India-Pakistan Relations

If the tragedy of Gayari has induced some sense of introspection in the leadership of the Pakistan Army, it may be a fitting tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives in the avalanche.

There are many volumes on conflict resolution and nuclear proliferation. While the conflict scholarship focuses on management, resolution and transformation of conflicts, the proliferation scholarship examines why states acquire nuclear weapons in the first place and whether or not these have any deterrent value. The book under review goes beyond these two prospects by questioning what happens when a state, in protracted conflicts, acquires nuclear weapons.

The year 2011 will stand out in history as the year of the Arab Spring, when people in Northern Africa and West Asia rose up against tyranny and revolted for political emancipation.

While India’s ability to handle the challenges may be constrained by a slowing economy, it would need to manage them through requisite diplomatic skill and finesse.

The outlook for Pakistan in the year 2012 is rather negative diplomatically, economically, politically, socially, culturally, and militarily.

Whatever John R. Schmidt’s aims, the arguments that he has employed do not stand the test of casual perusal leave alone scrutiny.

India’s recent encounters with Pakistan show surprisingly warm diplomacy, with an open declaration from Islamabad of “mending the trust deficit.” This upswing in relations however comes with no guarantees.

The sense of insecurity created by a regionally preponderant and militarily powerful India is the central catalytic factor that influences the dynamics of Pakistan’s regional security perception. The military-militant nexus in Pakistan, built around army’s misguided obsession with India, pursues strategic priorities in the name of protecting its national interests in Kashmir and Kabul. Sadly, both the Kashmir and Afghan policies of the military have started hurting Pakistan - internally and externally - more than India.

Since the infliction of unacceptable damage may not deter Pakistan from breaking the nuclear taboo, a ‘tit for tat’ strategy in case of lower order nuclear use is worth considering.

It makes little sense whether a strategic or tactical nuclear weapon is used by Pakistan, since India’s general response would be to carry out a punitive attack on the adversary.