Domestic posturing or true escalation? Analyst fears new Kashmir incident prelude to global conflict

India’s raid into Pakistan was a calculated provocation, and if New Delhi isn’t just playing to its home electorate, major world powers will be dragged into a war, a political analyst tells RT.

“What would they expect to happen? They are quite aware of Pakistan’s right to defend its territory. What is India hoping to gain?” Darius Shahtahmasebi, a New Zealand-based political analyst, says.

Either India is making a statement, posturing for its domestic population that it is doing something about Kashmir. Or they are actually trying to escalate the issue further, because they know that eventually Pakistan will respond

While Islamabad preached “restraint” on Wednesday, if it does strike back, India could unleash a full-scale war. And Shahtahmasebi believes that even if the two countries decide to leave their nuclear arsenals off the table and engage in conventional localized warfare, the impact will be global.

He notes that Pakistan is the nexus of Saudi geopolitical ambitions in the area, and India is a rising superpower, able to rely on support from Western allies. For China, the region is the main artery for its ambitious One Belt-One Road project.

“It’s not a minor conflict the rest of the world can close its eyes to. It would bring in China, it would bring in Saudi Arabia, it would bring in the United States, though as a former or current ally of both adversaries, it is now unclear quite where it stands during the Trump administration,” Shahtahmasebi told RT.

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