 Welcome, everybody. My name is Damanna Stalikadine. I'm Director of South Asia Programs at the United States Institute of Peace. On behalf of USIP, we're very pleased that you could join us today for an important discussion about a three-year-long ceasefire between India and Pakistan. This discussion today will actually be based around a special report that we recently published by Dr. Chris Clary. He is joining us today to walk us through the report. If you're interested in reading the full report, it is linked on the USIP webpage to this event. You can also ask questions during this event, which we will get to at the end on the website, on the USIP website. Our special report is entitled the 2021 India Pakistan Ceasefire, Origins, Prospects, and Lessons Learned. It explores a very interesting phenomenon. For the last three years, in February we've reached a three-year anniversary of a resumption of a ceasefire between India and Pakistan along their disputed border. Now, this is very pertinent in the sense that throughout their history, India and Pakistan have had a disputed border, have gone to war several times, and are both nuclear-armed states. So it is not only in their own interests, but in the region and the world that we try to seek some resolution along this border. Today, we're going to explore why has a ceasefire lasted as long as it has? How is this actually fragile and what are the threats and what are the views from both sides of the border? What is the view in New Delhi and what is the view in Islamabad? For that conversation, we have Chris Clary here with us today. He's an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Albany, State University of New York. His research focuses on the sources of cooperation in interstate rivalries, the causes and consequences of nuclear proliferation, US defense policy, and the politics of South Asia. He's the author of The Difficult Politics of Peace, Rivalry in Modern South Asia. We're very excited that Chris is with us today, and he will walk us through his research and this phenomenal report. Then we will turn to two scholars with us, Dr. Hapiman Jacob, who is an Indian academic columnist, commentator based in New Delhi. He's an Associate Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament Studies at the School of International Studies, Gerald Nehru University, where he teaches courses on nuclear disarmament, India's foreign policy, national security, and international relations. He's also the founder of the leading think tank in New Delhi Council for Strategic Defense and Research. Hapiman will share with us his comments on the report, but also the view from India. Last but certainly not least, I have my colleague, Dr. S. Van Bair Mir, who is a senior expert in the South Asia program at USIP. Dr. Mir's research interests include the international relations of South Asia, USCT policy, and political violence, with a regional focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan. He'll be sharing with us not only his comments, but the view of the ceasefire in Pakistan. Without further ado, I want to turn it over to Dr. Clary. Chris, we're really happy that you are able to do this report and publish it. I'd love if you can walk us through it. But also, you know what is surprising to me? On one hand, we've survived three years and the ceasefire is still intact. I think a lot of naysayers wouldn't have expected that. On the other, we haven't moved beyond the ceasefire. There's not really a political settlement because of this. Anyway, I want to turn to you, give you the floor to share with our audience what you found in your research. Thank you. Thank you for your introduction and the stewardship you have of the USIP South Asia program, which I think is doing fantastic work. And I say that not just because you helped to fund this work, but I think overall you're doing incredible stuff to help advance US interest and also advance policy in the region. I think one thing I try to do at the outset of the report is to emphasize that the level of violence that has existed on the line of control since 1989 is really rare in international politics. And sometimes we have become a nerd to the ugly stability that exists in Kashmir and can tolerate things that would really be intolerable on most other parts of the planet. And one thing I want to center is at a minimum, despite the fact that the ceasefire has not served as a foundation for additional progress, we should be thankful that for the soldiers that have to serve along the line of control and the families, the villagers, the farmers that have to work in proximity to the line of control, that their lives are substantially freer of violence than they would be in the absence of the ceasefire. It's made, their existence is more tolerable than have to be displaced. They don't have to feel that they're in constant danger that a stray artillery shell or mortar or bullet will take their lives. And so even if the ceasefire does nothing except for to cease the firing, it is an accomplishment to be applauded. I do worry though that the interpretation of how we got here may vary in the respective capitals. And my read, the read that I lay out in the report is that we had a somewhat uncommon confluence of events. We had an army chief in Pakistan who my read was ideologically committed to Ra Prashant with India for his entire time. And toward the end of his long tenure of army chief managed to affect a ceasefire on the line of control. After instead of Ra Prashant in 2019, he got crisis. And then finally in 2021, there was a ceasefire. He obviously had a willing Indian counterpart. I don't mean to make India out as the problem. India tried Ra Prashant in 2015 and 2016 and felt that it had been betrayed by Pakistan or at least the civil military tensions within Pakistan that led to an embarrassment for the Modi government. And having tried in 2015 and 2016, I think Modi has been hesitant for the rest of his term in exposing himself to that sort of possible embarrassment on the stage from a weaker in India's view Pakistan. And I think when I go to Delhi now, when I talk to my Indian friends and academics, I think what's most notable is that Pakistan has left the conversation. Pakistan comes up in conversations now in India only to the extent that people say, we don't talk about Pakistan anymore. And we're talking about other problems where our aperture has widened. We are no longer trapped in the subcontinental box. And that is true. India is a great power. It's on the world stage. It's at the global high table. But my read of a lot of rivalries, not just those that India has stuck in, is that the strategic incentives for peace are not sufficient. And so when Indian analysts read the situation and say that there is massive strategic asymmetry between India and Pakistan, and that strategic asymmetry means that India has escalation dominance, and therefore Pakistan will be deterred. And Rakhoshman is sort of the rational state of equilibrium of the relationship. There is some truth to that, but my read across the globe is that strategic incentives are not enough. And it is hard to turn strategic asymmetry into political quiescence. For 15 years, probably I have been worried and have told my Indian counterparts that the great fear I have is India's future looks like Israel's present. Israel has enormous qualitative military advantages and quantitative military advantages over its regional rivals. But that has not been sufficient, as we've sadly seen, to lead to peace and stability for Israel. And actors that act irrationally in the absence of some sort of settled peace can cause these conflicts to flare up in ways that are quite injurious to the societies that are locked in them. And I am worried that underlying instability is still there. And I think another data point that I try to walk through in the piece is that prior ceasefires did not break down because of military strategic shifts. They broke down because of political shifts within Islamabad, within New Delhi, sometimes within Raul Pindi itself. And that means that the ceasefire is quite vulnerable in my view to political shifts as we go forward. So that takes me to this question of where are we with the ceasefire today? I am worried that we see clear signs that the ceasefire is fraying. There have been a number of events in the last six months along what's called the working boundary or the international border, depending on which side of the India-Pakistan administrative area you are in. That line between the disputed province of Jamun Kashmir and Pakistan Punjab, which no one disputes. That border has been more active in recent months and that is worrisome. And there have been other areas where the ceasefire has broken down. And when we look at prior ceasefires, sometimes they can withstand some fraying. Sometimes they can withstand them for some time. You know, if you look at the 2003 ceasefire that began under Vajpayee and Musharraf and then continued under Manmohan Singh and Musharraf, that had a couple of really good years where the ceasefire was held almost entirely. It had some fraying years. And then it started to collapse about a decade later. So, you know, fraying does not necessarily mean that there's an imminent collapse there, but I am worried and I am worried, especially in the context of a domestic political environment in India and Pakistan that makes provocations, especially hard to ignore. The government in Pakistan is quite weak. It has not received a mandate from the February elections. If anything, it's received a rebuke from the Pakistani populace. New Delhi will go to polls. And just as we saw in the 2019 period when the Balakot-Pulwama crisis happened, I think there will be acute sensitivity to provocations in the run-up to national elections. And then even after we cross the finish line of Indian national elections, the Indian Supreme Court has indicated that there need to be local level elections in Kashmir. And that will also create incentives to not ignore provocations that otherwise the strategic environment might encourage quiescence. So I think we are in for a fragile period. The ceasefire is still intact and we should be thankful for that. But as you indicated with your initial question, you know, the ceasefire is quite exposed. There are rumors of occasional back-channel talks that I have heard indications prior to the election that the Indian government was interested in restarting dialogue. But all the signs out of Delhi now are that the mixed mandate in Islamabad has led them to want to go even slower and become even more hesitant to put themselves out in terms of Rabbar-e-Roshma with Pakistan. And so there's, if there is a provocation, there are no other levers to pull. The economic relationship is already anemic. The diplomatic relationship has already been cut down beyond the norms between states. And so if New Delhi wants to signal anger and displeasure in response to a provocation, the ceasefire is the easiest lever to pull. And that I think makes the relationship more vulnerable and obviously also worsens the lives for those people that happen to live near the line of control or the working boundary of international border. So I'll stop there. I really look forward to the discussions that you've assembled here today and I should just say, obviously I'm pleased with my report, but Professor Jacob's book on the line of control is really a foundational text. And for people that wanna go beyond just what's in my report, I would encourage them to track down a copy of his book as well. Thank you so much, Chris. I appreciate you setting the stage for this discussion and perfect segue to Happy Man. Dr. Jacob, it's a pleasure to have you here and you're sitting in New Delhi. Prime Minister Modi just completed or is in the middle of his first visit to Kashmir since 2019, since the change in status. The ceasefire while praying is still intact. I'd love to get your thoughts on how we got here, what you see, obviously Chris's paper, but what do you see as the future of this? Is there any scope from New Delhi's perspective on that bull string, the diplomatic, the economic, the other parts that could lead to more rapprochement? Please, over to you, Happy Man. Thank you, Tamana. Thank you so much for having me on this conversation. And I must also acknowledge that my book was also a product of a paper commissioned by USIP, which then ended up as a book. So I hope Chris, your paper becomes a book in itself going forward. But I read through the report. It's a fantastic report and a great report to come at a very sort of a great timing, I must say too, because there are so many uncertainties. There's the election that's upcoming in Delhi. We don't know what that election is going to throw up in terms of the power canvass in Delhi, as it were, the calculations as to Pakistan, but one thing I'm quite certain, at least in my sort of analysis, is that, and again, this is something that Chris pointed out in his initial remarks that India has moved on from Pakistan in many ways, without, of course, resolving the issue with Pakistan, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's a bad thing because you go to at some point of time to solve that issue. The good thing, of course, is that I think in my estimate, India will grab an opportunity to sort of resolve the lesser challenge in order to focus on the larger challenge, which is China in this particular case. But let me sort of try and look specifically at the report by Dr. Clarey. Why has the 2021 ceasefire agreement held? And Chris provides two answers as to why the CFA has held. One is senior level buy-in in both capitals and high-ten third-party threat phase to buy at least one of the rival states. And I must say that I'm in complete agreement with both the arguments. I think they're absolutely brilliant arguments. Then he sort of provides some pointers for bolstering the ceasefire, which include one, reopening overt dialogue channels, institutionalizing normalcy on the line of control and exploring other military conference building measures. I have my concerns about the first one, which is reopening overt dialogue channels. And I completely agree with the other two arguments that he has, but I'll come to my reservation about the overt dialogue channels part in a bit. But I want to sort of very quickly, Tamanna, build on Dr. Clarey's argument and put a few propositions on the table for your consideration. Under what conditions is a ceasefire agreement likely to be successful? And let me sort of make some propositions. Number one, Pakistan military should be on board the ceasefire agreement, even if the civilian government is not. I mean, that's a no-brainer in many ways. Right? I mean, Chris also referred to the question of Raul Pindi, the thinking in Raul Pindi. The second I would say my proposition is that the personality of the Army Chief in Pakistan does make a difference. Parvez Musharraf, for example, asked the Army Chief, did take a personal interest in sort of after all the years of bloodshed, including Kargil, wanted to sort of have a certain legacy and sort of wanted to have a new beginning. He wanted to also focus on geo-economics, et cetera. So the Musharraf, as the Army Chief made a difference, sorted in many ways, General Bajwa. Both General Bajwa and Musharraf, again, as Chris pointed out, came to this conclusion towards after a few years in office, but they did come to that conclusion. So I think the personality of the Army Chiefs doesn't matter, but not all Army Chiefs have the same vision. So there is concern in India, for example, about Chief Munir, whether he has the same inclination which we India, that Musharraf and Bajwa came to towards the middle of their career. The third condition that I, proposition that I want to put on the table is the issue of overt channel versus covert channels in sustaining the ceasefire agreement. I would argue that back channel contacts between the deep states of Pakistan and India, which is the Pakistan Army and the Indian NSA or individuals empowered by these two deep states, away from the media glare and public glare, until a deal is ready on any specific issue, work as a better mechanism than overt channels. Because the overt channels, I think the problem with overt channels really is that they're too risk prone and susceptible to public pressure or pressure from all sides, from the terror groups to extremists, to politicians, bureaucracies, opposition, et cetera. So unless and until there is a sort of maturity that has arrived through the back channel or the covert back channel, I don't think one should get into the open one or the overt one. The fourth proposition that I want to sort of put on the table is that Kashmir needs to be on the table in some shape or form for the CFA to be successful. Even if it doesn't amount to a political resolution or political talks on Kashmir, it can be one of the elements of the 4.4 formula or some CBMS reduction of terrorism in Jimman Kashmir from the Indian point of view, et cetera. But Kashmir in some shape or form has to be on the table. The fifth element, and I only have 5th, 6th, and 7th. The fifth element is that the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Army's leadership's assessment of the internal and external situation is key to the maintenance of the ceasefire. For example, how do they read the international situation about whether there's pressure or not, whether there is support from great powers or not, they're reading of the internal situation. For example, or the regional situation, economic situation in Pakistan, now Taliban has put additional pressure on Pakistan. They're reading of the situation in Kashmir, for instance. What is the local sentiment in Kashmir? What does the Pakistan Army think about the local sentiment in Kashmir? And finally, Pakistani Army's reading of the Indian resolve or intent on the Kashmir issue and on military retaliation for that matter. The sixth, the second last sort of proposition that I have is the absence of large-scale infiltration and high-value, high-visible terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir or outside. I think this is very important in the sustenance of a ceasefire agreement. If you do not have these large-scale infiltration and attacks, I think the CFA is likely to be held. The final, I think, proposition that I have is the presence of a, and this is again, Chris mentions in his paper, something that he mentions in his paper, the presence of a large-scale or larger threat that allows for the maintenance of the CFA. Pakistan today, for example, has Taliban on its side, India has China to worry about. So if you were to, I'll take one more minute, Tamanna, if I may, to sort of take you through the 2003 and 2021 ceasefire. I think in both these cases, in the 2003 and in the 2021 ceasefire, you had a back-channel conversation, a covert conversation leading to the ceasefire. You had, for example, the Pakistan army being on board, both these sort of ceasefire agreements. The personality of the chief, Bajwa in 2003, sorry, Mushraf in 2003 and Bajwa in 2021, you had direct contacts between the Pakistani military establishment and the Indian sort of state. I think that does make a big difference. The absence of high-value attacks in the run-up, in the, from 2003 onwards and from 2021 onwards. The Kashmir situation, the reading of the Kashmir situation, the absence of large-scale infiltration. I think all of this actually, and let me also add, the Indian military resolve post-Baila court and the Indian military resolve in 2003, which came in the wake of the O-102 crisis and the attacks in Jammu and other sort of garrisons within Jammu, all of that showed that India was probably not going to ignore a large-scale provocation that came from Pakistan in the shape of a terror attack. I think all of this led to, in some ways, the CFA holding for a considerable period of time. In some ways, therefore, that is also the reason why, if you were to apply these conditions, the 2013 ceasefire failed because of the absence of some of these conditions. I want to end this sort of intervention by making one simple argument that I think, people often look at the ceasefire agreement and look at it as a process, not as a product in itself. I want to sort of say that ceasefire agreement has to be looked at as a product in itself because if you don't look at it as a product in itself, you're less likely to give the focus and the importance that it deserves. It is a product in itself. It can lead to other things, but that comes later. Thank you, Sanam. Thank you so much, Happy Man, for all of those. I think both you and Chris are really emphasizing the value of the ceasefire agreement in and of itself, and I think that is important for us to note, especially the effect on the populations on both sides of the border here. There's a real tangible benefit, and so whether or not we get into the broader process, which we'd love to do, I think it is important that maintaining the ceasefire is in everyone's interest. You've raised a lot of things. I want to let obviously Chris answer, but I'm going to turn to Asfandiar. The paper makes two sort of conditions. One is senior level buy-in. At the time in Pakistan, you had an army chief in General Bajra that has changed. You also have a new elected civilian government, albeit after a messy election, maybe a neat government, and also the third party threat, which I think still remains in Pakistan under the TTP. So I want to turn to you. How do you see those conditions, the incentives for Pakistan to maintain a ceasefire, but also some of the things that Happy Monarch raised as to how can we further the ceasefire, make it into a process? Over to you, Asfandiar. Great. Thank you, Damanna, for having me on. Thank you, Chris, for this report and congratulations. This is an excellent report timely, and it helps us not only understand the ceasefire along the line of control, but it also helps us frame the state of India-Pakistan relationship in 2024, which is a major contribution. I want to make three points, which hit on some of the questions that Damanna, you have raised, but they also compliment the findings of the report. My first point is that India-Pakistan relations are certainly dense, no surprise there, but it is important to recognize that they have found a steady state. Which I believe has the ingredients to endure. There are two features of this steady state as I see it. First, both sides are unwilling to reconcile on term, which might even be partially acceptable to the other. And we certainly recognize this for India. The government of Prime Minister Modi maintained the hard line. There's no domestic political appetite to even give an inch to Pakistan. But Pakistan as well, despite its many economic domestic political troubles of late, is also no more likely to give in to Indian terms, in particular, the Indian constitutional changes since August 2019. I recognize that there is a recognition of this strategic asymmetry with India. It is not lost on officials, scholars, the broader political military elite of Pakistan. And I think there is a real conversation in Pakistan on how sustainable the hostility and rivalry with India ultimately is. But at the same time, there is no meaningful movement in the direction of wanting a reconciliation or a grand bar game. So that's one key feature of this steady state. On the other hand, I note that both India as well as Pakistan are showing meaningfully less interest, not just in military hostility, but the notion of coercing each other. And I think that the LLC sees fine and it enduring is the clearest indicator of that. So take the Modi government, for example, after the terror attack in Batankot in 2016, the Modi government pursued a very conscious, vigorous coercive strategy of imposing costs on Pakistan through a variety of means. And of course, Pakistan over the course of its history has tried to pressure India various ways as well. In 2024, I assess that both sides have taken a significant sort of step back from leveraging these coercive practices toward the other. And I agree with Chris as well as happy that, on the Indian side, the reason to avoid confrontation, prefer the status quo of the ceasefire is really one word, China. India is in a challenging position with respect to China. Can't afford risking a two-front confrontation and needs to seriously mitigate the possibility of Pakistan's involvement in a future crisis, which I recognize there's no precedent for it, but there's a non-trivial possibility that going forward in this highly competitive international political environment, things could change as well. As for Pakistan, it is obvious that it has many internal crises to deal with, terrorism of the GDP, state of the economy, the domestic political situation has been precarious, has been very conflictual, in fact, for the last two years. But I think we should pay attention to timing when it comes to the impact of these crises in Pakistan. You can really trace them to mid-2022, but the ceasefire was struck in early 2021, when Pakistan was in a different place politically in terms of its economy. And the August 2019 revocation of Article 370 was very fresh in Pakistani minds. Yet, the Pakistani side agreed to the ceasefire, and why is that? And this brings me to the second point, the role and views of Pakistani leadership, in particular the military leadership, as we know, has the critical sort of decisive vote on India policy in Pakistan, and I'm with Chris on this, that there's been significant leadership buying on the ceasefire. And I have no doubt in my mind that the fundamental reason India and Pakistan have found the current steady state is Pakistan's last Army Chief, Jharkamar Bajwa. Over his six years as Army Chief, Jharkamar Bajwa consistently made efforts at what I think was an attempted board conciliation with India, and he truly meant it from restoring the ceasefire to the opening of Qatar port, to the back channel invitation to Prime Minister Modi to come to Pakistan, spend time at the temple of the English Mata in south of Pakistan. There are now ample data points to suggest that Jharkamar Bajwa genuinely intended to turn a page and was supportive of the civilian government normalizing relations. And this was indeed always difficult for him, domestic politics of peace with India, as Chris has written about in his fantastic book, are tough even for a powerful Army Chief, but yet he seems to have believed in normalizing as the way forward. So there was some ideological commitment on his part to a peaceful sort of outcome, but ultimately he felt short, and we have to recognize that. General Munir is different than General Bajwa, but in nearly in his 16 months as the Army Chief, he has approached Pakistan's foreign relations with a good deal of pragmatism, even acuity I would argue. He was dealt a very tough hand, and in response, he's adopted a coercive approach towards the Taliban for its support of the TTP, which in arguably is the most immediate threat to Pakistani security, to the lives of Pakistanis. He's sought to balance relations between China and the United States, which is not an easy task. And then he's been trying to secure economic inflows from the Middle East and the West. On India, I note that he's made one harsh statement, slightly harsh statement, but beyond that, he has mostly affirmed the status quo and shown restraint even in the face of some provocative behaviors by the Indian side. So I think that all of that is not insignificant. And in terms of parallels to say other leaders, I think General Bajra was more in the other Sadat mode. Sadat of course, famously went to Jerusalem to break what he saw were sort of psychological barriers to broker peace with Israel after the Egypt-Israel war, after the Yom Kippur war. And I think General Bajra wanted to attempt something along those lines. I don't think General Munir is in the same mode, but the closest analog I can think of, or perhaps he may want to emulate is Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, steady or more modest aims in line with national power, very interested in economic reform in turnaround, and wanting an open-door approach to much of the world. And so if he follows down that path, which I think he has great incentive to, he's unlikely to provoke a confrontation, focus on building internal strength, but in case a situation arises with India or with another country, I think he will respond fairly aggressively as he did against Iran earlier in the year. So to the extent the army chief has a vote on how the Syrian government should approach the India question, I don't think General Munir would oppose normalization. He'd be supportive, but then the government of Prime Minister Shabash Sharif has to make up its own mind. In back in 2022, General Bajra was supportive, but it was Shabash Sharif who decided against it. So I think the ball is now in the court of the civilian government, which certainly has many domestic considerations in the aftermath of the election. Final point on what the current play means for the United States. I think the United States has played no direct part in the ceasefire. India and Pakistan arrived at the ceasefire on their own without any real US or other third party mediation. Perhaps there was some council, but that's about it. And while I think the ceasefire has the ingredients to last, but should it begin to significantly free or worst case collapse, America's leverage to affect Pakistan's calculus to preserve or revive the ceasefire will be fairly limited. Under the Biden administration, the US-Pakistan relationship has diminished. The Pakistani side believes this is because of Pakistan's alignment with China and in tandem, the US-India relationship has deepened significantly. And I believe Pakistan is watching that fairly closely. Thus, any American council to Pakistan to be restrained on the LOC will be received negatively in Islamabad and Robert Pindi. It will be seen as the United States trying to relieve pressure on India to enable it to confront China instead of having any kind of genuine desire for peace to break out between these two countries. So I'll stop there. Again, congratulations, Chris, and thank you for having me, Tamala. Thank you so much, Esfandiar. Thank you. And it's on there for those great comments. To the audience, I know some of you may have experienced some break in the stream. We will have the whole program. So if you missed any of the comments, you can always rewind and hear it both on YouTube and on our website. I apologize. Our AV team has fixed the problem, so hopefully you don't have any issues anymore. I do want to turn to Chris now. Also, audience, if you have questions, please use our USIP website to ask those questions. We'll get to them in a minute. Chris, I want to turn to you. They've laid a lot on the table here. Both Happy Man and Esfandiar, I want to give you a chance to respond, but also think about, you know, you've said that this is fragile. What sort of shocks do you see in the near term that we should be worried about as well, you know, in terms of your responses here? Thank you. Well, thanks so much for the engagement of the discussants and the thoughtful commentary. I've learned a lot from the whole team you've gathered here. So both, I've learned prior to showing up today, and then they have reaffirmed why I'm learning from them so much. I guess I want to address kind of two issues. One is like, how far can you proceed with back channel discussions, covert discussions? And there was no doubt in my mind, and I think Professor Jacobs' comments are consistent with this, that back channel discussions are better to try to negotiate the parameters of a breakthrough. That needs to happen away from the limelight. So when I am encouraging a resumption of diplomatic dialogue, that is in some way like a Potemkin dialogue where there's a vision of normalcy that can do all the sorts of stuff that diplomats do. It's useful to have high commissioners, the ambassador equivalents in India and Pakistan. It's useful to have them back so that they can help advance discussions as they did even during earlier periods of back channel. Ambassador Ashraf Qazi in Delhi during the previous back channel talk was really important. And his ability to make a relationship with Advani with Rajesh Mishra was really important even as serious conversations were happening in the back channel. So I don't think the existence of formal diplomatic relations and discussions takes away from the back channel. The concern with the back channel is at some point you have to bring it out. The former Pakistani National Security Advisor said, the discussions have to happen in Perda. At some point you have to bring it out into the sunlight. And you say, here is the parameters of something we've negotiated that we want to reveal. And if you haven't laid the groundwork domestically, politically, when you bring it into the light, it will wither, it will be like a vampire and turn into dust. And Manman Singh made meaningful progress on Siachen, on Sir Creek. And when he tried to bring it into the light of politics, he found veto players emerging that weren't able to veto the back channel progress but were able to veto an actual ratification of those deals. And my concern with putting so much on the back channel is that at some point you have to get the political actors that do overt work to sign off on whatever progress you're making. In some ways the ceasefire is one of the easiest confidence-building measures. All you're doing is withholding punishment in the face of small-scale provocation. And you can ratchet up the punishment a little bit. If they shoot at you in one sector, you can shoot back. It doesn't necessarily mean the ceasefire collapses across the whole line of control. But I assess that the Pakistani military believed that the ceasefire would be a foundation upon which they built. And they were surprised by the absence of additional steps by Delhi, but they also had their own civil military struggles that made it hard for them to take additional diplomatic steps. And so they spent this effort to build the foundation and then they have built almost nothing atop it. And my concern is that when these provocations emerge, it will be washed away and will be stuck again in the same place we were in that period from 2013 to 2020, when I think there was a lot of vulnerability and we had this very serious Buwama Balakot crisis as a result. So the standard of those provocations I think has been set. It has been, I think after the remembrances of not just Buwama, but also of Ori and the surgical strikes, it is very hard once you start getting into the double digits of dead for an Indian government, I think in this context, to let it go. And now at some level, I understand terrorism is condemnable and should be condemned. And at some level it's like, okay, well, just don't sponsor terrorist attacks in India. But I don't think that there is a rheostat in Ralpindi or in Aparah where they can turn it up and down precisely. I think there is a lot of lack of control. There is some control, there is some influence that they can clearly modulate the support. But you take the case of Ori in the 2016 attack. Those attackers were kind of wildly successful because they got lucky or the Indians got unlucky, however you wanna phrase it. And terrorist attacks that shouldn't succeed kind of on paper can cause more death and catastrophe than the planners anticipate. And so any peace process, Israel and Egypt, the US and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union and the Chinese, it has to be able to withstand some provocations. And the concern I have is that the ceasefire alone doesn't give me the sort of insulation to allow a provocation and then further to be cumulative progress. I don't want to encourage bad actors, right? This is an issue for the US because we should put pressure on Pakistan to prevent these violent zealots from being in a position to endanger the relationship. But it is a reality that these groups are not in total control of the state and sometimes things get out of hand. And the concern is that when a provocation washes away the progress that's been made, it may take many years to get back into a place. And my final point is this, it is possible that Modi is a generationally unique leader on the Indian side who has the ability to stare down hawks internally, even if ideologically that may be hard for him to do. And we saw those instincts in the first years of the first Modi term from the inauguration through Raiwind. And Padankot was an incredible betrayal I think of what was a very, at some level a sincere initiative. But my concern is as Modi ages and as his time, as his innings begin to draw to a close, it's not clear who is next, it's not clear either ideologically or their ability to shape Indian discourse in the ways that would be necessary to lead to a deal. We are of course in this very challenging situation in Pakistan where I think we have to kind of take a signal from what Shabazz Sharif has said publicly about India, which has been very hesitant to expose himself to any political risk. And I believe that Sharif has been so timid in public in part based on his calculations, not just of what the PTI will say, but also of his sense of where the civil military relationship is. And I think if he felt there was more military support for Rashma, there might be less timidity in public. And that timidity in public worries me again as we think about the ability for the back channel to produce meaningful results. Thanks for that, Chris. I wanna open up the discussion a little. We have some audience questions. I have some questions of my own. Chris, in my own career, doing a lot of negotiations between states or with states and non-state actors, one of the biggest things we've learned is you have to negotiate with your own side. So intraparty negotiations, you have to convince your side that this is worthwhile. Have you seen that at all? I mean, this is sort of the third rail in both domestic polity in India and Pakistan. When I visit Islamabad, if I visit New Delhi, there is no love loss for the other country, right? It doesn't seem like the populations are coming that way. Is there any work being done? How do you get... It's actually become more and more strained and more polarized. So how do you bring along populations that really don't see benefit in a broader settlement, in a broader peace process? That's my first question for you. Please, go ahead. You know, I think as Hapiman and Asfandir sort of indicated, there is a benefit to the conversation in Islamabad and especially New Delhi, moving beyond Pakistan and India, right? There is a benefit for the decrease in what political scientists refer to as like the salience, the prominence, that other issues on the agenda, economic growth in India, the lack of economic growth in Pakistan, China in India, the terrorist threat in Pakistan, when those have heightened salience, it does maybe make it easier to think about making meaningful lasting compromises on Kashmir. And I should say explicitly, I don't think there's any surprises with what the sorts of compromises that need to be made on Kashmir are. I think the turning of the LOC into a more normal but permeable border where the Kashmiris have some ability to move back and forth. All of the things that were dealt with in the previous back channel, I think that the outlines of the settlement are there and have been there for a while. And what's necessary is the political courage to say that out loud and to indicate that this sort of more normal LOC is a framework that you can put forward, have that sort of confidence building and then over a period of maybe a decade or two, get ready for a more permanent settlement. I think that's the vision that probably Bajwa had is like a long decade or two decade cooling off of the relationship. But my worry is that both is on the Pakistani side, you have these both a political leadership and I think a military leadership that is in a weakened place after February 8th. And then on the Indian side, I think the constant wave of elections over the next few months and year will take them away from being able to work with what is admittedly, I think, a difficult Pakistani counterpart. So that's my fear. Yeah, Chris, I wanna turn to an audience question. We actually have several questions about role of third party, third countries. There's reports that UAE played a role in the ceasefire obviously with changing geopolitics in the world. What role can other countries like China and Russia play and also the relationship with US and Pakistan has changed and the relationship between the US and India has significantly changed, right? So what does the US now have the power to stabilize the relationship? What role should they have? I mean, Esfandiar started answering this, but really what role can other countries play, especially given the changing geopolitics of the world? Well, I welcome Happy Moner Esfandiar's views on this as well. But, you know, one uncertainty is sometimes peace deals continue to come of inducements. You look at what Sadat did with Israel. He did so with anticipation that there would be US largesse. And Israel, for its part, even the Begin government, also needed an increase in USAID and there were some practical issues with bases and the Sinai, that the US helped fund that. The US may not be in a position to do that for a while. The US is reevaluating its role in the world and obviously we have an intense partisan disagreement that makes it difficult to spend the sorts of sums that were necessary for Israel and Egypt. But, you know, the US can help on the margins. It is absolutely unclear to me whether a new Trump administration, its Pakistan policy, I think is unclear to itself, in part because the former president's views on Pakistan oscillated so wildly during his time in office. I think it would be hard to staff that problem. You know, if China decided that a hostile India-Pakistan relationship was in its interest, that would be hard, I think, for Pakistan to ignore. But it seems like we only have very limited glimpses of this, but it seems the opposite is true. And I think that's commendable on the Chinese side, the sort of logic of Deng Xiaoping to try to stabilize the environment to grow. I think that is commendable. I am worried that Pakistan and to some extent the Chinese may blame some of the violence that takes place in Pakistan on Indian support for proxies. The Pakistanis certainly say this all the time. It is hard for me to know whether they are sincere in this attribution, but they say it constantly that they see an Indian role in these attacks on CPAC-associated projects and elsewhere by Baloch and Sindhi nationalist groups. And I am worried, you know, over the medium term of whether that decreases by and from China and others into a more normal India-Pakistan relationship. Thank you, Chris. Happy about I want to turn to you. There's some questions, you know, in New Delhi there seems to be incentives to maintain the ceasefire, at least at a tactical level. But do you see any incentives to institutionalize or protect the ceasefire from future turbulence? And I, you know, just anecdotally, when Sindhi and I were recently in Pakistan, everybody was sort of very pessimistic about India having any incentive to really do any outreach to Pakistan. So I'd welcome you, especially in light of the elections with a re-empowered Prime Minister Modi likely. How do you see him? Chris's comments that Prime Minister Modi previously was able to stare down the hawks in his own administration. How do you see that playing out in terms of incentives from Jalee? I also second question I do want to ask you. You said Kashmir needs to be on the table in some way. Can you expand on that just a little bit? We have questions, you know, how do you see that working out? Please. Right. I think, let me put it this way, on the incentives in Delhi. You know, the way I sort of characterize how Delhi views India-Pakistan relations and how it seeks to, or the Modi government seeks to sort of sell that proposition within the country is in some ways a negative pitch. You know, India and Pakistan have tried wars. India and Pakistan tried a positive pitch from 2004 to 2007 in terms of making peace between the two sides. You know, that didn't succeed. Now what is happening is a negative sale pitch, right? It's saying that we need to move on from Pakistan, right? And move on to China. So that's not a positive sales pitch. That's a negative sales pitch. We can't sort of be engaged in a dogfight with a smaller power in South Asia. India is a big power, so we need to move on. So that's a very different sales pitch. So in that kind of a sales pitch, and just to go back to the earlier question, I am not so sure the outside powers have any role to play, except perhaps to sort of engage some sort of a covert conversation between the two sides, which if the two sides decide, you can sort of move into an overt conversation. But I think at this point of time, both India and Pakistan have very little incentive to sort of move into a full-fledged dialogue process. Pakistan doesn't want to be seen as talking to New Delhi after what India did in Jammu and Kashmir, which according to Pakistan is outrageous, therefore in 2019, and therefore they don't want to be seen as talking to India. India doesn't want to be seen as talking to Pakistan for a variety of reasons. And therefore, I think we are looking at an age of minimalism when it comes to India-Pakistan relations. I want to sort of very quickly jump on to the second question that you raised about Kashmir. I'm a firm believer that there is no peace, sustainable peace possible between India and Pakistan without addressing Kashmir in one form or the other. And I think the Indians understand it, the Pakistanis understand it. What do I mean by that? I think there is a very successful formula that was negotiated between 2004 and 2007 between the Musharraf government and the Manmohan Singh government. Even in 2019, and Chris would remember this, even after the Indian government sort of made certain very decisive decisions in Jimbo and Kashmir in 2019, August, the two sides actually started engaging in a back-channel conversation. And some of the points from the four-point formula were picked up on people closing back and forth, on trade and transit and things of that kind. So when I say Kashmir, I don't necessarily mean the political resolution of Jimbo and Kashmir according to the UN. That's not what I mean. What I mean is Kashmir in some shape or form has to be Indians need to sort of settle Kashmir and move on. The Pakistanis need an honorable exit route of the Kashmir. That's what I mean by that. No, thank you very much. And I think most Kashmiris would agree with that as well. That's appropriate. Asfandia, I want to turn to you. There's a lot of questions. You know, a lot of the recommendations Chris makes in his paper are about CBMs that are valued by the Pakistani military. So the questions we're getting are about the civil military friction. Given the recent elections, given the political polarization of the last year and a half, you know, how do you see the incentive structure, but also the scope for any real, you know, protecting the ceasefire from further turbulence and incentives to institutionalize given the civil military relations as they are in Pakistan right now. That's one. Two, how do you see the, you know, the U.S.-India relationship and the Pakistan-China relationship? How do those affect Pakistan's calculus when it comes to the border and to ceasefires? Sure. So let me take the second question first and then, you know, speak to this larger point of third-party influence, you know, on incentives to an incentive for peace and conflict. You know, as Chris rightly notes, traditionally the Chinese have counseled Pakistan to be restrained, to focus on the economy, even open up relations with India. And, you know, I think the sort of the peak or the most public version of that advice was 1996 addressed by Chinese leader Jiang Zemin in the Pakistani parliament in a very sort of typical Chinese way. He counseled the, you know, the then political elite of Pakistan that maybe it's time that you focus on internal affairs. Today my sense is that today the situation is much different. And I sense that Chinese counsel to Pakistan is not the same as it was even five years ago. I think China-India relations are in a very different place. And China-U.S. are also in a significantly sort of different place as well. And I think that is going to bear on what China expects of Pakistan in terms of regional politics. And, you know, I don't think restraint is going to be a top priority or advocating for restraint is going to be a top Chinese priority going forward. And we see this partly in the increase in Chinese military assistance to Pakistan. We are now seeing some high-end platforms being provided to Pakistan by China, which is clearly an attempt by the Chinese to maintain a strategic balance between the two countries, especially as the economic asymmetry between the two sides grows. On your first question about sort of the civil military equation, you know, I'm actually not as pessimistic as, say, Chris and even Happymon are on the state of civil military ties or at least how it will bear on the, you know, on India policy issues. I think Prime Minister Shibash Sharif and General Munir are going to be in a very sort of similar position as to, you know, how much to reach out to India, to what extent to normalize. I think both will be interested and open to modest steps. Unlike his brother, Prime Minister Shibash Sharif is not sort of keen on a grand reconciliation or bargain. He's a much more pragmatic, less idealistic politician. So, you know, I think the two leaders are more likely to sort of see eye-to-eye on how to move forward and what pace to move forward at. You know, compared to if, you know, Mr. Shibash Sharif was the Prime Minister of the country, I think I would have expected much more friction on India policy. Thank you for that, Asfandiar. We're coming to the close of our session. Thank you all for your excellent remarks, really for our audience participation as well. Chris, I want to allow you just two minutes to give some closing remarks, but I want to emphasize the importance of this ceasefire, both for people on the ground, but really as world attention is on a lot of other crises, the fact that there's been a ceasefire for three years is remarkable. This is a quarter of the world's population, you know, contested border nuclear weapons. There's really a lot of scope for things to go bad if there's escalation. So I think the value of the ceasefire is very important, and I think working to keep the ceasefire alive, albeit fragile, is of significance. Not only for the region, but really for international stability. But Chris, thank you for your great report. Any closing remarks from you? Well, I'm mindful of the time, so I'll be brief. You know, I've got more gray hair than when I started. And the U.S. part in the war in Afghanistan is over. The China-India relationship has changed. And I sense sometimes a view that as an older man, it's time for me to move on from the things of the past. There are new challenges we got to get with the future. The problem is the past doesn't just fade away, and it can come back and bite you, and it can, I think, injure the hopes and aspirations for Pakistan. I think it can even injure the hopes and aspirations for India. And I still believe that U.S. national interest would benefit from a prolonged period of more normal India-Pakistan relations. And I also believe that neither can Pakistan escape this combined political-economic trapezine, nor can India achieve its goal for itself globally unless Indian-Pakistan relations are normalized. And I think that requires continued analytic attention, the creation of a positive agenda. And I'm thankful for the work that USIP does in this space. Thank you so much. Thank you to Christopher Clary. Thank you to Happy Man Jacob. And thank you to Sambiar Meir for joining us. Thank you to the audience on behalf of USIP. We appreciate your participation. And we look forward to continuing these conversations about peace and stability around the world, and particularly in South Asia. So thank you all and look forward to talking with you again.