DeansMusings

 At the time of writing this, the Iran war has resumed for 14 days and it is a good opportunity to review my previous assumptions made about the war and on India’s oil security. 14 days of consecutive fighting (not brief fighting during a ceasefire) is enough time for the conflict to take on a shape that one can draw conclusions from. This is a continuation from the two previous articles in this series, focussing more on the economic consequences of the war an how they might shape military operations. https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2026/05/iran-war-part-2-calm-before-storm.html India's coming oil crisis I had made the following predictions: 1.        Iranian oil wells (production) will not irrecoverably collapse from ending exports, because most oil produced is consumed domestically (thereby oil wells will produce more than their minimum viable output). This was correct. 2.        Iran would not feel the loss of oil revenue ...

The 1947-48 India-Pak war, or the first Kashmir war, was the longest India-Pakistan war. It is also the least studied. Having read several accounts from both sides, I believe our (India’s) view of the war emphasises some remarkable achievements that prevented the loss of Kashmir and key towns in it. For example the airlift that saved Srinagar (and Kashmir), along with the breaking of the siege of Poonch and Leh. While it is right to celebrate our achievements and the bravery of the soldiers of both the India army and state forces, we also need to understand where things went wrong – I believe they did, at the level of political objectives and planning. Those lessons may be more valuable for us.  As someone with an amateur interest in geopolitics and military history, I believe there were larger lessons of this conflict and the mistakes made – some of which were repeated in India’s later wars.  Before commenting on mistakes and lessons to be learnt, a summary of what went ...

My previous post on the Iran war, detailed how the closure of the Strait of  Hormuz would affect energy sales and impact the economies in the region. https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2026/05/iran-war-part-2-calm-before-storm.html This crisis would come from the closure of the strait of Hormuz, affecting 20% of the world’s oil and from the longer term damage to oil fields, when the amount of oil pumped is lower than the minimum flow needed to keep an oil well functioning (production is cut where there is no capacity to store extracted oil). I had taken only a passing interest in India, as I was covering the military aspects of this conflict and because the Govt and media seemed upbeat about India handling the energy shortage. A more detailed look at the numbers for India gave me cause for concern.   As a major oil importer, India will be affected more than others because we have done the least, so far, to mitigate against this. While this is not a crisis of the Govt's making...