Just bought a plane; it got hit.

What has taken place in Pakistan is what I have long hoped for (for decades) from a country peopled with brown people on the receiving end of imperialist blows. The “shock and awe” campaign against Iraq in 1991 was supposedly to be countered by Saddam’s elite Republican guard. Nonetheless, no such dignified counterstrike ever materialized. Saddam was left in power but was unable to regroup. A little over a decade later, he was easily taken out.

Then came the destruction of Lebanon in 2006 (which some had the audacity to believe was a victory for Hezbollah); and despite Israeli acts of aggression beginning at least fifty years prior in 1948, the Arab world was never, and has never been, able to mount any sort of stinging rebuke. We are fast approaching a century of humiliations. The loss in 1967 and again in 1973 still haunt the Arab world and no one in the region has any idea how to proceed. Most Arab countries are quietly making peace with the Israeli aggressor and have all but conceded to Israel the role of permanent hegemon. Saudi Arabia seems increasingly weary of the Palestinian problem and would rather Israel just wipe them out already. Egypt and the Emirates are not far behind.

Gaddafi seemed like a bright hope—a man committed to mobilizing Libya’s resources and society to actually fight for some measure of redress and global justice. But as soon as the imperialist war machine turned its attention to him in 2011, he was easily disposed of. Bayoneted in the behind, Gaddafi (like Saddam), long since in Western crosshairs, showed he had no secret weapon or contingency plan despite decades to prepare.

Assad in Syria seemed for a brief moment to fare better; with Russian assistance in 2015, he outlasted all Western puppets who initially insisted that “Assad must go” (including Obama, Cameron, Hollande, and Merkel). His regime seemed capable of withstanding Western aggression. But in the time between the defeat of Western backed terroist groups in 2015 and Assad’s abdication in 2024, he too was unable to logistically bolster his position. Syria fell unable to mount any type of last gasp attack against its enemies.

The murder of General Solemani in 2020 was also a humiliating loss which resulted in no significant retaliatory escalation of any kind. We heard in the press that Iran would indeed make America pay; but it has not and probably cannot.

I remember also when the Occupy movement fizzled out in early 2012. I remember people claiming that the movement is simply going underground and had plans to strike back at the heart of Wall Street corruption and corporate greed. Anonymous, the hacktivist resistance group, kept reminding us with macabre Guy Fawkes masks, to “expect them.” I suppose at one point I did expect them. But I no longer expect anything from them.

Then came the murder of Hezbollah’s entire elite command structure including Hasan Nasrallah in September 2024—in the manner of shooting fish in a barrel. And did anyone anywhere in the world retaliate? Perhaps a bit of kerfuffle emerged out of Yemen but nothing serious that might count as a credible deterrent. A genocide ongoing and still, nothing.

Until Pakistan in 2025.

Pakistan is not a blessed country; they lack the manpower and resources of a country like India and do not have the oil wealth of the Arab countries. Pakistan is not a “sexy” place; anyone with money leaves Pakistan. But the departure of its cosmopolitan emigres means that those who remain have the will to fight.

Pakistan has suffered devastating national humiliations dating back to its tumultuous founding in 1947, including the immediate loss of Jammu and Kashmir, followed by defeats in 1965, 1971 (leading to the loss of East Pakistan), and 1999—all to India. Out of four Indo-Pak wars, Pakistan was 0/4. They are now 1/5.

In the early 2000s, Pakistan, along with Somalia, was frequently branded a “failed state.” I hardly expected things to be happening in secret, under the radar (competently, professionally) in Pakistan. The supposed harboring of the world’s leading global terrorist (Osama bin Laden) in 2011 was another source of great shame for the nation. The raid on Abbottabad again did not cast Pakistan in any sort of credible light in international eyes and gave the impression of a country rotting from domestic corruption. The strange ouster of Imran Khan in 2022 further added to the image of Pakistan as a grotesque creature subject to vile internal strife that threated to tear it apart.

But Pakistan is the first nation in my lifetime to show the world that major humiliations can be productive. Had Russia carried out a similar operation in Ukraine in the early days of the conflict, the imperialists would have backed down just as India has. Vijay Prashad said something about the perils of any military escalation in the region. But what the global south really suffers from is an inability to escalate.

Escalation also means deterrence. The willingness of the global south to want to pacify the aggressors is making the world much more dangerous. More countries should follow Pakistan’s example. Give the imperialists the war and conflict they so desperately crave. As Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry put it:

Don’t worry. You are so fond of Pakistan firing at you? We will fulfill your demand at the time, place, and means of our choosing.

This is the correct attitude of resistance moving forward. Cross-reference the above with Chairman Mao’s remarks to Edgar Snow in 1957:

We do not want war, but we do not fear it. If the imperialists want to provoke war, they will be the ones to blame. The people of the world will not allow them to succeed. We want peace and we will work for peace. But the imperialists are always looking for an excuse to provoke war. The question of war and peace is not in our hands, but in the hands of the imperialists.

我们不想打仗，但我们不怕打仗。如果帝国主义者想挑起战争，他们应当为此负责。全世界的人民不会允许他们得逞。我们要和平，我们会为和平而努力。但帝国主义者总是寻找挑起战争的借口。战争与和平的问题不在我们手中，而是在帝国主义者手中。

Pakistan is blessed by its proximity to China, a country which also goes out of its way to avoid escalation at all costs. Perhaps in a nuclear armed world, it is the fate of big powers to fight proxy wars. But the proxies must prove capable. The West requires proxies to do its dirty work too but is not at all interested in making them win. Exploiting their willingness to fight and die is the only prerequisite. They have suckered the Ukraine and now India (they will look to sucker Taiwan next). In short, Western proxies are losers. China’s sole proxy to date is a clear-cut winner.

After India militarized the Ladakh region in 2019, China and Pakistan completely revamped their joint military exercises which had been ongoing since 2012. But now, instead of focusing on dogfights in the air, they focused on greater inter-operability of jets, radar, missiles, and satellites, meaning that all these platforms were far better synchronized (through AI) and capable of sharing information instantaneously.

Pakistani pilots knew about the coming attack from India on May 7 before the Indian fighters even took off. As Indian military analyst Pravin Sawhney explains, this war was not won by the superiority of one make of jets over another, but by data, or data-linking and “multi-domain operations.” In short, this war was won by rapid information sharing. Pakistan, with access to the Chinese constellation of 40 BeiDou satellites, simply had more information than India. Operation Sindoor was effectively flying blind.

India has been defeated soundly and is now the global laughingstock. Their extremely defensive, panicked reactions, and over-the-top denials in the media further display their deep-seated colonial mindset. Crying to the United Nations and pleading for sympathy from Liberals is a non-starter. The world may be forced to side with Zionist propaganda of supposed Israeli victimhood. But no one in the world is going to muster the same sort of sympathy for India. Simply put, the Western propaganda machine is not designed to come to India’s defense and validate its victimary claims of “terrorism.” India simply doesn’t have the cards.

Make no mistake; India has definitively sided with the imperialist axis-of-evil. The cravenness behind their willingness to ape imperial talking points (Israel’s especially) reveal a sinister desire to do in Kashmir what Israel is doing in Gaza. Such is especially galling from a nation that has suffered under the boot of imperialist powers. But such is always a possibility for those who cannot overcome previous colonial humiliations. Like the majority of Arab countries, India would rather side with their captors, allowing them to disguise their colonial shame and cowardice behind supposed acts of strength.

Astonishingly, Pakistan is showing a remarkable ability to shed its colonial mindset and stand up as a free, proud, and independent nation. Pakistan and China together are a beacon of hope for the global south. If more parts of the world are destined to be chewed up in the absence of direct, great-power confrontation, it makes much more sense to fight China’s proxy wars than Western ones. Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Bangladesh already seem to understand this. Let’s hope more countries have the guts to escalate in face of imperial barbarism. This is the only real path towards peace.