A Lesson From the Kashmir Bombing: America Needs to Get Tougher on Pakistan

On February 14, a terrorist drove a car filled with explosives into a paramilitary convoy in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir. A Pakistan-based terrorist group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, claimed responsibility shortly after the attack. The death toll of Indian soldiers has now exceeded forty, more than twice the number of fatalities in the September 2016 Uri attack, which resulted in India’s “surgical strikes” in response. So Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces national elections within weeks, is under enormous domestic pressure to respond strongly.

The United States, too, has to think about its next steps. The completely open presence of these terrorist groups in Pakistan—groups under U.S. and UN terrorism designations—shows how Pakistan continues to fail at its own obligations as a member state of the United Nations to take sufficient action. While the Donald J. Trump administration has suspended security assistance to Pakistan precisely to compel further action on terrorism, there are more steps that Washington could take.

Read my take on CNN.com for more.

My book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India Is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2018. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).