India Should Not Leave Nawaz Sharif Hanging

Renewed military tensions in the disputed Kashmir region are once again underscoring how even localized incidents there can subvert important diplomatic initiatives between India and Pakistan.  Skirmishes this past January put the brakes on the détente process that picked up steam last year.  The current round of fighting has led to a rising chorus in India demanding that New Delhi rebuff efforts by new Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to put the process back on track.  These calls are understandable enough – indeed they have a parallel in the running U.S. debate about whether to get tough with Pakistan over its behavior in Afghanistan (examples here, here, here, here and here).  But they are nonetheless misguided.

Kargil Disclosures and the Nuclear Proliferation Debate

My last post focused on the domestic implications in Pakistan of the latest revelations about the 1999 Kargil mini-war.  Since the crisis is a key point of contention – a sort of Rorschach test, really – in the debate over whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia has stabilized or aggravated the India-Pakistan rivalry, it’s also worth taking another look at two important points regarding Kargil’s nuclear dimensions:

• Did Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May 1998 embolden the Kargil planners, especially Pervez Musharraf, the newly-appointed chief of army staff, to undertaken the ill-advised operation just a few months later?
• Did the perceived success of Pakistan’s small nuclear arsenal in deterring fulsome Indian retaliation during the crisis give Musharraf the security confidence to embark upon an intensive back-channel peace process in 2004-07 that reportedly was on the verge of defusing the perennially-inflamed dispute over Kashmir?

Pakistan: The Kargil Debate Resurfaces

My last post noted how skirmishes in the disputed Kashmir region last month have put a spanner in the promising rapprochement between India and Pakistan.  This is a familiar theme in bilateral affairs.  The exemplar of how military tussles in Kashmir can escalate into a wider confrontation and subvert important diplomatic initiatives is the 1999 Kargil mini-war.  By sheer coincidence, new revelations about the conflict emerged in Pakistan just as the recent fighting broke out.  With the country about to kick off a raucous electoral season, these disclosures have current relevance since they concern actions taken back then by Pakistani leaders who are still on the political scene.  More fundamentally, however, they touch on the very essence of the Pakistani state.

India and Pakistan: The Ties that Bind vs. The Line that Divides

Despite the promising rapprochement (here and here) that gathered pace between India and Pakistan last year, disruptive military tensions are never far from the surface.  This point was amply demonstrated by last month’s skirmishes along the 450 mile-long boundary – known as the Line of Control – separating the two armies in the disputed Kashmir region.  The fighting, which left two Indian and two Pakistani soldiers dead, was the worst flare-up since an uneasy ceasefire agreement came into effect along the heavily-militarized LoC in November 2003 and has put a damper on the détente process.

The clashes are a stark reminder of how combustible the military rivalry in Kashmir remains and how even localized incidents there can have important ramifications for the broader relationship.*  Accusations that Pakistan decapitated one of the dead Indian soldiers and carried off his head as a trophy provoked fury in New Delhi.  The Indian army chief warned of “aggressive and offensive” reprisals in the event of further provocation and a senior leader in the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition party, demanded that India “get at least 10 heads from their side” if the Pakistanis did not return the soldier’s head.  An influential Hindu nationalist group even called for nuclear retaliatory strikes – a contingency that was underscored when Indian officials inexplicably advised residents in Kashmir to prepare for a possible nuclear war.  And Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a dogged champion of better ties with Islamabad, was forced to announce  that “there cannot be business as usual with Pakistan.”  One immediate consequence is New Delhi has put on hold a liberalized bilateral visa regime that had been hailed as an important milestone in relations.