India and Pakistan

After British India gained its independence in 1947, it split into two different states, India and Pakistan. India being Hindu-majority and Pakistan being the Muslim-majority. Each of these countries have advanced their nuclear capabilities since this independence. In 1948 Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, said that his country will "develop (atomic energy) for peaceful purposes." He added that if India needed to use this technology for other purposes, "no pious sentiments will stop a nation from using it that way." What is scary is that these two countries have gone to war three times since the British left.

The growing concern now is that these two countries have taken a one-up attitude. In other words, who can outdo the other? There has been an ongoing conflict for the region known as Kashmir. In 1998 India conducted five nuclear tests in a desert within their country. In what seemed like a response three weeks after the last of these tests were done, Pakistan conducted six nuclear explosions. This sounds like the COLD WAR between the U.S. and former Soviet Union except for two things. The two latter countries were seperated by an ocean and were never engaged in open fighting. Pakistan and India are still fighting openly and bringing their nuclear arms into the picture.

First it starts out as a little thing like a fight in the street and then it ends up a big thing such as bombing a city. When will it end? And when it does, is there really a winner?