Cohen, Paul. "India, Pakistan and Kashmir". Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.25, No.4 (2002): 32-60.

Cohen, Paul. "India, Pakistan and Kashmir". Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.25, No.4 (2002): 32-60.

• The Kashmir conflict is important globally, as both states have, especially Pakistan, have encouraged the activities of terrorist groups to help them in the conflict and, since the 1980s, there is the danger that it will escalate to nuclear war. The conflict has retarded the development of both countries, and prevented India from realizing its great power ambitions (32).
• Ending the Kashmir conflict could enable India to actually join the ranks of the great powers, whereas now its abilities are severely limited by the amount of resources devoted to conflict with Pakistan (57).
• The intractable disputes in the world are paired minority conflicts, in which prominent groups in two countries each believe that they are a threatened minority endangered by their rival state. This applies to India and Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, Israel and the Arab states, the Sinhala and Tamil of Sri Lanka, and others (33).
• These conflicts are so fierce because each side feels that concessions would leave it permanently weakened against its foe, and because the mutual sense of moral superiority makes compromise domestically costly (33-34).
• Paired minority conflicts are very difficult to solve, but they do not necessarily led to repeated war, they only prevent the creation of a stable or accepted peace (52).
• Pakistan feels like the minority power in the conflict because of the massive disparity in Indian size and strength. Despite being five times the size of Pakistan, and having seven times the population, India also feels that it is the state most threatened in the Kashmir conflict (34).
• Both Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah believed that Pakistan and India could peacefully coexist, although the former thought that Pakistan was destined to collapse back into India. Both sides hoped that the presence of significant Sikh and Hindu minorities in Pakistan and a significant Muslim minority in India would secure peace, a hope dashed during Partition. Relations did remain relatively calm during the 1950s, however (34-35).
• For India, the conflict with Pakistan became entrenched after the 1962 war with China, during which India felt victimized by China and developed a belief that only military force, not diplomacy, could solve international disputes. Pakistan ridicules these fears and its characterization as a victim as ludicrous (35).
• For Pakistan, the conflict with India became deeply entrenched following the loss of Bangladesh in 1971 due to Indian intervention. It deepened Pakistani distrust of all Indian actions, created a sense of national loss, and encouraged the government to acquire nuclear weapons to balance with India. India is generally incredulous that Pakistan would still be sore about the independence of Bangladesh (35-36).
• India and Pakistan both employ caricatures of the other's faith to justify suspicions and national stereotypes. Pakistan uses passages from the Arthashastra as evidence of Indian duplicity and sneakiness, while India uses passages of the Quran to support impressions that all Pakistanis are manichean zealots (36, 41).
• India has also constructed a narrative of its national history that demonizes Islam and Pakistan. In these imagining, India experienced a golden age prior to the Muslim conquests, which destroyed that culture and plunged India into a dark age that left it weakened enough to be conquered by Britain (36).
• Most Indians view the Pakistani alliances with China and the USA as examples of neo-imperialism, assuming that foreign intervention has warped Pakistani politics and contributed to military rule. To India, foreign involvement with Pakistan has supported an idea that India is beset by scheming enemies on all sides; that the West, China, and the Muslim world are all trying to contain Indian power (36-37).
• The Pakistani notion that Muslims in South Asia should have their own state separate from India is seen as a dire threat to the existence of India, as it challenges the legitimacy of the multireligious and secular Indian state. India believes that Pakistan is unable to exist without this identity, looking at its military dictatorship, support for Islamic theocracy, and dependency on foreign aid as evidence of its weakness as a state, and thus poses a permanent threat to India (37-38).
• India believes that fact that Pakistan was carved out of India prevents the country from establishing any identity besides autocracy, Islamism, and hatred of India; it is assumed that Islam is authoritarian, and that both factors are reinforced by hatred of India (40-41).
• Pakistani leaders do not trust India and believe that India still hopes to one day destroy the country. They see the Indian involvement in Bangladeshi independence as evidence of larger plans to dismember Pakistan. The rise of Hindu nationalism in India has only reinforced Pakistani suspicions (38-39).
• Although public distrust and fear of India are genuine, there are also many important elements of Pakistani society that benefit politically from continued conflict with India and will not end it willingly. The army uses conflict to maintain support for military rule, and both military and civilian governments use the threat from India to distract from pressing social issues, poverty, inequality, corruption, domestic terrorism, and regional separatist movements (39).
• States in paired minority conflicts have six possible solutions to the conflict: ending the conflict by no longer recognizing it as a rivalry, joining the opposing side, compromising with the stronger rival, changing the perceptions of the rival state, seeking outside help, or winning the conflict militarily (39).
• The Partition itself was designed to end the preexisting conflict between Muslims and Hindus in the British Raj by physically separating the communities. Early Indian approaches to Pakistan were essentially just ignoring the rivalry, hoping that Pakistan would admit defeat eventually (40).
• There was never been talk within Pakistan of becoming allies with India, but in the first decades of independence, many Indians assumed that Pakistan would eventually rejoin India. Now there are no such hopes, but Indians hope that Pakistan will split apart into multiple states that could be Indian allies (41).
• Pakistan refuses to compromise with India, something India has expected it to do for a long time in recognition of Indian power. Pakistan sees accommodation of Indian demands and demilitarization as a road to domination by India. They point to Indian interference in the domestic politics of Nepal and Sri Lanka, or the annexation of Sikkim, as evidence of the danger of appeasing India (41-42).
• There have been numerous attempts to change the perceptions of their neighbor in both countries, through peace talks and exchange programs between the countries. These initiatives have all largely failed, as talks usually end up going over the same set of accusations until they break down (42).
• Major Indian peace overtures under Prime Ministers Desai and Gujral were spoiled by outside events, with the Kargil War and subsequent army coup in 1999 destroying any goodwill that had been created on either side. Indian politics also punished Prime Ministers Desai and Gujral for these gestures (43).
• The USA actively tried to broker peace between India and Pakistan in the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to bring both countries into an alliance against China and the USSR. The initiative had no success (43).
• Both India and Pakistan have occasionally offered each other 'no war' promises, but these have all been lies used to demonstrate their commitment to peace to the international community and gain the moral high ground. Most international peace fora are viewed this way, as a method of demonstrating the other side's faults to the world (43-44).
• Pakistan has actively and consistently sought outside alliances to balance against India, gaining at different times the support of the USA, China, North Korea, the Arab states, and Iran. India used to be supported by the USSR, although less during the Gorbachev administration (44), which provided it with a UNSC veto on issues related to Kashmir (49).
• China is strongly committed to its alliance with Pakistan, as the arrangement helped it both contain India directly and challenge the USSR. This alliance has weakened since the 1990s, as India and China have become friendly and sought to avoid discussing their territorial disputes (44). 
• The USA has been unwilling to dedicate too much support to Pakistan, refusing to ever include Pakistan under the American nuclear umbrella. Pakistan tried to draw America into direct conflict with India by denouncing it as a communist state, but the Reagan administration did not take the bait (44, 49).
• The closest that India has come to resolving its rivalry with Pakistan through military force was during the 1971 war when it forced the East Pakistani army to surrender. American and Chinese support for Pakistan prevented it from pressing its advantage in West Pakistan, however. Any future military victories have been prevented by both states' acquisition of nuclear weapons (45).
• The Kashmir conflict is caused by the important place that control of Kashmir plays in the self-perception of both states. For Pakistan, control of the Muslim-majority territory is necessary to fulfill its national premise of protecting Muslims from Hindu majoritarianism. For India, control of Kashmir validates the secular credentials of the government, and its loss would damage Indian claims of being a multireligious and secular state (47).
• Pakistan blames India for the Kashmir conflict, which it claims has been precipitated by Indian denial of popular will by preventing a Muslim-majority region from joining Pakistan during Partition (46).
• India blames the Kashmir conflict on Pakistani obsession with a Muslim state, which it views as a failed project as demonstrated by the successful independence of Bangladesh. India believes that Pakistani designs on Kashmir threaten its vision of a secular state and reinforce the hostile Muslim identity of Pakistan (46). 
• Non-Muslim groups within Jammu and Kashmir fear the unification of the territory with Pakistan. Buddhists in Ladakh and Hindus in Jammu both resent the power of Muslims in Srinagar, and these fears are multiplied for the Hindu minority in the Kashmir Valley, many of whom fled in the face of Islamist guerrilla warfare (46). 
• Kashmiris have outsized influence in the politics of both India and Pakistan. In Pakistan, Kashmiri migrants form important political constituencies in many major cities, meaning that political victory often depends on their support. Kashmiris are overrepresented in the Indian government, with Jawaharlal Nehru's family actually coming from Hindu Kashmiris (47).
• Control over Kashmir has important strategic implications for both countries, as the territory is more defensible than the southern border. For India, control of Kashmir also has important implications for its strategic position with China (47).
• Continued conflict in Kashmir allows Pakistan to divert substantial amounts of the Indian military to Kashmir, where the terrain and population is far more favorable to Pakistani military operations than along the southern border (57).
• Since rigged elections in 1987, an actively Kashmiri insurgency began to demand full independence from both Pakistan and India. This new movement, popular among younger Kashmiris, grew up in response to dictatorial behavior by Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and draws heavily from Islamic extremist ideologies popular in Afghanistan (47-48).
• Although Pakistan did not begin the insurgency in 1989, it has provided arms, manpower, training, and funds ever since and has been an important factor in the continuation of the insurgency (48).
• Violence remains widespread in Kashmir and has taken a significant human toll on all groups. Although India claims that it has reduced the number of terrorist attacks in recent years, bombings, kidnappings, sabotage, and violence remain common in Kashmir. Indian counter-terrorism tactics have also resulted in severe human rights violations that further feed the insurgency (48).
• There were international attempts to mediate an end to the Kashmir conflict in 1948, 1962, and 1965. The first UN process was fruitless, as was an Anglo-American peace process after the 1962 Sino-Indian War. The USSR did manage to broker peace between India and Pakistan at the 1966 Tashkent Declaration, but it fell apart in 1971 (48-49).
• Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto met in Simla in 1972 to work out a peace treaty, which included a commitment to peacefully resolve all outstanding disputes. Both leaders believed that the other had reneged on certain promises in the treaty and distrust immediately reemerged (49-50).
• The conflict in Kashmir was largely settled between 1972 and 1989, as in no major military confrontations emerged. Many outside observers incorrectly assumed that the conflict would be resolved, but the underlying distrust and contention continued beneath the peaceful surface, as did skirmishes over the Siachen Glacier (50).
• The author asserts that America is the only country trusted enough by both Pakistan and India to negotiate a peace process, but it was been wholly uninterested in doing so since a failed attempt in 1964 (54).
• The author states that the Kashmir conflict has remained unresolved because of three major factors: Cold War tensions, the refusal of both India and Pakistan to compromise, and the fact that the Kashmiris have generally supported independence over any of the solutions proposed by other countries (50-51).
• Any solution to the Kashmir issue would require major concessions on both sides, especially from Pakistan. It might require the transfer of territory, changes in the Pakistan or Indian federal systems, and substantial demilitarization. Any of these steps requires a lot of trust between the countries, since the peace process would leave both positions vulnerable to exploitation (51-52).
• Any peace deal would require India to recognize the legitimacy of Pakistani claims that Muslims should be represented in Pakistan. India fears that admitting this would encourage separatists from other religious and ethnic groups (53).
• Concessions from Pakistan would be even more threatening to that state's identity, as it would touch on core issues of Pakistan as the nation of Muslims and how to construct a national identity on different grounds (53-54).
• The author states that main issue facing the Kashmir conflict is that Pakistan and India not only refuse to resolve the conflict when it suits them to keep it burning, but that high levels of distrust mean that they may refuse to cooperate even when it is in their national interests to do so (58).
• Indian opinions of what to do in Kashmir are deeply divided, largely over disagreements about the loyalty of Kashmiri Muslims. Indians who trust Kashmiri Muslims see more autonomy as a legitimate demand, but others fear that this will just be used to demand greater independence and plot against Indian rule. Hindu extremists have even called for the territory to be resettled by Hindu colonists to ensure loyalty to India (53).
• Pakistan and India have implemented a number of confidence-building measures since the 1999 Kargil War and their mutual acquisition of nuclear weapons, including notification of troop movements and military exercises, hotlines between military commanders, and regular meetings of prime ministers. These have not worked to prevent conflict (55).
• The author outlines seven possible futures for the Kashmir conflict:
• Pakistan could collapse and break into a number of smaller states that would be unable to oppose India in Kashmir. They would allow for the reintegration of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan into India (55).
• India could succeed in supporting factions within Pakistan that are less Islamist and less anti-India than the dominant Punjabi clique. This could result in a Pakistani state more willing to compromise with India over Kashmir (55).
• Over the course of generations, Pakistan recognizes the greater cultural, economic, and political power of India and submits to India power in Kashmir and elsewhere. This view is most popular among Hindu nationalists, who believe in India's civilizational power (55-56).
• India might make a miscalculation about Pakistani resolve and launch a military offensive into Pakistan that triggers a nuclear war (56).
• Pakistan could reorganize its priorities and decide to resolve the Kashmir dispute through negotiation rather than continue costly military escalations. It is unclear whether India would respond to any peace overtures that did not totally give in to Indian demands (56).
• India could accept the existence of Pakistan as a Muslim state and cease to view its existence or control of part of Kashmir as an existential threat to India. This would allow India to focus its efforts in other sectors and not be as tied down by the Kashmir conflict (56).
• A continued stalemate that goes through periods of peace and tension as each side tries, and fails, to press the issue militarily. Neither countries would be able to win the conflict and it would continue to tie down massive amounts of resources in Kashmir (56-57).
• India has responded to the ongoing war in Afghanistan by trying to encircle Pakistan and gain the support of the Afghan government, an initiative that has only stoaked Pakistani fears (57).