The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - India's Assassination Program in North America || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

A US federal grand jury has voted to issue indictments against a handful of ethnic Indians (with alleged ties to the Indian government) who the US Department of Justices claims participated in an assassination program in North America. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/indias-assassination-program-in-north-america

Hey, everybody. Peter Zion here coming to you from my bed because I've thrown out my back and I'm going to be here for a couple of days. The news, aside from that, is that there's a lot afoot in relations between Canada, the United States, and India. Recently, the United States has issued an indictment of a number of folks in India, many with ties to the government, for an assassination program in North America with, which, according to the Americans, has killed at least one Canadian citizen and targeted unsuccessfully some with dual American Canadian citizenship. Both these people are ethnic Indians. And as the indictment goes, there are factions within the Indian government who have used state resources to set up a murder program in North America and take out folks that they say are supporting separatism in India. Now, the reality of the situation on the ground in India is that Sikh separatism peaked probably. I'll believe back in the 1980s, not that it wasn't serious than it was.

But no one's really been talking about in any sort of meaningful way in the last 20 years, unless you happen to be an ultra-nationalist. And the BJP, which is the ruling party in India and is pretty much a shoe-in at this point for re-election next year, has a severely ultra-nationalist faction. And that means we've got to pick this apart a little bit. Okay, first of all, a lot of the negative stereotypes about India when it comes to things like government and efficiency are true. A lot of societies think of government as a cash cow where you get jobs.

I don't necessarily have to do anything. And there's going to be some truth to that in any society, but in India it's particularly robust because they do have the world's largest administration. And oftentimes it's considered a minor miracle, if anything, gets done because there are so many clashing authorities, not just between the local, the state, and the national government, but within the different bureaus of the national government. and the government is absolutely treated as a cash cow for whoever the ruling party or parties happen to be, and in that sense that BJP is no exception.

But what that means is as a rule, getting anything done within the Indian government, especially when it involves foreign security policy, is next to impossible because the institutions are just so lethargic and overpopulated and undersupported. What that means is whoever did this, it's entirely possible. that it was done without the knowledge of the BGP leadership in general, the prime minister in particular. Modi, the prime minister, is certainly a nationalist in himself, but he's not like advocating going out and killing someone else's citizens on a different continent. But it's perfectly reasonable to expect that there's a faction of the BJP,

who is ultra-nationalist, who has used their links to the state now to launch something like this independent of the federal. world government. When Justin Trudeau first announced almost in passing that a Canadian citizen had been killed by Indian agents, you know, it sparked a bit of an uproar. But then the Canadians started releasing details about the people who did it. And to be perfectly blown, a lot of them were kind of chubby. And, you know, the world of international espionage is many things.

But it doesn't spend a lot of time at the buffet at Caesar Palace. these are folks that have to be pretty much get up and goers and chupsters are not known for being particularly agile assassins. So, you know, they got caught both in Canada and in the United States in particular. And now the question is what is this going to mean for relations. Now, if this theory is correct that this was just kind of a rogue faction within the political sphere as opposed to actual professional intelligence agents, then someone's head can be put on a platter when it was just Canada and maybe some countries quietly back in Canada

that was one thing but when they moved into the United States and attempted to kill someone oh my even at the height of the Cold War the Soviets would have never even dreamed of that even with relations as bad as they have become with the Chinese the Chinese would ever even think

about going after an American citizen in America but apparently there was someone in India that thought they were exempt. And, you know, that's a hard pause. You can suck up a lot in great power politics when it comes to the treatment of your allies. But if someone's coming after your citizens, that's a very different sort of picture. And that generates broad spectrum retaliation. And if this is a proto-ali like India may be to the United States, that pretty much sinks all states'allis options between the two countries right there. So I

would guess, especially if this theory is correct, is over the course of the next few weeks, tensions are going to cool. The Canadians are already being fairly smug about saying that they've already cooled quite a bit now that the United States is directly involved. Canadians love to be smugged. And eventually someone will be called to the carpet, maybe not publicly, but in the eyes of the governments in the United States and in Canva. We know that this is something that has drawn attention from the very top because the White House in the United States, has now leaked that Joe Biden actually talked to Prime Minister Modi about it at the last big summit. I think it was the G20 summit.

So this is now a top-tier issue. And if Modi is serious about wanting to have a partnership with the United States in order to get better defense equipment because they now know Russian equipment sucks or to have a friend against the Chinese, should anything break down there, well, you know, you don't go to your potential allies homeland and start killing people. I'm sorry, that's just rude. So this is probably not going to exactly get swept up under the rug. We will probably have someone who has to pay, and there will probably be an extradition before all is said and done,

but that doesn't mean that it has to be loud. unless of course they try to kill someone else, in which case all bets are off.