Though India and Pakistan’s exchange of fire late last month did not trigger a wider aggression, tensions remain dangerously high. Worse, larger historical and political forces all but ensure that the region will remain on tenterhooks.
Recent studies have estimated that regional nuclear war, such as one between India and Pakistan, could lead to the deaths of some 2 billion people worldwide. To prevent this nightmare from becoming a reality, the international community must condemn further acts of violence and build space for the conflict to be mediated, before the situation escalates further out of hand.
With India and Pakistan having demonstrated they are comfortable engaging in increasingly provocative uses of military force under the nuclear umbrella, they will have an incentive in the future to go up a few more rungs on the escalatory ladder to try to achieve goals that couldn’t be achieved further down that ladder. Regardless of whether they succeed or fail, this much is true: With both sides now willing to climb higher up the escalation ladder, a future nuclear exchange could become a far less remote prospect.
One military episode cannot, by itself, decisively change the trajectory of one of modern history’s longest-running conflicts. But, as both sides — India and Pakistan — signal temporary de-escalation, it might be worth revisiting the historical and psychological dynamics that constitute the present moment.
These two men hold the key to whether India and Pakistan edge closer to an all out war. One — Narendra Modi — is a former tea seller turned politician who leads one of the world’s fastest growing economies: India. The other — Imran Khan — is a cricketing legend and leader of Pakistan, a country on the brink of financial and economic meltdown.
Also Read: India speaks in riddles after Imran’s peace gesture
The confrontation could spiral out of control quickly. But fortunately, apart from a wounded Indian pilot and a Pakistani villager hit by falling rubble, the only confirmed casualty so far seems to be truth. Right now, the more extensive and damaging war in South Asia is the multi-pronged assault on reality by the warriors of Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and hyper-nationalist news channels as well as mendacious governments.
Pakistan will return a captured pilot “as a peace gesture” to India, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Thursday, amid efforts by the United States to defuse a crisis between the two nuclear powers a day after both downed enemy jets.
Also Read: A time for restraint
India and Pakistan both said they shot down each other’s fighter jets on Wednesday, with Pakistan capturing an Indian pilot a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a 1971 war, prompting world powers to urge restraint.
Also Read: Imran Khan Calls For Talks, Urges India To Avoid ‘Miscalculation’
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump will conduct their summit over the course of two days in Hanoi, starting with a one-on-one meeting on Wednesday before a dinner that evening. On Thursday, the two leaders will have a “series of back and forth” meetings, according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who briefed reporters aboard Air Force One as Trump left the US. The US president is expected to arrive in Hanoi later on Tuesday, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo already in the Vietnamese capital.
Read Here – South China Morning Post
For most of their terms in office, Americans Presidents live in a world filled with more hostility than admiration and more abuse than appreciation. However, few, if any presidents have confronted the opposition to change in any form that President Donald Trump encountered. Trump’s controversial reset of American Foreign Policy in Northeast Asia elicited almost universal contempt.
