A Region in Turmoil: South Asian Conflicts Since 1947, and: Kargil: From Surprise to Victory (review)

Generally defined as stretching from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, South Asia is home to one-fifth of humanity and the locus of some of the world's most pertinacious security problems. The range of actual and potential conflicts is uniquely broad. From the lurking danger of large-scale war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan to insurgency and terrorism in almost all of the South Asian states, the region presents an alarmingly rich array of security concerns with immediate and enduring repercussions for the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia. Although the U.S.-India civilian nuclear deal and the resurgent Taliban have grabbed recent headlines, post-independence South Asia has generally suffered from neglect in military history and conflict studies (where, for instance, are the detailed histories of the vicious Maoist insurgency in Nepal or the equally brutal civil war in Sri Lanka?).

Rob Johnson has thus chosen a vast and fertile field to investigate in his new work, A Region in Turmoil: South Asian Conflicts since 1947. Using the broadest possible definition of "conflict," Johnson attempts to achieve a regional perspective that outlines "the contours of instability, the causes of conflicts, and their resolution" as a "coherent whole" (p. 7). This approach allows him to depict manifold dimensions of violence in South Asia, thereby illustrating the complexities of the region. Maintaining his objectivity without falling into sterility, Johnson highlights in general terms several of the key sources of conflict: religion, ethnic tension, ideology, and historical experience. Though these are not unique to South Asia, they are important to discuss. He draws particular attention to the legacy of previous conflicts, a crucial factor often overlooked outside the region. In a departure from the norm, Johnson includes Burma (Myanmar) in his definition of "South Asia." This permits some mention of cross-border security concerns between India and Burma, but it also introduces a host of other issues and tends to distract from the core of the book more than it adds.

Unfortunately, the narrative traverses the broad features of South Asia's political-diplomatic and military history rather erratically without giving sufficient focus to the themes raised in the introduction. Lacking adequate attention, the themes are too generic to offer much interpretive power. Furthermore, the text is weakened by static commentary that often seems to miss changes that have occurred over time (the shift in the influence of Indian expatriates in America, for example) and by important factual errors and lapses in precision that can leave misleading impressions with the reader (such as key details of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998). The book would also benefit from some maps (it has none), as well as a more robust bibliography (repairing, for instance, the curious absence of Sumit Ganguly's seminal Origins of War in South Asia, Westview, 1994).

Given the increasing importance of South Asia and its numerous security challenges, one can hope that scholars will pick up some of the threads Johnson has identified and explore them in detail within the larger regional context he has correctly emphasized.

Although the 1999 Kargil war between India and Pakistan has generated a number of books from the Indian perspective as well as several studies by Western specialists, many important strategic details remain murky or unexplained. Some of the hidden corners of this unique conflict will only be illuminated when key Pakistani decisionmakers make their experiences public, but the publication this year of General (retired) Ved Prakash Malik's memoir of Kargil adds significantly to our understanding of actions and decisions on the Indian side.

The Kargil war (named for the principal town in the combat zone) was fought from mid-May...