Balakot, Pakistan. NPR/AP.
India has launched a fighter jet raid on a Pakistani village in Kashmir, dramatically raising tensions in the region. NPR. India claimed that the strike killed hundreds of militants though Pakistan says the raid was forced to turn back and drop their bombs in an open field. It is unclear which account is correct but local civilians reported one person wounded by shrapnel. The Indian attack was in response to a series of terror attacks, the worst one being a suicide bombing that killed 40 soldiers in Indian controlled Kashmir.
My Comment:
There is some confusion as to where this attack occurred. Everyone agrees it happened in Balakot, but there are two villages named that in Pakistan. One is in Kashmir, the other is deeper in Pakistan. It seems as though the 2nd one was hit and if it was than it was the first time since the 1971 war that an Indian aircraft violated the border like that. Such confusion is typical in conflict but given the danger of the situation I wish we had better information.
People are freaking out about this as they usually do whenever something happens like this. Obviously, both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and the fear is that the situation will spiral out of control. That's the internet fear at least, but in this case is it likely?
I am not sure. India and Pakistan have had plenty of skirmishes in the past over Kashmir and even China has gotten into it as well and it hasn't led to a major war recently. But India and Pakistan have been to war before and you can't really rule it out either. There certainly is a lot of saber rattling going on via social media though.
The difference now is that India may have a decent casus belli that goes far beyond the typical border dispute. They have been suffering some pretty major terror attacks originating from across the Pakistani border and that's the kind of thing that can kick off a war. Especially if it continues. I am guessing the Indians believe that the Pakistanis are either responsible for the attacks or at the very least allowed them to happen. That's a pretty good reason for war and things could get hot very quickly.
That being said, I still don't think all out war is likely and a nuclear one is even less likely. Despite the high tensions and saber rattling, peace has a way of prevailing and neither side wants the obvious downsides of a major war. Doing so would cost thousands of lives and greatly damage the economies of both countries. And even if there is a war it's a lot more likely it won't be an all out nuclear strike that devastates both countries.
I think both sides realize that Pakistan would likely lose the war. Their military is much smaller than the Indians and less regarded as well. They do have powerful allies in the region, most notably China, but without their help I can't see them winning. Pakistan would be wise to try and find a diplomatic solution to this crisis.
Despite the fact that I think a nuclear crisis is unlikely to say the least, I do have to point out that such a conflict wouldn't be the disaster that people think. India and Pakistan combined have 300 warheads and even if China were to get into it as well it wouldn't be the world ending disaster that people think of when it comes to nuclear war. It would certainly be a massive ecological, economic and humanitarian crisis the world has never seen before but humanity would survive just fine. There wouldn't be a "nuclear winter" and radiation levels would mostly be high in the region, not globally. I shudder to think about the refugee crisis that would result from such a conflict and that honestly scares me a lot more than the fallout...
Still, it's not a good thing to be even talking about the possibility of war between India and Pakistan. It's clear that the Kashmir border region has overtaken Ukraine, Syria and Venezuela as the world's biggest tinderbox and with the danger of nuclear conflict pretty high it should be a high priority for everyone to avoid a major war. Let's hope cooler heads prevail.
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