India and Pakistan, an archetypical rivalry in South Asia, clash against each other. After identifying Pakistan as a culprit of terrorist attack on tourists on Indian tourist site, the Modi government has conducted multiple airstrikes against Pakistan with a full military mobilization which in turn induces Pakistan’s similar responses against India. The paper asks a simple question of why the confrontational relationship between India and Pakistan has been so enduring? To answer the question, the paper proposes the so-called double failure model in which a rivalry maintenance is considered as a result of a failure of military-and negotiated solution. Rival leaders often try to end costly rival relations at battlefields. But the rivals engaged in battles fail to resolve their hostilities by military means largely because of the interventions of great powers which form security ties with them. Fearing that the military disputes between the rivals might escalate into a major war in which the powers must intervene, the powers step in and push the rivals to display self-restraint which result in the failure of battlefield solution. Leaders in the rivalries often bring the issue of rivalry termination into negotiation tables. Sobering effect from military disputes and structural shocks open a window of opportunities through which rivals resolve their hostilities at negotiation tables. But the rivalries are inclined to fail to end the hostilities because hard-line veto players at home are prompted to prevent their leaders from negotiating any compromise with their enemies at the tables. Taken together, the model postulates that rivalries persist through the failures of military and negotiated solution. To demonstrate this argument, the paper conducts a crucial case study of the persistence of India-Pakistan rivalry(1947-2025) and finds that the study lends a strong support for the argument. The paper concludes by offering a short summary and highlighting an avenue for future research.
Chaekwang You (Sun,) studied this question.