In his book, former US secretary of state says Washington’s quick involvement stopped escalation.
In his biography, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argues Washington stopped a nuclear war between India and Pakistan in 2019.
New Delhi broke precedent in February 2019 by initiating air operations inside Pakistani territory after accusing an armed group there for a suicide blast that killed 41 Indian paramilitary soldiers in Kashmir. Islamabad shot down and captured an Indian warplane after the incident.
“I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019,” Pompeo claimed in Never Give an Inch, his memoir published on Tuesday of his time as Donald Trump’s top diplomat and earlier as CIA chief.
Pompeo, who was in Hanoi, Vietnam, for a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said he was awakened to speak with his then-Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj.
“He believed the Pakistanis had begun to prepare their nuclear weapons for a strike. India, he informed me, was contemplating its own escalation,” Pompeo wrote.
“I asked him to do nothing and give us a minute to sort things out,” Pompeo said.
“I do not think the world really appreciates exactly how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019,” Pompeo wrote in Never Give an Inch, his memoir of his tenure as Donald Trump’s top diplomat and CIA leader, published on Tuesday.
Pompeo, who was in Hanoi, Vietnam, for a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said he was awakened to speak with his then-Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj.
He believed Pakistan was preparing nuclear weapons for a strike. Pompeo wrote that India was considering escalation.
Pompeo stated, “I asked him to do nothing and allow us a minute to straighten things out.
Pompeo immediately began working with then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, who was also in Hanoi, and spoke to “the actual head of Pakistan,” then-army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.
He believed the Indians were readying their nuclear weapons. “It took us a few hours and extraordinarily good work by our teams on the ground in New Delhi and Islamabad to convince each side that the other was not planning for nuclear war,” he added.
“No other nation could have done what we did that night to avoid a catastrophic outcome,” Pompeo wrote.
Only Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons.
India became the region’s first nuclear power in 1974, inspiring Islamabad. Pakistan discreetly developed its nuclear capability in the 1980s while fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
India has 80–100 nuclear warheads and Pakistan 90–110, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
International think tanks predict Islamabad would have over 200 nuclear weapons in five years.
