In the Blind Spot – India-Pakistan Tensions Point West

DARIO’S COMMENT: But will it lead to full-blown war? We think it’s unlikely.

No topic gets more undeserved yawns in the West than tensions between India and Pakistan. Both are nuclear powers, armed to the teeth. They’ve fought numerous wars and skirmishes — the last serious one in 2019 — and are filled to the brim with deep-seated nationalistic hatred. Attention to current goings-on is more than deserved.

But, contrary to what the media that have clocked on to the conflict are saying, it’s unlikely to escalate into a full-blown war.

And it’s not just because they’re both armed with nukes: perhaps the conflict is about something else entirely.

Water wars are a slippery slope for India: News watchers were immediately informed that India had taken the escalatory step of revoking the Indus Waters Treaty Act, which Pakistan claimed was akin to an ‘act of war’. This move was significant because the Act, signed in September 1960 with the World Bank’s backing, has survived numerous full-scale wars between India and Pakistan and has long been hailed as a triumph of diplomatic policy.

But that’s not the full story. For one, as the BBC reported, India can’t just turn Pakistan’s water off: it doesn’t currently have the infrastructure necessary to do so. India would have two options for a ‘water war’ on Pakistan: releasing dammed water or long built-up silt particulates that lie in Indian dams. There’s just one problem: Indian territory is downstream from any of the dams India would need to operate to damage Pakistani territory. This suggests the cancellation of the Indus Water Treaty is more of a long-term play by India to gain leverage over Pakistan, perhaps by legally facilitating the construction of additional upstream water-handling facilities.

The conflict is yet to escalate regardless: On the other hand, watchers have noted both Indian and Pakistani troops and tanks have been mobilized in the Kashmir region. There are reports of multiple, increasingly heavy skirmishes along the LoC in Kashmir. Prime Minister Modi has reportedly given the armed forces a free hand in deciding the “timing, targets and mode” of their response to the Pahalgam attack.

And while previous conflicts between the two countries over the past decade have found a relatively quick resolution, even typically cautious institutions like Chatham House have warned that this time is different: conflict is likely to erupt.

These worried institutions are on solid ground. In previous flareups, for instance, the United States had rapidly emitted de-escalating noises. This time, it took the Trump administration more than a week to urge both parties to de-escalate. That’s because the Trump administration had already signaled their intention to be more supportive of New Delhi’s policies — including by extraditing a Canadian national wanted by India, convicted of complicity in the 2008 Mumbai attack, less than two weeks ago.

But there will be limits: Despite these facts, and the likelihood of conflict escalation, it’s not certain to escalate into full-blown war.

Some have argued that Prime Minister Modi will move cautiously, and hesitate from deploying India’s army due to the patent deficiencies in upkeep and modernisation it suffers from, as reported by the New York Times. A second military disaster, like the 2019 debacle in which an Indian fighter pilot was downed, captured, and released by Pakistan, would harm Modi’s reelection chances — especially because his backers are fervent Hindu nationalists.

Other online analysts are similarly sceptical — widespread Indian administrative corruption means its advantage over Pakistan in airpower and artillery is scant despite having almost 10 times more military spending.

But that’s not why I’m sceptical. Put your speculation hats on — because this conflict may be less about the Indian sub-continent and more about the Western hemisphere.

All roads lead West: Yes, the horrific attack only targeted Indian tourists. True, Indian authorities stated they believed that Pakistan was behind the attack. And naturally, it’s only the last in a long line of terrorist incidents in Kashmir.

But observe when it happened. It occurred just as American Vice President J.D. Vance was visiting Narendra Modi in New Delhi. And just 24 hours after J.D. Vance left New Delhi, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that India may be the first country to sign a trade deal with the United States. But this isn’t the only free trade deal on India’s lap: the long-negotiated EU-India FTA was also expected to be finalized by year’s end.

Both are partners of similar importance when it comes to trade volume — India trades approximately €123.7 billion with the EU and $129 billion with the United States.

India’s trade volumes with both — while mostly equivalent — are primarily strategically crucial for Europe due to the latter’s rearmament drive. The EU’s 27 used to primarily import from Russia, but their steel trade volumes have decreased dramatically since the Russo-Ukrainian war. This means the EU is increasingly relying on steel from India, which makes up 46 percent of India’s overall shipments to Europe.

Timing is never accidental. This means it’s irrelevant whether the attacks were carried out by a Pakistani-backed terrorist group, as India alleges, or whether it was a false flag attack by Indian intelligence agencies, as Pakistan alleged, or whether they were the actions of a third country that stands to benefit (like China). Until India produces some proof Pakistan was behind the attack, we’re forced to guess (and more than a week later, no proof has yet been presented).

But, one way or the other, timing means the attack’s motive suggestively points West.

Rock and a hard place: As Bloomberg’s Menaka Doshi wrote, India is currently “In a fog of terror and trade”. While India has performed remarkably well economically over the last few decades, it’s now facing some tough choices.

Modi’s popularity isn’t what it used to be – while he’s still a titan of Indian politics, he lost congressional majority for the first time in last year’s July poll. And J.D. Vance’s soft tones in his India visit suggest that Trump expects some key concessions from India to announce a much-needed victory for his administration. Even if Modi allowed some key concessions — such as opening up the Indian agriculture sector to corn or cotton exports — India would have to face up to China’s warning: do not cut US deals at its expense.

With China and India in a lukewarm border conflict of their own, China isn’t afraid of pressing hard on whatever leverage it holds over India. And if India’s military will face a tough time against a near-peer rival like Pakistan, it would be even harder to face up to China.

The terrorism relief: From this perspective, the terrorist attack may give Modi some breathing room. It would allow Modi to whip up nationalist sentiment by orchestrating some piecemeal attacks on Pakistani soil and infrastructure. Even if these go sideways, as in 2019, Modi could publicly leverage his sidelining of the Indus Waters Treaty to announce additional downstream measures, like dams, that would augment Indian leverage over Pakistan’s economy for decades.

This would open up the path for Modi to make some key concessions to the United States, perhaps in the agricultural sector, without losing much nationalist backing. But we shouldn’t expect the concessions to stretch too far with China breathing down their neck. As such, we suspect India may have a freer hand for greater concessions to Trump if their attacks against Pakistan are carried out successfully (and if the conflict doesn’t spin out of control into all-out war.)

If they fail, as in 2019, it will be followed by the sound of Chinese military analysts rubbing their hands with glee. And that could mean Modi will have far less room to manoeuvre.

DARIO’S COMMENT: That’s when the Wikipedia trolls descended. In the space of a few hours, three Wikipedia pages – Harald Malmgren’s, his daughter Pippa Malmgren’s, and Christopher Mellon’s – were slated for deletion by rogue Wikipedia admins.

The unfolding scandal highlights how social media hype can be co-opted to push for measures that restrict the open internet, or what’s left of it.

The UFO scandal: All three personalities had been long-serving public servants who have taken an interest in UFOs. Pippa had served as an advisor to President George Bush, among other appointments, and Christopher Mellon had been Staff Director of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

X/Twitter and Reddit roared with disapproval. After all, the unfair bias of the edits was clear. These Wikipedia editors seemed like individuals with an axe to grind against the UFO topic, who meted out revenge in the form of aggressively disingenuous editing.

Within a few hours, Harald Malmgren’s distinguished career had been transformed into little more than a long-time Japanese whaling lobbyist and Christopher Mellon’s page was suddenly deleted. Though some attempted to revert their pages to their original state, these edits were consistently overruled by this group of anonymous editors.

A YouTube channel called The Good Trouble Show proved the key Wikipedia editor behind these moves named Chetsford had an intense editing schedule, working every day from 8am UTC to 2am, suggesting they may be paid for their editing.

They also pointed out that the individuals responsible were probably an infamous group of online so-called “sceptics” numbering several hundred people called the “Guerilla Sceptics”, led by Susan Gerbic, who proudly list their negative editing of Wikipedia topics on alternative and fringe topics as achievements.

The outrage online reached such an extent that Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia co-founder known for rarely taking a side in Wikipedia editing disputes, even ventured into Harald and Pippa’s Wikipedia page to recommend the pages be kept.

Then, the tables turned when Trump’s D.C prosecutor threatened to strip Wikimedia, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, of its non-profit status for “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.”

Wikimedia was allowing “information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.”

Stripping Wikimedia of its nonprofit status would threaten the company’s existence.

The rabbit hole: That’s when I realized there may be more to this Wikipedia editing than it seemed.

Because there was another long-running battle against Wikipedia in 2025 by the Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israeli NGO after it was labeled by Wikipedia as an “unreliable source”.

Then I started noticing a few incongruencies in the story.

The first is that the leader of this very dislikeable group of malicious Wikipedia editors called the “Guerilla Skeptics”, Susan Gebric, denied any relation to the editing. Remember: Susan Gebric’s team is comprised of hundreds of people.

And yet, two viral Reddit posts calling on people to stand up for Pippa and Harald received a very low proportion of downvotes – around 8 to 10 downvotes total.

This means that if there was a team behind the malicious editors on Wikipedia, they must have been smaller than Gebric’s “Guerilla Skeptics”.

Furthermore, it seems rather efficient for Trump’s prosecutor Ed Martin to compose this letter against Wikipedia on April 24, only 24 hours after these malicious Wikipedia edits started. Efficiency, or were the grounds for this move already laid out beforehand?

Could the UFO (and the pro-Israeli) community have been manipulated and coopted into legitimising a strategy for stronger federal control of the internet?

Let’s take a step back. To be honest, I can be prone to conspiracy thinking. That’s a major flaw of mine. But it can also be a superpower: I have an acute ‘spidey sense’, which loudly tingled after learning that Wikipedia was threatened by a federal prosecutor who sought to influence its content strategy.

The solution to toxic Wikipedia editing isn’t deletion: A broken clock is right twice a day. And while Wikipedia’s open-source system has been used & abused by paid teams of anonymous actors for decades, it remains, for better or worse, an open system.

Wikipedia’s flaws run deep. Its abused open system means the company can still flaunt values of openness and fairness whilst consistently being manipulated against free thinkers, rogue academics, and cutting-edge theories.

But that doesn’t mean it should be silenced. Because however toxic and manipulated Wikipedia’s open-source system may be, it will always be preferable to a system in which a governmental process has a final say on acceptable content.