Overview

The previous chapters looked outward, at the big global shifts of the post-Cold War era. This chapter turns the lens closer to home, onto South Asia itself.

What pulled this region into the global spotlight? Largely, it was the moment both India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons and stepped into the ranks of the world's nuclear-armed states. That moment forced the rest of the world to pay attention — but the interest wasn't only about the weapons themselves. It was really about the different kinds of tension running through the region:

• Long-unresolved border disputes between neighbouring states.
• Disputes over sharing river waters that cross national boundaries.
• Conflict stemming from armed insurgencies, ethnic tensions, and disagreements over dividing up natural resources.

Taken together, these make the region look highly unstable. But there's a second, quieter truth many in South Asia have come to accept: real development and prosperity here depend on the region's states working together rather than against each other. Conflict and cooperation, in other words, run side by side.

This chapter's real aim is to make sense of that mix of conflict and cooperation across South Asia's countries. And the key to understanding it lies inside each country, not just between them — since a great deal of the conflict and cooperation in this region traces back to, or is shaped by, what's happening in each country's own domestic politics. You can't really explain why India and Pakistan act the way they do toward each other without first understanding their internal politics.

With that in mind, the chapter first sketches the region as a whole, then turns to the domestic politics of some of its larger countries — which is the path the sections ahead will follow.