About the Author
Nasim Zehra is a national security specialist and a prominent journalist. As a columnist, television host, and teacher, with extensive experience in the development field, she writes and lectures widely on national security and global politics. Ms Zehra holds an MBA from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad and a Master s degree in Law & Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA. She has been a Fellow of the Harvard University Asia Centre, on the Visiting Faculty of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad; National University of Science and Technology; and at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

Ever since the Kargil war of 1999 between then newly nuclearized India and Pakistan, there has been endless speculation about the precise motivations, planning and execution of the operation. In her long-awaited study of Kargil, Nasim Zehra combines hitherto unknown information garnered from key players in the Pakistani military establishment involved in the planning of the incursion with a historically grounded and analytically nuanced analysis of the Indo-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir. She convincingly shows how the Kargil conflict accentuated Pakistan s relations with not only India and the United States of America but also brought to the fore age-old tensions between the civil and military arms of the state, resulting in the 1999 military coup. A gripping account of the Kargil war as it unfolded surreptitiously and then flagrantly, this study puts to rest myths about the relative strengths of the military decision-making process in Pakistan compared to its civilian counterpart, underscoring the imperative need to streamline both with a view to facilitating more cooperative relations between them, especially in the realm of strategic security. Well researched and persuasively argued, the book is mandatory reading for students of international relations and South Asia. (Professor Ayesha Jalal, Historian) Nasim Zehra s book is a remarkably honest, bold, diligent and well-researched account of the Kargil episode, a doomed initiative, conceived in shadows, without a thought-through institutional evaluation and based on a misreading of the international situation. The author combines a wealth of information and a good deal of fresh detail with scholarly insights and deep analysis. She has produced a comprehensive landmark case study- a must read- of great value to policy makers and scholars in Pakistan and to the wider readership interested in the history and political affairs of the country and the region. (Riaz M Khan, Senior Diplomat, former Foreign Secretary) The Kargil episode has remained an enigma both in Pakistan as well as India. Shrouded in secrecy, the deafening silence on this conflict has given rise to many conspiracies, rumours and ill-informed opinions on both sides of the divide, in India and Pakistan. In this book, the author has collated facts painstakingly and juxtaposed them into the regional environment. She establishes the context of this conflict in the light of the US-Afghan issues at the time, the international concerns in view of the potential of a Nuclear Conflict, the contradictions of the Lahore Declaration and the history of the Line of Control. An extremely well analysed study that will remain a reference point for any further study. (Lt General (retd) Tariq Khan, Pakistan Army Armoured Corps)

关于作者

纳西姆-泽赫拉是一位国家安全专家和著名记者。作为一名专栏作家、电视节目主持人和教师，她在发展领域有着丰富的经验，她在国家安全和全球政治方面广泛发表文章和演讲。泽赫拉女士拥有伊斯兰堡Quaid-i-Azam大学的MBA学位和美国塔夫茨大学弗莱彻法律和外交学院的法律和外交硕士学位。她曾是哈佛大学亚洲中心的研究员，也是伊斯兰堡奎德-阿扎姆大学、国立科技大学和约翰-霍普金斯大学高级国际研究学院的客座教师。

自从1999年印度和巴基斯坦之间发生卡吉尔战争以来，人们对这次行动的确切动机、计划和执行一直有无穷的猜测。在她期待已久的关于卡吉尔的研究中，纳西姆-泽赫拉将从参与入侵计划的巴基斯坦军事机构的关键人物那里获得的迄今未知的信息与对印巴在克什米尔问题上的冲突进行的基于历史和分析的微妙分析相结合。她令人信服地表明，卡吉尔冲突不仅突出了巴基斯坦与印度和美国的关系，而且还凸显了国家民事和军事部门之间的长期紧张关系，导致了1999年的军事政变。本研究对卡吉尔战争进行了扣人心弦的描述，它先是偷偷摸摸地展开，然后又明目张胆地展开，它打破了关于巴基斯坦军事决策过程与文职决策过程相比具有相对优势的神话，强调了精简两者的迫切需要，以促进它们之间更多的合作关系，特别是在战略安全领域。该书研究充分，论证有力，是国际关系和南亚问题学生的必读之作。(历史学家阿耶莎-贾拉勒教授）纳西姆-泽赫拉的书对卡吉尔事件做了非常诚实、大胆、勤奋和深入的研究，这是一个注定要失败的倡议，它是在阴影中构想出来的，没有经过深思熟虑的机构评估，而且是基于对国际形势的误读。作者将丰富的信息和大量新鲜的细节与学术见解和深入分析相结合。她制作了一个全面的里程碑式的案例研究--必须阅读--对巴基斯坦的政策制定者和学者以及对该国和该地区的历史和政治事务感兴趣的广大读者具有重要价值。(Riaz M Khan，高级外交官，前外交秘书）卡吉尔事件在巴基斯坦和印度都一直是个谜。在秘密的笼罩下，对这场冲突的震耳欲聋的沉默引起了印度和巴基斯坦双方的许多阴谋、谣言和不知情的意见。在这本书中，作者煞费苦心地整理了一些事实，并将其并入区域环境中。她根据当时的美国-阿富汗问题、国际上对潜在核冲突的担忧、《拉合尔宣言》的矛盾以及控制线的历史，确定了这场冲突的背景。这是一份分析得非常好的研究报告，将成为任何进一步研究的参考点。(巴基斯坦陆军装甲部队塔里克-汗中将（已退役）)