After Kargil, the Indian Armed Forces need for permanent deployment of forces along the Line of Control rises. Financially, the burden increases. Each piece of bread for an Indian soldier costs between Rs 50 and Rs 60 in the high snow-bound mountains. Deaths from frostbite and cold exceed those in actual combat by a ratio of five to one. Without the Cold War largesse provided by the former Soviet Union, the Indian economy will find it increasingly difficult to bear the cost - as difficult as the Pakistani economy is finding itself in the absence of billion of dollars from the West when it was an ally of the free world.
Reality dictates otherwise.
The Indians will say that insurgency is entirely Kargil has proved their point. Yet reports in the Western press about the fervor of the Kashmiris and the in Azad Kashmir and the frustration of villagers in Indian occupied Kashmir give a different picture. Some analysts discard the comparisons with Kosovo because Kashmir is in a Asia, not in Europe. But there can be no diminution of attention when there is a problem in a newly nuclearised South Asia. When concerns about global peace and security combine with concerns about gross violations of human rights, they demand attention.