Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 18

India’s Ways of (Non-) War: Explaining New Delhi’s
Forbearance in the Face of Pakistani Provocations
nuclear dimension of the crisis.” One
source reports that “the situation from
late May onward appeared sufficiently
bleak for the Pentagon to reexamine
the effects of nuclear weapons’ use on
the Subcontinent. One official vividly
remembers interagency discussions ...
on evacuating the embassies and U.S.
nationals in the event of a nuclear exchange.
The Subcontinent’s seasonal
‘plumology’ was studied.” U.S. Embassy
staff in both New Delhi and Islamabad
worried about the possibility of the crisis
escalating to nuclear war. 94 Asked in
early June if his government had considered
the possibility of war escalating
to the use of nuclear weapons, Indian
Defense Secretary Yogendra Narain
replied, “Certainly. But we don’t know
[Pakistan’s] nuclear threshold. We will
retaliate and must be prepared for mutual
destruction on both sides.” 95 All in
all, reports one authoritative account,
“Washington’s regional specialists were
nearly unanimous in predicting that
war was ... imminent. They saw no obvious
pathway for the two governments
to walk back from the brink.” 96 A senior
U.S. intelligence analyst with years of
regional experience told the author in
early June 2002 that he estimated the
chances of India-Pakistan war at “100
percent.”
With Pakistan sending “many
signals to Delhi that any invasion of
Pakistan would warrant a Pakistani
nuclear response,” 97 Washington began
another flurry of diplomatic activity to
prevent war in South Asia. The State
Department also issued a travel advisory
urging U.S. citizens to leave India. 98
On June 6, Armitage went to Islamabad,
where he reportedly elicited a promise
from Musharraf to “end cross-border
infiltration permanently.” 99 Armitage
relayed this pledge to Indian officials
in New Delhi the next day. Two weeks
later, though, Musharraf seemed to
backtrack when he told a reporter, “I’m
not going to give you an assurance that
for years nothing will happen.” 100 That
said, infiltrations across the LOC did
decrease during the summer before rising
again in the autumn, “but not to the
level that they had been at previously,
prior to the commitments made by the
Pakistani government.” 101 Although the
immediate crisis faded in June, the Indo-Pakistani
troop buildup lasted until
October, when India announced that it
would withdraw its forces from the border
with Pakistan. The Indian decision
came on the heels of state elections in
Kashmir, after which “there was no reason
to continue a deployment that has
placed enormous strains on personnel,
equipment, and morale.” 102 Pakistan
immediately reciprocated the troop
withdrawal. All sides agree that India
and Pakistan nearly fought a major war
in the summer of 2002. Musharraf said
war was “very close.” Vajpayee called it
“a touch-and-go affair.” U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State for South Asian affairs
Christina Rocca stated that the two
sides had “barely averted war.” 103
The 26/11 Mumbai
Terrorist Attacks
On November 26, 2008, 10 LeT
terrorists went on a killing
spree in Mumbai, India’s commercial
capital and second-largest city.
15