Arsalan Bilal
India and Pakistan have little strategic incentive to go to war, while the cost of going to war is overwhelmingly high for each side.
India and Pakistan have de-escalated a near-war crisis after their militaries struck each other for days. As I previously explained in an article published on Small Wars Journal, the crisis unfolded with India targeting multiple sites inside Pakistan, following a Kashmir attack that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad. Pakistan responded fiercely by targeting Indian military installations, bringing the two countries close to a nuclear catastrophe. A ceasefire announced by U.S. President Trump has averted a full-scale war for now, but the risks of committing strategic folly in the future loom large.
India and Pakistan, considered arch-rivals in the South Asian region, have fought four wars since their independence in 1947. They have frequently experienced crises marked by bilateral tensions flaring up to the point where war seemed a stone’s throw away. But are there concrete reasons for India and Pakistan to go to war? I contend not. The dramatic de-escalation following the latest military confrontation underlines an idea often forgotten amid jingoism and tactical brinkmanship: India and Pakistan have little strategic incentive to go to war, while the cost of going to war is overwhelmingly high for each side.
I will explain in this article that the risks of a catastrophe are too high for a war to be fought between the two sides, primarily because of nuclear weapons and security dilemmas that heighten the chances of their use. Such a catastrophe will not be confined to one state. A full-scale war will be costly for both and can potentially destroy them. As the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation indicates, even a small nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan could kill 20 million people within a week. The total casualties are likely to be much higher, with 50 to 125 million potentially dying and millions getting injured, as another study estimates. A nuclear winter could be created, due to which around two billion people could die of starvation. One can assume that in case nuclear weapons are used, the devastation will not be local but also regional and even global.
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