Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo wrote in a recently released publication that the rivalry between India and Pakistan nearly led to a nuclear war in 2019, and that US intervention was able to prevent escalation.
In his memoir, “Never Give an Inch,” which chronicles his time as the top diplomat for former President Donald Trump and his prior role as CIA chief, Pompeo stated, “I do not think the world properly comprehends just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear catastrophe in February 2019.”
In February of that year, India conducted airstrikes within Pakistani territory, citing a militant group based in Balakot as responsible for a suicide bombing that resulted in the deaths of 41 Indian paramilitary soldiers in the Indian Illegally Occupied Kashmir (IIOJK). In retaliation, Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane that had entered its territory and captured the pilot.
Pompeo, who was in Hanoi for a summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the time, recalls receiving an urgent call from a senior Indian official. He wrote, “He believed the Pakistanis had begun to prepare their nuclear weapons for a strike. India, he informed me, was contemplating its own escalation.”
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