A Pakistani Army soldier with the 20th Lancers Armored Regiments atop mountains in Pakistan's Dir province. Photo / Anja Niedringhaus, AP, File
A Pakistani Army soldier with the 20th Lancers Armored Regiments atop mountains in Pakistan's Dir province. Photo / Anja Niedringhaus, AP, File
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has detailed just how close the world came to nuclear war in 2019.
In February 2019, the relationship between rival nuclear powers India and Pakistan came dangerously close to escalating into a full-blown conflict, Pompeo writes in his memoir.
It all kicked off when India launched a military operation against militants within Pakistani territory, in response to an attack on Indian troops in the disputed region of Kashmir.
Indian soldiers and policemen march during full dress rehearsal for the Republic Day parade in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir in January, 2022. Photo / Mukhtar Khan, AP
Pakistan retaliated by shooting down two Indian aircraft and capturing a fighter pilot. Both nations lay claim to Kashmir, but currently control only portions of the region.
India has long accused Pakistan of supporting separatist militants in the Kashmir Valley, a claim that Pakistan denies.
The two nations, both nuclear powers, have engaged in multiple conflicts throughout their history, with the majority of these conflicts centred around the disputed region.
In his memoir, Never Give An Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, Pompeo emphasises that the world was unaware of the sheer gravity of the situation.
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida on February 25, 2022. Photo / AP, File
Pompeo said he will never forget the night he was in Hanoi at a summit negotiating with North Korea over the rogue state’s own nuclear threat.
“India and Pakistan started threatening each other in connection with the decades-long dispute over the northern border region of Kashmir,” he writes.
Pompeo said he was in close communication with an anonymous “close Indian counterpart”, who reportedly warned the White House to prepare for a potential nuclear strike launched from Pakistan.
An Indian soldier at the site of a grenade explosion in Srinagar, Kashmir. Photo / AP, File
“He believed the Pakistanis had begun to prepare their nuclear weapons for a strike. India, he informed me, was contemplating its own escalation,” Pompeo continued.
“I asked him to do nothing and give us a minute to sort things out.”
Pompeo recounted his efforts to mediate the escalating tensions between the two nations. He explains that he collaborated closely with then National Security Adviser John Bolton, who was located with him in a small, secure communications facility within their hotel.
John Bolton, left, looks on at a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo / AP, File
To de-escalate the situation, Pompeo said he reached out to Pakistan’s then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, with whom he had established a prior working relationship, and relayed the information that had been shared with him by Indian officials.
“He said it wasn’t true. As one might expect, he believed the Indians were preparing their nuclear weapons for deployment,” Pompeo writes.
“It took us a few hours - and remarkably good work by our teams on the ground in New Delhi and Islamabad - to convince each side that the other was not preparing for nuclear war.
“No other nation would have done what we did that night to avoid a horrible outcome.”
At the time, Australia’s foreign minister Marise Payne urged Pakistan and India to avoid further military action as the conflict in Kashmir threatened to spill over into something far worse.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, left, and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne in Auckland, 2021. Photo / Jason Oxenham, File
Payne said “the cycle of escalation” was very dangerous for all concerned.
Pompeo at the time publicly defended India’s right to act and has since spoken highly of India and said the US should ally with the superpower “to counteract Chinese aggression”.
