Economic instability causes diversionary Indo-Pak war---goes nuclear over Kashmir.

While Kashmir continues to bleed, it has locked India and Pakistan into a prolonged conflict comprised of cease-fires, peaceful negotiations, violent uprisings, and crises with a nuclear dimension. In this paper, I used several variables that most broadly encompass domestic instability i.e. various tests ran against all the independent variables separately and then together in the final model support my hypothesis that domestic and economic instability influence the crises in Kashmir because when political leaders feel threatened, they use Kashmir as a territorial diversion as an effort to remain in power. When there is higher political unrest in both India and Pakistan, especially during election years, the number of crises in Kashmir increase significantly.

The results of my research emphasize the importance of domestic stability to prevent what can easily lead to a nuclear war. For key international mediators such as the U.S and UN, it is essential to make efforts in stabilizing the democracy in both India and Pakistan if they truly wish to curb another Indo-Pak war over Kashmir. Since my logit model shows that political unrest and elections have the deepest impact on crises in Kashmir, any state or organization that wishes to advance the resolution of the Kashmir issue should contribute to the process of free and fair democratic elections in both countries without involvement of other states and should attempt to maintain domestic stability by not igniting and highlighting domestic issues that contribute to riots and protests.