Non-Military Confidence Building Measures and their Failure in Indo-Pak History (2001-2019)

Abstract

In international relations, an act of demonstrating cooperation and goodwill with an adversary is known as the Confidence-Building measure. The motive behind these measures is to alleviate misapprehension, tension, fear, and angst between two or multiple parties by emphasizing trust and restricting acceleration in a conflict. India and Pakistan share a prolonged history of mistrust and animosity. The repercussions of this acrimonious relations are profound and extensive. In the past, numerous measures have been initiated by both states to stabilize peace and rekindle the mutual working relationships. To accomplish the challenging task, numerous non-military CBMs have also been initiated from both sides intermittently. However, none of them delivered the desired outcomes and successfully triggered confidence as anticipated. Therefore, in this article, the author delves into finding out the fundamental reasons for the failure of these CBMs between India and Pakistan held in 2001 – 2019.

The Role of Confidence‐building Measures in the Evolution of Relations Between Pakistan and India

“…2020). The idea of positive and negative peace stems from Johan Galtung's positive and negative peace thesis where positive peace means states have confidence in each other while negative peace implies the lack of confidence (Syed 2020, 11). India and Pakistan have also addressed each other with proposals for joint defense, CBMs, no‐war pacts, friendship treaties, and other arrangements aimed at achieving peace.…”