Welcome to The World in 10.
In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security.
Today with me, Alex Dibble and Toby Gillis.
India and Pakistan, two neighbouring nuclear nations whose relationship has long been delicate.
Yet tensions reached boiling point when a terror attack in the disputed region of Kashmir killed 26 people last month.
India has accused Pakistan of supporting the militants behind it, which Pakistan denies.
India's response has been unequivocal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday that he had given his armed forces freedom to decide how to respond.
A day later, a Pakistani minister claimed they had credible evidence of an imminent strike.
Our guest today is a Washington-based South Asia analyst, Michael Kugelman.
Michael, what in your view is the likelihood of a hot war between Pakistan and India?
I mean, the good news is that I think a hot war, an all out war is quite unlikely.
I mean, yes, they have fought multiple wars with each other, several of them over the Kashmir issue.
But those all happened before they became former nuclear states.
And so what we've seen in more recent years are some limited exchanges that don't last very long.
And I think that that's likely what will happen in this case.
Of course, though,
one can never be complacent when you're talking about two nuclear neighboring nemeses.
It's a very unusual situation to have two countries that have nuclear weapons and have fought multiple wars in the past.
So I think that it's important to assume that things will not escalate to a worst-case scenario.