A Nuclear War Feared Possible Over Kashmir Secret U.S. intelligence estimates after the Kargil incident lie behind President Clinton’s recent pronouncements that the Indian subcontinent is “the most dangerous place in the world.” Kargil showed that the bilateral presence of nuclear armaments has not acted as a deterrent against new conflicts. Analysts also warn that the expected expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal if the U.S. builds the National Missile Defense would add further momentum to the Indian-Pakistani arms race. The continuing demonstration of American contempt for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty also cripples U.S. plausibility in asking, as Clinton did when he recently addressed the Indian parliament, that the combatants abandon their nuclear arsenals. We’ve also lost leverage over Pakistan and probably nadvertently fueled its nuclear ambitions by failing to resume economic and military

assistance to Pakistan that Congress cut off in 1990 because

of the Pakistani nuclear program, according to former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Robert Oakley. It appears that each country could deliver in the vicinity of twenty-five atomic weapons to the other’s population centers by bomber and/or missile. New York Times