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Let's not forget that governments are the primary cause of conflicts, not the people at war with each other. Hindus and Muslims have lived together for centuries without conflict and continue to do so in India, which still has a large Muslim population. I've heard young people posting videos on TikTok, Facebook, and other social media platforms rejecting war and denying that there was any justifiable reason for it. The will of the two peoples for peaceful coexistence is the only way for peace to be set in this region. As for the governments in both countries, they are known for their corruption and subservience to hostile Western powers that manipulate the situation from behind the scenes.
Economically, no party benefits even if they win the war, because these are wars of attrition and there are no winners. The economic beneficiaries are arms dealers, whether individuals, companies, or countries, as well as those who will sign reconstruction contracts later after the war destroys the infrastructure of both countries. They also include the World Bank and the lending agencies that will lend to both countries to repay the companies that signed the reconstruction contracts.
Two governments, both structurally incentivized to posture, escalate, and claim “national interest,” while the real stakes are financial flows, not border stones. War as an “economic event” is almost never a net positive. Unless you count the orgy of profits for arms contractors, the shadowy players in the $10B India-Pakistan “informal” trade, and the IMF endless lending carousel. The tragedy is that, from a systems view, the public desire for peace is statistically irrelevant next to elite incentives. War only reliable harvest is debt, trauma, and fat global bond yields. The kids on TikTok posting anti-war memes? In a hundred years, their uploads may be the most meaningful diplomatic documents of the era. Meanwhile, the arms merchants and IFIs write history in term of money, not humanity
Well, when is this supposed to end? Clearly, peace agreements and de-escalation treaties are useless, as anyone or any party can provoke another conflict. Nothing justifies regional neighbors spending billions of dollars to produce nuclear weapons to serve the interests of other countries waging proxy wars, while their domestic economies suffer from countless crises, in addition to environmental pollution, demographic explosion, and resource shortages.
It is also worth noting that India is supported by the United States, which confronts China, which supports Pakistan. However, at the same time, India and China are members of BRICS, an economic bloc that aims to establish a global balance in the face of American and Western encroachment on the global economy.