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I've been surprised that we haven't seen an outbreak of serious hostilities between Pakistan and India since the 1965 War. Nuclear deterrence has helped to maintain stability just like it did in the Cold War. Nevertheless Pakistan, and agencies like the ISI in particular, seem obsessed with India. Their support of the Taliban is, as Kissinger says, designed to prevent encirclement were India and Afghanistan to concert their interests against Pakistan. I can't say whether this obsession is based on a realistic Indian threat, but I frankly don't see much that either side here has to gain from an all-out war.
Were war to break out between India and Pakistan it would endanger the lives of billions of people and involve all the "usual suspects" in an unpredictable and thus extraordinarily dangerous crisis. At a minimum, the US, UK, Russia, China, and Iran would be drawn in, and possibly Israel and the rest of NATO as well. I don't even want to contemplate the horror of a nuclear exchange that would spread radioactive contamination across much of Asia and Oceania and potentially around the world.
Despite all the attention we lavish on the Middle East, we should be turning our focus further southeast toward where the real danger lies.
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