ABSTRACT
By December 1989 a series of violent incidents greatly inflamed popular passions in Pakistan and northern India and brought the weak, minority governments in both states under considerable internal political pressure to do something. A military crisis became imaginable. These events attracted the attention of outside powers, and the Kashmir crisis was transformed from one of domestic concern to India and of great interest to Pakistan, into a confrontation between the two states that had military, and even nuclear overtones. This chapter traces the emergence of an international crisis; subsequent chapters will explore the role of the United States and its nuclear dimension.
