It couldn't get much clearer: the terrorists wanted to sever India's growing globalization ties in general and specifically those with the West. While India is no stranger to such terror (indeed, it can claim to have endured more experience in this regard than any other great power over the last quarter-century, with no other even coming close), these attacks seem to signal a new era for the nation: like a China, India becomes increasingly targeted for its role in embracing and spreading globalization. Thus its need to have a globally conscious and responsible military--meaning an end to the strategic myopia over Jammu & Kashmir.

If the upshot of these attacks is that India makes such a decision to recast its grand strategic vision so as to make it more commensurate with its expanding global economic presence, then this System Perturbation will have served its historic purpose--just not in the way its perpetrators imagined.

In that sense, the cruel realist in me says the timing could not have been better--on many levels.