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Shaunak Agarkhedkar Profile picture
Shaunak Agarkhedkar
@ShaunakSA
I write spy novels. Read *Let Bhutto Eat Grass*, a series about nuclear weapons espionage set during the Cold War (link below).
May 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The stupidity of 'feel good' environmentalism.
A short thread 🧵

Just 311 passengers (PAX) switching from flights to Bullet Train on that route will reduce more CO2 emissions than 1,828 mature trees will sequester in a year.

Not 311 every day, 311 in the entire year. (1/4) A mature tree sequesters ~21.8kg CO2 / year.

1,828 trees will sequester 39,884kg CO2 / year.

The Carbon Footprint of 1 PAX flying Mumbai to Ahmedabad is 140kg.

The equivalent footprint for that same PAX travelling by Bullet Train is 1/12th the amount, i.e. 11.67kg.

(2/4)
Sep 9, 2022 • 19 tweets • 5 min read
When it comes to Pakistan, US government assessments aren't worth the paper they're printed on, toilet paper shortages notwithstanding.

Thread. 1/n. Between 1983 and 1989, the US government sold 40 F-16 aircraft to Pakistan. At first glance, that might not seem like a lot. 2/n.
Apr 20, 2022 • 141 tweets • 28 min read
This thread recounts the greatest feat of endurance ever accomplished, the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

And it begins *after* Roald Amundsen & team reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911. Five years earlier, the Nimrod Expedition had failed to reach the South Pole.

But they had marched to 88° 23' S, just 180.6km from the South Pole and the furthest south anyone had travelled until then.
Mar 21, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A lot to unpack in this report about the Russian cruise missile strike on the Yavoriv military facility in western Ukraine. Short thread. (1/n)

uk.news.yahoo.com/british-volunt… Sources (read MI6) told The Telegraph that operatives of the Wagner group -- a PMC with links to the Kremlin -- were there.

These operatives were running a snooping operation there, monitoring mobile communications. (2/n)
Dec 16, 2021 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
A few images to summarise December 1971. Thread.
December 4th: "It's Now All-Out War" Dawn newspaper front page: "It's now all-out war" December 5th: "49 Indian Jets Downed" Dawn newspaper front page: "49 Indian Jets Downed"
Aug 25, 2021 • 14 tweets • 2 min read
"My soldiers and I endured up to seven Taliban car bombings daily throughout July and the first week of August in Helmand Province. Still, we stood our ground." --Lt Gen Sami Sadat, Commander 215 Maiwand Corps, Afghan National Army "The final days of fighting were surreal. We engaged in intense firefights on the ground against the Taliban as U.S. fighter jets circled overhead, effectively spectators."
Jun 25, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
How has nobody made the "India is playing Chess, but China is playing Go" comparison yet?

It's been weeks since the stand-off began.

Buddhijeevis slacking, I tell you. From the decade gone by, exhibit one:
wsj.com/articles/SB100…
Jun 20, 2020 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
It is astonishing that a former Army Commander would be so ignorant of history or willing to ignore it to propagate a political point.

Short thread on Chamberlain and the condition and constraints of the British Empire during the time of the Munich Agreement. /1 As part of the Munich Agreement, "...Britain and France acquiesced in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the transfer of its Sudeten region to Germany..." /2
Oct 22, 2019 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Probably because, despite his utterances around the 1971 war, Henry Kissinger was inclined to work with India until he was rebuffed in 1974-75. He was in Syria when he learnt of Pokhran (1874). He promptly issued orders for a “low-key” response by the U.S. Kenneth Rush, the Deputy Secretary of State, acknowledged the orders and repeated it to the missions abroad. A draft “strong statement” was rejected.