Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside of a Sikh temple on 18 June in British Columbia.
Wow!
Why would India possibly do this
Authoritarian nationalists doing authoritarian nationalist things.
It occurs to me - hypothetically, if Canada was minded to invoke the North Atlantic Treaty over this, would that be possible? If Modi state death squads are assassinating Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, that certainly feels like a legitimate basis to invoke Article 4 ('the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened’) and if they were so minded then it feels like on a plain reading they could go as far as attempt to invoke Article 5 ('an armed attack against one or more [members] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all of them [permitting the] exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence’).
Of course, I’m not suggesting Canada is likely to invoke the treaty in reality given the wider geopolitical context, but it does illustrate how absolutely mad it is that a regime that NATO is currently trying to woo might simultaneously be behaving in a way that puts it technically at risk of collective armed conflict with NATO.
Article V isn’t going to be invoked over something like this. Sheesh.
I know:
Of course, I’m not suggesting Canada is likely to invoke the treaty in reality given the wider geopolitical context, but it does illustrate how absolutely mad it is that a regime that NATO is currently trying to woo might simultaneously be behaving in a way that puts it technically at risk of collective armed conflict with NATO.
I was doing a thought experiment to illustrate how crazy the situation is. Canada is alleging India launched an armed attack against a Canadian citizen in Canada - it’s an incredible situation.
Canada isnt going to do anything close to this. I’d be surprised if NATO was even involved.
Of course not - that was my second paragraph. My point was that it’s mad that the country NATO is wooing is simultaneously sending armed assassins to kill NATO citizens on NATO soil (which, hypothetically, might be the sort of thing that a NATO country could use to invoke Articles 4/5 - even if in this instance Canada clearly won’t).
That’s the sort of behaviour we expect from avowedly anti-NATO countries (e.g. Russians in Salisbury), not putative allies.
