News and Views

Prime Minister Imran Khan is the winner today. His decision to ‘return’ the IAF pilot anoints him as an indisputable monarch of magnanimity, a prophet of peace. No matter what India does, diplomatically or militarily, it can never deliver comeuppance to Pakistan.

Pakistan will never lose this game of one-upmanship, for it has mastered the strategy, once employed by North Korea: Crazy Fearsome Cripple Gambit. When a nation chooses to fashion itself as crippled and fearsome, and crazy, it gets its way around.

For more podcasts from The Quint, check out our Podcasts section.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his acceptance speech for the Seoul Peace Prize on 22 February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi quoted the popular Korean saying Shichagi Bhanida, meaning, “A good beginning is half the battle”. Although he referred to this in the context of the peace process in the Korean Peninsula, his security establishment would be restating this in a completely different context. But more importantly, as the news of strikes by the Indian Air Force spread across India on Tuesday, 26 February, his domestic admirers too would have begun reiterating the foreign adage.

For more podcasts from The Quint, check out our Podcasts section.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A pre-dawn strike by the Indian Air Force on Tuesday, 26 February, against terror camps of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), has resulted in a propaganda war on both sides. While India caught Pakistan unawares 12 days after the Pulwama suicide bombing that killed over 40 CRPF personnel in Kashmir, Islamabad, in embarrassment, pledged retaliation at a place and time of their choosing.

For more podcasts from The Quint, check out our Podcasts section.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Chinese know a thing or two about face. Therefore they clearly understood the message put out by India in the aftermath of the air strike on Balakot in Pakistan on Tuesday, 26 February. This was aimed at making it easy for Islamabad to walk away from confrontation.

The official statement put out by South Block invoked the doctrine of self-defence, enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. It described its strikes on one of the “biggest training camps of JeM in Balakot” as “non-military pre-emptive action” provoked by the imminent danger that India believed it confronted.

For more podcasts from The Quint, check out our Podcasts section.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices