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Could Kashmir trigger nuclear war between India and Pakistan? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, May eighth, twenty twenty five. Unions are threatening
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  Speaker 1: to strike on Australia's biggest renewable energy project, snowy two
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  Speaker 1: point zero workers, some of whom earn over two hundred
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollars, want pay rises, productivity bonuses and better entitlements.
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  Speaker 1: A ban on smacking is being urged on the Queensland government,
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  Speaker 1: with a group of academics saying it's a breach of
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  Speaker 1: human rights and leaves children with fewer protections than dogs.
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  Speaker 1: The change wouldn't affect most Queenslanders, but would mean removing
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  Speaker 1: a defense of reasonable punishment for alleged offenders charged with
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  Speaker 1: assaulting children. Those two exclusives are live at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot a U right now. Insanely beautiful and
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  Speaker 1: dangerous as hell. Kashmir is one of the world's most
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  Speaker 1: hotly disputed pieces of territory, the mountain state of India,
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  Speaker 1: which Pakistan believes it should control now. In response to
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  Speaker 1: what it says is Pakistani terrorism, India has launched missiles
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  Speaker 1: and Pakistan has responded with artillery fire. Dozens of civilians
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  Speaker 1: are reported dead. So is this just another skirmish or
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  Speaker 1: a new war? For us all to get our heads
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  Speaker 1: around Today, Foreign editor Greg Sheridan breaks it down. Greg,
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  Speaker 1: I've just been looking at some pictures of Kashmir. It
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  Speaker 1: looks like Middle Earth or Switzerland, doesn't it It does.
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  Speaker 2: I've spent some time in Kashmir and it is really
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  Speaker 2: one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The lake
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  Speaker 2: is magnificent, dotted with these lovely antique house boats. The
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  Speaker 2: town Shrinegar is full of magnificent little markets and shops
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  Speaker 2: of local produce and so forth. The Indians have preserved
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  Speaker 2: the best of the British colonial architecture, so you go
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  Speaker 2: for morning tea and some grand old building. And the
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  Speaker 2: Indians have a genius for drawing out the nostalgia of
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  Speaker 2: the Raj without submitting to its politics. And if it
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  Speaker 2: weren't for the endless terrorism and disputes, it would be
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  Speaker 2: flooded with tourists always because there's magnificent countryside and wildlife
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  Speaker 2: reserves and so on. That's next time you're in Kashmir,
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  Speaker 2: don't miss this place. It still gets a lot of
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  Speaker 2: tourists anyway. The minute there's a bit of peace, they
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  Speaker 2: get a lot of tourists from the rest of India
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  Speaker 2: and two minutes of peace. This brings a lot of
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  Speaker 2: tourists from the rest of the world. Tonight, India says
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  Speaker 2: it has targeted nine sites quote it's in terrorist infrastructure.
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  Speaker 2: The new video explosions can be seen and heard. Pakistani
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  Speaker 2: officials say at least one child is dead and two
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  Speaker 2: people are injured after India struck parts of Pakistan and
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  Speaker 2: Pakistan controlled Kashmir.
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  Speaker 1: India has launched missile strikes against Pakistan tonight in an
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  Speaker 1: apparent response to a deadly terrorist attack in Indian Administered
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  Speaker 1: Kashmir two weeks ago. So why is Kashmir at the
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  Speaker 1: center of a dispute between India and Pakistan which has
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  Speaker 1: resulted in the past forty eight hours in India launching
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  Speaker 1: air strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan Administered Kashmir.
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  Speaker 2: The state of Kashmir, Kashmir and Jamu as it's called,
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  Speaker 2: is the only Muslim majority state within India and the
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  Speaker 2: dispute goes back to the partition between India and Pakistan
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  Speaker 2: and nineteen forty seven when there was the most terrible
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  Speaker 2: inter communal massacres. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were all massacred
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  Speaker 2: in huge numbers in the breakup of Pakistan and India,
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  Speaker 2: and there was a massive population transfer between the two states,
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  Speaker 2: and Kashmir went with India and became part of India. Now,
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  Speaker 2: India has always been a secular democracy and in a
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  Speaker 2: sense it's quite proud of having a Muslim majority state.
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  Speaker 2: Pakistan has never accepted the legitimacy of Indian rule of Kashmir,
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  Speaker 2: and Pakistan has continued to sponsor a really futile, needless,
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  Speaker 2: destructive and violent campaign of terrorism within Kashmir, and that,
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  Speaker 2: of course has often led to pretty severe overreaction from
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  Speaker 2: Indian security forces. So there's been a lot of nasty
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  Speaker 2: violence in what should be almost the garden of Eden.
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  Speaker 1: The latest version of that was on the twenty second
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  Speaker 1: of April, when twenty six people, mostly tourists, were killed
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  Speaker 1: in a resort town called Pahalgan. Indian Prime Minister or
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  Speaker 1: and Ramodi said at the time that India would pursue
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  Speaker 1: the attackers to the ends of the earth. Clearly India
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  Speaker 1: blamed Pakistan, although Pakistan denied responsibility. And now we're seeing
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  Speaker 1: the result what's the truth there greg about whether or
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  Speaker 1: not Pakistan is actually perpetrating acts of terror against civilians
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  Speaker 1: in these places.
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  Speaker 2: So Claire, I have no independent way of verifying Pakistani
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  Speaker 2: involvement in that particular terrorist attack, but there's no doubt
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  Speaker 2: at all. Pakistan sponsors are a great range of terrorist
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  Speaker 2: groups within Kashmir. And it does that for several different reasons.
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  Speaker 2: One is that it will never give up its claim
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  Speaker 2: to Kashmir, a little bit like China with Taiwan. This
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  Speaker 2: is rooted in the nationalist myth of Pakistan. Another is
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  Speaker 2: that it has a tremendous inferiority complex towards India. India
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  Speaker 2: is much bigger, much more successful. India is now a
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  Speaker 2: global dynamic power, a global dynamic economy. Pakistan is really
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  Speaker 2: a very unsuccessful state. But then there are darkomotives as well.
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  Speaker 2: Pakistan is challenged internally by Islamists extremism and by jihadism,
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  Speaker 2: and one of the ways it deals with that, one
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  Speaker 2: of the ways it sort of copes with that is
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  Speaker 2: to try to redirect that chie hardest energy at external enemies.
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  Speaker 2: So it did this for a time in relation to Afghanistan,
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  Speaker 2: and it has always done it in relation to India.
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  Speaker 2: So it's sub rosa dialogue with its own extremists. So
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  Speaker 2: to speak, is to say that you might not think
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  Speaker 2: where Islamist enough, But by golli, we are supporting our
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  Speaker 2: brothers in Kashmir against those perfidious Hindu in lopers from India.
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  Speaker 2: The reality is India will never ever give up Kashmir.
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  Speaker 2: That's inconceivable. The Indian state would have to be liquidated
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  Speaker 2: before it would give up Kashmir. So to continue to
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  Speaker 2: support terrorism is utterly futile and nihilist. This is a
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  Speaker 2: very dangerous situation, extremely dangerous. But up until now, India
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  Speaker 2: and Pakistan have shown a lot of expertise in going
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  Speaker 2: so far, but not further.
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  Speaker 1: Now, how does the rest of the world line up?
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  Speaker 1: Greg China is interested in this region. In fact, China
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  Speaker 1: and India ford war over a different part of Kashmir
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  Speaker 1: in the past. Does China have skin in this particular game?
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  Speaker 2: Not really. China has its own bit of Kashmir, which
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  Speaker 2: it's not going to give back to anybody, certainly not
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  Speaker 2: to Pakistan or anyone like that, and it has other
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  Speaker 2: territorial claims against India. China is a strategic backer of Pakistan.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, Pakistan really got its nuclear weapons capability ultimately
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  Speaker 2: from Chinese sources, and that was done by the Chinese
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  Speaker 2: in order to hurt India. China and India are strategic rivals.
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  Speaker 2: But China at the moment is completely preoccupied with Donald
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  Speaker 2: Trump's economic challenge. But I think China wants the situation
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  Speaker 2: to de escalate. There's nothing in it for China to
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  Speaker 2: have an escalation of this situation. Similarly, America certainly wants
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  Speaker 2: a de escalation. The United States is certainly not going
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  Speaker 2: to back anybody with military force anywhere in the world,
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  Speaker 2: it seems, and I think the outside world will just
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  Speaker 2: be urging restraint and de escalation on both parties.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Could this turn into nuclear war? Is this
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  Speaker 1: a potential nuclear war of the future.
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  Speaker 2: Well, every situation that involves nuclear armed states is a
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  Speaker 2: potential nuclear war. This is a very tense border. One
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  Speaker 2: of the big questions of our time is whether the
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  Speaker 2: extended US nuclear deterrent will apply during President Trump and
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  Speaker 2: after President Trump. One reason the world has been able
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  Speaker 2: to contain the spread of nuclear weapons is that all
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  Speaker 2: American allies shelter under extended American nuclear deterrance, which means
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  Speaker 2: that I don't need nuclear weapons of their own because
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  Speaker 2: the nuclear attacks on them are deterred by America's power
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  Speaker 2: to respond. That doesn't apply in India and Pakistan. But
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  Speaker 2: India and Pakistan are a good example of where the
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  Speaker 2: world would be if we didn't have extended American nuclear
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  Speaker 2: deterrans because many more nations would feel that their security
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  Speaker 2: compel them to have new clear weapons. If the American
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  Speaker 2: Alliance system breaks down, you're going to have India Pakistan
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  Speaker 2: replicated all over the world. Half the Gulf States who
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  Speaker 2: feel under threat from Iran would feel they need to
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  Speaker 2: have their nuclear weapons if Iran has nuclear weapons, and
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  Speaker 2: so on. The nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would
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  Speaker 2: devastate the whole planet. It wouldn't just be a regional matter.
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  Speaker 2: But neither nation would want it. I mean, both India
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  Speaker 2: and Pakistan are still very poor nations, and not only
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  Speaker 2: would they not want a nuclear exchange, they would regard
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  Speaker 2: a nuclear exchange as absolutely devastating, almost armageddon. Therefore, I
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  Speaker 2: think a nuclear exchange is extremely unlikely, but I don't
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  Speaker 2: want to suggest from that that we should be complacent
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  Speaker 2: about a shooting war between two nuclear armed rivals. With
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  Speaker 2: deep enmities and a long history of military conflict across
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  Speaker 2: their borders.
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  Speaker 1: Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor and our go
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  Speaker 1: to expert whenever the world starts looking complicated. You can
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  Speaker 1: read his analysis and reporting anytime by joining our subscribers
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au