In a series of military and political moves, Pakistan and India edged further towards war. Relations between the two nuclear-armed adversaries, always on edge, have deteriorated severely since the suicide attack against the Indian Parliament, which India insists had Pakistani backing.
On Thursday, India ordered half of Pakistan’s diplomatic staff home, and forbade further flights by Pakistan’s national airline into Indian airspace. Pakistan quickly reciprocated with similar measures. In addition to these political measures, both India and Pakistan have been mobilizing their armed forces and sending masses of troops to their mutual border.
Missiles deployed
Perhaps the most ominous aspect of the current developments is the deployment by both sides of missile launchers to launch positions against each other. India and Pakistan have both openly tested nuclear weapons in 1997, and there is wide spread speculation that both countries have converted some of their strategic missiles to nuclear warheads. India is assumed to posses as many as eighty nuclear warheads, while Pakistan is assumed to have about ten. Both countries have made great efforts over the past decade to build up strategic missiles with the range to cover each other’s territory completely.
Reports that limited fighting has already started
In the past week, there have been several reports of shoots already being exchanged between the two belligerent sides. A defense official in Jammu, winter capital of India's Jammu and Kashmir state, told Reuters that Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged intermittent small arms fire through the night along the border and a cease-fire line in the disputed state. He said there were no casualties on the Indian side. Three Indian soldiers have been killed since Monday as the belligerents exchanged mortar and machinegun fire across the border.
A history of conflict
India and Pakistan have fought each other in three full-scale wars and innumerable skirmishes, especially over the Kashmir province. Tension has always been high, and the resort to arms quick. In 1999, hundreds of insurgents pored into Indian controlled Kashmir from Pakistan, and were driven back by Indian troops, tanks and airplanes. The crisis at that time came very close to open warfare between both parties, but cool minds and diplomacy averted such a war.
Possibility of nuclear war
As unthinkable as the prospect of nuclear war is, and much as the two sides would doubtless strive to avoid it, the possibility is becoming very real. In the present crisis, The Indian government has held Pakistan to blame for the murderous attack on the Indian parliament, and will not find it easy to back down from such a claim. The Pakistani government, for its part, cannot deliver in full the measures that India demands, which will clamp down on the Kashmir separatists and their Pakistani supporters without antagonizing a religious public already seething at cooperation with the USA against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
Once fighting breaks out, it can quickly escalate from a limited confrontation to an all out war. In such an event, India’s overwhelming superiority in conventional arms may force Pakistan to utilize the unthinkable option. For now, efforts are being made worldwide to calm the parties and contain the crisis. (www.albawaba.com)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
