

3. Infiltration of the media, entertainment industry and social science establishments.

4. Secret networks of people with foreign loyalties, occupying influential positions. It could be that some of the people involved in such networks are actually useful idiots who are led to believe that they are in fact promoting some cause or the other. For example, people can be motivated in the name of Maoism, or Communism, or in the name of "Evangelising India", or even Hindutva (e.g. Lt Col Purohit or Sri Ram Sene). But these "noble causes" may in fact be secretly funded by entities seeking to establish global domination.

5. Election rigging through electronic voting machines, together with opinion poll psy-ops in the media.

6. Manipulation of monetary policies (a hint of how monetary policy can be used to take over an economy was given earlier).

7. Demographic invasion from Bangladesh, "secular" politics etc - such matters have already been thoroughly discussed here.

I guess that is a sufficient list of threats for now!

As Benjamin Franklin once said, "[Here is] a Republic, if you can keep it". That is the question for us, whether we can keep it.

[brihaspati]

Regarding foreign positional geo-strategic threats, here is a brief map :



The invasive attempts at capturing the heartland, appears to go in circles around the subcontinent. Maybe at each stage, the Bharatyia entity adapts, absorbs/compromises/fights back restoring equilibrium - so new invaders have to move around finding fresher weak spots. But the circle appears to come back to the first millenium scenario, as the other routes have been tried and this NW frontier has been sufficiently neglected by Bharat to become attractive as an apparent weak-spot to enter India again.

[Keshav]

Brihaspati -
What you state seems obvious.

Some invader attacks a particular area, natives die, natives fight back, natives strengthen area and other invaders are forced to choose another place. Ideally, this should be irrelevant in modern times.

[brihaspati]

It would have become irrelevant, if the core of India had the freedom to play around in the NW frontier. It has been kept out of having any handle there. So the traditional adpatation/fighting back/restoration of equilibrium process was lacking. This leaves the door open for renewed manipulation by the "enemy".

[Keshav]

It would have become irrelevant, if the core of India had the freedom to play around in the NW frontier. It has been kept out of having any handle there. So the traditional adpatation/fighting back/restoration of equilibrium process was lacking. This leaves the door open for renewed manipulation by the "enemy".

Does the attack by see on 26/11 fit into your scope or is that an aberration?

How do terrorist attacks fit into geopolitical theories? I originally thought they couldn't be.

[brihaspati]

I think long ago in one of the shelved threads, I wrote that the Mumbai attack was basically both a message and a strategic move. The TSPA needed to give space to the Talebs to expand and had to move its regiments to the east. So it created the situation and excuse by attacking Mumbai while moving troops in to the border, as justifying that since India was likely to have retaliated - TSPA needed to cover its area. This would appear to be a solid reason to justify withdrawing from engaging the Talebs in the west.

If war actually broke out, they could raise the advance units of the Talebs together with the TSPA to be unleashed on India. Because India does not retaliate in ways that really hurts, TSPA will need to increase the levels of Sadism that future terror attacks will bring upon Indians.

TSPA would not have done this if it did not have the background support and promiseof intervention by powers that are in a position to militarily intervene and tie up Indian forces - which leaves primarily PRC in front, and possiby UK behind if not US at this present stage.

The message of the Mumbai attack for me was an Islamic one to the Muslims in India who would have suffiicent nackground in Islamic narrative history. The targets were specifically chosen and on dates which would be significant in foundationalt history of Islam. This was to try and indicate that, even if there are reports that the "supreme" leadership is dead or wounded or defeated, ("Battle of the Trench" - which Muhammad escaped only by "accidentally falling into a ditch" and a look-alike being targeted and killed by the Qureysh who then withdrew thinking that Muhammad was dead) the Jihad is well and kicking (the immediate setting out of the Islamists under Muhammad to a Jewish town and torture/genocide of males and enslavement of the women - to revive "morale"). The dates of the attack were the same within Islamic calendar.

[svinayak]

Stop feeding the troll

[Prem]

Stop feeding the troll

Second this, not every one here is Bhartiya.

[ramana]

Jupiter, If you step back what you see is India or Bharat or Hindusthan never had the option to hit the invaders in their places of origins and cut them off. The only option left was to absorb them into her culture and mileu and give rise to the syncretic culture myth. The modern age gives weapons that allow such retaliation which are under self and external restrictions.

Pranav, The Viceroy Study Group(VSG) also made some assumptions about influence of air power etc in their Great Game which are not hodlig as the situation developed in the post Soviet Union era.

[Atri]

Jupiter, If you step back what you see is India or Bharat or Hindusthan never had the option to hit the invaders in their places of origins and cut them off. The only option left was to absorb them into her culture and mileu and give rise to the syncretic culture myth. The modern age gives weapons that allow such retaliation which are under self and external restrictions.

Pranav, The Viceroy Study Group(VSG) also made some assumptions about influence of air power etc in their Great Game which are not hodlig as the situation developed in the post Soviet Union era.

If I may hazard the answer...

I guess, the term 'invaders' is a very loose one. The invaders like Mehmud of Gazni and Muhd Ghuri were very much insiders. Until few decades before Mehmud of Gazni assumed power, the king of Gazni was Raaja Shiladitya. Now, it is not the case that Kings of Gaandhar did not make war with kings of Kekay and Punjab. They very much did. Just that, as long as the kings on both sides of Khyber were followers of Indic traditions, this was a strictly political affair.

So were early political invasions of Islamized people of Afghanistan. The problem came when later Muslims started considering them as Ghaazis and their supreme heroes who screwed the SDRE's. The violent streak was always present in Central Asian invaders. As the rulers of Afghanistan went away from influence of Bhaaratiya civilization, even they started behaving like their central asian hunnic predecessors.

Same is happening with TSP. TSP is an integral part of Bhaarat and its civilization. But, now as one can see, after its drift away from Bhaaratiya influence, they started behaving like central asian Hunnic predecessors. So, striking the roots of "Invaders" is a very very loose term. It would have been futile for Vikramaditya to go on chasing Kushans beyond certain region of Hindukush. Similarly for Yashodharma, Khaarvela, even Chandragupta Maurya and Ashok.

After defeat of Huns by Yashodharma, India (the core and NWFP) enjoyed immunity from central asian invasions for 500 years. That was the resounding victory of Bhaarat over Hunnic invaders which were powerful enough to overrun the mighty Guptas. In those 500 years, entire southern Afghanistan was brought under Bhaaratiya civilizational sphere thoroughly. This is evident from the fact that Iran was conquered completely by 651 AD. Transoxania and upper central asia was conquered by 709. Sindh was invaded repeatedly for 80 years before Muhammad bin Qasim succeeded. In spite of all this, it took the year of 962 for Alptigin, predecessor of Sebuktigin, to conquer Gazni from Indic king, Shiladitya. Within a twenty years of fall of Gazni, attacks start on Raja Jayapala.

Beyond southern Afghanistan, it becomes an increasingly lawless region with no stable writ of Bhaaratiya or Persian or Chinese civilization. Scythia and rest of central asia was a loose confederacy of numerous tribes. As long as they were fearful of Bhaarat, they kept away. And they were fearful of Bhaarat when there was a strong Raaja in the core.

Whoever stayed in Bhaarat were already subservient to our way of life. Hence the Indianization, absorption and assimilation are the only feasible options left in front of Bhaaratiya civilization.

[svinayak]

I guess, the term 'invaders' is a very loose one. The invaders like Mehmud of Gazni and Muhd Ghuri were very much insiders. Until few decades before Mehmud of Gazni assumed power, the king of Gazni was Raaja Shiladitya. Now, it is not the case that Kings of Gaandhar did not make war with kings of Kekay and Punjab. They very much did. Just that, as long as the kings on both sides of Khyber were followers of Indic traditions, this was a strictly political affair.


So were early political invasions of Islamized people of Afghanistan. The problem came when later Muslims started considering them as Ghaazis and their supreme heroes who screwed the SDRE's. The violent streak was always present in Central Asian invaders. As the rulers of Afghanistan went away from influence of Bhaaratiya civilization, even they started behaving like their central asian hunnic predecessors.

I use the term islamic imperialism. Before Islam it was inter regional wars and attrition. After Islam it became the imperialism war.

Same is happening with TSP. TSP is an integral part of Bhaarat and its civilization. But, now as one can see, after its drift away from Bhaaratiya influence, they started behaving like central asian Hunnic predecessors. So, striking the roots of "Invaders" is a very very loose term. It would have been futile for Vikramaditya to go on chasing Kushans beyond certain region of Hindukush. Similarly for Yashodharma, Khaarvela, even Chandragupta Maurya and Ashok.

TSP is a artifical construct and is not a civilization. So you cannot equate TSP to arab islam, or Islamic civilization.
It is not about chasing the invaders but the ideology at that point.
What the western world is trying to do is to create a new ideology in afpak which is compatible to the rest of the world. India is imposing it through indirect means.

Beyond southern Afghanistan, it becomes an increasingly lawless region with no stable writ of Bhaaratiya or Persian or Chinese civilization. Scythia and rest of central asia was a loose confederacy of numerous tribes. As long as they were fearful of Bhaarat, they kept away. And they were fearful of Bhaarat when there was a strong Raaja in the core.

Whoever stayed in Bhaarat were already subservient to our way of life. Hence the absorption.

That is the dharma way of life which is imposed on all the people of IG plains and the Indus area.

[brihaspati]

Ramanaji,
one advantage of modern technology is the extension of the reach to neutralize and hold certain groups within their sphere, so that they cannot come out to help the singled out enemy. The key will be the navy. Both into western Indian Ocean, and the Eastern Indian Ocean and Pacific. Cover the Chinese cities from the Pacific, and Saudis and Pak from Arabian sea, drawing circles around the US+UK bases to prevent them from helping out. Hold these promoters of TSP and Jihad fixed, that will be the only utility of "advanced weapons" while TSP is cleaned up.

[svinayak]

Ramanaji,
one advantage of modern technology is the extension of the reach to neutralize and hold certain groups within their sphere, so that they cannot come out to help the singled out enemy. The key will be the navy. Both into western Indian Ocean, and the Eastern Indian Ocean and Pacific. Cover the Chinese cities from the Pacific, and Saudis and Pak from Arabian sea, drawing circles around the US+UK bases to prevent them from helping out. Hold these promoters of TSP and Jihad fixed, that will be the only utility of "advanced weapons" while TSP is cleaned up.

Question is
How long did it take for Indians to understand this..

[brihaspati]

The significance of all those "invasions" or "migrations" before the Islamic is that none of them imposed their birth faith on the "conquered lands" of Bharat, if they at all succeeded. Starting from Cyrus I of Persia, right up to and including Alexander, we see a general culture of respecting and even subscribing to native faiths and worship infrastructure. Almost ineveitably the "invader" converted to the native Bharatyia faith then holding sway in the region if the inavder settled down as a regime. Ancestors of Kanishka became patrons of Buddhism, and Shaka Rudradaman married a Bharatyia woman and took up formally a "Bharatyia faith".

Thus cultural disruption of the fabric of the nation was not that ruptured. All this changed with the Islamic. This is the key transition in the "invasion/migration" dynamic. For the previous "immigrants" the Bharatyia became centre of their faith, they helped preserve and continue it if not rejuvinate or enhance it. Islam was planned as a combined looting, genocidal, but most importantly a cultural-destruction agenda - an aim of complete replacement of all previous cultures in the targeted population.

As long as this agenda survives somewhere in Asia, the threat to Bharatyia survives. It is not a matter of mere invasion or "immigration of peaceful people with their holiday security on their annual holidays into India" to collect such "trifles" as wealth, and women as holdiay mementos.

[Shirish]

Ramanaji, Shivji,
Was my last post deleted inadvertently?

[svinayak]

As long as this agenda survives somewhere in Asia, the threat to Bharatyia survives. It is not a matter of mere invasion or "immigration of peaceful people with their holiday security on their annual holidays into India" to collect such "trifles" as wealth, and women as holdiay mementos.

This Agenda was supported by western countries in the last 150 years during the colonial period and after that. Is the western world trying to change its policy in afpak region or is it more of the same.

[Atri]

TSP is a artifical construct and is not a civilization. So you cannot equate TSP to arab islam, or Islamic civilization.

We are not comparing..but they after partition, have started thinking themselves that way. So, even if TSP is an artificial construct, the perception of people is slowly weeding out whatever traces of Bhaaratiya civilization that are still lingering in their identity. Earlier, there used to be stories of invaders from distant lands. The "heartland" of Indic invaders has entered the subcontinent.

[svinayak]

We are not comparing..but they after partition, have started thinking themselves that way. So, even if TSP is an artificial construct, the perception of people is slowly weeding out whatever traces of Bhaaratiya civilization that are still lingering in their identity.

It is indoctrination of the TSP and more after 1980s .
There is reason for this. They want to be seen as the leaders of the muslim community in sub continent. That is the only way to survive. They are losing it out.

[ramana]

Chiron what is your arguement. Where do you differ withthe core arguement that Indincs could not and did not retaliate agaisnt the well springs of these invaders?

Shirish, Shiv is not an admin anymore. And I dont know what you posted. So can you re-post please? And are you still where you were last? Can you e-mail me?

[Atri]

Chiron what is your arguement. Where do you differ withthe core arguement that Indincs could not and did not retaliate agaisnt the well springs of these invaders??

No Ramana ji, I do not differ with the core argument that Bhaaratiyas did not attack the "roots" of the invaders.

I just stated that they could not because -
a. The term invader was too vague with their roots too distant.
b. the "roots" of invaders are now within our striking range and at our door step, thanks to modern technology and millennia long complacency of Indics which allowed the "invader root/heartland" to approach so dangerously close to our heartland.

Because, even though TSP and ordinary abduls dream of Arabic descent, they still glorify those central asian invaders which were successful in conquering Bhaarat, partly because Arabs were defeated miserably by Indics. The "root" of Bhaarat's concern was always the central Asian tribal tendency and horde mentality and not Arabic method of conquest. TSP has taken up that mentality and tribal tendency which was always Bhaarat's pain since antiquity.

That mentality with or without Islam, has always been troubling us. Just that before Islamization, the problem was comparatively benign; after Islamization of that mentality, it became a malignant problem for our civilization. Even if they claim to link themselves with Arabia, they have been following that central Asian model.

Now, meanwhile, Bhaarat has made a thorough peace with actual heartland of that mentality. Central asia, under Russia's dominance is friendly towards Bhaarat. Afghanistan, was made extremely friendly before civil war and take-over by taliban. Post 9/11, things are again turning in favour of our civilization in Afghanistan. We have a military base in central asian heartland.

Thus, it is seen that Bhaaratiya civilization has been eliminating the anti-Bhaarat diatribe in Central Asia in past 60 years and have trapped the rabid anti-Indian central asian mentality in TSP (pakjab, to be precise) from both the sides. Now, in the desperation to fulfil its instincts, TSP will "invade" Bhaarat out of this migrated tendency.

If Bhaarat can withstand that invasion and press it from both the sides, this mentality will loose steam and those people will be forced to rediscover their Bhaaratiyatva (Indicness), just like Shakas, Kushans, Bactrians, Greeks and Huns.

If Bhaarat fails, that central asian mentality will again enter triumphantly into our heartland and fulfil its tryst with the destiny. It is the tryst of our civilization with this mentality since dawn of civilization. Either of them has to succeed.

[brihaspati]

True, oil money provided the fuel for Wahabi dreams of Jihadi conquering of Asia from the 70 's, and took advantage of the paranoia of the US during cold war (or sold, Islam as a good antidote to communism, to the US). Just after partition, in spite of refugees providing the visible reasons to be bitter and poisoned against Bharat, there would have been more people still used to living beside "Hindus" and "Sikhs" in Pakistan. This proportion has been reduced over generational campaigns by the Sunni proselytizers, with help from the TSPA.

But there are still pockets of Muslims in Pakistan, who sing of Krishna (certain Sufi sects) as well as others celebrating the friendship/bond between legendary Muslims and "Hindus".

Our ancestors are partly to blame - for not being ruthless enough to finish off the Islamic threat, when it was possible to do so, by projecting a strong unified empire beyond the "mountains", and nipping off the nascent Arab force in the bud. Without outside interference from Islamic proselytizers and their Christian facilitators, liquidation and dismantling of the theologian structures within what is now TSP, in the future as part of India, and pampering of the "common" Muslim materially just like other non-Muslim members in rest of India, can "reabsorb" them over a couple of generations.

Colonial powers will definitely try to preserve the core of the Ulemaic in TSP, so that they can play against India in the future. But they are in for a very rude shock. At this stage they will have to withdraw if they want to avoid confronting the Talebs and preserve good-relations for futire use. Or they will have to take punitive measures against the Talebs and face Taleb wrath. UK is fast losing its digestive powers for such "spicy and extra hot chilli".
US isd already desperately and loudly searching for a way to retreat with good face. From the discovery of the century - the "moderate" Taleban a few weeks previous to the discovery that "Taleban can topple the Pakistani Government" is the sign of a creative genius gone into brilliant overdrive. The only player remianing on field is PRC, the Saudis.

An axis with Russia and Iran and India can take care of that.

On the other hand, any success of the Talebs on the NW borders of India is a painful but good strategic outcome. This will destroy the Islamophiles within India, test the much touted hypotrheses of IM loyalty, and help create condition for a right-wing sweep of Bharat, eventually swallowing up all of the subcontinent.

Dreams? not really. Psy-ops at most for all the closet Taleb guests crawling over BRF.

[SwamyG]

How many think-tanks exist in India? Any links to their websites? Thanks in advance.

[ramana]

How many think-tanks exist in India? Any links to their websites? Thanks in advance.

You mean those funded by Indians for India or all think tanks?

Most of them have overseas tie-ups and you can guess what they advocate!

[SwamyG]

The ones that think for India; I have been looking at the Indian Ocean map for some time now and would like India to create a string of pearls around its neck. I have few countries in mind like: South Africa, Madagascar, Kenya, Somalia, Iran, Balochistan(??), Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand & Indonesia. I want to see what some of the think tanks are talking about these. I want each of the countries I mentioned above to be friendly to very-very-very friendly towards India. So wanted to check with the think-tanks.

[brihaspati]

Maybe something similar to Kaushalji's endeavour in history, but extended to future policy and "strategy"?

[Prem]

We must go through catharsis before the play ends , so thought of wise Greeks following Satyamev Jayte . The countless pages and countless strokes on the keyboard cry loud and clear in BR, Political Islam ( being very sweet and polite) is not compatiable with indic temporal and spiritual ethos. Nothing can be furthered in India till this doctrine is extinguished for good. The mistakes of the ancestors are now paid by the current crop, let not be negligent and put our children through the same. Either undo the partition or complete the partition . To you your and me Mine as clear fences make good neighborhood.

[brihaspati]

No, no new partition. The theology has to be rooted out. As long as that is there, no long term evolution towards relative peace possible. Keep the people, eradicate the theology. Target the ideology and its most diehard proselytizers for as complete a liquidation as is feasible, "smother" with excessive love the follower. Winning over is important, it can always be done from a position of strength. Strength to be achieved first.

[Shirish]

Ramanaji, sent you an email at your 56 yahoo address. Please read and respond. Your friends await.
Thanks

[ramana]

Ramanaji, Shivji,
Was my last post deleted inadvertently?

If it was deleted, please re-post.

Thanks,

ramana

[shiv]

Shirish - as a cowardly SDRE I have withdrawn from the difficult and thankless job that admins do.

Anyhow, thanks to ramana - another article cross posted. But I will also quote two of my own posts earlier in this thread. Those posts were made in all seriousness and I repost those thougghts because if history is anything to go by. Indians cannot rest on their questionable laurels and "natural sense of nation" with regard tt protecting borders but need to actively make sure that some effort is put into protecting boundaries.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms. ... 62&print=1

The Indian subcontinent is one such shatter zone. It is defined on its landward sides by the hard geographic borders of the Himalayas to the north, the Burmese jungle to the east, and the somewhat softer border of the Indus River to the west. Indeed, the border going westward comes in three stages: the Indus; the unruly crags and canyons that push upward to the shaved wastes of Central Asia, home to the Pashtun tribes; and, finally, the granite, snow-mantled massifs of the Hindu Kush, transecting Afghanistan itself. Because these geographic impediments are not contiguous with legal borders, and because barely any of India’s neighbors are functional states, the current political organization of the subcontinent should not be taken for granted. You see this acutely as you walk up to and around any of these land borders, the weakest of which, in my experience, are the official ones—a mere collection of tables where cranky bureaucrats inspect your luggage. Especially in the west, the only border that lives up to the name is the Hindu Kush, making me think that in our own lifetimes the whole semblance of order in Pakistan and southeastern Afghanistan could unravel, and return, in effect, to vague elements of greater India.
In Nepal, the government barely controls the countryside where 85 percent of its people live. Despite the aura bequeathed by the Himalayas, nearly half of Nepal’s population lives in the dank and humid lowlands along the barely policed border with India. Driving throughout this region, it appears in many ways indistinguishable from the Ganges plain. If the Maoists now ruling Nepal cannot increase state capacity, the state itself could dissolve.
The same holds true for Bangladesh. Even more so than Nepal, it has no geographic defense to marshal as a state. The view from my window during a recent bus journey was of the same ruler-flat, aquatic landscape of paddy fields and scrub on both sides of the line with India. The border posts are disorganized, ramshackle affairs. This artificial blotch of territory on the Indian subcontinent could metamorphose yet again, amid the gale forces of regional politics, Muslim extremism, and nature itself.
Like Pakistan, no Bangladeshi government, military or civilian, has ever functioned even remotely well. Millions of Bangladeshi refugees have already crossed the border into India illegally. With 150 million people—a population larger than Russia—crammed together at sea level, Bangladesh is vulnerable to the slightest climatic variation, never mind the changes caused by global warming. Simply because of its geography, tens of millions of people in Bangladesh could be inundated with salt water, necessitating the mother of all humanitarian relief efforts. In the process, the state itself could collapse.
Of course, the worst nightmare on the subcontinent is Pakistan, whose dysfunction is directly the result of its utter lack of geographic logic. The Indus should be a border of sorts, but Pakistan sits astride both its banks, just as the fertile and teeming Punjab plain is bisected by the India-Pakistan border. Only the Thar Desert and the swamps to its south act as natural frontiers between Pakistan and India. And though these are formidable barriers, they are insufficient to frame a state composed of disparate, geographically based, ethnic groups—Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis, and Pashtuns—for whom Islam has provided insufficient glue to hold them together. All the other groups in Pakistan hate the Punjabis and the army they control, just as the groups in the former Yugoslavia hated the Serbs and the army they controlled. Pakistan’s raison d’être is that it supposedly provides a homeland for subcontinental Muslims, but 154 million of them, almost the same number as the entire population of Pakistan, live over the border in India.
To the west, the crags and canyons of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan, are utterly porous. Of all the times I crossed the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, I never did so legally. In reality, the two countries are inseparable. On both sides live the Pashtuns. The wide belt of territory between the Hindu Kush mountains and the Indus River is really Pashtunistan, an entity that threatens to emerge were Pakistan to fall apart. That would, in turn, lead to the dissolution of Afghanistan.
The Taliban constitute merely the latest incarnation of Pashtun nationalism. Indeed, much of the fighting in Afghanistan today occurs in Pashtunistan: southern and eastern Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. The north of Afghanistan, beyond the Hindu Kush, has seen less fighting and is in the midst of reconstruction and the forging of closer links to the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, inhabited by the same ethnic groups that populate northern Afghanistan. Here is the ultimate world of Mackinder, of mountains and men, where the facts of geography are asserted daily, to the chagrin of U.S.-led forces—and of India, whose own destiny and borders are hostage to what plays out in the vicinity of the 20,000-foot wall of the Hindu Kush.

and my thoughts

The consciousness that active unity to protect well defined borders arose among Indians only after they acquired the concept of "nation state" which defines all the requirements for protection of nationalism. It sets in stone the bedrock on which geography can be protected. Protecting the geography is a fundamental step in protecting the culture or a people.

I see plenty of references to show that ancient Bharatvasis were aware of and revered their geography, but not a single one asking them to unite to protect that geography against an invader, or how to do that.

In theory a nation state can be created out of nothing. Pakistan IMO was an effort to create a nation state out of nothing.

If Indians and Pakistanis are "the same people" why does India show the appearance of surviving while Pakistan appears to be shakier than India.

That is because there definitely is a sense of one culture and one nation within India. It was that sense that was sought to be destroyed by the idea of Pakistan, and replaced by a cooked up sense of Nation of Islam.

The existence of a geographic area where the people have cultural/religious links makes it easier to set up a nation state.

As I have pointed out earlier - the relatively recent concept of "nation state" introduced inviolability of borders. I repeat that there is plenty of evidence to show that Indians felt like one nation for millennia and even knew the geographic boundaries. But only the establishment of an "Indian nation state" laid the frame work of a structure to protect the boundaries by all possible means.

[brihaspati]

Borders should not be taken to their extreme, where they become more important than what they are actually meant to preserve. A fanatical adherence to a strict physical border, can be both advantageous as well as disadvantegeous.

The advantage is mobilization of resources and commitment to defend it.

The disadvanatge is that the nation can exhaust itself defending a certain rigid geographical point to the extent that it has nothing to fall back on, and ultimately resist persistent and continuing aggression into the interior. Too much fixation on rigid borders as the most important defining characteristic of the nation can also create conditions where the loss of such borders creates a permanent trauma which equates loss of that border with loss of the nation - the nation then no longer exists. Moreover there may not be motivation to cross that "border" to expand when such expansion is in the interests of the nation.

Keeping the importance of "defending" existing borders in mind, a much longer term flexibility of strategic thinking is necessary. Such flexibility should include the recognition that both expansions and contractions are possible as part of strategic vision. Contraction is accepted in military thinking to accommodate abandoning territory which are less defensible and which would lead to loss of the core capability of the army to sustain its fighting capacity.

India has now to think in terms of expansions and not contractions. Not be satisfied with holding on to and defending "rigid" borders only, for the task is to protect and preserve the "nation" which needs expansion beyond to control and neutralize sources of aggression. Expanding borders, and frontiers looking into expanding spheres of influence, are targets. It is not suffiicient to merely keep outr borders with Pak, but dissolve Pak and push the border to AFG. It is not sufficient to endlessly posture about Chinese occupied territory, but establish Independent Tibbet, and recover Indian territories in the process.