ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of the United States in the IndoPakistani immediate deterrence dynamics. South Asia is traditionally a crisis-prone region. Nuclear war in South Asia is rather more likely from the unintended escalation of a crisis. Indeed, the criticality of the American role in such a context was vividly apparent during the two post-tests nuclear crises of the region: the 1999 Kargil conflict and the 200102 military stand-off. It provides closer exposition of the American role in those two crises. The most intriguing feature of the Kargil conflict was that it had remained a limited war and did not turn into a large-scale IndoPakistani confrontation, which was a likely outcome given that the two countries had a history of going to war from such situations. Finally, the chapter demonstrates that in both cases the United States played a pivotal role in preventing the outbreak of large-scale conflict between India and Pakistan.
