Here’s how Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats summarized the South Asian nuclear competition in the U.S. Intelligence Community’s 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment:

“The continued growth and development of Pakistan and India’s nuclear weapons programs increase the risk of a nuclear security incident in South Asia, and the new types of nuclear weapons will introduce new risks for escalation dynamics and security in the region.”

The DNI foresees strained India-Pakistan relations, at least until India’s national elections because the Modi government has other fish to fry and because of the Pakistan military’s “narrow approach to counterterrorism cooperation—using some groups as policy tools and confronting only the militant groups that directly threaten Pakistan.”

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