Some things to Reconsider

  https://theprint.in/national-interest/op-sindoor-is-the-first-battle-in-indias-two-front-war-a-vicious-pawn-in-a-kings-gambit/2650009/   Op Sindoor: More Chest-Thumping, Less Thinking Let me begin with categorical disagreement—not gentle dissent, but full-throated, Sumo wrestler style takedown—of the “received wisdom” that now saturates prime-time India: the punditry of “TV Generals” and the breathless prose of what I call “cookie-pusher editors,” more trained in literary flair than geopolitical nuance. Case in point: the recent article titled “Op Sindoor is the First Battle in India’s Two-Front War. A Vicious Pawn in a King’s Gambit.” Dramatic? Certainly. Factual? Barely. The idea that China’s aggressive calculus came into India’s view only after Op Sindoor is laughable. For decades, China has not merely operated in isolation—it has built a playbook around proxy warfare. This is not new. It is not even controversial. It’s doctrine. North Korea is the textbook ex...

https://www.business-standard.com/opinion/columns/asim-munir-tightens-grip-but-fifth-star-won-t-alter-ground-realities-125053001946_1.html  By all means, Shekhar Gupta’s column “The Weight of the Fifth Star” could have been a sober, strategic analysis of civil-military tensions in Pakistan. Instead, it reads like a warning flare fired in the dark—noisy, dramatic, but ultimately directionless. While the piece accurately captures Pakistan’s descent into hybrid authoritarianism, it ultimately leans too far into speculative geopolitics, bordering on the theatrical. Let us begin with what is beyond dispute. Pakistan remains a garrison state, where the military tail wags the civilian dog. The Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, is not a national leader but a ceremonial compère reading scripts drafted in Rawalpindi. The President, Asif Ali Zardari, continues to weave his intrigues—but these days mostly in the salons of Karachi rather than the corridors of power. The institutions that should...