The missile strikes on Pakistan carried out by Indian warplanes herald another outbreak of serious conflict between the two neighbours who started fighting in the very year they won independence from Britain in 1947. In just over 50 years they fought four major regional wars – including in 1971, when Pakistan lost a large chunk of its territory to become Bangladesh.
Could we be on the brink of the fifth India-Pakistan war since 1947, and the first major clash between the two countries this century?
Kashmir is the heart of this story as it is at most of the tangled story of India and Pakistan. On independence the India of the old British Raj was partitioned – into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-dominated though secular India. In the scramble of partition more than a million died. For years there were still more Muslims in India than in Pakistan.
Kashmir, the northern region, became divided too, with one part administered by India and the other by Pakistan. Freeing the India – dominated part became a sacred cause to Islamic militant groups, principally the Jaish e Mohammed – JeM – and Lashkar e Taiba – LeT.
The LeT has been blamed for an attack on Hindu tourists from India at a well-known beauty spot in India-ruled Kashmir, Pahalgam, on April 22nd this year. 26 people died.
India’s overnight air strikes were on six targets claimed to be linked to Jaish e Mohammed and Lashkar e Taiba. Some 90 people are reported killed and injured, including family members of Masood Azher, founder of JeM. Pakistan claims to have shot down two, possibly five, Indian jets, including state of the art French built Rafale fighters.
India has long charged that both groups have been formed, sustained and recruited, either directly or indirectly by members of Pakistan’s military and ISI intelligence agency. LeT’s most notorious operation was a commando attack on India’s second city of Mumbai in November 2008, in which 175 people were killed, including eight attackers, and more than 300 injured.
For years, and especially since the Russian occupation in 1979, agencies of the two countries were involved in Afghanistan. Pakistan military personnel, under the excuse they were retired or on leave, directly helped and trained the Taliban, helping their recapture of Kabul in 2021.
The change in international sponsors, arms suppliers and allies is a worrying aspect of the latest flare-up
There are two striking elements to the new crisis: the durability of the militant groups, now lasting several generations, and that both Pakistan and India are fully fledged nuclear powers. India acquired the bomb in 1974, and Pakistan in 1998, a year in which they both carried out nuclear tests.
They are both mighty regional military powers. India has a million and a half active service military personnel, and the same number of reservists. Pakistan has 660,000 strong military – and as many reservists and militia forces; and the country is dominated by the military and its culture.
The change in international sponsors, arms suppliers and allies is a worrying aspect of the latest flare-up. Pakistan is firmly linked to China, Iran, and, curiously, Israel. India used to look to Moscow, but Vladimir Putin has not placed a call to Narendra Modi in the past 24 hours – or the Kremlin is keeping quiet about this, if he did.
Keir Starmer has been trumpeting a “break through” trade deal with India, which could yield £4.8 billion by 2040 – if we are lucky. France, on the other hand, has been selling weapons, planes, including perhaps the ill-fated Rafales hand over fist.
Only hours after the UK-India trade announcement – in which Scotch Whisky exporters appear to be lead beneficiaries – India’s planes and missiles struck targets in Pakistan and Kashmir.
Britain has a legacy in this part of the game, too. When Pakistan and India went nuclear after tests in 1998, Tony Blair despatched his Chief of Defence Staff, the now Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, to India and especially Pakistan where he was on first name terms with the military ruler, General Pervez Musharaff. Guthrie explained how the two countries should establish a hotline so their leaders could defuse a nuclear conflict.
One wonders if Sir Keir Starmer could persuade the two leaders to reach for their red telephone now.
Or is it over to Dr Strangelove?
Robert Fox is defence editor
