India and Pakistan have been unable to resume productive arms control negotiations since 2008 because of an accumulation of mistrust caused by the festering dispute over Kashmir and worsened by air-to-air skirmishes in February 2019.
The purpose of arms control is the very challenging task of negotiated design of stable military power between rivals. Typically, this involves removing or closely supervising weapons that are useful for a surprise first strike, that facilitate offensive action, or have a strong use-it-or-lose-it dilemma, like vulnerable missiles or mobile tanks. Arms control increases the adversaries’ security by reducing unintended military incidents and escalation, and through the process of deliberate military cooperation, it improves understanding and reduces tensions. It thereby mitigates escalation during the action-reaction spirals of arms races and political-military crises, buying time for dialogue and conflict resolution. According to economics Nobel-prize winner Thomas Schelling, arms control also reduces the incentives and likelihood of war, minimizes the cost of war preparation, and limits damage if war erupts.
However, arms control cannot be successful where mistrust is so great that the two states in a confrontation are willing to risk unintended war. Former Pentagon strategist Colin Gray observed that achieving arms control is impossible under extreme conditions of mistrust, when it is most needed, but easily attainable when it is most irrelevant. This apparent paradoxical condition leads arms controllers to expect major challenges when mistrust is so profound that even arms control becomes an adversarial process. How can the hurdle of mistrust be overcome?