Letter from Chairman Nikita Khrushchev to President John F. Kennedy, Oct. 26, 1962:
Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly of what terrible forces our countries dispose.
The "Gordian knot" analogy fits the current escalating conflict between India and Pakistan perfectly. Like the U.S. and Soviet Union in 1962, both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif know full well the consequences of out-of-control escalation. And like 1962, the leaders find themselves unable to pull back from the brink for reasons of "saving face" or other political considerations.
The day-by-day escalation of drone strikes and missile attacks keeps the pot boiling with no sign that either side is willing to step back.
Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on Friday that Islamabad has “no option left other than full-blown war." He was responding to India ratcheting up tensions in the region.
“We don't have any other options other than this... We have to pay them back in the same coin,” said Asif in an interview with a Pakistani news channel.
Is war at our door, asked the newsman. “Absolutely, there shouldn’t be any doubt on this," said Asif.
This is more than just saber rattling. This is two sides talking themselves into a war. The two sides "are fueling each other's extremism," says Vaibhav Vats, a writer from New Delhi, who's an expert on the Hindu nationalism movement.
The Pakistani establishment has an unwitting ally in the Hindu right. Modi’s 10 years in power have emboldened and strengthened a Hindu-nationalist movement whose proponents demonize Muslims both in India, which has a large Muslim minority, and in Pakistan. Hindu-nationalist rhetoric often deliberately conflates the two. The Pahalgam attack was followed by violent assaults on Muslims all across India. The Indian government, for its part, underscored religious divisions by naming its military action Operation Sindoor, after a traditional marker of married Hindu women. As heavy fighting broke out across the Line of Control, the Pakistani military targeted a Sikh temple in Indian-administered Kashmir in an attack that led to at least 10 civilian deaths.
The increase in volatility that happens when religion is baked into the mix has made the conflict far more personal. At least, that's how it feels to the citizens of both sides.
The combatants need some kind of "off ramp" to avoid the worst. That usually means some quiet diplomacy involving Great Britain and the U.S. But Vice President JD Vance is saying that a potential nuclear war between India and Pakistan is "none of our business."
“Look, we’re concerned about any time nuclear powers collide and have a major conflict,” Vance told Fox News’s Martha MacCallum. “What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it.”
"For the moment, however, India and Pakistan seem to be vying for escalation dominance—and veering toward catastrophe—without an off-ramp in sight," writes Mr. Vats.
Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Ravi Agrawal of Foreign Policy Magazine that he is not optimistic.
It hasn’t always been mediation, but engaging with the country over whom they have the most leverage to persuade them. In some cases, it has been a little bit more formal in terms of intervention. There have been a number of phone calls since the Indian strikes. The Indian national security advisor called his counterparts in the U.S., Russia, China, and Europe, to discuss things with them. Pakistan also is briefing a number of their partners. But we haven’t seen a more active U.S. intervention, along the lines of what we’ve seen in the past.
Perhaps the Trump administration believes the two sides don't need America throwing its weight around. If they can resolve the conflict without the U.S., it could be a template for dealing with international crises in the future.
