The real hope for peace between India and Pakistan in the present situation appears to be negligent, says Humphrey Hawksley, BBC's foreign correspondent and also the author of The Third World War.
He has little doubt about where the third world war would begin. "Pakistan is facing an abyss. It has yet to determine what it is as a nation, and it has to declare and commit to the Kashmir issue resolved through negotiation and diplomacy - and not violence," he says.
His latest novel has invited intense reviews and criticisms, but whatever the opinion, it is fast becoming a book that most want to read and react passionately to. After Dragon Fire this is another novel based in South East Asia.
In an interview with the Hindustan Times, Hawksley explains that "the institutions which bred the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Jammu & Kashmir still hold enormous power and use the ideological candle of Islam to protect that power.
"The problem is being band-aided over without any real long-term solution being found. This means that Pakistan's cancer will grow until it consumes the whole nation.
"Following the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament, make-shift agreements were made to allow a low level insurgency to continue in Jammu and Kashmir - without India going to war with Pakistan. But a red line was drawn there, and if any attack happened elsewhere in India, there would be war.
"With its corrupt institutions, and failed democracy and economy, I cannot see any hope for real peace between India and Pakistan without a sea-change of international policy."
He asserts, "The US has to ally itself unequivocally to India and not play it off against Pakistan. It must treat India as an equal and a guiding moral light for democracy in the developing world. China must stop all military supplies to Pakistan. It must also stop using Pakistan as a weapon to keep India weak."
Reflecting on his latest novel, Hawksley says," It examines the post 9/11 scenario where two rogue states Pakistan and North Korea forge an alliance to take on the United States and its allies. This was actually happening to some degree in the lead up to the Iraq war, when North Korea upped the stakes just as the US was preparing for the Gulf campaign, prompting Donald Rumsfeld to reassure that the US could fight wars on two fronts."
Although a fiction, Hawksley's The Third World War picks up on real- life events. He says, "Each of the scenarios in Third World War are as close to real life as I can make them. Some of them, such as an attack on Parliament, or Islamic uprisings in the Philippines, have actually happened."
But following his research for the novel, what does he think will happen in reality?
Hawklsey explains, "What is unlikely, is that all the catalysts come together as they have in the novel. However, I am pessimistic about the ability of states to compromise when they believe their own survival is at stake. At some stage, the US will come into conflict with a strong China or a revived Russia.
Given wars in Iraq, the Balkans and elsewhere, there is little to suggest that humankind will stop fighting and will not use the most lethal weapons in their arsenals."
Discussing India, he says, "I also have posed moral dilemma's mostly to India which is not an aggressive nation, but one which is under attack. The key one is this: If your country is attacked by terrorists with nuclear weapons, who do you retaliate against -- when you cannot directly get to the attackers. Is it right to use a nuclear weapon against civilian populations, simply to make a show of hitting back.
"In other words - what would India actually do if an illegal military junta in Pakistan destroyed Delhi with a nuclear weapon."
Discussing the eventuality of a third world war, he says, "It is not difficult to see where a Third World War would begin. Pakistan has a cancer inside it which began during the rule of Zia. It has allowed itself to be exploited by both Islamic extremism and US short-termism for the past two generations. It is the only territory which both actively nurtures Al-Qaeda terrorists and nuclear weapons. The military is the only functioning institution. Many of the officers within it sympathise with the aspirations of Islamic extremism.
"There is an identifiable territory - Kashmir - which can be fought over and won. Pakistan's danger is that it represents an idea which is spawning supporters all over the world. Should Mushurraf be overthrown, the world will be a very dangerous place indeed."
Discussing the developments in North Korea, he says, "North Korea is a basket case going no-where. It has no ideology to spawn. No other nation envies and wants to emulate its system of government. But it is has missile and nuclear technology and probably biological and chemical weapons. If North Korea feels pushed into a corner, and Al- Qaeda wants to weaken US strategic power, there is no reason why they shouldn't work together. If that happened, China, as the ally of both rogue states is bound to get involved, together with Russia.
"It would be up to India and the
world's biggest democracy and the moral guiding light of the developing
world to decide whether it should keep its international voice buried in
the sand or speak out to balance the single power voice of the United States."