India-Pakistan: hyphenated

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THE Pakistan army chief’s speech on Sept 6, Defence Day, highlighted the security threats which Pakistan continues to face from India 50 years after the 1965 war. That war lasted 17 days. If, God forbid, war was to break out today, it may last only 17 hours. Cross-border exchanges or incursions could easily escalate to general conventional warfare. This, in turn, could rapidly cross the nuclear threshold. The possibilities of such escalation have been widely analysed and validated.