How the U.S. Can Avert an India-Pakistan War
North Korea and Venezuela are getting the headlines but South Asia is the most dangerous crisis.
Inflamed.
Photographer: ARUN SANKAR/AFP/Getty Images
So far, Donald Trump has had remarkably good luck: His administration has avoided a major international crisis not of its own creation. That luck has run out, however, with a deadly dispute between India and Pakistan. In previous showdowns on the subcontinent, the U.S. played a critical role in preventing tensions between nuclear-armed rivals from getting out of control. We are about to find out whether an erratic, hollowed-out Trump administration is capable of a similar performance.
India-Pakistan tensions over the disputed area of Kashmir have persisted since the birth of the two nations in 1948. The current crisis broke when Pakistani militants carried out the suicide bombing of an Indian security convoy, killing more than 40 Indian troops. After more than a week of threats and counter-threats, Indian planes have bombed suspected militant camps on the Pakistani side of the so-called Line of Control — the first time Indian forces had carried out strikes on the Pakistani side in decades.