ss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I do not foresee any let up in India's defence spending. Too many > Indians inside and outside India's corridors of power are unmoved by > what they perceive as naive arguments from former colonial powers > and existing military and nuclear powers that "disarmament" of some > sort is a good prescription for India and Pakistan,
Disarmament is generally a poor idea -- I'm not a believer in going defenseless. A strong military is a reasonable way to deter aggression. On the other hand, warfare is also a rather poor idea -- one engages in it when one has no better choice -- and long smoldering conflicts left unsettled have a nasty habit of bursting into flame. > and that if a recalcitrant India were to reduce defence spending it > would have the magical effect of making Pakistan do the same, I doubt it would have any magical effect on anyone, but it is generally a poor idea to burn resources to no productive purpose. Spending money week after week to resupply troops by helicopter so they can continue defending barren wastelands high in the mountains seems like a fairly poor use of funds. > To speak in Indianese - i would ask people "to eschew such egregious > prescriptions sourced from nations whose histories are peppered with > the very sins of which India is being accused" :D I'm not a big believer in my own nation's policies -- indeed, I protest them far more frequently than I laud them. I think it would be easier to claim my views were hypocritical if I did not apply them universally. > shiv -- Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
