Will Washington pay as much attention to South Asia between crises as during them? Probably not. The Bush administration still has much unfinished business with the Al Qaeda network and Osama bin Laden. It is also now deeply immersed in efforts to quieten down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Adding high-level South Asian diplomacy to this mix in the absence of heightened war scares or actual conflict would be problematic for an administration that has its hands full and is weak in regional expertise. Besides, the State Department, which would need to take the lead in preventive diplomacy, is risk averse. India and Pakistan are clearly not ready or willing to settle differences, so how could the US possibly fix their political impasse?
The Bush administration applied this line of reasoning to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse as well. For over a year, Bush and his top lieutenants convinced themselves they would not engage in serious West Asian peacemaking efforts till the parties got their act together and demonstrated a readiness to make progress. This strategy proved profoundly ill-advised. Conflicts not ripe for resolution can be left alone so long as they are also not ripe for conflagration. An active West Asia policy by the Bush administration might not have prevented this particular conflagration, but Bush's stand-offishness made the ensuing crisis far more acute and far more difficult to turn off, once the administration finally became actively involved at the highest levels.
One operative question for South Asia—and for US diplomacy—is whether India and Pakistan are merely between crises. Another is whether crisis will again result in armed conflict. Since testing nuclear weapons in '98, India and Pakistan have seen one crisis after another. One reason for repeated crises, now widely acknowledged in the subcontinent, is that the "stability-instability paradox" described by western deterrence theorists is, sadly, extremely applicable to South Asia. Pakistan has used nuclear weapons as an insurance policy, fueling militancy in Kashmir in the hope that India wouldn't resort to escalation. In this way, stability defined as the absence of central strategic exchanges can breed instability at the level of unconventional warfare.
But India too can play this dangerous game. Pakistan is not alone in chafing against the status quo in Kashmir. India too seems ready to change the rules of the game of unending provocation and limited response. Pakistan would now be very unwise to bet that the stability-instability paradox only applies to one of the two parties in dispute.
The stability-instability paradox is only one reason for recurring crises in South Asia. Another is that each crisis ends unsatisfactorily to one or to both sides. Thus, every crisis becomes a prelude to the next, where scores can hope to be settled and new pressures applied. When not one, but both adversaries are unhappy with the status quo, the next crisis is unavoidable and armed conflict is difficult to avoid.
An obvious case in point is Kargil, which has led directly to the current impasse where both Indian and Pakistani armed forces remain poised to fight another war. US diplomatic intervention and Indian military operations produced an outcome very unsatisfying to the Pakistani military leaders—an endorsement by Washington of the LoC's inviolability and sanctity. This outcome, in the view of many senior officers in Pakistan, could have been avoided had it not been for a feckless political leader. Initially, New Delhi seemed pleased with this outcome. But over time, and as the crossings of militants and acts of violence continued in Kashmir, the injunction of the LoC's inviolability seemed more a constraint than help. India and Pakistan now share a mutual dislike for the status quo in Kashmir.
If India strikes across the Kashmir divide to punish Pakistan for its continued but reduced intelligence, logistical and material support for militancy, would the Kashmir issue become more amenable to resolution and would Pakistan's military leadership become more malleable? Surely not. Does this mean the Indian government would refrain from settling scores? The Bush administration isn't betting on continued restraint by New Delhi, or by Islamabad, for that matter—but neither is it applying the necessary resources to engage in preventive diplomacy in both capitals.
Under the circumstances, India and Pakistan will have to deal with the next eruption with the confidence of their convictions, but sans firm escalation control and nuclear risk-reduction measures in place. Their mutual expectation will be that the US and other third-party interventions would prevent unintended escalation. 'Successful' interventions—akin to that following the Kargil precipice—would, if the familiar pattern is repeated, allow more time and space for desultory, intermittent diplomacy.
India and Pakistan are now in that same dangerous but deceptively quiet passageway Israel and the Palestinian Authority entered a year ago. The assertion of conditions that will not be met echo down these corridors. The trust required for meaningful bilateral diplomacy has been replaced by threats and the sharpening of war plans.
Washington has seen this script play out once; a repeat would be most unwelcome. Compound regional crises of this magnitude have not occurred since 1956, when the Kremlin invaded Hungary and when Britain and France colluded with Israel to attack Egypt. Contemporary crises are far more dangerous, because they involve uncontrollable militants and the possible use of mass casualty weapons. Having waited too long to engage in proactive diplomacy in West Asia, the Bush administration risks repeating this mistake in South Asia. But it does not appear to have the horsepower or the focus to push for preventive measures. Eventually, Washington and New Delhi will have to find the wisdom to recognise the utility of outside help.