Nuclear Powers On The Brink — Why India-Pakistan Conflict Is So Loaded

-Analysis-

PARIS — When two nuclear powers are on the brink of war, it requires our full attention. This is the case between India and Pakistan, whose relations have deteriorated at such lightning speed that the risk of an all-out confrontation cannot be ruled out.

On Tuesday, 25 Indian tourists and one Nepalese were murdered in Kashmir, a disputed region between India and Pakistan. This is the most serious incident in years, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reacted violently, vowing in his first public comments since the attack to pursue the perpetrators “to the ends of the Earth.”

Indian authorities immediately pointed the finger at Pakistan, accused of being the “godfather” of armed Islamist groups in Kashmir. Retaliation and counter-retaliation has since followed an inexorable escalation. Expulsions of diplomats, repatriation of all Indians present in Pakistan, Pakistani airspace closed to India.

But perhaps most serious of all is New Delhi’s unprecedented suspension of an agreement on water sharing for a transboundary river, the Indus, which originates from the Tibetan highlands, flows through India — to which it gave its name — and ends in Pakistan. This river is vital for Pakistani agriculture.

The Indian government did not specify what it meant by “suspension” of the agreement; but Pakistan warned that any obstruction to the water supply would be considered “an act of war.”

Islamabad added that Pakistan’s response would involve “the full spectrum of national power,” a barely veiled allusion to nuclear weapons.

Denying responsibility

Pakistan denies any responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, but Indian police claim to have identified three of the assailants, two of whom are believed to be Pakistani citizens. They are suspected of belonging to a notorious armed group, the LeT, responsible for the attack on a luxury hotel in Bombay in 2008, which left 175 people dead — the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. Pakistan had already been accused of involvement.

The last time the two countries had a military clash was in 2019, after a car bomb attack in Kashmir. The aerial conflict was short-lived. Analysts on the ground consider the current crisis to be more serious than that of 2019, and the escalation much faster.

Partition ghosts

The dispute between the two countries is obviously a long-standing one, dating back to the partition of the country by the United Kingdom in 1947, with its painful mass population transfers. Since then, they have fought several wars, and both countries accessed nuclear weapons at the end of the 1990s.

The chaotic international context doesn’t help.

So far, the existence of the supreme weapon in the hands of both armies has acted as a deterrent, and everyone hopes it will continue to do so. But every outbreak of fever carries a risk, especially since fundamental problems such as Kashmir, borders and regional rivalry have not yet seen any sign of resolution.

The chaotic international context doesn’t help: these are times of renewed power struggles. Neither Prime Minister Modi nor the Pakistani generals intend to lose face.