Kashmir Is Potentially the Flashpoint for a Future Nuclear War
Common Dreams
By roping India and Japan into its standoff with China, the U.S. is raising the nuclear stakes in Asia — including, dangerously, between India and Pakistan. With the world focused on the scary possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula, not many people paid much attention to a series of naval exercises this past July in the Malacca Strait, a 550-mile long passage between Sumatra and Malaysia through which pass over 50,000 ships a year.
The single most dangerous spot on the globe, the current situation in Kashmir cannot continue. The Kashmiris should have their referendum — and both India and Pakistan will have to accept the results. The world cannot afford the current tensions to spiral down into a military confrontation that could easily get out of hand. Neither country would survive a nuclear war, and neither country should be spending its money on an arms race.
I know the Americans think me an opponent of their drone wars. They are right; I am. Singling out people to assassinate, and killing nine of our innocent children for each person they target, is a crime of unspeakable proportions. Their policy is as foolish as it is criminal, as it radicalises the very people we are trying to calm down.
To use a term that has become commonplace in our world when discussing commerce, the prospect of nuclear conflict has globalized war and it’s a nightmare of the first order. In the post-Cold War world, Exhibit A in that process would certainly be the unnerving potential for a nuclear war to break out between India and Pakistan.
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