India-Pakistan Conflict: The Risk of Nuclear War
India-Pakistan Conflict: The Risk of Nuclear War
India and Pakistan have a long history of hatred towards one another, but now that they both have nuclear capabilities, any small squirmish could erupt into a nuclear war. Check out today’s epic new video that analyzes the tenuous relationship of these neighboring countries and the real risk a conflict between the two would have of causing an all-out nuclear war for the rest of the world.
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Content
0.72 -> Pakistan indirectly threatens India with its
so-called “Islamic bomb.” India returns indirect
6.36 -> fire, saying it can “meet the challenge” and
is ready for a “swift and massive retaliation.”
10.62 -> Pakistan says, do your worst; we’ll exercise
our full capabilities, and India replies with
16.14 -> similar vague threats. The US President watching
from a distance, says, “I cannot believe” this is
21.36 -> happening. He shouldn’t be so surprised. His
country helped make this situation possible.
25.44 -> Today we’ll discuss the foundations
of this hothouse of hatred and figure
29.7 -> out if the unwavering bad vibes will be
taken to their utterly disastrous end.
33.84 -> On February 20, 1947, British Prime Minister
Clarence Attlee announced that British
38.94 -> India would soon have full independence
after almost 100 years of British rule.
43.44 -> A month later, he gave a speech at the House
of Commons, talking about a pervasive sense of
48.06 -> a “national idea” in India, and he praised
India for its “wonderful service” in World
52.62 -> War II. He said he didn’t want to stress the
difficulties in India regarding what he called
56.58 -> the “different divisions,” which he acknowledged
shouldn’t undermine this national idea.
61.08 -> He was perhaps a bit too optimistic.
The 400 million people in India,
65.88 -> he went on, should decide their own destiny.
He was right about that. Importantly, he said:
70.26 -> “I am well aware, when I speak of India, that
I speak of a country containing a congeries
74.82 -> of races, religions, and languages, and
I know well all the difficulties thereby
79.02 -> created. But those difficulties can only be
overcome by Indians. We are very mindful of
84.66 -> the rights of minorities, and minorities
should be able to live free from fear.”
88.32 -> He was right again but was Britain about
to pull out too fast and leave a mess on
93.3 -> the giant multicolored patchwork of
contrasting fabric that was India?
96.84 -> On June 3rd of that year, the Mountbatten Plan was
announced, which stated there would be a partition
102.36 -> of India. This would consist of the Dominion of
India and the Dominion of Pakistan – Pakistan
107.82 -> with a Muslim majority and India with a Hindu
majority. Simple. Job done. Goodbye, namaste,
113.46 -> Assalam u Alaikum, as well as the other ways to
say goodbye in the hundreds of languages in India.
118.26 -> But there were also the so-called Princely
States, which in the time of the British Raj were
123.42 -> not directly ruled by the British but by Indian
rulers. These states, said the Mountbatten Plan,
128.58 -> should be able to decide which part of the
partition they wanted to be with. Hmm, thought the
133.44 -> British, ok, that’s maybe not so simple, but never
mind, cheerio guys, the pleasure has been ours.
138.24 -> At the stroke of midnight on August
14, Pakistan officially came into
142.14 -> existence as a self-governing entity, and
at midnight the next day, India did, too.
146.88 -> We’re going to simplify things a bit here for the
sake of time, so let’s just say splitting India
152.88 -> was very problematic. There were power struggles
after the British pulled out. It had been done
157.32 -> too hastily. People were stuck on the wrong side.
Families, communities, and farms were split apart.
162.3 -> This was in a country that had already been
on the brink of chaos before the war. The
166.44 -> Great Depression had ravaged India, with large
swathes of the population unemployed and literally
171.3 -> starving. In Bengal, there was a famine in 1943
in which 800,000 to 3.8 million Bengalis died.
178.68 -> The British tried to pass it off as an unavoidable
natural disaster. In actuality, various wartime
184.2 -> policies created a human-made disaster for
which the Brits could take a lot of the blame.
188.7 -> So, tensions were already fraught before
the partition, never mind after. There were,
193.32 -> of course, ethnic tensions. There was a migration
of around ten million people trying desperately
197.7 -> to get where they wanted. Fighting erupted
everywhere. Communities engaged in mass
202.02 -> killings. No one knows the exact death toll,
but it’s estimated that at least several hundred
206.4 -> thousand people died in the conflicts, but it may
have been as many as two million. In what’s called
212.28 -> the Amritsar train massacre, 3,000 Muslim refugees
were killed by Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs, and of
218.58 -> course, there were deadly reprisals. That’s just
one example. In 1947, about 100,000 women were
225.06 -> kidnapped and suffered horrendous fates. Another
example of the utter turmoil in India at the time.
229.56 -> We’re not going to get into all of it,
but trust us, the violence was next-level,
233.94 -> fostering a bitter resentment that would last a
very, very long time. What’s important is both
239.28 -> India and Pakistan both claimed ownership of the
Kashmir region. That spelled trouble, big trouble.
245.16 -> It didn’t help matters that Mahatma Gandhi
was assassinated on January 30, 1948.
250.38 -> A 38-year-old Hindu fanatic named Nathuram
Godse shot Gandhi at a multi-faith prayer
256.2 -> meeting in Delhi. Gandhi’s take on India was
not exactly in line with the thoughts of a
260.82 -> right-wing Hindu paramilitary group.
His death only served to strengthen
264.72 -> secularism within the Indian government.
At this point, Pakistan and India were
269.16 -> already fighting in the Indo-Pakistani War
of 1947. This began with an invasion of
273.96 -> Kashmir by armed tribesmen from Pakistan.
Kashmir asked India for military support,
278.46 -> in exchange, it would accede to
Indian rule. On January 1, 1949,
283.08 -> with UN mediation involved, a ceasefire
line was drawn, which became known as the
287.94 -> Line of Control. This designated Indian and
Pakistani-administered portions of Kashmir.
293.4 -> In 1965, there was a second Indo-Pakistani
war when under Operation Gibraltar, Pakistani
299.34 -> soldiers went over to the Indian side of Kashmir
with the intention of starting an insurgency.
303.66 -> In 1966, both sides agreed to peace
again. This would become a familiar story.
309.18 -> All this time, more trouble had been brewing
in Pakistan. There was East and West Pakistan,
314.46 -> with the East having a majority Bengali
population. Punjabis mostly dominated
318.84 -> the West. The two sides didn’t often agree on
most matters. In short, the East side didn’t
323.4 -> feel it was represented enough in politics.
Bengalis felt oppressed, and this and many
327.9 -> other reasons led to a bloody civil war.
The Pakistani Armed Forces, along with
332.34 -> pro-Pakistani Islamist militias, massacred
between 300,000 and 3,000,000 people and did
337.98 -> heinous things to 200,000 and 400,000 women.
Bangladesh says three million were killed in
343.56 -> this genocide, and as many as 30 million
people were displaced. Pakistan generally
347.82 -> gives much lower figures, but there was no
doubt some high-level brutality going on.
352.74 -> India was behind the East and joined in,
in what would be called the Indo-Pakistani
357.72 -> War of 1971. It was the East with its Indian
forces that won, which ensured that Bangladesh
364.02 -> was formed as an independent country. We are
not going into details here and are leaving
369 -> lots of things out, but rest assured,
India and Pakistan were having issues.
373.2 -> To point out that India and Pakistan have their
differences would be a massive understatement.
377.58 -> It’s like saying God and the Devil have
history. The conflicts haven’t stopped,
381.54 -> of course. In fact, the fires of division
have raged time and again, but before we
385.62 -> get into current flare-ups of violence, we
need to talk about another important matter.
389.4 -> On July 16, 1945, the Americans conducted the
first nuclear bomb test in history. Codenamed
396.18 -> Trinity, the detonation happened at a site
about 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico.
401.22 -> President Harry Truman wasn’t there,
but he picked up a telegraph that read,
405.3 -> “Babies satisfactorily born.” The next day,
the Potsdam Conference began in Germany,
410.22 -> in which Truman, Winston Churchill, and the Soviet
leader, Joseph Stalin, discussed postwar peace.
415.26 -> Truman’s interpreter, Charles Bohlen, saw
Truman walk up to Stalin. Bohlen later said
420.42 -> Truman “strolled over nonchalantly” and
whispered in Stalin’s ear that the US had
424.8 -> a “new weapon of unusual destructive force.”
Stalin’s world quietly fell apart right then.
430.92 -> He hadn’t expected the US to get that done so
fast. The Soviet Union had a lot of work to do,
435.9 -> but other countries would also start playing
catch up in the nuke stakes, including India,
440.34 -> which, as you know, would soon be embroiled
in years of conflict with its enemy, Pakistan.
444.9 -> In regard to this show, it’s ironic that the
so-called father of the atomic bomb, Robert
450.18 -> Oppenheimer, used a phrase from an ancient Hindu
text when he first saw the bomb explode. That was,
455.88 -> “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
On August 29, 1949, the Soviets saw their own
461.88 -> destroyer of worlds explode at a test site in
Kazakhstan. That hadn’t taken long, but hey,
466.32 -> spies did their fair share in helping the Soviets.
The Brits followed in 1952 and the French in
471.48 -> 1960, and then came China. But who would be next?
The answer is India, in 1974, under its secret
478.32 -> Smiling Buddha project that came to fruition
on May 18 in the Pokhran region of Rajasthan.
483.66 -> The US was not happy at all. It wasn’t supposed
to be this way. When the test took place,
488.58 -> and an explosion equivalent to 8-12 Kilotons
churned up the earth of north-west India,
493.62 -> it apparently came as a bit of a shock to the US.
Under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
499.5 -> it was agreed there’d be nuclear
haves and nuclear have-nots,
502.68 -> but India didn’t really see this as valid. It
wanted to be one of the haves, and it wasn’t
506.88 -> concerned about what the US thought about that.
The US then stopped sending uranium fuel to India.
512.1 -> India called its test “peaceful,” but the US
said it didn’t really see the difference between
516.48 -> “peaceful” and “military” nuclear devices.
The reason the launch became possible was in
521.52 -> part because of the US. In the early 1960s,
it developed the Atoms for Peace project,
526.56 -> which consisted of helping nations around the
world to make their own nuclear power. This
531.18 -> not only meant sharing materials but also sending
scientists to other nations. The whole thing was
535.56 -> on the condition that these countries didn’t go
ahead and start trying to make nuclear weapons.
539.88 -> It turned out that this was like giving a
child some candy and telling them they need
543.84 -> to wait until after dinner to eat it.
Of course, there was always a concern,
547.74 -> but in the case of India, the US media
reported that India’s Prime Minister
551.34 -> Lal Bahadur Shastri had no plans to make an
“A-Bomb.” Let’s just say that things changed.
557.52 -> The US had said it would keep sending India
nuclear fuel for 30 years, which, as you know,
562.2 -> didn’t happen after it conducted its nuclear
test. Cutting India off from nuclear fuel was
567.06 -> a big deal. The New York Times wrote that the US
was cutting off “a supply of atomic fuel that is
571.74 -> becoming critical for the Indian economy.” The
Canadian Government also stopped sending nuclear
576.48 -> fuel, saying with all the poverty in India, it
wasn’t right that the country had “devoted tens or
580.8 -> hundreds of millions of dollars to the creation
of a nuclear device for a nuclear explosion.”
585.12 -> At that point, India’s Prime Minister was
Indira Gandhi. She’d already made friends
590.16 -> with the Soviet Union, and India
had received arms because of that.
593.58 -> She said something along the lines of “bugger
that,” I am not signing any nuclear treaty. She
598.44 -> was also worried that the US had too much control
over India, kind of forcing her country to adopt
603.18 -> its policies by bargaining with food aid. She
also didn’t like President Richard Nixon, who’d
607.86 -> supported Pakistan in the Bangladeshi liberation
war when she was running India. This is important.
613.56 -> The feeling was mutual between Gandhi and
Nixon. Declassified documents show just how
618.78 -> much Nixon hated her. In a conversation between
him and Henry Kissinger, he calls her a “bitch.”
624.3 -> Kissinger replies, “Well, the Indians are
bastards anyway. They are starting a war
628.56 -> there.” He was referring to a war with Pakistan,
of course. Nixon then calls Gandhi an “old witch.”
633.54 -> In a separate conversation, but still in 1971,
Nixon talked to Secretary of State William Rogers.
639.12 -> He tells Rogers, “They want Pakistan
to disintegrate. Despite what she says,
643.8 -> that’s what she wants, there’s no question about
that… I think that our policy, wherever we can,
648.3 -> should definitely be tilted toward Pakistan and
not toward India. I think India is more at fault.”
653.16 -> This is all very important in regard to our show
today because it explains what happened next.
658.02 -> As you can imagine, when Pakistan heard about
India’s so-called “peaceful” nuclear test,
662.58 -> it had an entirely different interpretation
of what the word “peaceful” meant. Pakistani
667.5 -> president, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, got his officials
together and said something along the lines of,
671.82 -> “You get your top bloody scientists together,
and you make a bloody bomb ASA-bloody-P.”
675.96 -> Pakistan was incredibly poor. Many people didn’t
have food on their plates some days. Still, Bhutto
681.72 -> had earlier said, “If India builds the bomb, we
will eat grass or leaves - even go hungry-but we
686.76 -> will get one of our own.” He said in no uncertain
terms that to even things up, the world needed
691.44 -> an “Islamic Bomb.” Even though Pakistan was
friendly with the US, handing out nuclear arms
696.12 -> technology was not in the US’ bag of tricks.
But Bhutto had tricks up his own sleeves.
700.98 -> Pakistan was also part of the Atoms for Peace
project, and there were plenty of top Western
705.42 -> scientists working in the country. What the US
did was just turn a blind eye to what Pakistan
710.58 -> was doing with its scientists and nuclear fuel.
At the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency
715.32 -> was secretly helping Pakistan because Pakistan
was secretly sending billions of dollars worth
720.24 -> of US arms to Afghan guerrillas who were fighting
the Soviets. In the decades to come, the US would
726.12 -> become not only an enemy of Pakistan but also
those Afghan guerrillas - the mujahideen. These
731.82 -> people, who’d partly later turn into Al-Queda,
were not just armed but also trained and funded
736.62 -> by the US. Geopolitics is a topsy-turvy world.
Pakistan would later not just become the enemy,
742.38 -> but partly thanks to the US, but much more
China, it was able to make its own atomic bomb.
747.12 -> A former CIA agent later admitted, “We have
helped create the conditions that exist today
752.22 -> for the big bomb.” He was talking about
Pakistan. India was less than pleased and
756.66 -> viewed the US as partly at fault for creating
this huge threat to its national security.
760.98 -> The New York Times wrote many years later:
“It required more than three decades, a global
766.02 -> network of theft and espionage, and uncounted
millions for Pakistan, one of the world's poorest
770.94 -> countries, to explode that bomb. But it could not
have happened without smuggled Chinese technology
775.92 -> and contradictory shifts in American policy.”
China provided the blueprints and the fuel,
780.9 -> and the US provided a ton of money in aid and,
indirectly, some nuclear technology and materials.
786.18 -> This multi-billion military aid program was later
switched off when the US no longer needed Pakistan
792.78 -> to send those weapons over to Afghanistan. Still,
by then, the damage had been done. It didn’t
797.52 -> help matters that when the US withdrew its help,
Pakistan felt defenseless. It needed that nuclear
802.98 -> bomb more than ever, so it speeded up the process.
Then in May 1998, India conducted a bunch of
808.98 -> nuclear weapon tests despite the international
community condemning it and threatening sanctions.
813.48 -> The New York Times wrote, “President Clinton
announced wide-ranging American sanctions,
817.62 -> including an end to most American aid
to India and a pledge to use the U.S.
821.7 -> vote to deny India loans and other help from the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”
826.62 -> The Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
said, ok, we will deal with that when it happens.
832.08 -> He told the media, “If the path ahead is a
difficult one, we will not shy away from it.”
836.46 -> Something close to 90% of Indians said in a
poll that they agreed with the tests. After
841.32 -> all, why shouldn’t India do what other
nations were doing? Vajpayee said sure,
845.82 -> he’d eliminate India’s arsenal just as soon as
the other nuclear powers did the same – the US,
850.44 -> Russia, Britain, China, and France. He was wrong
about that list. There was another country on it.
855.48 -> India’s tests took place on May 12. Then
on May 29, the Times ran the headline,
860.88 -> “NUCLEAR ANXIETY: THE OVERVIEW; PAKISTAN,
ANSWERING INDIA, CARRIES OUT NUCLEAR TESTS.”
866.4 -> Under the codename Chagai-1, the detonation of
Pakistan’s first atomic bomb happened in the
871.86 -> mountainous region of the country’s Balochistan
state. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
876.78 -> didn’t waste any time in declaring his
country a “nuclear power.” India was
881.64 -> furious. The US was mightily concerned
but should have known this was coming.
885.42 -> Now Pakistan’s next-door neighbor, its lifelong
enemy, felt what it was like to live next to a
890.94 -> destroyer of worlds. Pakistan then warned
that its military had just started fitting
895.08 -> nuclear warheads to missiles that could easily
hit targets in northern and Central India.
899.4 -> “Today, we have evened the score with India,”
Sharif said in a TV address to millions of people.
904.2 -> News reports stated that people in Pakistan
started filling up mosques and praying in
908.82 -> thanks for such a blessing. Huge crowds started
dancing in the streets throughout the country,
912.9 -> some people shooting guns in the air, while
over in India, millions of folks were thinking
916.98 -> the same thing: Damn. This aint good.
The Western media reported that there
921.12 -> was “pandemonium in the Indian Parliament,”
and now India started saying it too was
925.68 -> fitting warheads onto weapons and they could
bloody well hit specific targets in Pakistan.
930.3 -> The Indian Prime Minister said, “India is ready
to meet any challenge.” The Pakistani government
934.8 -> said any aggression by India would result in
a “swift and massive retaliation.” It was a
939.42 -> my-bomb-is-bigger-than-your-bomb stand-off.
Meanwhile, the global community was in shock.
944.1 -> President Clinton announced that Pakistan
would be hit with the same sanctions which
948.24 -> the US had slapped against India, which at
least even some things up. Clinton said,
952.8 -> “I cannot believe that we are about to start the
21st century by having the Indian subcontinent
957.12 -> repeat the worst mistakes of the 20th century.”
A sad fact was that a nuclear arms race was on,
962.7 -> with India no doubt having the deeper pockets,
but both countries, who’d already spent billions,
967.26 -> were now aid-less and poorer as large parts of
their populations lived in abject poverty. We
972.3 -> are talking about extreme poverty here,
not people complaining that they didn’t
976.2 -> get the latest console or new flatscreen TVs.
The good news is India signed a No First Use
982.32 -> (NFU) policy agreement, but its language around
that has always been unclear. For instance,
987.24 -> just recently, India’s defense minister
warned after an attack, “What happens in
991.26 -> the future depends on the circumstances.”
That was like saying, “I’m a strict vegan,
995.22 -> but let’s see what happens when I run out of
veg, and there are only sausages in the freezer.”
999.18 -> Such clashes have been common over the years,
and yet, those nuclear bombs still collect
1003.98 -> dust. It also has to be said that Pakistan
hasn’t signed an NFU, but when those pieces
1009.08 -> of paper are arguably only good for wiping your
backside with, does it really matter? India has
1013.22 -> been purposefully ambiguous about its nuclear
policy, probably not revising its statement
1017.12 -> because what would be the point? Making vague
threats kind of annuls such promises, anyway.
1021.74 -> No nukes were fired in 1999, either, when India
launched air strikes against Pakistani-backed
1027.74 -> forces, nor did anything major happen in
2001 when heavily-armed terrorists stormed
1032.84 -> the Indian Parliament building and killed
nine people. There was subsequently a large
1037.04 -> deployment of troops on the border.
There was more trouble in 2008 and 2009,
1041.78 -> and a surge in border violence again in
late 2016 that lasted into 2018, which
1047.3 -> killed dozens of people and displaced thousands
of others on both sides of the Line of Control.
1051.62 -> Angry demonstrations and anti-India protests
demanding an independent Kashmir have happened
1056.78 -> numerous times, with hundreds dying once in
clashes when Indian security forces fought
1061.28 -> with militants and protestors. Indian military
operations have sometimes gotten heavy-handed,
1066.2 -> but Pakistani militants have killed Indians
time and again. It never seems to end,
1070.46 -> but the nukes haven’t always been
mentioned. Still, they are there,
1074.06 -> poised, sitting like obedient wolves at the gates
of two opposing fields full of innocent sheep.
1079.52 -> The two countries have seldom issued
end-of-world threats to each other,
1083.3 -> but in 2019, things took a turn for the worse.
First, the Pakistani-based terrorist group
1088.46 -> Jaish-e-Mohammed killed over 40 members
of India’s paramilitary forces in a bomb
1093.2 -> attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir. This
time, India retaliated with air strikes
1098.18 -> and bombed what it said was a militant
training camp, and then Pakistan shot down
1102.68 -> Indian planes and captured a pilot.
Now this was real tension. India’s
1107.42 -> nuclear-powered submarine, the INS Chakra, and
its nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine,
1112.34 -> the INS Arihant, were both deployed. Pakistan’s
Prime Minister Imran Khan scared the hell out
1118.1 -> of the global community when he warned that
nuclear war could follow if things escalated.
1121.94 -> He called the Indian leader a “fascist” and
talked about Indian oppression in Kashmir.
1125.84 -> He warned, “We are heading for a potential
disaster of proportions that no one here
1130.58 -> realizes. It’s the only time since the Cuban
crisis that two nuclear-armed countries are
1135.32 -> coming face to face.” He said if things
did escalate, he would act accordingly.
1139.34 -> Later that year, something weird happened.
Indian troops in their tens of thousands
1144.2 -> were deployed in the region. Regional leaders’
homes were raided, and leaders were put under
1148.58 -> house arrest. Schools were closed, a big
Hindu festival was canceled, and telephone
1152.72 -> and internet services stopped working.
India then announced it had scrapped most
1156.92 -> of Article 370, calling it a “historical blunder.”
In short, what this means is that Kashmir will no
1162.56 -> longer have the degree of autonomy it has had from
India up to that point. It will now follow the
1166.82 -> rules of the rest of India, which will also mean
people outside the state will be able to buy land
1171.5 -> there. India says this will promote development.
But remember, this state has a Muslim majority,
1176.84 -> so some people have said India’s plan is
to change that by opening it up to outside
1180.98 -> development. A former Kashmir Chief Minister
said, “This constitutional relationship has
1186.08 -> been turned into an illegal occupation. So that
is what we are going to be fighting about now.”
1190.52 -> And sure, Pakistan said what India had done
was “illegal.” It threatened to “exercise all
1196.28 -> possible options,” which could have
meant anything. But Pakistan didn’t
1199.7 -> resort to violence. Instead, it curtailed
diplomatic relations and suspended trade.
1204.26 -> The question is, has this ended any hope of
peace, and are we going to see another round
1209.06 -> of violence between countries that
sometimes make vague references to
1212.72 -> annihilating hundreds of millions of people?
Researchers say tens of millions would die in
1217.58 -> the blasts if these two nations let their
bombs go, and up to two billion around
1221.72 -> the world would die as a result in the long run
after black carbon clouds filled the atmosphere
1226.46 -> and blocked out the sun. That’s just if India and
Pakistan threw everything they had at each other,
1231.2 -> not if other nuclear powers got involved. We don’t
think they would, but just India and Pakistan
1236.96 -> having a nuclear beef would have devastating
consequences far from their two countries.
1241.22 -> One of the American professors who worked on
this scenario and came up with all the global
1245.78 -> ramifications and fatality numbers said,
“It is disconcerting to think the actions
1250.04 -> of Indian and Pakistani generals could
possibly start a war that could impact
1253.88 -> the entire world more than any previous
world war.” He then said he hoped these
1258.26 -> two nations would sort their Kashmir problem
out for their sakes and for the world’s sake.
1262.46 -> India and Pakistan are both big spenders in
the weapons market. They want to feel secure
1267.44 -> as any nation does, but you could argue
that if they made up and became friends,
1271.28 -> their populations could experience more
progress in their general quality of life.
1275.24 -> A US report titled “India and Pakistan: The
Opportunity Cost of Conflict” states that both
1281.24 -> these nations are suffering heavily because
of years of extravagant military spending in
1285.56 -> view of high levels of poverty. In fact, you
can find many media stories criticizing the
1289.94 -> nations for spending too much on weapons, but
when one of them ups the ante, the other has to
1294.44 -> follow. India also has to think about wolfish
China, another country barking at its borders.
1299.24 -> In 2022, India was the fourth biggest spender on
defense at around $61 billion, and Pakistan was
1306.14 -> in 24th place at $11 billion, although in the top
ten for the amount of its GDP spent on defense.
1311.36 -> Russia has easily been the biggest arms seller
to India of late, but France and the US have
1317.06 -> also done good business there. Pakistan’s biggest
arms seller has in the last decade been China,
1322.52 -> followed by Russia. How things have changed!
From 2018 to 2022, India was the biggest arms
1329.3 -> importer in the entire world, followed by Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, and Australia. Pakistan was in 8th.
1335.12 -> Pakistan has massive levels of poverty, with some
critics stating that it’s a “Poor Nation” with a
1340.52 -> “Rich Army.” In 2023, an article stated it was
on the “brink of a dreadful economic meltdown”
1345.44 -> while shovelling money into the military.
India is much richer, but it’s a country
1349.88 -> with widespread extreme poverty visible just about
everywhere you go. The World Bank wrote in 2022,
1355.28 -> “Indians Account for 80% of Those Who Became
Poor Globally in 2020 Due to COVID-19.”
1360.98 -> But still, there is this huge military
spending. Would anything change, though,
1365.54 -> if both countries could at last say they were
not a threat to each other? We don’t know.
1370.28 -> If only the Kashmir crisis could end, and the
two nations could shake hands and just have
1375.02 -> a bloody good game of cricket and end all those
vague threats hanging over people. But somehow,
1379.7 -> many think the constant conflict isn’t going
away, and the hyper-expensive fear is here
1383.96 -> to stay for a long time. The good news is
India’s “war of words” with Pakistan is
1389.06 -> almost certainly just that in regard to
nukes, so two billion people can breathe
1393.14 -> a sigh of relief. Bitterness is one
thing. Extermination of your people
1397.22 -> and another country’s people is another.
Now you need to watch “India's World War 3
1402.62 -> Plan.” Or, have a look at “India vs Pakistan
- Who Would Win (Military Comparison 2020).”
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhS6Q27LbUc