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ABSTRACT
The Kargil conflict was a limited war between India and Pakistan fought along the Kashmir Line of Control during the spring/summer of 1999. Named for the principal town in the combat zone on the Indian side, it was the first open warfare between India and Pakistan as declared nuclear weapons states and included the first combat employment of the Indian Air Force since 1971. Despite its intensity, it was also characterised by considerable restraint on both sides. The potential for conventional escalation, however, was high and the possibility of nuclear confrontation could not be excluded. It had significant long-term ramifications for both countries and constitutes an important part of the backdrop to their relations today.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The views expressed in this essay are solely those of the author and do not represent the policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the United States government.
2 Much of the following is drawn from Peter R. Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2009). See also Shaukat Qadir, ‘An Analysis of the Kargil Conflict 1999’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institution (Apr. 2002).
3 Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe 2005), 141–42.
4 Nasim Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup: Events that Shook Pakistan (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel 2018), 95; Zafar Iqbal Cheema, ‘The Strategic Context of the Kargil Conflict: A Pakistani Perspective’, in Lavoy, (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 2, 55; Brig. (retd) Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford: Stanford UP 2012), 310; Lt. Gen. (retd) Javed Nasir, ‘Kargil – The bitter hard facts’, The News, 30 Aug. 2004; Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within (Karachi: Oxford UP 2008), 508.
5 A. G. Noorani, ‘The Truth about the Lahore Summit’, Frontline 19/4 (16 Feb.–1 Mar. 2002); P. R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen P. Cohen, Four Crises and a Peace Process (Washington DC: Brookings 2007), 125; Sartaj Aziz, Between Dreams and Realities (Karachi: Oxford UP 2009), 252.
6 Robert G. Wirsing, Kashmir in the Shadow of War (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe 2003), 25–36.
7 As a senior general told the author with great vehemence during a visit to Pakistan in 2000 when Kargil was mentioned: ‘After 1971, how can the Indians say anything to us?’ See also Musharraf’s remarks in ‘Kargil was in response to India’s role in creation of Bangladesh’, Outlook, 10 Dec. 2014; Zahid Hussain, ‘Mission impossible?’, Newsline, Jun. 2002; Lt. Col. (retd) Sikandar Khan Baloch, ‘The Kargil Fiasco’, The Nation, 4 Oct. 2004; and Marianna Baabar (interview with retired Lt. Gen. Shahid Aziz), ‘We violated an agreement while we were at peace: The operation was poorly timed’, Outlook, 18 Feb. 2013.
8 Nasim Zehra’s recent study (From Kargil to the Coup) illuminates many previously hidden aspects of war, especially the political dimensions and the pervasive civil-military frictions. Much of our analysis on the details of military operations, however, still resides in the realm of informed conjecture.
9 Technically, the NLI was classed as a paramilitary force in 1999. However, its battalions were incorporated into regular army brigades along with regular army battalions, so this was a distinction without a substantial difference. The NLI was inducted into the regular army after Kargil as a reward for its services. See remarks by former Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. (retd) Shahid Aziz in Khaleeq Kiani, ‘Kargil adventure was a four–man show’, Dawn, 28 Jan. 2013.
10 In addition to Siachen, Pakistanis have also cited alleged Indian infractions of the LOC from 1972 and 1988 to claim that Kargil was within the norms of the LOC and was justifiable retribution for India’s past misdeeds; see Shireen M. Mazari’s semi-official account The Kargil Conflict 1999 (Islamabad: Institute of Strategic Studies 2003), 23–6. These assertions are questionable because the supposed Indian actions occurred more than a decade before Kargil and because Pakistan seems to have raised no public complaints about the 1972 or 1988 incidents at the times of occurrence. See Shamshad Ahmad, ‘The truth about the Kargil episode’, Dawn, 15 Oct. 2006.
11 Tariq Butt, ‘The war was a total disaster: Majeed Malik’, The News, 15 Nov. 2012; ‘An old general calls the shots in Chakwal’, Lt. Gen. (retd) Abdul Majeed Malik interview, Dawn, 2 Jun. 2013; Maj. (retd) Ikram Seghal, ‘Trial of Public Patience’, Defence Journal 16/12 (Jul. 2013); Col. (retd) Ashfaq Hussain, Witness to Blunder: Kargil Story Unfolds (Lahore: Idara Matbuaat-e-Sulemani 2013), 77. As a retired Indian general notes, the logistical challenge would have been even greater had Pakistan attempted to physically cut the highway, Lt. Gen. (retd) V. R. Raghavan, Siachen: Conflict without End (New Delhi, Viking 2002), 195–96.
12 Lt. Col. (retd) Muhammad Ali Ehsan, ‘Speaking Out when It Matters’, Express Tribune (6 Feb. 2013); Najam Sethi, ‘Lessons and Legacies of Kargil’, Friday Times, 23 Jul. 2015. Lavoy refers to ‘wishful thinking’, ‘false optimism’ and the ‘illusion of cheap victory’, see Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Why Kargil Did Not Produce General War’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 7, 178–80.
13 Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 124 (quoting the commander of FCNA); Gen. (retd) Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire (New York: Free Press 2006), 91–2; Khan, Eating Grass, 312; Lt. Gen. (retd) Javed Nasir, ‘Calling the Indian Army Chief’s Bluff’, Defence Journal (Feb.–Mar. 1999); Lt. Gen. (retd) Javed Nasir, ‘Former Chief of ISI on Kargil Situation’, Khabrain, 20 Jun. 1999; Hussain, Witness to Blunder, 56–62; Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 510.
14 Among many sources, see Hasan Askari Rizvi, ‘The Lessons of Kargil as Learned by Pakistan’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 13, 333–52; and Riaz Mohammad Khan, Afghanistan and Pakistan: Conflict, Extremism and Resistance to Modernity (Washington DC: Wilson Center Press 2011), 315–16.
15 Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 514.
16 Nasir, ‘Kargil – The Bitter Hard Facts’; Vice Admiral (retd) Taj M. Khattak, ‘Investigating Kargil’, The News, 2 Jul. 2009; ‘Informing corps commanders about Kargil not necessary: Musharraf’, Pakistan Today, 30 Jan. 2013.
17 Mazari, Kargil Conflict, 29–32. If this was a genuine fear and not an ex post facto invention, it suggests poor intelligence and exaggerated, worst-case analysis as the Indians were in no position to attack along the LOC prior to Kargil. ‘It certainly wasn’t a defensive manoeuvre…We didn’t pre-empt anything’, wrote Lt. Gen. (retd) Shahid Aziz, ‘Putting our children in the line of fire’, The Nation, 6 Jan. 2013. See also Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Introduction’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 1, 27.
18 Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 446; Rauf Klasra, ‘Kargil Debacle: Musharraf’s time bomb waiting to explode’, South Asia Tribune, 3 Aug. 2004; Musharraf, Line of Fire, 95–6; and Mian Saifur Rehman, ‘All were on board on Kargil operation’, The News, 4 Feb. 2013.
19 Sartaj Aziz, Dreams and Realities, 253–58; Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 153–61.
20 For example: S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford: Stanford UP 2007), 53–4, 117, 124; Ashley J. Tellis, C. Christine Fair and Jamison Jo Medby, Limited Conflicts under the Nuclear Umbrella (Santa Monica: RAND 2001), 48–9; Timothy D. Hoyt, ‘Kargil: The Nuclear Dimension’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 6, 144–70; Gen. (retd) V. P. Malik, ‘The Kargil War: Some Reflections’, Journal of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (Summer 2009), 2.
21 Khan, Eating Grass, 314–18; Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Introduction’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 1, 1–2, 10. Furthermore, as the Kargil concept was not presented to Musharraf until after his a appointment as COAS in the autumn of 1998, it stretches credulity to imagine that the other three generals were waiting in the wings, plans in hand, for the concatenation of the unplanned nuclear tests in May 1998 and the unplanned – indeed unexpected – appointment of Musharraf to the COAS post in October that year.
22 Moeed Yusuf, Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: U.S. Crisis Management in South Asia (Stanford: Stanford UP 2018), 55–8; Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 445–6.
23 Among many other commentators, see Maleeha Lodhi’s trenchant observations in her ‘Anatomy of a Debacle’, Newsline, Jul. 1999.
24 Many commentators, including Americans and Indians, use the word ‘brilliant’ to describe Pakistani tactics at Kargil. The author finds it difficult to apply this term to a military operation so disconnected from strategic realities.
25 Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 99–100; Hussain, Witness to Blunder, 69–79.
26 Much of this portion is drawn from John H. Gill, ‘Military Operations in the Kargil Conflict’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 4, 92–129.
27 The term ‘mission creep’ is more commonly associated with a change that occurs over time at the strategic level, however, Indian and Pakistani commentators have commonly used it for tactical actions in the Kargil conflict; for example, Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 100–1.
28 Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Introduction’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 1, 20.
29 William Milam, ‘Kargil revisited’, Friday Times, 1–7 Mar. 2013; Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Introduction’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 1, 8; Wirsing, Kashmir, 42.
30 Hussain, Witness to Blunder, 73, 254.
31 Jaswant Singh, In Service of Emergent India: A Call to Honour (Bloomington: Indiana UP 2007), 172. The author can personally attest that the reaction in the US was similar. In addition to puzzlement, Vajpayee, like many other Indians, felt ‘personally betrayed’, after having ‘travelled to Lahore with such sincerity and high hopes’ only to have the Kargil incursions as an answer. See L. K. Advani, My Country My Life (New Delhi: Rupa & Co. 2008), 563.
32 Active Pakistani deception measures helped mask the actual situation as radio messages in languages associated with Kashmiri and Afghan militants were broadcast to confuse Indian signals intelligence.
33 Gill, ‘Military Operations’, 104.
34 Among many Indian tactical histories, Lt. Gen. (retd) Mohinder Puri provides a comprehensive account from a division commander’s perspective in Kargil: Turning the Tide (New Delhi: Lancer 2016).
35 Government of India, National Security Council Secretariat, From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report (New Delhi: Sage Publications 2000), 95–6; Admiral (retd) Sushil Kumar, ‘The Indian Navy Played a Silent but Significant Role during the Kargil War’, Force, Dec. 2006.
36 Air Chief Marshal (retd) A. Y. Tipnis, ‘The Chief of Air Staff on Operation Safed Sagar’, Force, Oct. 2006.
37 G. Parthasarathy, ‘Memories of Pakistan’, in David Page (ed.), Diplomatic Divide (New Delhi: Lotus 2004), 117; A. S. Dulat, Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years (New Delhi: HarperCollins 2015), 25–6.
38 Amit Baruah, ‘Any weapon will be used threatens Pak’, The Hindu, 1 Jun. 1999.
39 Raj Chengappa with Rohit Saran and Harinder Bajewa, ‘Will the war spread?’, India Today, 5 Jul. 1999; Chari, Cheema and Cohen, Four Crises, 139–40.
40 Gen. (retd) V. P. Malik, Kargil: From Surprise to Victory (New Delhi: HarperCollins 2006), 146–7. See also Lt. Gen. (retd) Mohinder Puri, ‘Kargil War: The Final Battle’, Journal of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (Summer 2009), 36.
41 Gill, ‘Military Operations’, 114–5; Singh, Call to Honour, 178.
42 Col. Davendra Pratap Pandey, ‘Restraint as a Successful Strategy in the 1999 Kargil Conflict’, Small Wars Journal (15 Jun. 2008).
43 Pakistanis have frequently expressed outrage at full-page India-sponsored advertisements that appeared in major US and UK newspapers in mid-July branding the Pakistan Army as a ‘rogue’ entity; for example Gen. (retd) Mirza Aslam Beg, ‘Kargil Withdrawal and “Rogue” Army Image’, Defence Journal (Sept. 1999). See also Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict (London: I. B. Tauris 2000), 217–8. The author can attest from personal experience that these ads had no impact whatsoever on governmental analysis or deliberations.
44 Abdul Sattar, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy 1947–2005 (Karachi: Oxford UP 2007), 233; Shamshad Ahmad, ‘Truth about the Kargil Eipsode’; Anwar Iqbal, ‘Ex–Generals: Kargil Pakistan’s “Disaster”’, The News, 19 Jul. 1999. Implausibility and inconsistency remain features of some subsequent Pakistani accounts of the conflict such as Chapter 11 of General Musharraf’s memoir In the Line of Fire as noted in commentaries such as Sartaj Aziz, Dreams and Realities, 282–83; and Ejaz Haider, ‘Kargil Redux’, Express Tribune, 6 Feb. 2013.
45 Though the numbers of intruders was not large compared to the overall sizes of the Indian and Pakistani armies, in the context of the LOC, the operation can be considered ‘massive’ as in Yusuf, Brokering Peace, 58.
46 Inadvertent escalation was another danger. Indian fighter-bombers may unknowingly have come within moments of bombing a location where Nawaz Sharif, Musharraf and other Pakistani leaders were meeting with troops on 24 June. The ramifications of such an unplanned strike are incalculable. See Sushant Singh, ‘Kargil War: When an IAF Jaguar had Sharif, Musharraf in its Crosshairs’, Indian Express, 25 Jul. 2017; Pervez Hoodbhoy, ‘Nuclear war – avoided’, Dawn, 12 Aug. 2017.
47 Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Why Kargil Did Not Produce General War’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 7, 197–201; William B. Milam, Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting with Failure in South Asia (New York: Columbia University Press 2009), 154–8; Bruce Riedel, ‘American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 6, 130–43; Yusuf, Brokering Peace, 61–82.
48 Andrew Small, The China–Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics (Oxford: Oxford UP 2015), 57.
49 Sartaj Aziz, Dreams and Realities, 269–76.
50 Saeed Shafqat, ‘The Kargil Conflict’s Impact on Pakistani Politics and Society’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 11, 284.
51 The army seems to have sought to disguise the extent of the setbacks, see Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Why Kargil Did Not Produce General War’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 7, 186; Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 182.
52 Amit Baruah, ‘Pakistan’s Strategy’, Frontline 16/2 (5–18 Jun. 1999); Amir Mir, ‘Kargil probe body had sought Musharraf’s court martial’, The News, 31 Jan. 2013.
53 Tom Clancy with General Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz, Battle Ready (New York: Putnam’s Sons 2004), 346–47.
54 Tariq Fatemi, ‘Beyond the line of prudence’, Dawn, 7 Oct. 2006.
55 Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Knopf 2004), 865.
56 A. G. Noorani, ‘An Insider’s View’, Frontline, 24/8 (21 Apr.–4 May 2007). It was indicative of Sharif’s state of mind that he brought his entire family with him on the Washington trip as if he feared he might not be able to return to Pakistan.
57 Taylor Branch, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President (New York: Simon & Schuster 2009), 556. For detailed accounts of the 4 July meeting from US participants, see Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb (Washington DC: Brookings 2004), 155–70; and Riedel. A Pakistani perspective is provided by Sartaj Aziz, Dreams and Realities, 276–80.
58 ‘Joint Statement with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan’, 4 July 1999, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/WCPD-1999-07-12/pdf/WCPD-1999-07-12-Pg1278.pdf [23 June 2016].
59 Remarks during the Public Broadcasting System documentary Avoiding Armageddon, Episode 2, ‘Nuclear Nightmares: Losing Control’, 2003 at http://www.pbs.org/avoidingarmageddon/learnTheFacts/learn_01_02c.html [23 June 2016].
60 Small skirmishes over possession of individual peaks continued to flare into August, but 26 July is generally accepted as the end of the conflict.
61 Author’s analysis. For a short time, the Pakistan Army website listed Kargil casualties (under ‘Operation Koh-e-Paima’ for NLI troops and ‘Operation Kargil’ for others); accessed in November 2010, this information was later taken down. Pakistani casualties probably exceeded 450 deaths if one includes non-battle losses and casualties among the paramilitary Frontier Corps troops (normally posted on the Afghan border) who were involved but were not listed on the army’s website. See also ‘11 years post Kargil, Pak names 453 soldiers killed’, Outlook, 18 Nov. 2010; Manu Pubby, ‘For first time, Pak admits its Kargil dead, uploads list of 350 “Martyrs”’, Indian Express, 18 Nov. 2010; and ‘Pak army admits Kargil role, Martyrs turn troops’, Telegraph, 19 Nov. 2010; Mir, ‘Kargil Probe’.
62 The speedy publication of the Kargil Review Committee Report in 2000 at the insistence of its chairman, K. Subrahmanyam, was a nearly unique step by the Indian government considering that the internal report on the 1962 war with China has never been made public. See B. G. Verghese, First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India (Chennai: Tranquebar 2010), 425–30.
63 Note that the creation of 14th Corps as a command and control headquarters did not involve the introduction of additional combat troops. It is worth pointing out that the Kargil Review Committee recommended against falling into ‘the trap of Siachenisation of the Kargil Heights’ (KRC Report, 264).
64 Many Indian military officers regret the stalled defence reform process, especially the failure to create a chief of defence staff position; see for example former Navy Chief, retired Admiral Arun Prakash, ‘National Security Reforms: Ten Years after the Kargil Review Committee Report’, Journal of the United Services Institution of India, CXLI/590 (Oct.–Dec. 2012); or Lt. Gen. (retired) Harwant Singh, ‘Kargil Controversy: Mismanagement of Higher Defence’, Indian Defence Review 24/4 (Oct.–Dec. 2009). Strangely, Army–Air Force recriminations over credit for Kargil sparked a sometimes vicious debate that has played out in professional journals and newspapers over the past decade. See Jasjit Singh, ‘Kargil rewind: Air chief vs. Army chief’, Indian Express, 10 Oct. 2006. See also Rajesh Basrur, ‘The Lessons of Kargil as Learned by India’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 12, 311–32.
65 On civil–military interaction in New Delhi during the crisis, see Gen. (retd) V. P. Malik, India’s Military Conflicts and Diplomacy (New Delhi: HarperCollins 2013), 99–156; and Singh, Call to Honour, 170–96.
66 Irfan Ghauri, ‘“Nawaz Sharif facing bigger crisis than in 1999”’, Express Tribune, 30 May 2016.
67 Benazir Bhutto, ‘The cost of the Kargil blunder’, Dawn, 3 Sept. 1999; Hasan Askari Rizvi, ‘The Kargil episode’, Daily Times, 26 Jul. 2004; Rahimullah Yusufzai, ‘I never advocated martial law: Kuli’, The News, 3 Oct. 2006; Zahid Hussain, ‘Facts and fiction’, Dawn, 30 May 2018.
68 Shamshad Ahmad, ‘A Probe Commission Is What Is Needed’, Dawn, 17 Oct. 2006; Farhatullah Babar, ‘General Nasir has exposed his own lies on Kargil disaster’, South Asia Tribune, 7 Sept. 2004; Sartaj Aziz, Dreams and Realities, 258; Tariq Fatemi, ‘Line of Prudence’; Lodhi, ‘Anatomy of a Debacle’; Hamid Hussain, ‘Road Map for the General Headquarters’, Defence Journal (May 2003); Nasim Zehra, ‘Nawaz Sharif and Kargil’, The News, 29 Jul. 2004; Ayesha Siddiqa–Agha, ‘Pak Army’s research and analysis is weak’, Friday Times, 29 Mar.–2 Apr. 2002.
69 Sample comments include Zahid Hussain, ‘A messy affair’, Dawn, 1 Jun. 2016; ‘As the dust settles’, editorial, Express Tribune, 1 Jun. 2016; Abbas Nasir, ‘Foreign policy of Fiasco?’, Dawn, 2 Jul. 2016.
70 Zehra, From Kargil to the Coup, 346–420; William Milam, ‘Revisiting the Kargil misadventure’, Friday Times, 8 Jun. 2018; Sethi, ‘Lessons and Legacies of Kargil’; Nawaz, Crossed Swords, 508; Shafqat, ‘Impact on Pakistani Politics and Society’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare, Ch. 11, 288, 306.
71 Najam Sethi, ‘Saviours?’, Friday Times, 15–21 Oct. 1999.
72 Musharraf, Line of Fire, Ch. 14.
73 In addition to Line of Fire, Chapter 11, see the following for samples of Musharraf’s views: ‘Musharraf: LOC fighting “Redeemed” Pakistan army honour’, The News, 1 Aug. 1999; Javed Chaudry, ‘Musharraf hits back at Shahid Aziz’, Express Tribune, 31 Jan. 2013; ‘Going for the Jugular: India will never forget Kargil war, Says Musharraf’, Express Tribune, 18 May 2015. In 2009, Musharraf told an Indian audience that ‘future Kargils’ were possible: Rohit Singh, ‘Kargil and the Decade Since’, Indian Defence Review 24/3 (Jul.–Sept. 2009).
74 Raj Chengappa, ‘Nawaz Sharif speaks out’, India Today, 26 Jul. 2004; M. Siddique-ul-Farooque, Kargil: Adventure or Trap! White Paper (Lahore: Sagar Publishers 2006); Suhail Warraich, The Traitor Within: The Nawaz Sharif Story in his Own Words (Lahore: Sagar Publishers 2008).
75 Ashraf Mumtaz, ‘Shujaat rules out Kargil investigation’, Dawn, 19 Jul. 2004; Kiani, ‘Kargil adventure’, Dawn, 28 Jan. 2013; ‘Time for truth’, editorial, Dawn, 30 Jan. 2013.
76 On the question of logistics, see a professional study prepared by a retired Indian brigadier: V. K. Sharma, ‘Logistics and Maintenance of Pak Intruders in Dras and Mushkoh Sector during Operation Vijay’, Journal of the United Services Institution of India, CXXXIX/577 (Jul.–Sept. 2009). Zehra, a respected journalist, addresses most of these issues in her well-researched From Kargil to the Coup, but this does not replace an official report.
77 Raghavan, Siachen, 199; Pranay Sharma, ‘A glacial intent’, Outlook, (18 Feb. 2013); Nitin Gokhale, ‘The Siachen saga’, The Diplomat, 21 Apr. 2014.
78 Brig. (retd) Rahul K. Bhonsle, ‘Kargil 1999: Limited War, Unlimited Consequences’, Journal of the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (Summer 2009), 73–87. There is an extensive and growing literature on the ‘limited war’ or ‘Cold Start’ question. See, for example, Lt. Gen. (retd) V. R. Raghavan, ‘Limited war and nuclear escalation in South Asia’, The Nonproliferation Review, Fall–Winter 2001; Walter C. Ladwig III, ‘A Cold Start to Hot Wars?’ International Security 32/3 (Winter 2007/08); Arzan Tarapore, ‘Holocaust or Hollow Victory: Limited War in Nuclear South Asia’, IPCS Research Paper (New Delhi: Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies 2005); and more recently, ‘Army hones proactive strategy with massive exercise in Thar’, Times of India, 15 Apr. 2016.
79 C. Raja Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2003), 98–102; Rudra Chaudhuri, Forged in Crisis: India and the United States since 1947 (Oxford: Oxford UP 2014), 184–86.
80 As US President Clinton stated in an address to the Pakistani people the following year, ‘This era does not reward people who struggle in vain to redraw borders with blood. There is no military solution to Kashmir.’ Edwin Chen and Dexter Filkins, ‘Clinton fails to move Pakistan on peace issues’, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2000.
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Notes on contributors
John H. Gill
John H. Gill (Jack) is an adjunct professor associated with the Near East–South Asia Center for Strategic Studies in Washington DC. A former US Army South Asia Foreign Area Officer, he has been following South Asia security issues since the mid-1980s in positions within the US Defense Department, Joint Staff and Pacific Command. His publications on South Asia include an Atlas of the 1971 India-Pakistan War (2003), chapters on Indian and Pakistani strategic affairs in the National Bureau of Asian Research annual Strategic Asia (2003, 2005, 2017), as well as chapters on US-India military relations (2006, 2008), the 1986-87 India–Pakistan Brasstacks crisis (2009, 2018), Indian counterinsurgency operations in Sri Lanka (2009) and the Kargil War (2009, 2011). He is also an internationally recognized military historian and has authored several books and numerous papers on the Napoleonic era.