Paul, T. "Why has the India-Pakistan Relationship been so Enduring? Power Asymmetry and an Intractable Conflict". Security Studies, Vol.15, No.4 (2006): 600-630.

Paul, T. "Why has the India-Pakistan Relationship been so Enduring? Power Asymmetry and an Intractable Conflict". Security Studies, Vol.15, No.4 (2006): 600-630.

• The author argues that the conflict between India and Pakistan has lasted over 50 years -- during which it triggered four wars -- because India's overall superiority in military strength, population, and economic capacity is mitigated by regional conditions in Kashmir. This allows the rivalry to continue despite Indian strength (601).
• The conflict continues because mitigating factors allow Pakistan to match Indian power in Kashmir (616). The threat of nuclear war and outside intervention prevent India from fully escalating the conflict, while Pakistan maintains an advantage in limited and localized warfare through use of irregular forces (624).
• Since Indian forces are not all concentrated in Kashmir due to the threat from China, it was not been able to maintain the superior capabilities needed to deter or effectively combat Pakistani irregular warfare. Pakistani units are also more mobile and are able to gain a localized advantage in Kashmir (617-618).
• Pakistani acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1980s further enabled asymmetric warfare between the countries as the nuclear deterrent prevented conflict from escalated to total war. In more limited conflicts, India cannot bring its full capabilities to bear and Pakistan has the advantage (618, 620-621).
• Pakistani strategy in Kashmir has been active and, since the 1980s, based on irregular tactics, meaning that it has an advantage over defensive and static Indian forces. These irregular forces also cost less manpower and supplies than Indian counterparts (619-620).
• American support since the 1950s and Chinese support from the 1960s have evened the playing field between India and Pakistan, through both access to superior weapons and potential military support (622-623)
• Traditional explanations for the intractability of the Kashmir conflict have been either that India and Pakistan cannot agree on an acceptable territorial division in Kashmir or because the conflict belief systems of the countries prevent any meaningful peace (610, 612).
• The territorial explanation claims that Kashmir is unsolved because possession of the Muslim territory is critical to Pakistan's national identity and India's ownership of Kashmir supports its claim to be a multinational and multireligious state and thus dampens other separatist movements (610-611).
• This explanation is not satisfying because Pakistan has agreed to partition Kashmir with China, giving up the Aksai Chin region, whereas it has resisted any peace with India, indicating some special about the conflict with India (611).
• The identity argument claims that India and Pakistan cannot resolve the issue because their values are too different, particularly with India being secular and democratic, and Pakistan being Islamist and autocratic; this argument draws heavily on claims in democratic peace theory that democracies and non-democracies cannot get along (612-613).
• This argument makes the mistake of treating identities are organic and set, whereas in actuality these identities only matter when they invoked by politicians. The consistent invocation of these identities indicates another structural factor driving conflict (613-614).
• The identity argument is also undermined by the persistence of the conflict despite changes in identity; both democratic and secular Pakistani leaders have continued the Kashmir conflict. Conversely, some of the overtures for peace have come from Pakistani Islamists and Hindu nationalists (614).
• Rivalries are relationships between states that involved the use or threat of use of military force, and are otherwise antagonistic. Rivals think in terms of absolute gains and assume that rivals seek to harm them militarily (602-603).
• Persistent rivalries are caused by disputes over core national issues or ideological matters linked to national identity. Only a major change in these underlying factors, or military victory, can resolve an enduring rivalry, as domestic politics punishes politicians for reconciling with rivals (603-604, 608, 626).
• Since the most common resolution to rivalry is the defeat of the weaker state, it is expected that weaker states should eventually give up. The least likely scenario is that the weak state is an aggressor against a passive strong state (604-606).
• To continue aggression from a position of weakness, the weaker state would need some advantage in that specific zone of conflict to equal out the distribution of power (606-607).
• In situations were an asymmetric rivalry is equalized in a specific theater of competition, some expectations can be made: the conflict is balanced and not overly costly for either side, it is unlikely to escalate into major war, victory for either side is unlikely, and permanent peace is unlikely (607).
• Based on scholarly explanations of Vietnamese and Algerian victories over the USA and France that stress the importance of the weaker party's willingness to suffer, the author contends that weaker states can win conflicts if they deploy indirect military means (608-609).
• India and Pakistan fought wars in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999, of which the first three were major. None of these conflicts significantly changed the power dynamics between India and Pakistan; the loss of Bangladesh in 1971 was balanced by the consolidation of Pakistani forces on the western front (615). Pakistan has initiated and escalated the majority of these conflict (616).
• India and Pakistan have different views of the conflict. India considers itself an equal of China or other great powers and superior to Pakistan, while Pakistan considers India to be its equal, and is concerned about Indian aspirations of great power status (624).
• Perceptions of status between the states also prevents resolution of the Kashmir conflict, as India refuses to concede victory to a 'lesser state', while Pakistan refuses to give in because it believes doing so confirms Indian notions of superiority (630).
• Pakistan has drawn the wrong lessons from past conflicts with India, putting its victories down to the essential nature of India rather than concretely analyzing its strategic advantages. This attitudes has reinforced the militarization of society and politics, and encourages continued warfare on the assumption that Pakistani forces will ultimately triumph (625).
• Several developments in the 1990s have reduced Pakistani advantages: the American reaction to the 9/11 attacks has forced Pakistan to change its strategy in Kashmir, since it has been forced to disown and fight many of the Al-Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas it had been deploying in Kashmir; Indian economic growth has outpaced Pakistan's; China has become much friendlier with India (627).
• Presently [2006], none of these changes has managed to significantly change the dynamics of conflicts in Kashmir, but they could affect its future development (628). Growing Indian power is likely to be the final factor that ends the conflict (630).
• Scholarly work on asymmetric rivalries should look more at local power differentials, as the example of India and Pakistan indicates that power in these local theaters can often be more important to the longevity of a conflict that overall power (628).