The greatest danger of a nuclear exchange is not between the United States and Iran, the United States and China, the United States and Russia but, indeed, between India and Pakistan. According to this report at Business Insider the tensions between the two countries have been ratcheting up recently:
Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi on Friday unleashed the country’s military against rival Pakistan in response to a terror attack by Muslim separatists that killed 44 on Thursday.
“I know there is deep anger, your blood boils looking at what has happened. At this moment, there are expectations and the feelings of a strong response which is quite natural,” Modi said in a speech mourning the police forces killed and those injured.
India regularly accuses Pakistan of training and arming militants and smuggling them across the border into the Indian region of Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region on the countries’ shared border.
Following the terror attack, where an explosive-laden truck plowed into a bus carrying police forces, India said it had “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistan’s involvement in the attack. Pakistani-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed the attack, but Pakistan quickly denied any official involvement.
“Our neighboring country thinks such terror attacks can weaken us, but their plans will not materialize,” said Modi of Pakistan.
“Security forces have been given permission to take decisions about the timing, place and nature of their response,” Modi continued.
This may prove to be the most important news story in the world today, dwarfing our own political squabbles. There are many ways and reasons for the situation to get out of hand not the least of which is the impending election in India.
Pakistan is barely a country at all. My favorite description is that it’s “a government without a country”. It has four distinct separatist movements and at least two insurgencies presently in progress. Its military and secret service have been implicated in multiple different terrorist attacks in India and Afghanistan. The entire situation is teetering on the edge of a precipice.
In a direct conflict Pakistan would not stand a chance against India and such a conflict could quickly escalate into a nuclear exchange.
If there’s a good side to that, we sell a lot of military equipment to both countries. A neocon proxy war dream.
Didn’t mean to sound uncaring. One would hope neither side would press their advantage, being even more aware than anyone of the danger.
Pakistan is having problems with Iran, too. Last week some terrorists based in Pakistan crossed into Iran and murdered several police and/or soldiers, Iran is threatening to enter Pakistan to attack the terrorist base unless Pakistan closes the base itself.
The Pakistani government does not seem able to control its own territory. It has long been believed that Pakistani intelligent services actually run their own foreign policy, supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, various terrorist groups in Kashmir and now a group that operates in Iran.
If Pakistan did not have nukes, both Iran and India would have attacked the country by now. At some point they both might decide enough is enough.