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Western citizenship being inviolable golden passports for sheltering/weaponizing dissidents of foreign states is not going to be sustainable forever. The west providing sanctuary for enemies of other states is going to end when other states possess power/leverage to do something about it.


No, freedom of speech is the foundation of our society.

If other governments have a problem with that they can get fucked.


When will other states possess the power to do something about it? India doesn't have an expeditionary military, nor are they capable of building one in the next few decades. They can barely manage to defend their homeland and territorial waters.

What's more likely are additional restrictions on international trade and immigration. The great experiment with globalism appears to be winding down and powerful countries are decoupling their economies from each other.


Not everything raises to the level of full military intervention. Bluntly white western countries aren't going to go to bat when their brown/yellow citizens get murdered for diasphora drama. IMO this is more level of aggressive espionage/statecraft. India (and others like PRC) has increasing amount of loyal diasphora to activate to counter dissident disaphora and the cost-benefit seems to be leaning on the side of intervention, whether decoupling dynamic (PRC) or new geopolitical leverage (india).

But ultimately this is effort to moderate west, well smaller countries like Canada (increasingly dependent on Indian immigration) to control what domestic diasphora voices they amplify. Which may very well backfire. Or not - decades of increased PRC immigration + students in Canada was associated with fed gov playing down PRC dissident voices (and still do to some extent). Short of getting rid of problems via extradition - which is political suicide for Canada and won't happen - India limited to raising political cost of associating unfriendly diasphora politics. Canada isn't going to hit immigration targets without playing nice with either India or PRC. So there's no reason not to push, and almost extra reason to. There's likely going to be millions of new Indians in Canada by 2030, India doesn't want dissident elements to organize, and is incentivized to make domestic politics difficult in Canada if they're allowed to.


Replace Western with Russian and foreign with American and you have Snowden.

The asymmetry you imply does not exist.


And Pompeo wanted to whack snowden. The asymmetry is west shelters much more foreign dissidents/criminals, and has more opportunities to weaponize them for foreign policy. Frequently it's deliberate, sometimes it's just happenstance of high immigration. But ultimately, west won't be able to stay clean of diasphora foreign policy drama, especially ones they actively cultivate or fail to suppress. Old legal excuse of, lol no we don't extradite to non-like minded countries, is going to lead to extra legal actions like this.


> Pompeo wanted to whack snowden

There wouldn’t be an issue if New Delhi had stuck to wanting to whack a Canadian.


Whacking Snowden in RU is different tier of drama than whacking a Canadian. Time will tell if this is going to be a significant issue. Hard to imagine FVEY / US not knowing when Canada brought it up during G20 and have this not dominate the G20 narrative.


> Whacking Snowden in RU is different tier of drama than whacking a Canadian

Sure. There isn’t the necessity of a military response here. But it was exceedingly dumb. New Delhi has a rogue security element. I, at the very least, didn’t see that coming. From the indignant response, it appears Delhi didn’t either. That’s concerning.


> The asymmetry is west shelters much more foreign dissidents/criminals, and has more opportunities to weaponize them for foreign policy

[citation needed]


Who are the enemies of foreign states that are being sheltered?


All those persecuated one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighters etc, political asylum west provides foreign dissidents (or what foreign actors consider dissidents) out of human rights. Frequently they settle in west and move on with their lives. The issue arises when these people organize and create movements or organizations to influence foreign policy of new host country to go against interest of where they fled, or independantly meddle to undermine. Many so far assumed western influence, more or less depending on functional immunity from extradition allows them to operate unmolested. IMO more countries with reach realizing it's fine to meddle in western sovereignty as long as west allows their citizens/diasphora to meddle in theirs under excuse of liberalism/free speech/association etc. And obviously people in "free" societies with right to influence foreign policy, may still, but govs ability to protect them from motivated actors will likely decline.




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