Three short thoughts on the Indo-Pak ceasefire announcement

Good news in South Asia IR is rare. I have three basic thoughts right now.  


Stay in your lane

Amongst people who care about national security and foreign policy in India and Pakistan, including journalists, think tankers, academics, and random people on Twitter, there are basically two groups of people. We can affectionately call them, respectively, the peaceniks and the chest-thumpers. As a circle, the peaceniks is small, lonely, and subject to a great deal of abuse, ridicule, name-calling, and bullying from chest-thumpers, who happen to outnumber peaceniks both online and IRL in a roughly 100:1 ratio (a conservative estimate). 

Which is why I have found the some of the reactions to this very positive development quite funny. 

Sorry, but if you are a chest-thumper at all other times, you don't get to say pipe in when something peacenik-y happens and say "wow what a great development, I support this thing happening with all my heart" and act like your positions and rhetoric at other times aren't actively harmful to achieving outcomes such as this.

It's easy to be strike a peacenik-y note on days like today. But if you're not along for the rough part of the ride, you don't just get to hop on the train now. 


Is this what a normal, sound foreign policy looks like?

Good progress with the (perhaps) promise of more with India.

A good trip to Sri Lanka, both in its inception and its execution.

Some good rhetoric on Afghanistan.



Who knows if any of it lasts or matters ultimately. Who cares why or how it's happening. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the rare good week of a normal, sound foreign policy led by rational adults would look like.


Respect to Moeed Yusuf

Four months ago, some idiot said this:

As far as I can see, and I am certainly not privy to the inside workings of the establishment so take this with a grain of salt, the foreign and security policies of Pakistan have shown a remarkable level of continuity from before Moeed took the job. Maybe there is a lot going on behind the scenes and in fact he has made a difference. But it's not immediately evident, let's put it that way.

Here's what the Hindustan Times had to say today:

Oops. If Moeed really was the originator rather than the messenger of this policy, then I owe him a huge apology. Anything that shifts the prospects of India-Pakistan rapprochement even by a slight percentage is a significant moral and ethical good because of the sheer number of human beings who would benefit from it. Respect to Moeed Yusuf. 


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