Kashmir. Pakistan’s jugular vein. Except that it’s a vein that it doesn’t have. Pakistan was stunned when PM Modi of India stripped India’s Kashmir of its autonomy status. Pakistan had always promised action in the course of such an event but all it has been able to do is howl.

Wolves might howl in the dead of night but seldom does anyone else take any action. The same happened with Pakistan’s pleas in the UN security council. Not a whimper came out of the council, and no one knows what was discussed there for no records were kept.

Pakistan wants to do something, but what? India is a thriving democracy, and the empty streets of Srinagar are an eyesore. Modi is under tremendous pressure to let normal life resume in Kashmir. He will do so, but at his own pace and judgment. And for those who are worried that with the removal of Article 35A, storms of Hindus from the plains will rush to live in Kashmir and upset the pro-Muslim ethnic balance there could be in for a surprise.

The fully-integrated Indian state of Himachal Pradesh bordering Kashmir doesn’t allow outsiders to buy land there. Surely Modi will devise a similar modus vivendi for Kashmir, thereby letting the ethnic balance remain there as it is.

Still Pakistan is not happy. Even when Indian Kashmir was relatively autonomous, Pakistan waged war there by stealth and not-so-stealth means since 1948 to prise it out of India. In the 1965 war that it waged against India, it was the Muslim locals of Indian Kashmir who alerted the Indians of the Pakistani aggression.

Since the Soviet exit in Afghanistan in 1989, Pakistan has gone full bore into Kashmir with jihadi tactics. Its response to an Indian attack on Pakistan has always been “nuclear” — we are going to nuke India. It has also threatened to attack India if India strips Kashmir of its autonomy.

Successive Indian PMs, including the great Indira Gandhi, have stayed their hand. But in Modi, India has finally a brave, resolute and decisive leader in the Indira mould. He did not hesitate to violate Pakistani air space in response to a terror attack on Kashmir. Pakistan was stunned. It had always promised to nuke India if India violated its territory. All it could do in response was to send some jets to the border with India and engage in an aerial dogfight with the Indians.

Pakistan’s nuclear bluff had been called by Modi. Emboldened, he reorganized Indian Kashmir, leaving Pakistan to twiddle its thumbs. All Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail if India revoked Kashmir’s autonomy proved to be just that — blackmail.

Pakistan knows that if it launches all-out war against India, China must enter the war against India too. But China has its hands full with Japan over the South China Sea islands dispute and other issues baked in historical animosity. Japan by many reports is a turnkey away from launching a nuclear bomb.

The triad of the US, India, and Japan want to contain China, but were war to break out in the region, the US would conveniently abstain. It’s in no position now for another war, especially against a major power like China. Trump is busy embracing Kim Jong-un of North Korea, who keeps firing missiles and testing nukes under that hug. Trump dismisses Jong-un’s actions as shenanigans of a child, but Japan is left rattled by Trump’s and Jong-un’s behaviour.

India and Japan know that just the two of them would have to take on China. Are they ready? Oh yes, they are. Just as Pakistan’s nukes and missiles deter India, so too India’s and Japan’s nukes and missiles deter China. So China may not enter a war against India in case Pakistan provokes conflict. Without China’s active participation, Pakistan is not going to initiate conflict, for any war with India is going to be fought in a nuclear overhang, that is only by conventional means, where Pakistan is going to get a sound thrashing.

Pakistan has other stealth means though. In an eerily reminiscence of 1989’s Soviet exit from Afghanistan with the former’s tail between its legs, the American pullout from the same country is on its last legs, once again with the former’s tail between its legs. Much as the Americans believe, they are no position to dictate anything to the Taliban. The defeated don’t tell the victors what to do, and the Taliban are victors here.

The Americans have two aims in the Afghan end game. That Afghanistan doesn’t become a breeding ground for jihadis. But the Taliban are jihadis. And you have destroyed whatever was left of their country. So you think that they are not going to scream for revenge.

Second, that a nuke doesn’t fall into jihadi hands. But Pakistan has hundreds of tactical nukes in the hands of field commanders, and some of whom are jihadi. They have an inveterate hatred of both India and America. It’s a wonder that a dirty nuke explosion hasn’t already occurred in America or India.

Pakistan is going to ramp up its jihadi factory to go after Indian Kashmir. Nobody, including the US, is going to stop it from doing so. Pakistan now has the excuse of Kashmir’s autonomy being stripped. India will take a few blows from the jihadis but if there are too many, Modi will be forced to act. He is an unafraid leader who will teach Pakistan an unforgettable lesson.