Nation

The current conflict between India and Pakistan is probably the
most foreseeable war of this century. Indeed, it was probably the
most widely foreseen; among others, The Nation, in its issue of April
14, 1969, clearly warned of what was to come in an article by Aijaz
Ahmad, "'Law and Order' in Pakistan." And in June of this year,
Mr. Ahmad updated his warning in a second piece, "The Bloody Surgery
of Pakistan."

It has been evident for months, not only that the
war was impending but that autonomy for East
Pakistan was inevitable. It was the inability of
the rest of the world, through the agency of the
United Nations, to assure East Pakistan, or Bangla
Desh, of actual, or at least de facto,
independence that brought the situation to an
international war. The nations on the sidelines
professed their unwillingness to interfere in the
domestic affairs of Pakistan, but the presence of
10 million East Pakistani refugees in India, and
the repeated incidents of "hot pursuit" in both
directions across the Indian-Pakistani border,
exposed the pretense of dismissing this struggle
as an internal quarrel.

The articles that follow here trace the steps by
which the situation deteriorated into open war,
and assay - insofar as that could be done during
the days of battle what prospects for tranquility
lie in the future.