United States President Donald Trump especially thanked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and âmy favouriteâ Field Marshal Asim Munir on Monday for their efforts in achieving peace in Gaza, among many other world leaders.
I might expand on this tomorrow, but itâs telling that Dr. Lalchand finds all this quite amusingâPakistan back again with a begging bowl. I, on the other hand, see it as something closer to a post-Pahalgam pivot. Perhaps India is underestimating Pakistanâs deep instinct for adaptation, especially as the region continues to drift in unpredictable directions.
It has been on my mind that Brown Pundits, for all its liveliness, risks drifting into an echo chamber. The commentariat is our lifeblood: their activity sustains the blog far more than page views alone. And yet, the very strength of that community can also be its blind spot.
I do not want Kabir to end up being the Cassandra of BP, always warning of decline, and being proved right in the end. If we are not careful, we could slide into a right-wing echo chamber where challenging voices fade, and the capacity for deep interrogation, the core of what makes BP unique, is diminished.
Iâve been busy, but I canât shake the feeling that weâre living through the beginning of a new world.
It was acute with the SCO summit; not just through the headlines, but the atmospherics. The handshakes, the body language, the ease. Itâs the kind of thing that barely registered in Western media, but Modiâs presence, standing shoulder to shoulder with Xi, Putin, and Pezeshkian, felt like the curtain rising on a new geopolitical epoch.
And at the center of it all? Donald J. Trump. Not by design, of course. But by consequence.
Since the 1990s, Western powers (aka the USA and it’s vassals) have been building up a relationship with India that paints India as a fellow liberal Democracy (and a possible future partner against the new enemy bloc led by China). Beyond these propagandistic talking points, there is supposed to be real convergence on some big things: Demographics, slowly laid economic foundations and baseline cultural strengths combine to make India a rising economy; At a time when birth rates are below replacement in the first world, there is going to be no bigger source of labor or talent. If businesses have to “derisk” from china, they have southeast Asia and India as the natural targets. If other Asian countries are to resist total Chinese hegemony, there is no way to do that without Indian help. And so on.
Throughout this period there have been many prickly issues between the partners (eg a recurring complaint from India that the West supports Pakistan, which sends terrorists into India; on the other hand there is a recurring Pakistani complaint that the USA does not pay enough and (especially in the last decade) is too willing to accept India as the regional hegemon; and well justified complaints from everyone that India is too protectionist) but the public diplomacy has remained positive and feelgood for the most part. All that started to change somewhere in May 2025 and it has been rapidly downhill in the last one month as Trump has publicly attacked India for being protectionist, accused it of being a dead economy, and completely ignored Indian “sensitivities” about Pakistan.
Until now, Indian officialdom has tried to stay sober and avoid inflammatory responses, but they have also resisted the choice (already taken as the path of least resistance by UK, EU and Japan) of massaging Donald’s massive ego and nominating him for some Nobel prizes to get past any personal hurdles. But of course India’s social media army has no such hesitation and on that front the bonhomie of the last few years has completely evaporated, with Indian nationalists and White Nationalists (let us not be coy and recognize that MAGA is a White nationalist movement at heart) going at it hammer and tongs.
So what is going on? and why? and what happens next? I have no inside information, so I am perfectly placed to make some general comments and then ask better informed people to tell me why I am wrong. Here goes: Continue reading USA, India, Pakistan.. an eternal prickly braid
Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donât have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
In this episode I talk to Kushal Mehra (Host of the Carvaka podcast) and regular Brownpundit Amey Chaugle about the tariff kerfuffle… the public (and on Trump’s side, frequently intemperate) war of words between the USA and India that is partly about India’s protectionist tariff regime but maybe mostly about other things (such as Donald’s ego and his desire to get that Nobel Peace Prize)..
Dig in and add your comments. We too don’t know exactly why this is going on and where it will end.. đ
At some point, the world will have to ask: what exactly was Israel hoping to achieve?
In the days following the dramatic escalation between Tel Aviv and Tehran, we are left not with clarity but with a deepening sense of confusion. If the intention was to disrupt Iranâs nuclear program, there is little to show for itâcentrifuges still spin, scientists remain in place, and the infrastructure of Iranâs deterrent capability stands unshaken. If the aim was to trigger chaos within the Iranian regime, then that too has failedâTehran did not descend into disarray; it retaliated, measured and intact. And if the goal was symbolic, to remind the world of Israelâs reach and resolve, then the moment has already passed, clouded by questions of proportionality, legality, and consequence.
I just wanted to share a thought thatâs been on my mind lately. Yes, Trump has attacked Iran â but Iran hasnât responded in any major way. That in itself is telling. It seems less a climax than a provocation, more bait than strategy. In truth, this might be part of a larger Western pattern: in its long twilight, the West no longer seeks peace but relevance â and sometimes, relevance requires war.
I recently heard a wild claim: that Norway was positioning a remote island of 150 people to tempt a Russian invasion, hoping to activate NATOâs mutual defence clause. Whether true or not, it captures something of the moment â the performative anxiety of a declining order, looking for conflict to reaffirm its own centrality.
As Amar writes, âIt is heart-wrenching to see Iran being bombed by two nuclear states, while it remains a signatory to the NPT and compliant with IAEA inspections.â He recalls living in Tehran in 1980, a schoolboy witnessing warplanes above Mehrabad and the skies of Tehran blazing with anti-aircraft fire. That memory isnât abstract â itâs personal, etched in smoke. His excellent comment is after the jump: Continue reading The Westâs War of Decline
Ten years ago, Donald Trump descended a golden escalator and upended American politics. He entered the White House not as a politician, but as a brand. Today, as the world stands at multiple geopolitical flashpointsâIsraelâIran, IndiaâPakistan, ChinaâTaiwanâthe question is not just what will Trump do, but what kind of world does Trump want to preside over?
Comeback King or New Emperor?
The interlude of Bidenâs presidencyâwhether viewed as rightful or riggedâhas only intensified Trumpâs mythos. He is no longer just the comeback kid; he is the comeback king in a time when cries of âno kingâ echo through a fractured republic. A decade on from his initial successful run, he should be an elder statesman but in fact he’s just getting started with another 3 years to go. It’s unparalleled influence in the American Republic since FDR who managed to dominate the 30’s through to the mid 40’s; Trump will be the dominant force in US politics from mid teens through to at least 2029. Continue reading đ§ Inside the Mind of Trump: Empire, Restraint, and the Hemispheric Gamble
Preface: I am not wading into the most important dispute in the galaxy. These are not recommendations or desires, just an attempt to see what the possibilities are.
So as everyone knows by now, Trump and Bibi had a press conference. Here it is.
Trump announced that the US now intends to take over Gaza, clean it out and rebuild it “nice”. And while this happens, some or all Palestinians will move to other Arab countries, where Trump will make sure they get a chance at a good life “not the hellhole that was Gaza”. Whatever you may think of the proposal, there is no doubt that this is “thinking outside the box”. 75 years of policy tangles and arguments have been swept aside and a bold plan has been offered as if it is actually going to happen. So lets steel man it.
We obviously do not know what their detailed plan is (if anyone has any ideas, do share), but it does seem that the thinking from Trump-Bibi is that the Palestinians have been defeated (not the first time) in battle and should finally see that 75 years of trying to cancel the Zionist project has failed; So (bitterly, reluctantly) they will now accept a deal they hate. And secondary claim: they will find out it’s not that bad, losing to America and allies. They could be the middle eastern Japan if they give up their war. This at least is the public claim.
So what could go wrong.Â
1. Most Palestinians have not accepted defeat (or at least, if they have they keep it to themselves, the public posture is defiant) and enough fully intend to fight on to make removal a brutal nightmare.
2. Some Arab regimes will not be able to hold it together once their opponents come after them with “these guys sold Palestine” AND we see above brutal nightmare unfold on live TV
3. Russia is weaker, but unlike China, has skills galore. Unless there is a simultaneous deal with Putin, he could throw a spanner. Maybe the Chinese are not that passive either. The “axis” may push back.
4. What else? (keyboard warriors and western leftists are not on the list of possible spoilers as far as I am concerned, though they will hog attention)
The US national election is a week away. It is likely that there are near-zero undecided folks left now, but the race is close, so no one will know for sure until the (inefficient) American electoral system counts the votes. And of course, given his past shenanigans, it is very likely that Trump at least will not easily accept a defeat and this time, the establishment may resist as well. But hopefully there is enough juice left in the system to eventually decide a winner and for that winner to eventually take power on January 20th.
So who should one vote for? and who is likely to win?Â
Both questions seem to be hard to answer right now. Kamala is clearly the establishment candidate and the deep state is pulling out all the stops to get her elected. But it is still a democracy, so votes do get cast and do get counted, so it is not just up to them. Still, if you approve of how the USA establishment is doing, then you have to vote for Kamala. But what if you have been blackpilled by one of several potential blackpill possibilities in the current environment? for example, my personal pros and cons list would look like this:
Pro-establishment:
This is the system that has delivered economic abundance, functional democracy and freedom of speech and association to its people. That the elites game the system and get away with tax fraud, Epsteinism and other corruptions is a given, but compared to peer competitors, this remains a rich country and a democracy; and the competitors are neither.
Even where they are total and utter failures (eg in fighting corrupt wars in the “Muslim world”), the establishment is the system. If you throw the baby out with the bathwater you will not have a more competent establishment, you may have chaos.
The Gender nonsense and the elite’s relentless promotion of racism (presented as “anti-racism”) as a tool of politics is a long term danger to the health of society, but some of these things are niche concerns and some can be countered with “but the other side is even worse”. Or it can be argued that these are some side effects of increasing freedom from past cultural rules (that felt oppressive to a lot of people too) and are not some sort of plan to destroy society; their overuse was something the elite tried but is now backing away from. Shit happens, but self-correction also happens.
Anti-establishment:
These SOBs stole a couple of trillion dollars and killed tens of thousands of people and STILL lost 2 wars and have not solved a single problem since then either. Their specialty is kicking the can down the road. People like General Milley are not dumb in some IQ sense, but clearly they operate in a system that rewards bullshit and suppresses common sense. An outsider like Trump is needed to shit on these people and flush them out with his giant turds.
The foreign policy area that most interests me (India, Pakistan etc) will almost certainly do better under Trump (mostly because he is not wedded to the Indian regime change hopes of left-liberal westerners). Even the middle-east may be better off under him because he asks common sense questions and is so full of himself that he can easily tell these elite bullshitters to go take a hike. That may work better than whatever Blinken and company are up to.
But its Trump. And he is frequently an undisciplined clown who either has no idea what it is good to say in a functional democracy and what is beyond the pale, or just does not care. Either way, not a good thing. The system will likely survive him, but it will be endless drama and blatant attempts to use the power of the state against his opponents in ways that would never be admitted by a more disciplined candidate.
