{"id":181102,"date":"2016-09-29T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/09\/29\/this-sort-of-thing-keeps-me-up-at-night\/"},"modified":"2016-09-29T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T00:00:00","slug":"this-sort-of-thing-keeps-me-up-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/09\/29\/this-sort-of-thing-keeps-me-up-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"This Sort of Thing Keeps Me Up at Night"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>India has just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/09\/30\/world\/asia\/kashmir-india-pakistan.html\">sent combat troops into Pakistani areas of Kashmir<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">India announced on Thursday that it had carried out early morning \u201csurgical strikes\u201d on terrorist camps in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, a step that risks escalating the conflict between the two nuclear powers.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">However, Pakistan denied that a cross-border strike had taken place, saying that Indian troops had fired small arms across the Line of Control, killing two soldiers and injuring nine.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">A senior Pakistani security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said Pakistan would consider a cross-border strike by India an act of war.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The official warned that Pakistan could use tactical nuclear weapons in self-defense if India initiates a war.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Indian operation, if it occurred as described in Delhi, would be precedent setting. Though India\u2019s military has almost certainly carried out cross-border raids, the government has never publicly announced them, even during the brief conflict in Kargil in 1999.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Indian officials said that ground troops crossed the de facto border shortly after midnight and destroyed a handful of terrorist camps in Pakistani-controlled territory, inflicting \u201csignificant casualties\u201d and returning across the Line of Control before dawn.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The operation was planned in retaliation for two attacks this month on Indian positions, including one that killed 19 Indian soldiers.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Remember: both India and Pakistan have significant nuclear arsenals.<\/p>\n<p>The DPRK does not scare me.  This does.<\/p>\n<p>You have two military establishments that are fixated on a final cataclysmic conflict, and, particularly in Pakistan, these beliefs exhibit significant sway over the decision making process.<\/p>\n<p>We are dealing with a bunch of generals who would make Curtis LeMay look like a wimp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India has just sent combat troops into Pakistani areas of Kashmir: India announced on Thursday that it had carried out early morning \u201csurgical strikes\u201d on terrorist camps in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, a step that risks escalating the conflict between the two nuclear powers.However, Pakistan denied that a cross-border strike had taken place, saying that Indian troops &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815,872,832,819,831],"class_list":["post-181102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-foreign-relations","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-south-asia","tag-teotwawki","tag-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}