Post-Independence Border Conflicts

The unresolved status of Jammu and Kashmir has produced the most persistent interstate conflict of the decolonization era, with India and Pakistan fighting wars over the territory in 1947–48, 1965, and again during the 1999 Kargil conflict, alongside near-constant skirmishing along the Line of Control established by the 1972 Simla Agreement. Both countries claim the territory in full, each administering a portion, and the dispute has been a central driver of both states' military postures — including their parallel development of nuclear weapons, first tested by India in 1974 and 1998 and by Pakistan in 1998 — ever since partition.