[The latest anti-India protest in Bangladesh]
Bangladesh is once again on the boil, and the internal situation there is trending such that India’s intervention may become necessary to once and for all to not only lance the Bangladeshi boil but to end a geostrategic problem threatening India’s territorial integrity. India cannot and should not any longer tolerate a country on its eastern flank threatening to become China’s military proxy and extremist Islamist outpost. With an inimical Dhaka making things difficult, potentially the Indian army’s XXXIII Corps can be pincered between Dok La and the Siliguri Corridor. It is time for India to militarily pinch off Bangladesh’s northern Rangpur Division, thereby straightening and rationalising the border roughly on the west-east Balurghat-Gaibandha line.
Delhi has a strong justification for a couple of territorial revisions. Firstly, the forcible amalgamation of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) – a campaign that would have had a head start had the army been sprightly and offensive-minded enough to take the Haji Pir Salient in Operation Sindoor, as argued in a post anticipating Indian retaliation after Pahalgam in late April. And secondly, widening the 60 km long, 17–22 km wide Siliguri Corridor — India’s “Achilles’ heel”, by absorbing Bangladesh’s northern-most Rangpur Division, because in Dhaka’s hands, it poses an existential threat. Widening the Corridor is, therefore, a national security imperative, especially now that Bangladesh is in military cahoots with China.
Integrating the Rangpur Division into Assam (not West Bengal) would increase India’s margin of error when dealing with the Chinese PLA entrenched in the Dok La trijunction of India, Bhutan, and China just 30 kms uphill from the Corridor. India can do it the easy, or the hard way. The ideal solution would be, of course, to induce Dhaka to negotiate a peaceful handover of the 16,185 sq km sized Rangpur Division to preempt a Bangladesh-China military hookup. The Indian government can offer to buy off outright the Division adjoining the Corridor on the Bangladesh side for $10-$20 billion — thereby easing that country’s outstanding debt-problem (of $104 billion), as a one-time permanent settlement. Failing that, Dhaka would have to give an absolute and enforceable guarantee with a treaty that it will not, under any circumstances, create a strategic nexus or work militarily in concert with China (or Pakistan).
Should Dhaka ever, at any time, for any reason, resile from this undertaking, or falter on this guarantee– formalised in a bilateral agreement, India should feel free to slice off what a keen student of geostrategy, the Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has been ahead of the curve on this matter, identified in a May 2025 post on ‘X’ (previously Twitter), as the two corridors in Bangladesh at even greater risk – its ‘two chicken necks’ as he put it. He was referring to the 80 km long ‘North Bangladesh Corridor from Dakhin Dinajpur to the South West Garo Hills’, which if cut off would sever the Rangpur Division from Bangladesh.
And the ‘Second [being] the 28 km Chittagong Corridor, from South Tripura to the waters of the Bay of Bengal. This corridor, smaller than India’s chicken neck,’ Sarma correctly observed, ‘is the only link between Bangladesh’s economic capital and political capital.’ But the threat of annexing the Chittagong Corridor as well can be held in abeyance to moderate any severe reaction by Dhaka to the loss of Rangpur. Indian government and the Assam state government and their agencies should keep up a steady drumbeat about the strategic vulnerability posed to the Indian northeast by an ill-disposed Bangladesh conniving with adversaries, so that a valid and substantive justification is available for decisive action to realise territorial revision.
The absorption of the Rangpur Division would firm up an already strong Indian military presence in the Corridor with the S-400 centered layered air defence now augmented with an additional brigade distributed over three strong points at Bamuni, Kishanganj and Chopra – a standing force that can, at any time, move in on the Rangpur Division. Provocative statements about capturing the Siliguri Corridor and detaching the Indian northeast from the mainland regularly emanating from many quarters in Bangladesh only build up the Indian case for a surgical operation, offering India a rationale for militarily grabbing the territory that it must have. Assimilating a small piece of Bangladesh and converting the Siliguri Corridor into a toughened neck of a mountain goat — not anymore a chicken’s neck, would moreover give more room for the three army brigades deployed there.
In such a situation Bangladesh, aided by Pakistan, will no doubt canvas for the usual political US intervention to prevent Delhi’s remapping its border. But a stern warning, quietly conveyed, about such interference imperilling the foundational accords and the FTA, should prove dissuasive. The US is far from the super power it once was and needs every bit of help to deal with China, and India is not the country the Nixon-Kissinger duo tried to bully in 1971. Further, America’s criticality to India’s economic future is exaggerated. After the initial downturn in exports post-Trump tariffs, did Indian industry and exporters not find alternative markets? Further, where else can Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook sell their wares or gather the massive data for their AI large language models under development? And can Silicon Valley import talent in bulk from anywhere else as it can from India? It would really help if the Indian government did not buckle under the slightest US pressure, rather than imposing counter-pressure, by accelerating the country’s movement to de-dollarising trade as BRICS is doing, and using other leverages. Stiffening the stance vis a vis the US combined with nuclear missile arming of states bordering China — conventional Brahmos missiles should only be a start, will send a complementary message to Beijing. A payback, like vengeance, is best served cold.
But the Modi government is unlikely to stand up to Washington or, nearer home, even initiate a diplomatic dialogue with Dhaka to explore a territorial transaction — a latter day “Louisiana Purchase” to buy the Rangpur Division, or to configure a treaty guaranteeing a denatured Sino-Bangladeshi threat to the Siliguri Corridor on the pain of decisive Indian military action. Moreover, a military operation for territorial revision against Bangladesh is beyond anything the Modi regime can even contemplate, considering it is, among major governments, possibly the last true believer in a liberal international order that frowns upon such activity and is nearly extinct, because the main props of this order — the US and Russia, are torpedoeing it. US President Donald Trump is spoiling for a fight with Venezuela, and is on the cusp of starting military hostilities to oust the Nicolas Maduro government, besides warning of other military actions to hive off Greenland from Denmark, at the European end, and at the Central America end, the Panama Canal Zone from Panama. And Russia is bloodily dismembering Ukraine.
But like the previous Indian governments, Modi’s too preemptively stumbles, bumbles, and bends its knee to Washington and Beijing, and inspires no confidence it will aggressively do the right thing by the country where national security is concerned. Look what happened in Sindoor, when Trump insulted and humiliated Modi and deliberately pedestalised “Field Marshal” Asim Munir, and all the Indian government did was diplomatically shuffle its feet.
If the ruling BJP — an avowed nationalist party lacks the guts to revise the Siliguri Corridor map, what can be expected from political parties — Congress and Trinamool Congress who, over decades, methodically padded the electoral rolls with Muslims from Bangladesh to stay in power in the bordering states of Assam and West Bengal?
The issue of the 18 million-odd residents in the Rangpur Divisional area, however, is a socio-political problem that will have to be given careful consideration, and reasonably should, as part of the military operation, lead to this population being pushed into Bangladesh, to eliminate the possibility of Bangladeshi revanchism. Or it will only enlarge the communal demographic Bomb in the Indian east, and in the context of the diminution of the Hindu population in, and the institutionalised mistreatment of Hindus, in Bangladesh, it is a potentially volatile and nested issue the country cannot afford to have.
Hindus, who in 1947 constituted over 28% of the then East Pakistan territory, and 13% in 1971 at the time of the creation of Bangladesh with India’s military help, is now whittled down to less than 8% (some 13 million). The religious rightwing Jamaat-e-Islami party never forgave India for midwifing an independent Bangladesh — and its anti-India bias is what Jamaat and its extremist offshoots have been propagating, attended by progressively greater levels of violence. In Pakistan, the condition of Hindus is lots worse. The Hindu population plummeted from 14.6% of the population in 1947 to 1.2% (or, 3.1 million) today, in good part because the Hindu population transferred en masse to India, and since then owing, among other things, to regular abduction and forcible marriage and conversion of teenage Hindu girls — a programme backed by the mullahcracy.
This did not occur to me when I posted the original. But the 13 million Hindus remaining in BD are near about in size to the 18 million Muslims in Rangpur Division for full and clear transfers of populations — zeroing out Hindu population in Bangladesh for the 18 million Muslims in Rangpur Div, rendering BD a fully religiously homogenous country per Jamaat-e-Islami’s desire, and helping India obtain a more secure border in the east. This is a clean break solution that, as I argued in an earlier post, should have been the basis of Partition in 1947 as Dr BR Ambedkar, the sanest leader in the freedom movement, had strongly advocated.
By way of context, Muslims in India — 9.8% (35.4 million) of the population post-Partition has grown unhindered to some 14% (200 million) in the present day– the third largest Muslim population in the world.
Security Wise 
The Chinese embassy has not even expressed condolences about the killing of anti India politician in Bangladesh.The US and UK have come forward and expressed it in no nonsense terms.Yet, only the Chinese are to be blamed as usual.The Sinophobia in Indian intellectuals is as mindboggling as the Russophobia in US one’s.
Many Bangladeshi military officers have been from long trained in IMA, yet they are in cahoots with China,seems fantastical at best.China is the biggest military supplier to Bangladesh ,but that is from times of Bongabandhu Mujibur Rehman and continued even during Haseena.Also, important to note :Here the previous home minister clearly says it is CIA which has done all the destabilization.
https://www.cnbctv18.com/world/bangladesh-coup-attempt-sheikh-hasina-betrayed-by-army-chief-waker-uz-zaman-cia-help-ex-hm-asaduzzaman-khan-kamal-19738372.htm
After Hasina announces military drills with China, regime change took place.and now even though Bangladesh army chief visits Beijing we know who is the real player:
http://www.army.mil/article-amp/288434/bangladesh_us_army_pacific_land_forces_talks_strengthens_partnership
So, if CIA is really involved in the overthrow of Hasina government in Bangladesh. Mr. Karnad do you really think that Uncle Sam will let India redraw its map with Bangladesh? They will ensure Modi meets the same fate as of Hasina.
The US CANNOT stop India militarily from doing so. But it knows Delhi crumbles at the first sign of trouble!
India needs USA for a very very long time.The Indian exports are majorly resilient partly due to surge in smartphone exports (Apple) to USA, not Europe, USA, secondly due to expansion in other markets, but that is not feasible as the owner of famous textile exporter Gokaldas Exports explains here:https://www.cnbctv18.com/economy/indias-export-stay-resilient-but-industry-flags-2026-risks-from-us-tariffs-19797756.htm.
No, India does not need the US, anymore than the US needs India.
I have one query, Indians consider Israel as the only true friend of India.Israelis are setting up and expanding their arm manufacturing facilities in India.Israelis mossad is considered the best among western secret services and they definitely have a lot of info about Trump through Epstein and other scandals.
A tv commentator in white House claimed Trump is the first Jewish president and Trump also told he accepted 250 million from Israeli mega donors.Now, why Netanyahu being close friend of Modi and Israel being the only true friend of India, force US to abandon Asim Munir and embrace Modi?,
You are a big proponent of Israel too, hence my question.
Israel is distancing itself from, and is being distanced from the US, by Washington. In any case, why make a big thing of Munir?
@BharatKarnad
have been following and reading Mr karnad’s blogs for the past 5 years. I am not as knowledgeable in geostrategy as he is but i have a few questions regarding this
i)If China’s objective is to encircle India, wouldn’t annexation hand Beijing the perfect justification to militarise Bangladesh fully?
ii)How does territorial annexation align with India’s long-term strategy of being a net security provider rather than a regional disruptor?
iii)Wouldn’t Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and ASEAN states view this as a dangerous precedent, weakening India’s diplomatic standing?
One of the lessons India must learn from China is annex first, and deal with the outcomes later. India and Indians just talk, and worry about what ifs, and do nothing — a failing reflected in our sad history. Powers, incidentally, become great by being relentless disrupters. Like China, and not like India — a joiner of clubs, a seeker of approvals.
@BharatKarnad
Dear sir that analogy with China is precisely where I disagree. China could “annex first and manage later” because it is a continental power willing to absorb sanctions, isolation, and long-term hostility as acceptable costs. India’s rise, however, has been built on a fundamentally different foundation — economic integration, regional legitimacy, and strategic reassurance to its neighbours. Mimicking China’s methods risks forfeiting the very advantages that differentiate India from Beijing.
Power does not accrue only to “relentless disrupters.” The United States became the dominant power not by annexing neighbours in the 20th century, but by underwriting stability and making itself indispensable. India’s stated ambition to be a net security provider in the Indian Ocean and South Asia rests on trust, not fear. Annexing Rangpur would immediately convert India from a balancer into a revisionist power in the eyes of Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, ASEAN, and even Africa — pushing many of them closer to China rather than deterring it.
Finally, annexation would hand Beijing exactly the strategic opening it seeks: moral and diplomatic justification to fully militarise Bangladesh under the banner of “countering Indian expansionism,” much as NATO expansion was used by Russia to legitimise its own excesses. Strategy is not about acting boldly for its own sake, but about shaping outcomes. An action that strengthens China’s narrative, alienates neighbours, and locks India into permanent military overextension may look decisive — but it is not necessarily wise.
India’s historical failing has not been restraint per se, but the lack of clarity in matching means to ends. Strength lies not just in seizing territory, but in ensuring that what follows does not leave the country strategically worse off.
India is unique as the leading rimland power in the world, at once maritime and land power and, as such, has advantages China does not. China can neither move north nor west — checkmated by Russia, and cannot force the Malaca, Lumbok, and Sunda Straits, or breach in force the 2nd island chain in the Pacific. India sits astride the 8 and 9 degree channels — main trade traffic channels, and can do much, but does not. Re: the US history — America has been a classical imperial power from the 1820s, annexed California and Texas from Mexico in the 1870s and, in the 20th century, colonised Philippines, invaded Cuba and pacified the Caribbean, and forcibly made camp follwers of Japan and South Korea after WWII. Indeed there’s no sphere of activity the US has not disrupted and massively, including the international economic and energy orders lately presided over by the Bretton Woods institutions and Trump, respectively. Read my 2015 book Why India Is Not a Great Power (Yet) to get the thesis in detail.
Would definately love to hear your views on this sir.
It feels good to debate on this blog channel on such issues
@BharatKarnad
Also waiting for your next book sir absolutely loved reading India’s Nuclear Policy.
Would love to get a personally signed copy from you
Regards
Cmdr Ashutosh
Sure!
@BharatKarnad
Dear sir I do not dispute India’s unique rimland geography or the latent coercive leverage it possesses across the 8° and 9° channels. The issue, however, is not capability, but sequencing and consequence. Geography confers options; strategy lies in choosing which options to exercise without collapsing the larger design.
The historical examples you cite actually reinforce my concern. The United States could annex, intervene, and reorder regions because it did so after securing overwhelming maritime dominance, economic primacy, alliance depth, and institutional control over the international system. Even then, its imperial ventures produced persistent blowback — from the Philippines to Latin America — that required continuous management. India today lacks comparable structural insulation. Acting like a finished great power before becoming one risks premature strategic exposure.
India’s rimland position cuts both ways. Yes, it can threaten choke points — but that leverage is most effective when latent, not overtly weaponised in a revisionist land grab that unifies adversaries. Annexing Rangpur would not be an isolated tactical act; it would reorder threat perceptions across South and Southeast Asia, collapse India’s moral asymmetry vis-à-vis China, and convert Beijing’s encirclement problem into a legitimised coalition project.
China’s constraints are real, but so are India’s vulnerabilities: internal security load, demographic friction, capital dependence, and diplomatic bandwidth. A move that forces India into permanent continental policing while China consolidates maritime and technological depth is not exploiting rimland advantage — it is trading it away.
My contention is not that India should remain passive, but that coercion works best when it stops short of annexation: denial strategies, economic strangulation, political fragmentation of hostile alignments, and maritime leverage impose costs without triggering the unifying shock that annexation produces.
Great powers do disrupt — but the successful ones do so selectively, preserving ambiguity and escalation control. Territorial absorption is the bluntest instrument available. Once used, it forecloses more options than it creates
Stop giving excuses looking at way Indian armed forces operate i have started admiring Pakistani armed forces they are nimble, fast that they can challenge India.Without nuclear weapons also Pakistan can fight hot wars and deter India on western borders.Why does Indian Armed forced have not prepared for rapid retailatory capabilities in case of major terror events we know this is most probable scenario but still it takes 48 hours to mobilise, plan & respond.We started facing major terrorist attacks from 90’s till today our armed scramble for option to respond to Pak sponsered terror.
All your plans are about strategic restraint & inaction which is fig leaf to hide your incompetence and lack of planning.Look at the way we use our special forces and waste them in some CT operations there are so many reforms armed forces can undertake internally but averse to it.
Our armed forces are more worried about diplomatic standing than getting onhands with usage of nuclear weapons they are blind on this not all their fault because civilian govt is wary of involving them nuclear planning.Pakistan has SPD and even their militairy is well versed & informed on nuclear issues.
The way pakistan can deter Indian can India deter China?
It would be better if armed forces focus on building capabilties that would deter our adversaries rather than depending on diplomacy.Diplomacy cannot be a substitute for the incompetence of our armed forces.There has been no new doctrines of warfighting in 21st century by our armed forces we always play catchup game where is the creativity.
Email from Lt Gen Anil Ahuja, former Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff
Sun, Dec 21 at 7:07 PM
Dear Dr Karnad,
Thank you for sharing your views regarding `annexing’ the Rangpur Division of Bangladesh, to strengthen our security posture.
Appreciate your views – not necessarily agreeing with these.
I wish we had oriented our capability development correctly decades ago. We continue to `arm without aiming,’ still. That is the reason why some of your ideas seem beyond pragmatic implementation today.
Always stimulating to read and to hear you !!
Fond regards
Lt Gen Anil Ahuja (Retd)
Panchkula
More than this external threats the internal threat stemming from Islamism and growing Indian Muslims population is the biggest threat to India being an open & liberal democracy.In our country we have the most regressive organisation that promotes Islamism like Jamaat & Deoband whose roots are pre 1947 and disturbing part is they were against partition not because they loved India but because they felt they should convert everyone in subcontinent to Islam.We can’t objectively deal with any aspects governance & frame policies because at back of our mind we know this group can create problems and change the politics of our country.We cannot deal with Pakistan objectively because of the presense of this radicals within India who occupy madarssas as Maulanas and exert enormous influence.Where is the Nehru of Muslims some day the govt has to face this problem or we better except the reality of India becoming a shariah state and regress.Why everyone avoids this topic it will affect everyone even the elites we saw glimpse of what happens when regressive islamist element get whiff of power weather in Kashmir or now in Bangladesh what economic growth we will have with this?
Bharat Karnad is there intent & consensus in govt & political parties to deal with this like it righfully dealt with caste, women rights through Hindu code bill .Like you say we need a pacified neighbourhood and peace for India to grow.India cant grow confidently with looming presense of islamist in India who control levers of powers.
A rational and practical view that the weak would find radical!! Keep it up, BK!!
China is just a barking dog. It cannot bite. It’s military is highly overrated possessing no worthwhile combat experience since decades.
Infact PLA lost approximately 40 plus soldiers in the border clash with India in the year 2020. Majority of them drowned in the river (whose level rose sharply) while trying to run away.
Beijing knows the reality of its army that’s why they just keep conducting useless military exercises in and around Taiwan to bully the island.
Chinese know it very well that Taiwan will never join the mainland by choice and Beijing does not have the capacity to annex it by force.
If only India were to diplomatically recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. It will flatten the Chinese forever besides moving India in the league of great powers.
Occupy and present a fait accompli situation. very logical approach. Right answer to the recalcitrant behaviour of the Bangladesh rulers and their backers, wherever they are.
@BharatKarnad
Dr Karnad , after Rangpur and Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) region , should we set our eyes on Northern-Western Burma/Myanmar. The Burmese Army has completely lost control of that region , and now being run by a bunch of ethnic groups and gun runners. It makes a lot of strategic sense to integrate this region with rest of India :- drug trafficking and rebel movements come to an end, our North-Eastern Borders get rationalized , North Eastern States get shorter access to warm waters(instead of the current roundabout way through Siliguri Corridor) , hence multiplying their economies ,we also get access to Large Deposits of Gas and Rare Earth Minerals, propelling our new age industries, share land boundary with Laos and Thailand, hence strengthening our presence in SE Asia.
Most Important of them all , we can directly threaten China in its soft underbelly , pose a land threat to Yunnan province , forward deploy our missiles to increase pressure on the Chinese. So the next time Chinese open their mouth about Arunachal , we aim our missiles at Kunming !
Somebody should tell Modiji , its not the era of war but era of conquest.
No, I’d be leery of venturing into Myanmar
Prof., as you point out the humanitarian crisis after any annexing of BD territory will be immense. Rangpur division’s population is about 18 million, and displacement of even ten percent is already comparable to displacements which occured during Iraq war. Its simply beyond our politicians’ abilities to handle anything of such scale.
But if you say such displacement will be minimal then, would the Assamese people be ready for a sudden addition of 18 million people ? Will Indians be ready ? Or if you say we should deport only Muslims then that will be a political catastrophe.
@BharatKarnad What you have written is good, but, you also admit that this is beyond anything that the Modi regime can contemplate.
Then, what should India do?
That’s the proverbial million dollar Q
@BharatKarnad In the days gone by, 2 anti-India leaders in Bangladesh, Sharif Osman Hadi and Motalib Sikder have died.
Do you think they were killed by the R&AW or those associated with the R&AW and pro-India people in Bangladesh as revenge for all the troubles that India is facing after Yunus came to power?
Look, the politics of BD is roiled enough that internal elements likely bumped off these guys
@BharatKarnad Now that, one more anti-India Bangladeshi leader, Khaleda Zia has died, how will the future be for India with regards to Bangladesh and the upcoming so-called elections there?
Look, ultimately the BDs will work things out for themselves
Fully agree with you, and in addition to PoJK (mainly GB with some select parts of the heavily demographically bastardized & radicalized “Azaad Kashmir” like Haji Pir & Sharda Peeth), Rangpur Division, and the Eastern part of Chittagong Division (which must both be taken and then demographically corrected through full population transfer), there are also a few more interventions which India would be fully justified for and must carry out:
Merge the high Hindu population % districts of Eastern Sindh to save the people there from horrific daily persecution (including the abductions of little girls you mentioned), and while Akhnoor Dagger & Shakargarh Bulge in West Punjab are key strategic targets – Kartarpur Sahib within the Shakargarh Bulge absolutely belongs with India in every sense (and would also deprive Pakistan of one more lever in their game to revive Khalistan movement).
Hard disagree Professor
You can’t capture people .You have to rule them .
Clausewitz stating “War is a continuation of politics by other means” still stands true along with Niccolo Machiavelli ideas on how to capture and subdue enemy territory people to rule with brutal subjugation (uighyrs) or by coercion(what south koreans are doing)
Taking over strategic land that is empty ; Haji pir top can’t be equated to capturing land with political,financially settled institutions such as BD,Rangpur division .
Similar mistake was made in Kashmir, where political leadership when left in vacuum was taken over by foreign funded mosque , finances after kashmir pandit were taken by henchmen, till to the day elections are conducted at MLA level , We need ground level political participation like panchayat elections to include people .The first sign of insurgency in Punjab was non adherence to sarpanch not to the MLA
OnThe comments made above; American federalism is different wherein states can be said to have theoretical dominion status with independent flags and constitutions and supreme court , in such a political structure capturing land and coercing people in is not hard whereas in centralised leadership like india you need regional parties to win belief of people and bring loyalty towards the nation .
On myanmaar , it seems a more possible venture because of the shared Kuki-Zo people ethnicity on both sides of the border with Communal leadership being of Indian descent. Something China is trying to do with next dalai lama
Remove the lines below
This topic of capturing or seprating a territory from a place is topic of my research paper that i have been working for past year where i have worked out a step wise mechanism of this process (radicalistion->militancy->insurgency->civil war) wherein i have detailed with examples the process in both orders from around the world to make a instructional step wise chart detaling which instituions need to discredited at which stage which institutions to be introduced at what stage along with examples,
Would definitely send you this on completion ,
Give a Read to Prince if you have not ,you will definitely love it
Machiavelli, whom I have in my writings, called Europe’s Chanakya come lately – because in a wholly casual way in a longish footnote in my Nuclear Weapons & Indian Security, I speculated that Arthashastra was available to the Venetian Court and thence to Italian advice givers. Timelines fit. The difference was that while Arthashastra had no scruples or reservations, The Prince had a bunch of ‘em. So, go with the local….!
Gonna include it in next year’s reading list along with works of Hermann kahn ,Kenneth Waltz and Thomas C. Schelling. Any other author you would suggest ?
For my money, the greatest strategist along with Albert Wohlstetter is my mentor at UCLA – Bernard Brodie. I wouldn’t rank Kenneth Waltz in the same class. As I pointed out in my NWs & ind Sec waltz made a name for himself in the West for saying more nuclear weapons states would make for a more stable and peaceful order – a view first expressed 25 years earlier by Dr Homi J Bhabha in 1955
Modi and Shah already have far too much on their minds internal politics preparing for 2029, SIR etc. Amit Shah may be the kind of person who could take make bold moves but his attention is clearly elsewhere right now.
And that’s exactly why we have Ajit Doval in the PMO. This is his game. He has spent 11 years consolidating power, has ears of the PM, has his own man as the CDS. So if something major is to be planned, he is the one to do it.
Main Q is “What is Doval thinking?” Since he’s your friend, Professor, maybe you should give him a call and ask.
We are acquaintances, not friends
Prof.,
Thanks for addressing the population issue in the augmented version. It’s a brave proposal—almost at the same scale as that of the 1947 Partition.
@BharatKarnad
Sir was reading about the 2008 nuclear deal
i remember you wrote in this blog that an American policymaker on record says that
the purpose of the deal was to cap indian nuclear weapons capabilities to sub thermonuclear level and American negotiators led by condoleeza rice and her team fully took advantage of this
Can you tell more about this particular man you said this
@BharatKarnad
@futuristically
Yeah even i saw that video
Can you tell us about this particular man professor?
who says that the objective of the deal was to cap indian nuke yield to sub thermonuclear levels.
Out of country. But footnote reference in 2015 book why india is not a great power (yet). He was, if I recall correctly — subject to correction, Acting Undersecretary of Defense deposing before a Congressional Committee
Professor,
When it comes to bangladesh, I think we are being given a demo in real time of how Gandhian pietism has damaged our strategic thinking. Its actually a golden chance to solve the bangladeshi immigrant problem forever. The Nobel to Maria Corina Machado has proved that Western Liberals are no different from their Imperialistic forebears. But Modi and Jaishankar seem hell bent on finding a diplomatic solution.
I think it is very clear that America is behind the fall of the Hasina regime. Maybe thats why GoI is cagey about the military option. Are Modi-Jaishankar so scared about annoying USA ? Pakistan is just playing its usual role of Sepoy for a great power ?
Whats the American endgame for Bangladesh ? Have the Americans conceded South & East Asia to China as part of G2 ? If they have then doesnt that mean B’Desh is just another pawn to contain India and both USA and China have an interest in ensuring that B’desh reverts to its Pakistani roots ?
Time to Act
@BharatKarnad
First of all a Happy new year professor Karnad
Now to my question
If China were to initiate a major military operation against Taiwan, would this constitute the decisive structural shock that finally pushes Japan toward nuclear weaponisation?
Japan already possesses all the essential enablers of a rapid nuclear breakout—large plutonium stockpiles, advanced missile and space-launch capabilities, and a mature nuclear-industrial base. A Taiwan contingency would directly expose Japan to Chinese coercive leverage while simultaneously testing the credibility and risk-tolerance of extended U.S. nuclear deterrence.
In such circumstances, do you assess that Japan would continue to rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella, or would strategic logic compel Tokyo to acquire an independent nuclear deterrent—perhaps initially in a recessed or ambiguous form? Further, would Japanese nuclearisation be stabilising (by balancing China) or destabilising (by accelerating regional nuclear cascades)?
Henry Kissinger is often cited on Asian nuclearisation in the context of alliance credibility and U.S. withdrawal, though he usually framed it as strategic warning, not advocacy
He said
“If the United States withdraws from Asia or its security guarantees lose credibility, nuclear proliferation in the region particularly in Japan and other advanced states such as vietnam south korea would become almost inevitable.”
So how do you see this possible future scenario and nuclear weaponization of this region
There’s a good case to argue — as I have done in my new book under writing, that Japan already has an arsenal Athena proverbial screw Drivers turn away from readiness!
Even japanese going nuclear but the books is not released yet😔
Dear Sir,
New year’s greetings!
On a different topic, you mentioned some time back to take over Brazils’ Embraer aircraft. Do you think the recent Adani deal is good enough & could prove to be a game changer for us in future as far as commercial aviation is concerned?
https://www.outlookbusiness.com/corporate/after-airports-adani-group-sets-sights-on-jet-manufacturing-with-brazils-embraer
Look, Embraer was available for USD 2 billion 5 yrs ago to be bought lock, stock, and barrel. So, you tell me how great the Adani deal is!