In the summer of 1999, India and Pakistan went to war, again. Pakistan had secreted a sizable force in remote outposts in the high mountains near Kargil, in the northern part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. When India discovered the Pakistani forces buildup, it mounted a hurried and initially haphazard response to dislodge the invaders, deploying heavy reinforcements near Kargil and mobilizing its air force for daring air strikes. India’s forces fought tenaciously, for weeks, with soldiers often scaling sheer cliff-faces and fighting hand-to-hand against the enemy, to painstakingly recapture the mountainous territory, peak after peak.

India also did something surprising. Unlike in previous wars against Pakistan, in 1965 and 1971, Indian forces never crossed over into Pakistani territory during the 1999 Kargil War. The cabinet had set a limit: None of India’s ground or air forces were to cross the Line of Control (LoC), a line that separates Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of disputed Kashmir and serves as the de facto boundary between the two countries. Even when Indian operations were failing in initial weeks and the Army prepared for a large counteroffensive elsewhere into Pakistan, the order to expand the war never came. India, it turns out, fought with remarkable restraint.

Originally published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Find the full article here