Geopolitics, security and conflict
Inter-state relations, wars, militaries and world affairs.
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Izzat Maxing
X.T.M answers Q’s claim that India–Pakistan wars will stay short, arguing that allies matter only for the fifth day. He tests this against 1971, Kargil, Operation Sindoor and the Gulf…
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Racial curve fitting analysis
Indosaurus questions the popular claim that Arab culture explains Arab military defeats, noting that the same traits appear in Japanese corporate life and that Houthis and Hezbollah have outperformed. He…
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Xi, Putin and Pezeshkian Walk Into Delhi
X.T.M reads the BRICS summit in Delhi, with Xi, Putin and Pezeshkian present during a US blockade of Iran, as the West’s non-Western partners rerouting around it. He sees BRICS…
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Open Thread: Nepal Floods + 20 months since Assad
Open Thread, 27 August 2026. X.T.M opens by suggesting that Middle Eastern hybrid regimes balance the great powers nimbly, while democracies such as Israel and India pursue grander foreign policies,…
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The Failure of Pakistani Alliances & The Instability of the Middle East
0M-3 examines why alliances involving Pakistan, CENTO, SEATO and the recent Saudi Arabia and Turkey pacts, have failed, arguing that regional infighting and diverging interests, not colonial-drawn borders, are the…
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Bangladesh-India Open Thread
A reproduced news report, source not named, on Bangladesh’s anger at India for letting the ousted Sheikh Hasina address journalists in New Delhi; the post is titled an open thread…
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Open Thread – Iran & CJP
Open thread from X.T.M on the war in Iran and the continuing CJP protests in India, asking about Sonam Wangchuk and why the Education Minister has not resigned, with praise…
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Reading Dawn in Delhi.
X.T.M reports Beena Sarwar’s talk at Mela Nordic’s Stockholm Partition event, tracing the end of Aman ki Asha to Sapan, a volunteer network with a minimum common agenda that bans…
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The Meltwater Carries No Passport
X.T.M reports Anuradha Bhasin’s talk at Mela Nordic’s Stockholm Partition event, which proposed cross-border newsrooms, a shared archive and arts as empathy, and weighs it against earlier attempts such as…
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Geography is Power
A reply to X.T.M’s post, this essay argues from realism that geography has shaped South Asian states’ trajectories, citing Mackinder and Spykman, Pakistan’s Cold War and GWOT frontier role, and…
