Right now, two nuclear armed nations stand at the precipice of an allout war. Following a shocking terror attack against Hindi tourists in the disputed region of Kashmir, the bitter South Asian rivals, India and Pakistan have leapt at each other's throats, exchanging fire, cutting off a critical water supply and moving military assets in a way that suggests large-scale violence may be imminent. India appears to be building a pretext to strike Pakistan directly. Pakistan is making clear that it will defend itself at any cost and attempts by the entire rest of the world to bring a stop to the crisis have failed. The fragile peace between India and Pakistan, it is crumbling as we speak. So here's what we all are going to need to know in advance of whatever comes next. Now before we begin, we've got to issue a key caveat here. Everything that we discuss in today's episode is up to date as of sunrise, Monday the 28th of April in New Delhi and Islamabad. Anything that's happened since that time will not be accounted for in this episode. And in this case, that is especially important to bear in mind that judging by the pace of escalation on both sides going on right now. It's not safe to assume that this conflict will remain in a phase of preparation and buildup for any length of time. So do rest assured that if war has already broken out by the time you see this then we already have an update coming. Now the current crisis in India and Pakistan began about a week ago on the 22nd of April in a meadow called the Beran Valley a few kilometers away from the resort town of Pahalan. Now that town is located in the Himalayan mountains in a region known as Jammu and Kashmir that's been the focus of a dispute between India and Pakistan for nearly a century now. For the sake of time, we'll leave an explanation on the history of this conflict for another episode. But suffice it to say that for now, while India and Pakistan have agreed to split the region along a mutually accepted line of control, it's remained the site of both ongoing insurgencies and a bit of geopolitical rivalry between the two nations. Baham is in the Indian controlled part of Kashmir. And despite the conflict in the region, Baham itself has been a safe, popular tourist destination in a place where fighting is typically kept well away from tourist areas. But on April the 22nd, the tranquility of Baham was shattered when five armed gunmen attacked a large group of tourists in the nearby Barerin Valley. Wielding assault rifles and wearing militarystyle fatigues, the gunmen snuck through the sparse local security and began to interrogate the tourists they encountered. Muslims were separated out first if they could recite a verse of Islamic prayer and then they asked the other men to show whether they were circumcised, a common practice in the Muslim world. Hindu men who did not pass the two tests were then executed at close range while women and children present at the scene were spared. 26 people were executed in the attack including 24 Hindus, a Christian and a local Muslim man who had tried to intervene. 20 others were wounded and the insurgents escaped at least for a while. Credit for the attack was claimed to publicly by a group called the Resistance Front or TRF, a recently established organization that first became active in 2019. They are an offshoot, a subsidiary by some accounts and a splinter group by others from a wellestablished Pakistanbased jihadist insurgent group called Lashkar E Tyber. This is an organization with a long history of attacks on India, including the dayslong siege of the city of Mumbai in 2008 when over 160 people were killed and westerners were hunted down. Like the resistance front, Lashkar's primary objective is to break India's control over Kashmir, thus allowing it to be annexed by Pakistan. The resistance front is somewhat less overtly religious in its messaging and is prominent on social media for recruiting purposes. But in terms of its overall goals, it and Lashkar Eyiber are on fundamentally the same page. Now critically, India accuses Pakistan of directly supporting the groups, fermenting attacks, granting them safe harbor, and benefiting from their violent work to advance Pakistan's long-held objectives. Now from the moment that news of the Pogan massacre began to spread across the globe, it was clear that the geopolitical implications could be major. As if to confirm those suspicions, India immediately accused Pakistan of being behind the attack, citing digital evidence and intelligence intercepts that implicated Pakistani operatives in a supporting role. India has yet to produce conclusive evidence for the world to see. But that did not stop a first round of reprisal measures against Pakistan from coming within just a day's time. India announced five retaliatory steps in total including the closure of the primary border crossing that links India and Pakistan, the expulsion of Pakistani diplomats, a travel ban on all Pakistani nationals to India and an order for Pakistani visa holders to leave India immediately. India formally downgraded its ties with Pakistan and issued information on three suspects, two of whom it claims to be Pakistani. Now, the most important retaliatory measure by far was the suspension of a critical agreement called the Indis Waters Treaty, a compact first signed in 1960 to establish control and sharing arrangements over the waters of the Indis River and several other important rivers. Up until now, the treaty has never been suspended despite multiple violent conflicts and has been hailed as one of the most successful water sharing arrangements worldwide. Importantly, the water of the Indis River and other governed water sources flows from India into Pakistan, giving India practical leverage over the rivers if it ever chooses to take action. Pakistan has long regarded the potential suspension of the treaty as a major national security threat both because India could withhold water from Pakistan and cause crippling droughts and because it could release the water in massive floods traveling downstream. 80% of farms in Pakistan rely on waters governed by the treaty and the nation has already suffered consecutive years of drought. Meaning that a long-term cut off of water could be crippling for Pakistan in the long term. So for India to suspend the treaty in the wake of the Baham attack sent two very frightening signals all at once. first indicated that India's assessment of the terror attack must have either showed conclusively that Pakistan was responsible or to take a cynical view here. It had decided to use the attack as pretext for a major escalation. And second, given the magnitude of the threshold that India just crossed, India most likely wants to make it clear that it will not be backing down. Pakistan issued its own series of retaliations in short order, closing its airspace to Indian airlines and giving a sharp condemnation of India's decision to suspend the water treaty. The nation suspended a very special visa category granted to Indians with the exception of seek pilgrims and suspended all trade with India including trade deals in goods exchanged through third nations. Pakistan suspended its own historic treaty the similar agreement signed in 1962 which establishes principles governing the carefully managed peace between the two nations including a ceasefire in Kashmir. Pakistan accused India of we'll quote here fermenting terrorism inside Pakistan and stated it would consider all bilateral agreements and treaties with India to be suspended until India ended its alleged sponsorship of terrorism. Perhaps most important of all going back to the Indis waters treaty Pakistan vowed to consider any attempt to stop or divert water allotted for Pakistan as an act of war one that would draw full military retaliation from Pakistan. Then the provocation started. Overnight on the 24th, troops of both nations exchanged fire overnight across the mutually agreed line of control, particularly in an area called the Leaper Valley. The shooting continued on the next night and on the next with soldiers using small arms to fire into each other's vicinity in a growing number of locations. By the night of the 26th, Pakistan had deployed self-propelled artillery and the skirmishes shown no signs of stopping. The Indian aircraft carrier INS Vicrant was dispatched to the Arabian Sea while its latest guided missile destroyer the Surat conducted a livefire missile interception and shot down a sea skimming target in a signal of India's military readiness. Ongoing exercises by the Indian Air Force have intensified and military assets have begun moving rapidly across the country. in India, in Pakistan and among the daraspora of both nationalities worldwide. Protests began around diplomatic locations with protesters supporting each nation clashing abroad at times. Meanwhile, in India control Kashmir, Indian security forces cracked down on suspected terrorists with skirmishes breaking out that have left several soldiers and several militants dead so far. In the process, security forces destroyed the homes of people suspected of being involved with the attack. Finally, India demonstrated that it was willing to meddle with the rivers governed by the Indis Waters Treaty. Although India cannot immediately cut off the flow of water because it's only allowed by treaty to build installations that can't dam those rivers, it released much of the water that it can store on a river called the Jellum. According to the Times of India, water was released from a dam without notice after heavy rain, sending flood waters downstream to Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Residents were able to evacuate and Pakistan appears not to have interpreted that threat as the act of war that it warned against. But it may only be a glimpse of what's to come. In the short term, monsoon season is coming and Pakistan would be powerless to stop a rush of surplus water into the nation unannounced. India could divert water to its own canals in just a matter of months, choking off the supply to Pakistan in the short term, while largecale dams could take anywhere from a couple of years to the better part of a decade to finish. India has indicated that it will not share flood warnings with Pakistan in the future and it'll withhold any information from Pakistan that would indicate how much water is coming downstream or when it'll arrive. Now, at the time of writing, India and Pakistan have not entered a large-scale conflict. But according to most expert observers in the region, a harsh retaliation by India seems to be an inevitability. In fact, reporting by the New York Times suggests that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working overtime to explain its justifications for a strike on Pakistan to the international community. Per the times, Modi has received and spoken with over a hundred representatives of other nations. And according to diplomatic sources, he's working to secure either approval or at least a tacit agreement not to get in the way from the officials that he's meeting with. Publicly, Modi has vowed severe retaliation and threatened to destroy areas that militants in Kashmir rely on for safe haven. Mod's harsh response has been wellreceived domestically with much of India outraged over the deliberate targeting of Hindu civilians in the terror attack in Paham. For years, Modi's political movement has drawn on the power of Hindu nationalism in the world's most populous nation. And now, anti-Muslim sentiment in India is rising rapidly. Abroad, few nations have the type of meaningful leverage over Modi that could prevent India's leader from escalating if he so chooses. And those nations that could put a stop to what's happening don't appear inclined to do that. As for what comes next, past action may help to predict future conflict. India and Pakistan have fought several wars since the partition of India in 1947 with varying results. Their first war fought over Kashmir in 1947 and 1948 ended with a stalemate that sometimes interpreted as a partial victory for India establishing the line of control in Kashmir that still governs affairs to this day. In 1965, India got the better of a six-weekl long war. While in 1971, India was able to beat back an initial Pakistani assault and force the surrender of over 90,000 Pakistani troops. In a more limited engagement, the cargo war of 1999, Pakistan provoked a war that was quickly drawn down due to international pressure in yet another defeat for the Pakistani military. Other engagements since that time have consisted of smaller skirmishes before a rather hurried return to the status quo. The good news to take away from that quick history is that these two nuclear armed nations have proven adept at avoiding a nuclear exchange so far. Pakistan gained the ability to detonate a nuclear weapon around 1984. India tested his first weapon a decade earlier and today each side possesses an arsenal at or above 170 warheads. Neither side has yet launched a nuclear weapon in anger. And for now, the current conflict doesn't outwardly seem to be on track for a nuclear exchange. So that's something to count on at a moment where good news in this crisis is pretty hard to come by. But both in terms of their nuclear and their conventional weapons, the most important factor that may differentiate this conflict from prior exchanges for enduring Pakistan is the degree to which their respective militaries have evolved. Pakistan has acquired hundreds of modern main battle tanks, quite a bit of heavy artillery, and advanced Chinese fighter aircraft since the turn of the 21st century. India, meanwhile, has rapidly modernized its military over the last several years, fielding an aircraft carrier, new top-of-the-line combat jets, and a small but significant number of other advanced pieces of military hardware along with a high volume of older weapons and vehicles. Notably, both sides have enhanced their delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons. Meaning that if either side does choose to escalate toward a nuclear exchange, then each side will need to treat the other's capabilities with immense care in order to avoid provoking a first strike. Again, it is not likely that a nuclear exchange will happen over the course of this conflict, but we are talking about a direct confrontation between two nuclear armed nations. An exchange simply cannot be ruled out completely. As for what was next, that choice appears to be in India's hands for now. The nation has largely ignored calls by other countries and international organizations including the UN to deescalate. And Mod's preparations over the last few days would indicate that he and his inner circle do intend to begin at least the limited exchange. But how far India will go, nobody except Modi himself knows. Critically, India does have a precedent for responding to attacks like these. In 2016, an attack killed 19 Indian soldiers and in retaliation, India launched targeted air strikes on militant targets on the Pakistani side of the Kashmir line of control. In 2019, at least 40 Indian paramilitaries were killed. And again, India's response came by way of air strikes. Although on that occasion Indian and Pakistani pilots got into a dog fight over the region. Although a wider war was averted in both instances and that is a reason for limited optimism. The precedent also makes it difficult for India not to launch air strikes this time as a bare minimum. Both the targeting of civilians this time around and the scale and scope of India's response thus far suggest that the response will be considerably larger. Among the non-nuclear options available to India if the nation is interested in a resolution that does not start a full-scale war is the possibility of a covert operation inside Pakistan or Pakistani Kashmir. Those could target known militant bases or other concentrations of Lashka Tyber fighters or assets or it could target the Pakistani military or its intelligence services depending on the message that India wants to send and the intended severity of that message when it arrives. Alternately, India could engage in crossber shelling targeting either uninhabited areas for purely symbolic purposes or targets associated to either non-state militants or the military proper. Finally, it could engage in wider air strikes either with aircraft or cruise missiles but counterweight a higher volume of strikes or the selection of higher powered munitions by targeting irrelevant or minimally important locations. or India can launch an attack that will lead to wider conflict demonstrating its willingness to challenge Pakistan directly and then leaving it up to Pakistan to either back down or retaliate in kind. The problem with even limited strikes however is that they can very easily be misinterpreted or received by Pakistan in a way that India doesn't anticipate. Depending on what India does and how Pakistan reacts, there's no telling whether even a carefully calibrated symbolic attack could lead to a much larger exchange. Indeed, there's no telling that Pakistan will even wait for India to act first. With India seeming to be on the war path, Pakistan may choose to act first and gain an advantage if the nation's leaders believe that a more significant conflict is in store. It's the same dynamic that we've seen play out within just the last year between Israel and Iran. Strikes can be carefully prepared to send a specific message, but there are no guarantees that the message will be received as intended. There is however room for deescalation on both sides. Pakistan has the option to institute its own crackdowns in Kashmir identifying and prosecuting militants or potentially even cooperating with India in its investigations. To be clear, that's not likely to happen, but it is an option. Pakistan can appeal to either the United States or China to help mediate the situation or it can decline to strike back in the event that India attacks. Although that decision would come with political costs back home, India could opt for a long-term retaliation rather than a short-term strike, deciding instead to manipulate the waters of the Kashmir region, build dams over the next few years and pressure Pakistan that way. Or it could even make limited moves in pursuit of that course before letting the crisis calm down naturally with time and making a graceful exit from this cycle of escalation. Unfortunately, the more likely scenario is that deescalation talk is wishful thinking. If the reports on India's diplomatic efforts are accurate, then the nation may strike Pakistan within days. It may strike within hours or by the time you're watching this, that strike might already happened. All indicators are that India intends to treat this situation with grave seriousness. And its decision to take retaliatory steps that New Delhi has stayed away from for decades would suggest that this time is different. How bad it gets, how Pakistan reacts, and how many lives are ultimately lost, we're only going to find out with time. Thank you for watching.