Preventive Engagement by Paul B. Stares

Author:Paul B. Stares
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Renewed Indo-Pakistani War

Another major war between India and Pakistan—there have been three since they gained independence from Britain in 1947—also warrants being considered as a short-term Category 1 contingency for at least three reasons. First, the risk of renewed fighting remains very real, and various scenarios for how India and Pakistan could once again go to war are not hard to imagine. The most plausible is another successful terrorist attack by a Pakistani militant group, acting with or without the support of government officials, that targets, for example, India’s leadership or a particularly sensitive political or religious site and, regardless of the target, results in mass casualties.12 In December 2001, terrorists from two Pakistani militant groups with ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service attacked the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi, which prompted India to mobilize over 500,000 troops and send them to the border where a tense standoff ensued for nearly two years. In 2008, Pakistani militants attacked the port city of Mumbai, killing 164 and wounding more than three hundred others in various locations. Only after considerable U.S. pressure and Indian self-restraint was another war averted.13 Much, of course, would depend on the nature and scale of a terrorist attack, but if it were particularly egregious, military retaliation from India certainly cannot be ruled out. This would thus raise the prospect of Pakistan responding in similar fashion and further escalation ensuing.

A less likely but still plausible scenario involves the escalation of relatively localized violence in the disputed region of Kashmir—the focal point of Indo-Pakistani antagonism since the two nations’ partition and independence from British rule. Skirmishes continue to take place regularly along the Line of Control that marks the de facto division of Kashmir. As recently as September 2016, Pakistani militants attacked an Indian army outpost in Uri, killing seventeen soldiers, which led in turn to cross-border retaliatory strikes against Pakistan.14 Separatist related violence in the Indian controlled part of Kashmir also flares up from time to time, prompting angry condemnation from Pakistan. Although both sides have developed various formal and informal mechanisms for managing conflict in Kashmir, it remains a serious flashpoint and potential trigger for a larger war.15

The second reason why preventing an Indo-Pakistani war constitutes a Category 1 priority is the manifest risk that it could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by one or both sides.16 Since May 1998, when India and Pakistan each tested nuclear devices and openly declared themselves to be nuclear powers, both countries have steadily built up their arsenals.17 It cannot be assumed, however, that a stable nuclear deterrent relationship based on a mutual understanding of the risks will be maintained indefinitely. As two seasoned experts on Indian and Pakistani nuclear relationship have argued,

Government officials tend to believe that the signals they send are received and interpreted correctly. Yet, most scholarship on this subject finds precisely the opposite: the recipient of signals interprets them very differently than the sender expects. Pakistani officials and politicians have regularly “played the nuclear card” that the signaling value of such statements has diminished in India.

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