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Rising Tensions in Kashmir

A Growing Nuclear Danger on the Subcontinent
By Michael Krepon

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will inherit rising nuclear dangers in five regions of the
globe. Every one of them could get worse under his watch. Even before taking office, he has
challenged Russia with a nuclear arms race it cannot win, while provoking China over Taiwan.
He has threatened to rip up the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran, even
though it could prevent Tehran from building nuclear weapons for 15 years. North Korea’s
young leader, Kim Jong-un, has threatened to disregard the incoming president’s warning not
to flight-test a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). If that doesn’t sound bad enough,
look no further than the subcontinent, where Pakistan and India are engaged in an intense
nuclear competition with little likelihood of slowing down.

In Indian-ruled Kashmir, New Delhi has lost the battle of hearts and minds in Muslim-majority
areas, where security forces are in lock-down mode. In September 2016, after a series of
terrorist attacks by Pakistan-based militant groups, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
carried out “surgical strikes” across the Kashmir divide. At the same time, he made thinly
veiled threats about Pakistan’s water supply and territorial integrity.

Pakistan, which has suffered more from terrorism than India over the last eight
years, claims not to distinguish between “good” and “bad” terrorists, but its actions suggest
otherwise. Pakistan’s military and intelligence services continue to allow militant groups such as
Lashkar e-Taiba and Jaish e-Mohammed to use Pakistani territory as a safe haven from which
to carry out attacks against India. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is also reluctant to
take on anti-India and violent sectarian groups that are based in Punjab, his party’s home base.

Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban leadership and Haqqani network have also found safe havens in
Pakistan to plan and carry out operations against the Afghan government. As long as the
government in Kabul remains hostile to Islamabad and friendly toward New Delhi, it is unlikely
that military leaders in Rawalpindi will change course. The George W. Bush and Barack Obama
administrations used carrots and sticks to do so, and have little to show for their efforts.

Pakistan is therefore caught in a self-made dilemma. The militant groups that ruin its
international standing also provide perceived leverage against hostile neighbors. Shutting down
these groups would require very difficult military campaigns. And so, Pakistan must contend
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with a hostile India to the east, a hostile Afghan government to the west, and wider regional
isolation. When it was Islamabad’s turn to host a conclave of the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation in November 2016, only the Maldives planned to attend before the
meeting was postponed.

The militant groups that ruin Pakistan's international standing also provide perceived
leverage against hostile neighbors.
Geopolitics and economics are also working against Pakistan. U.S. military assistance to
Pakistan is winding down, reflecting a diminished military presence in Afghanistan and
Washington’s grievances over Pakistan’s duplicity on terrorism. Pakistanis view Washington’s
shift toward India as a betrayal. Conflicting narratives of duplicity and betrayal leave little room
for improved relations, especially when Washington’s ties with New Delhi continue to improve,
thanks to the attractiveness of the Indian market and a desire to help India counter China’s
military buildup. Pakistan’s sense of unease has grown with Donald Trump’s habit of painting
Islamic terrorism in broad-brush strokes. China’s decision to invest heavily in an economic
corridor across Pakistan to the Arabian Sea is viewed as a lifeline, but not a counterweight to
Washington’s embrace of New Delhi.

NUCLEAR DANGERS, PAST AND PRESENT

As Pakistan’s sense of isolation grows and as the conventional military balance shifts even
further in India’s favor, Islamabad is relying increasingly on Chinese military help and on
nuclear weapons for deterrence. Its nuclear arsenal is growing faster than India’s, with a
capacity to produce 15 or more warheads a year, adding more nuclear weapons every year than
North Korea has accumulated to date. While India is moving to close this gap, Pakistan is
planning to compete even harder with longer-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles to be
delivered in the air, on the ground and at sea, as well as with tactical nuclear weapons. Since
testing nuclear devices in 1998, India and Pakistan have together flight-tested on average one
new type of missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon every year.

The buildup of nuclear capabilities has accompanied greater risk-taking. One year after the
nuclear tests, India and Pakistan fought a limited conventional war, which was instigated when
then-Pakistani Army Chief Pervez Musharraf authorized advances across the Kashmir divide.
Musharraf’s gambit nullified a plan for improved relations that both countries’ prime ministers
had crafted. The resulting war in the heights above Kargil made clear that hopes for stability
based on offsetting nuclear deterrence were fanciful. Two dramatic attacks by militant groups
against India subsequently followed—one in 2001 against the Indian parliament building, which
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prompted both armies to mobilize, and the other in 2008, against luxury hotels, the central
train station, and other targets in Mumbai. There has been no sustained, substantive diplomatic
engagement between India and Pakistan since the Mumbai attacks.

Against this backdrop, even modest downturns in relations between India and Pakistan warrant
attention. Ever since the 2008 Mumbai carnage, cross-border attacks have been modest—not
enough to prompt a major crisis, but sufficient to block New Delhi’s overtures to improve
relations. In May 2014, two days after Modi invited Sharif to attend his inauguration, Lashkar e-
Taiba cadres attacked the Indian consulate in Herat. In July 2015, 17 days after the Indian and
Pakistani foreign secretaries released a joint statement announcing their readiness to “discuss
all outstanding issues” and condemning “terrorism in all its forms,” Pakistan-based militants
attacked a police station in Gurdaspur, killing seven. And in January 2016, eight days after
Modi’s surprise Christmas Day visit to Lahore bearing birthday and wedding gifts for Sharif and
his family, the Indian Air Force Base at Pathankot was attacked, followed the next day by an
attack on the Indian consulate at Mazar-i-Sharif. And in June 2016, as Kashmir boiled over due
to the killing of a prominent anti-Indian social media crusader, terrorists attacked Indian army
camps at Uri and Nagrota.

This familiar sequence of events prompted Modi to adopt a harder line. In August
2016, speaking at the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi on India’s Independence Day, he made
a pointed reference to Baluchistan, Pakistan’s most restive province, implying that India would
foment unrest there. After the attack at Uri, Modi stepped up threats over water sharing under
the Indus Waters Treaty, declaring that “blood and water cannot flow simultaneously.” Implied
Indian threats against Pakistan’s water resources and national cohesion are not new, but when
delivered by the prime minister himself, they took on new meaning. In the view of Pakistan’s
national security establishment and public opinion, Modi’s statements merely revealed his true
colors as a Hindu nationalist zealot bent on subjugating, if not breaking up, Pakistan.

WILL THE ESCALATION CONTINUE?

AMIT DAVE / REUTERS

People wave national flags to celebrate after India said
it had conducted targeted strikes across the de facto
frontier, in Ahmedabad, India, September 2016.

After the attack against the military camp at Uri, Modi

decided to carry out and then publicize commando raids across the Line of Control dividing
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Kashmir. Such raids are not new, but advertising them is, increasing pressure on Pakistan to up
the ante. (Pakistan’s military denies that these cross-border raids even occurred, but
Washington has concluded otherwise.) Throughout the fall and early winter, casualties
mounted, with both sides stepping up fire across this divide, including the use of artillery. A
ceasefire took hold in conjunction with the elevation of a new Pakistan Army chief in late
November, but such ceasefires are no longer durable.

For now, with India and Pakistan at loggerheads, another flashpoint and test of wills might be
avoided, since there is no need for anti-India groups and their backers in Pakistan to block
improved relations. Irony is, however, an insufficient basis for stability when emotions are so
raw and when Kashmiri opposition to Indian rule is so intense. Sooner or later, there will be
another strike against India originating from Pakistan. The question will then become whether
pieces other than pawns along the Kashmir divide are moved on the chessboard.

If New Delhi chooses to retaliate, there will be many rungs available for escalation, beginning
with intensified, quick hit-and-return operations within the disputed territory of Jammu and
Kashmir. These dynamics may not favor India, however, as Pakistan has more lucrative targets
—including an air base and the Hindu-majority area of Jammu—to aim at within these confines.
Indian strikes might thus be contemplated elsewhere. One key escalation threshold would be
the use of airpower, perhaps initially at standoff distances. At this point, knights and bishops
would be moved on the chessboard. If Modi takes steps to move his queen by diverting
Pakistan’s water and stepping up threats to its territorial integrity, hostilities are unlikely to be
confined to Kashmir.

New Delhi still has not been able to figure out how to deal with Pakistan’s non-state actors,
while military leaders in Rawalpindi can’t figure out how to live without them.
New Delhi still has not been able to figure out how to deal with Pakistan’s non-state actors,
while military leaders in Rawalpindi can’t figure out how to live without them. Friction is
growing alongside nuclear weapons’ stockpiles and missiles. As they mount, no one can
confidently predict what the new normal for violent interaction between India and Pakistan will
be. If push comes to shove, it falls to the U.S. President, Secretary of State, and National
Security Adviser to serve as crisis managers. None of these individuals in the incoming Trump
administration seem suited for this crucial role.