Slouching Toward Annihilation

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Despite the continuing shuttle diplomacy that aims to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan, it's not difficult to imagine how war on the Indian subcontinent would begin--and, more frightening, how it would end.

India might launch punitive airstrikes and commando raids on the camps of Kashmiri and Pakistani militants based in Azad, or Pakistani Kashmir. Pakistan, in turn, could retaliate, hitting army bases in Indian Kashmir. After weeks of fighting, with neither side able to claim an advantage in the mountainous terrain despite raids and counter-raids across the disputed Line of Control, one side might attempt to break the logjam by crossing the international border and invading the other. Or India's navy might blockade Pakistan's only artery to the outside world, the port of Karachi.