India Pakistan Large-Scale War in Next 5 Years Claims USA Report

India Pakistan Large-Scale War in Next 5 Years Claims USA Report:

A report from the United States has claimed that nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan might engage in a large-scale war unwittingly, even as they would like to avoid military hostility.

The Global Trends report, released April 7 in Washington, noted: “India and Pakistan may stumble into a large-scale war neither side wants, especially following a terrorist attack that the Indian government judges to be significant.” The report is compiled by the U.S. government’s National Intelligence Council once every four years.

A similar report released by the Obama administration in 2017 had warned of a pandemic and a vast economic disruption as its fallout.

The report looks at the trigger for the potential war between India and Pakistan. It said the ability of some militant outfits to conduct attacks, New Delhi’s resolve to retaliate against Islamabad after such an attack and Islamabad’s determination to defend itself “are likely to persist and may increase” in the next five years.

It warned: “Miscalculation by both governments could prompt a breakdown in the deterrence that has restricted conflict to levels each side judges it can manage.”

The U.S. intel report also noted that such a war could translate into long-term economic fallout. It noted that “a full-scale war could inflict damage that would have economic and political consequences for years”.

The report further underlined that the U.S. policy in Afghanistan is likely to impact the neighbouring countries, especially India and Pakistan. “U.S. actions in Afghanistan during the next year will have significant consequences across the region, particularly in Pakistan and India,” it said.

This would be “especially true” if a security vacuum emerges in Afghanistan that results in a civil war between the Taliban and its Afghan opponents, expanding freedom of manoeuvre for regional militant networks, or criminals and refugees flow out of the country, it adds.

The report concluded that developments in Afghanistan would fuel political tensions and conflict in western Pakistan and sharpen the India-Pakistan rivalry.

The US intelligence community warns that water insecurity in the region is also an increasing risk. The assessment includes forecasts by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that Pakistan could face absolute water scarcity by 2025, given a combination of poor water conservation practices, rising temperatures, and decreased rainfall.

The report notes that previous extreme weather events, such as the 1970 cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, contributed to state failure in then-East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh the next year. It warns that future events could also prompt a regional crisis with enormous humanitarian, political, and security implications to which external powers probably would try to respond.

The report points out that security threats have “undergirded popular support” for nationalist leaders, and these threats are likely to continue or worsen in some cases. For example, “military tensions between India and Pakistan are at their most contentious in many years, strengthening leaders in both capitals.”

The US intelligence community notes that information technology is fuelling authoritarian tendencies by making it easier for South Asian governments to influence their populations. It points out that in 2019, India “led the world in Internet shutdowns by a wide margin” — with several months-long crackdowns to suppress protests, including in occupied Kashmir. Pakistan has deployed Huawei’s Safe Cities technology, raising public fears of increased surveillance.

The report notes that the balancing approach, particularly in relation to China, also affects regional dynamics. Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka probably judge their countries “can more easily deflect New Delhi’s demands or block its regional leadership aspirations by maintaining ties with Beijing”.

For its part, New Delhi probably will look for ways to mitigate Chinese influence given China’s expanding foothold in the Indian Ocean, the report adds. For example, India almost certainly will continue to encourage Japan to offer economic investment and some military cooperation to other South Asian countries to push them to align more closely with New Delhi and Tokyo.

The report predicts that despite their growing interest in China, almost every government in the region will seek to maintain ties with the US as part of their balancing efforts. The United States is the biggest export market for Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and most South Asian leaders continue to cultivate and publicly tout their relationships with Washington.

US intelligence analysts predict that during the next five years, slowing economic growth and growing polarisation will pose an increasing risk to traditions of democratic and independent governance in several countries in South Asia.

Many countries will strengthen their efforts to hedge and balance their relationships with multiple external powers, including China, Russia, Japan, and the US.

Through 2025, South Asia will have to manage the challenges that internal security problems, the risk of inter-state war, and the effects of climate change and pollution pose to at least some countries’ longer-term democratic and economic development.

The report projects that economic growth in South Asia will remain slow during the next five years and will be insufficient to employ the region’s expanding workforce — especially as the world emerges from the pandemic.

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, unemployment in India had reached a 40-year high until GDP growth slowed markedly in the latter half of 2019, and India’s strict lockdown from March to May 2020 temporarily drove unemployment up to 23 per cent.

The report argues that the region’s economy is hampered by outdated legal systems, severe pollution, water shortages, and highly bureaucratic regulatory environments — all increasing investor uncertainty. “No government in the region is prepared to undertake economic reforms on the scale required to generate robust growth,” the report adds.

It notes that almost all the economies in the region remain focused on agriculture, with the bulk of their workforces dependent on farming. Most countries’ agricultural sectors are underproductive in relation to the large share of government funds and natural resources they consume.

According to the report, this disparity is driven by a variety of factors, including growing water scarcity, environmental damage and climate change effects, and government failure to reform agricultural subsidies that benefit rural constituents at the expense of growing urban populations.