How America Can Keep the Peace Between India and Pakistan

When U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted, on May 10, that India and Pakistan had agreed to a cease-fire, the world breathed a sigh of relief. The two nuclear-armed neighbors had teetered perilously close to all-out war as they fired missiles and drone strikes at each other’s military installations and religious sites over the previous three days. The stakes grew especially high after the Indian military hit Pakistan’s Nur Khan air base, close to the country’s nuclear command forces. It was an attack that could have provoked uncontrolled escalation—and that pushed Washington to intervene even after senior officials had insisted the administration was disinclined to do so.

But although the guns have now fallen silent, the danger remains high. The two sides continued to fire at each other for hours after the cease-fire had taken effect, and no one should be under any illusion that these adversaries will resolve their fundamental clash over Kashmir anytime soon. The dispute over this divided mountainous territory goes back to the 1947 partition of the subcontinent; since then, Kashmir has held symbolic resonance for both countries and shaped how they perceive their national identity. As a country created to be a homeland for Muslims in South Asia, Pakistan believes it is justified in claiming the Muslim-majority region. Indian officials reject this argument and view it as an integral part of their state, especially since the original leader of pre-partition Jammu and Kashmir (a Hindu) acceded to India.

India and Pakistan have fought two wars, battled in a border conflict, and experienced multiple military crises over the status of Kashmir. New Delhi’s response to terrorist provocations on its side of the line of control—the de facto boundary between the two countries—has grown increasingly intense since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government came to power in 2014. The current Pakistani army chief, Syed Asim Munir, has a reputation as a hard-liner, evident in his vitriolic, mid-April remarks about Kashmir and Hindu-Muslim differences. Each country, then, has a domestic incentive not to back down from its maximalist positions.

Trump, a self-styled dealmaker, may be tempted to try to permanently resolve the status of Kashmir. But he should resist the urge. Any effort by Washington to strike a final deal could encourage Pakistan to fuel further terrorist attacks against India. It will needlessly strain U.S.-Indian relations. And it will almost certainly not work. The United States can push Pakistan to reduce its support for terrorism, and it should call on both sides to respect the line of control. But Washington should mostly stick to its role as a crisis manager, which it has a unique responsibility to fulfill. It should not try to fix an unfixable issue. India and Pakistan’s dispute over Kashmir is a clear example of the kind of foreign policy challenge that can be neither solved nor neglected and thus requires ongoing work to prevent it from spiraling out of control.

Read the full article on Foreign Affairs.