US diplomacy helped stop missile strikes between India and Pakistan.

An Indian police officer fires tear gas at protesters in 2018. Reuters.

US diplomacy helped stop missile strikes between India and Pakistan during the military skirmish between the two countries. Reuters. At one point India had threatened to launch six missiles at Pakistan and Pakistan said they would respond with three times that many if attacked. Though the exchange didn't happen and there was no suggestion that the missiles would be nuclear, it still was not received well by the diplomatic community. The crisis was caused by a major terror attack in India and their response to the attack resulted in at least one aircraft being shot down. High ranking US government officials, including National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both spent hours talking to India and Pakistan during President Trump's meeting with Kim Jong Un. They focused on getting India to back down on their threats and getting Pakistan to released the captured pilot of the MIG-21 that got shot down. China and the UAE also helped with the diplomatic pressure. 

My Comment:

A quick note on the sources in the Reuters article. They cite 5 anonymous sources. As always I have to caution that using anonymous sources is a decent sign that an article is fake news. If no one is willing to go on the record there is a decent chance that the event in question 

However, I tend to believe this article. For one, nobody really gains for lying about this. Second, I generally trust the wire services (AP, AFP and Reuters) to actually have journalistic services. They aren't perfect but they have a much stronger relationship with the truth than other journalistic outlets. I still had to point out the problem with the sources but I think it might be legit. 

It sounds like India and Pakistan were a lot closer to a major war than everyone realized. If India had launched a large missile strike and Pakistan had returned fire it would likely spiral out of control. Such a strike would have forever changed the relationship between India and Pakistan and it would have likely resulted in war. 

Things have calmed down considerably since then. there haven't been any new airstrikes or shootdowns and though tensions remain it looks like a real war has been avoided. Things could of course change but it looks like the world can breath a sigh of relief. We have dodged a major bullet that could have massively changed the fortunes of the entire world. 

If the article is true than the Trump administration deserves credit for helping to stop this war. The downsides of a major conflict between India and Pakistan, and the massive refugee crisis it would cause, are obvious, even if the conflict remained conventional. Avoiding such a conflict should have been a major goal and it looks like the President and his staff did take it seriously. Not only did this save millions of lives in India and Pakistan, it probably saved the worlds economy. And things would have even been worse had that conflict gone nuclear.

The timing couldn't have been worse though. The President was mired in the ultimately failed summit with Kim Jong Un. And I wonder if this diplomatic crisis might have been why. Having his Secretary of State and National Security Adviser trying to put out this fire may have been why he wasn't able to close the deal with Kim Jong Un.