How Dangerous Was Kargil? Nuclear Crises in Comparative Perspective

摘要

Between May and June of 1999, India and Pakistan engaged in a higher-intensity military conflict than any other pair of nuclear-armed states had before or have since. Although it remained geographically contained, the Katgil War resulted in hundreds of casualties on both sides and saw frantic diplomatic intervention by the United States in an effort to de-escalate the conflict. It is therefore unsurprising that the Kargil War is commonly seen as one of the few occasions that the world has come close to nuclear war, and perhaps second only to the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of the risk of nuclear escalation. In the years since, India and Pakistan have engaged in repeated skirmishes, crises, and periods of tension, with the two countries again coming into conflict in the spring of 2019 in response to a deadly attack on Indian military forces by the Pakistan-backed terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed.