Introduction

Pakistan's motivation for conducting the Kargil operation has long been a matter of controversy, especially for most outside observers. Why would the Pakistan government and army jeopardize the peace process with India that came alive in February 1999 after many decades of failed starts and unsatisfactory conclusions? Why would Islamabad risk a major war with India – one that could have escalated to the exchange of nuclear weapons – for a relatively small reorientation of the Kashmir Line of Control? And finally, why was the Pakistan government never able to convince the international community with a compelling rationale for its military action? The list of unanswered questions remains long, even today, despite the publication of competing narratives by Pakistani, Indian, and American authors. In retrospect, the risks of the Kargil intrusion and the costs of the military clash with India would seem to far outweigh any potential gains that the Kargil planners could have imagined. So why did they do it? This chapter argues that the conditions that compelled Pakistani military officers to mount the Kargil operation were symptomatic of the conflict over Kashmir enmeshed into broader strategic rivalry of an enduring security struggle between India and Pakistan, and thus can only be understood through the prism of the broad historical, geographical, and strategic compulsions of the conflict over Kashmir.