India and the Crisis in Kashmir

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War, regional security problems have become paradigmatic. Whereas they were once seen primarily as functions of-or in some cases even epiphenomenal to-superpower rivalry, they are now central. International security is largely regional security in the absence of a global strategic conflict. As a result, attention has shifted from consideration of the global strategic balance to local conflict. Broadly, these local conflicts are a function of two factors: regional distributions of power but also animosities rooted in ethnic, religious, territorial, and irredentist contestation. The problem for policy is that the latter factors are more intractable than the former; distributions of power are more amenable to management than are animosities based on, or evocative of seemingly old quarrels and fears. This article focuses on one of the most costly and dangerous of these animosities, namely, the Indian and Pakistani contest over the divided state of Kashmir.