This is a fascinating and really quite alarming book. If the political pathologies described by Haqqani are correct – and he has been an advisor to four Pakistani prime ministers as well as a top-level diplomat so he’s a lot nearer the decision makers than most of us – then there really is a genuine risk of the rivalry between Pakistan and India blowing up and even going nuclear. In part, that’s because the rivalry is essentially one way: Pakistan’s military and political elite are obsessed with India while India is much more concerned with its place in the wider world. Pakistan wants parity with India (an impossible ambition given relative populations, sizes and economies) while India wants a seat at the world table.

The rivalry, particularly on the Pakistani side, verges on the pathological. Kashmir might be the ostensible reason but it’s clear the reasons go deeper than that. One Pakistani academic quoted in the book gives perhaps the best answer: “If the Arabs, the Turks, and the Iranians, God forbid, give up Islam, the Arabs still remain Arabs, the Turks remain Turks, and the Iranians remain Iranians; but what do we remain if we give up Islam?” Pakistan is a country in religious and political opposition to India: Muslim and largely governed by an over powerful military as opposed to secular (at least officially) and under civilian rule.

One question that might throw further light on the issue is the different relationship India has with Bangladesh as compared to Pakistan. Both were created as Muslim homelands at Partition and indeed they started off as a single country. Admittedly, the Indian military helped local Bangladeshi militias overthrow the rule of Pakistan, which would certainly help for better relations between the two, but it seems clear that religion is not the sole cause of friction, otherwise we would be faced with similar problems in Bengal.

A fascinating book that fits a lot of insight into relatively few pages.