Bruce Sterling:
Pakistan could very easily smash to bloody pieces in 2008. If it does, nobody anywhere is gonna try and stitch Pakistan back together. Pakistan has a bigger population than Russia. It is just too big for any of the other power-players to handle. So if it ignites, it’ll burn.
I’m not entirely convinced – China benefits from Pakistan’s existence, and a breakup of Pakistan would be ’47-scale messy. But it’s well-placed cynicism, nonetheless.