Pakistan, Iran, and The Signs of A Sweeping War: The Battlefield as Arbiter

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) includes four nuclear powers as members – Russia, China, India, and Pakistan. Iran, as well as other member-states, are diligently working to join the club of nuclear powers, too.

However, four of the nuclear five have enough hostility, enmity, and conflicting interests between them that push them to close proximity of a nuclear war.

Being members of the same international security structure like the SCO or an economic structure such as the BRICS cannot conceal the historical and present antagonism between India and Pakistan.

Their hostility is more profound than any global organizations and institutions such as the SCO can repair. These include three devastating wars (1947, 1965, 1971) claiming the lives of millions and having been on the brink of three nuclear wars: the Kargil War in 1999, the 2008 Bombay attacks that India blamed on Islamic movements sheltered in Pakistan, and Indian MIG27 raiding Islamic groups on Pakistani soil having accused the latter of killing Indian soldiers.

Each of these incidents nearly started nuclear wars had it not been for global parties intervening to defuse the tensions between them.