WHEN you enter the Arsenal Palace in Vienna, which has now been turned into a war museum, one finds an emphatic short statement engraved on the side pillar of the grand entrance: ‘Krieg gehort ins museum’, which translates to ‘War belongs in a museum’. The galleries of the museum sho­wcase the military history of Austria, which suffered from nearly every war fought in Europe during the past millennia.

A thousand kilometres away, in southern Netherlands, War Museum Overloon has also adopted the motto: ‘War belongs in a museum’, depicting the history of the Second World War, in which 50 million lives were lost. The surroundings of Overloon had witnessed a major battle involving the American Sherman tanks and the German Panther tanks in 1944.

Austria and The Netherlands were on opposite sides in the Second World War. However, both have reached the same conclusion — that war belongs in a museum, that peace is far more precious than victory over the rival. For seven decades now, the Europeans, including the Dutch and Aust­rians, have reaped the benefits of working together. Both countries are well-developed and prosperous, providing every conceivable facility to their citizens. Today, according to the IMF, The Netherlands’ GDP per capita is an impressive figure of $61,100, while Austria is not far behind at $56,800.

New challenges are emerging for the Eu­­ropean Union, like the war in Ukraine and the issues relating to the US-China competition. Yet, the fundamental direction of the European continent remains firmly anchored in peace, human rights, and prosperity for their citizens. The continent of Europe suffered a thousand years of fratricidal wars amidst shifting alliances, and finally reached the conclusion that wars do not resolve issues, rather complicate them.

Europe suffered a thousand years of fratricidal wars.

Regrettably, South Asia has not learned any such lesson from its own history. Post-independence, the early life of both India and Pakistan was scarred by the mayhem created by the swap of populations, leading to a million killed and 10m displaced. Issues over division of assets and stoppage of canal waters also played a part in deepening mistrust. A dispute erupted over the political destiny of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which continues to date. Instead of addressing these challenges in a spirit of cooperation, both sides worked at cross purposes, and thus kept drifting away from each other. Neither wars (1948, 1965, 1971, and 1999) nor peace attempts (1999, 2004, and 2015) have resolved their mutual grievances. The deep mutual mistrust continues.

India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed countries. A war between them is now unthinkable as that would be mutually assured destruction. Yet, both countries continue their conventional confrontation below the nuclear overhang, as was illustrated by the Kargil conflict of 1999 and the Indian ‘surgical strike’ of 2019. To mitigate nuclear risks, both countries started discussing nuclear confidence-building measures, but the process stopped in December 2012. For a decade now, no such discussion has taken place.

As if taking a cue from the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, who opined that the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting, India and Pakistan have now expanded their conflict to other dom­a­ins, such as information warfare, cyberattacks, and proxy wars. India is upset that Pakistan has not done enough to contain the activities of anti-India militants allegedly based in Pakistan. The latter is concerned that India is sponsoring terrorism and instability in Pakistan through its age­nts like Com­ma­n­der Kulbhushan Jad­hav, who was caught red-handed in Balochistan.

Both countries also extensively use propaganda against each other. Pakistan-bashing is a regular election issue in northern India. Although relations with India are not an election issue in Pakistan, yet if someone takes an initiative of peace with India, like Aman ki Asha, it is viewed with suspicion and resentment. Recently, India took the propaganda war to a new high point, with the EU’s DisinfoLab discovering a massive campaign being run by India against Pakistan using hundreds of fake NGOs and websites, which it dubbed the Indian Chronicles.

Even the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) has not succeeded in creating economic interdependence in South Asia. Founded 38 years ago, it stands today as an ineffective, dormant organisation, owing mainly to differences between India and Pakistan. The Saarc heads of government last met in 2014 in Nepal. India refused to attend the Saarc summit that was to take place in Islamabad in 2016. It even lobbied other Saarc members to regret their participation.

Today, many analysts like to describe India-Pakistan relations as ‘No war, no peace’. One wonders when the two would learn the lesson which the Europeans learned three quarters of a century ago: war belongs in a museum.

The writer is a former foreign secretary of Pakistan and author of Diplomatic Footprints.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2023