Conflict Prevention, Confidence Building and Reconciliation in South Asia

Confidence-Building Measures (CBM's) to effect conflict resolution have been successful in the past in defusing volatile situations such as the Cold War and the ongoing problems in the Middle East. Michael Krepon has assembled a group of the best new scholars, policy-makers, and journalists currently working on CBM's and directed their attention to another area of high conflict, South Asia. In the winter of 1986-7 and in the spring of 1990, Indian and Pakistani leaders employed CBM's to help avoid a fourth war in South Asia.;Recently, though, these CBM's actually have been linked to increased friction over Kashmir. Small arms fire is regularly exchanged, fire fights escalate into artillery exchanges and new missile programs are being readied for deployment. Add to this the fact that four major wars have been fought between China, India and Pakistan in the last forty-five years and one can plainly see that South Asia is a region ripe for the effective use of CBM's as well as a cogent analysis of the way in which existing CBM's may be modified to effect conflict resolution. By looking at India, Pakistan, Kashmir and China as well as other areas, the scholars in Conflict-Building Measures in South Asia convincingly argue for the viability of CBM's in effecting lasting conflict-resolution in the area.