Nuclear Anxiety by Haq Kamar

Author:Haq Kamar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Published: 2020-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Of the numerous areas of global tension, arguably the most perilous is that between India and Pakistan. And recent events in Kashmir have made the situation even more dangerous. The reason is straightforward: India and Pakistan are in a long-running and incendiary dispute, they are both nuclear powers, and crossing a confrontational threshold could ignite a nuclear war between them. Indeed, arms control investigators have long identified the subcontinent as one of the world’s likeliest nuclear flashpoints.

India and Pakistan share a long and complicated history, and they have been in conflict over the disputed territory of Kashmir since 1947. The Himalayan region is one of the most militarised regions on Earth—former US president Bill Clinton has called Kashmir “the most dangerous place in the world.”

Under the partition plan provided by the Indian Independence Act of 1947, Kashmir with its Muslim majority was free to accede to either India or Pakistan. But the local ruler, Hari Singh, decided against giving the population a choice, leaving the region in a geopolitical limbo and with a disputed border. A two-year war erupted between India and Pakistan in 1947 and another broke out in 1965. In 1999, the Kargil crisis, when the two countries again came to blows, may have been the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the end of World War II.

Diplomatic interventions have previously helped to defuse the military tensions, but an enduring peace has remained elusive. Both sides have dug in along the disputed border and military skirmishes are commonplace.

The Nuclear Question

It has long been argued in international security circles that having nuclear weapons deters countries from using them in warfare. Indeed, in the post-World War II era, no state has used them— despite there still being around 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world. But horizontal nuclear proliferation has made the world a dangerous place; the more countries that have them, the more likely they are to be used at some stage.

And while the presence of nuclear weapons may forestall a nuclear exchange, they don’t discourage nuclear states from using conventional military power against one another. And, as conventional conflicts can quickly escalate, the possibility of a nuclear exchange remains a real, if remote, possibility.

So what are the chances of India and Pakistan (which both have between 130 and 150 warheads) engaging in a nuclear war?

The most recent escalation is just another example of the ongoing tensions between these nuclear neighbours. It was triggered by a Kashmiri militant suicide bombing of an Indian paramilitary convoy in mid February. In that attack, more than 40 people were killed, mostly Indian military personnel—and Jaish-e-Mohammed, an Islamist terrorist group situated in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, currently caught up in election fever, warned of a “crushing response,” and launched air strikes on targets in the Pakistan-controlled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It was not long before both sides were exchanging artillery fire across the line of control and the conflict quickly escalated.

Meanwhile, in a national televised speech,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.