Defense News quotes South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Claude Rakisits on the recent meeting of the National Security Committee in Pakistan to discuss increasing tensions with India:
Despite the higher than usual death toll, Claude Rakisits, nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, does not believe things will escalate.
“I don’t believe it will get worse. And although there has been tension lately between the two countries, with India canceling a planned high-level bilateral meeting recently, I don’t believe either Pakistan or India wish to see this escalate,” he said.
The Pakistani military is already preoccupied with counter-insurgency duties, he said, and does not wish to engage in any potentially risky courses of action.
“Certainly on the Pakistan side there would be no appetite at all to do so given the military’s on-going anti-insurgency operation in North Waziristan. Opening a second military front would not be a wise thing to do,” he said.