At 05:07 PM 8/31/2004 +0530 Ritu wrote: >> In terms of China running into potential instability >> vis-a-vis a Civil War or Taiwan, the risks of this strike me >> as on balance only marginally greater than the potential >> risks of India running into instability >> vis-a-vis a Civil War of their own, or else a >> Pakistan-Kashmir crisis. > >What would a Pakistan-Kashmir crisis entail, and what would drive India >to civil war? >I'd like to hear more. :)
Well, I think that a Pakistan-Kashmir crisis is reasonably easy to imagine - although still very, very, unlikely at this point. I imagine it would involve some sort of escalation in terrorist attacks across the border, India losing confidence that whatever government is in Pakistan has any ability at all to control them, and India therfore concluding that the benefits to be gained by a cross-border incursion to wipe out terrorist training camps offset the risks of such an incursion. As for a Civil War, that again is in the realm of the highly unlikely - but this was a discussion of the "next superpower" after all, which is itself highly unlikely in the near to medium term. Anyhow, I think that Civil War is always something of a risk for a country as poor and diverse as India is. This will become especially true if some region of the country, say the southeast or the northeast begins to feel that it is being left behind by development, and that they themselves lack sufficient voting weight to redress their greivances through republican processes. Overall, I think that the risks of a war in Taiwan and a war in Kashmir are about roughly equal. Although China is significantly more militaristic, China has to calculate that overt agression against Taiwan would spark American involvement, which would, of course, be disastrous. There isn't quite the same risk for some kind of cross-border counter-terrorist operation in Pakistan, which offsets the fact that the Indian government is far less likely to resort to the use of force in such a situation. As for a Civil War, I definitely think that the inequality, militarism, and totalitarianism of the Chinese State do make a Civil War much more likely in China than in India. JDG _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
