Line on Fire: Ceasefire Violations and India-Pakistan Escalation Dynamics

India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed repeated ceasefire violations over the past decade. Indeed, with the new low in the relations between India and Pakistan, ceasefire violations have gone up exponentially. These have the potential to not only begin a crisis but also escalate an ongoing crisis. To make things worse, in the event of major violations, political leadership on either side often engage in high-pitched rhetoric some of which even have nuclear undertones.

Using fresh empirical data and oral history evidence, this book explains the causes of ceasefire violations on the Jammu and Kashmir border, and establishes a relationship between ceasefire violations and crisis escalation between India and Pakistan. In doing so, the book further nuances the existing arguments about the escalatory dynamics between the two South Asian nuclear rivals. Furthermore, the book explains ceasefire violations using the concept of ‘autonomous military factors’.