The Pakistan Problem

By Daniel Markey

Daniel Markey is a Senior Research Professor and Academic Director of the Global Policy Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  He is the author of China’s Western Horizon:  Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia

Nowhere on earth is an act of terrorism more likely to spark a nuclear war than in South Asia.

This is by no means a unique or recent observation. In early 2010, I wrote a “Contingency Planning Memorandum” for the Council on Foreign Relations suggesting that in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November 2008, India was more likely to respond with force to the next major act of terrorism by Pakistan-based terrorists. After that, it would be impossible to rule out the possibility of tit-for-tat escalation across the nuclear threshold.

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