“Decisive battle”

Just when I thought things were looking up on a whole range of global issues, Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee tells his troops to prepare for a “decisive battle”.

From what I’ve seen of US media, there’s not much attention being paid to the worsening situation in the India-Pakistan dispute in Kashmir. Both countries have nuclear weapons, and there are now reckoned to be 1 million troops marshalled on both sides in the contested territory. Last night, UK foreign minister Jack Straw accurately called Kashmir the most dangerous conflict in the world today, posing dangers even greater than the Middle East.

Remember MAD — mutually assured destruction? In an echo of Cold War brinksmanship, both sides seem to reckon the other will back down just short of using nuclear weapons. I wish I could be so sure.