Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 54

India’s Ways of (Non-) War: Explaining New Delhi’s
Forbearance in the Face of Pakistani Provocations
and Waltz, eds., Spread of Nuclear Weapons, 173.
207 Black, “Structure of South Asian Crises from Brasstacks to Mumbai,” 51; Black, Changing
Political Utility of Nuclear Weapons, 15. Two of the threats involved increases in the alert levels
of the Pakistan Army and PAF. One was a pointed statement by a senior Indian official.
208 Chengappa, “Game Changer.”
209 Stephen P. Cohen, Shooting for a Century: The India–Pakistan Conundrum (Washington,
DC: Brookings, 2013), 194; Ashley J. Tellis, Are India–Pakistan Peace Talks Worth a Damn?
(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2017), 37, 71; Waltz in
Sagan and Waltz, eds., The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, 172-73; Krepon, “Crises in South
Asia,” 11; Vipin Narang, “Posturing for Peace? Pakistan’s Nuclear Postures and South Asian
Stability,” International Security 34, no. 3 (Winter 2009/2010): 64; George Perkovich, “Uri
Won’t Lead India to Undertake Major Military Action,” rediff.com, September 21, 2016, http://
carnegieendowment.org/2016/09/21/uri-won-t-lead-india-to-undertake-major-militaryaction-pub-64649;
Toby Dalton and George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Options and Escalation
Dominance (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2016), 16; Rajesh
Rajagopalan, “Annex B. India’s National Security Perspectives and Nuclear Weapons,” in The
Strategic Chain Linking Pakistan, India, China, and the United States, ed. Robert Einhorn and
W.P.S. Sidhu (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2017), 28.
210 Secretary Kerry’s meetings with Indian and Pakistani leaders at the UNGA in September
2016 were just about the least that Washington could have done. Days later, the readout of
national security adviser Rice’s call with her Indian counterpart was limited to condemnation
of Pakistan’s provocation and cross-border terrorism more generally.
211 Chari, Cheema, and Cohen, Four Crises and a Peace Process, 133.
212 Lavoy, “Introduction,” 12; also see p. 28. Similar arguments appear in: Lavoy, “Why Kargil Did
Not Produce General War,” 197, 200-1; Jervis, “Kargil, Deterrence Theory and International
Relations Theory,” 391; Rodney Jones, “The Kargil Crisis: Lessons Learned by the United
States,” in Asymmetric Warfare, ed. Lavoy, 374: Mistry, “Tempering Optimism about Nuclear
Deterrence in South Asia,” 156; and Yusuf and Kirk, “Keeping an Eye on South Asian Skies, 7,
11.
213 Krepon, “Crises in South Asia,” 13. See pp. 20-26 for an overview of U.S. crisis-management
efforts during all of the cases through Mumbai. Several detailed accounts of Twin Peaks and
the Mumbai episode document the important role of U.S. diplomacy in helping to dampen
India’s understandable desire to punish Pakistan. On Twin Peaks, see Bajpai, “To War or Not
to War,” 163, 171, 175-77; Chari, Cheema, and Cohen, Four Crises and a Peace Process, 149;
Mistry, “Tempering Optimism about Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia,” 163-75; Narang,
Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era, 275; Nayak and Krepon, “U.S. Crisis Management in
South Asia’s Twin Peaks Crisis,” 37-43. On Mumbai, see Nayak and Krepon, Unfinished Crisis,
53.
214 Mistry, “Tempering Optimism about Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia,” 149. See also pp. 162
and 168.
215 Mistry, “Tempering Optimism about Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia,” 149, 153, 160, 171,
174, 175, 176, 177. Another problem is Mistry’s contention that we need to “focus on the
principal events responsible for de-escalation at the time de-escalation occurs rather than on
the extended period of the entire crisis,” which is methodologically dubious. The impact of
nuclear weapons or the conventional military balance is logically pertinent throughout the
crisis, not at one particular threshold moment. If, for example, Pakistan’s nuclear posture takes
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