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India and Pakistan: Same movie, different ending?

New plot twists and players could bring about a change in trajectory

ST ILLUSTRATION: MANNY FRANCISCO
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There was fear that India's bombing of a terrorist training facility at Balakot in Pakistan last month would push the subcontinent closer to a nuclear war. What happened was something else.

India's decision to use air power on Pakistani territory, for the first time in nearly 50 years, has added to the mounting international pressures on Islamabad to curb the multitude of terror groups that operate on its soil. Pakistan's current economic vulnerability could make those pressures more biting than ever before.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on March 12, 2019, with the headline India and Pakistan: Same movie, different ending?. Subscribe