> Mutual assured destruction may be the only thing limiting the Kashmir conflict, for example. On the contrary, Kashmir militancy project was started by Pakist

> Mutual assured destruction may be the only thing limiting the Kashmir conflict, for example. On the contrary, Kashmir militancy project was started by Pakistan in the late eighties after a botched attempt by the central government in India to rig an election in the state. This was well after the first Indian nuclear tests in 1974. Subsequently, India did another round of nuclear testing 1998 and that too resulted in an attempted stealth invasion of Kargil. So if anything, nuclear weapons have escalated the conflict not the other way around. Just to be clear, there were always separatist elements in Kashmir, just like there used to be some in Punjab and there still are in Balochistan. But with development and intra-country migration, it becomes hard to sustain a separatist movement and that's why all the other movements in India have all but petered out. It is likely this would've happened in Indian-controlled Kashmir too, given that the valley was largely peaceful after 1948 and until the 1990s. But a concatenation of unfortunate circumstances -- first the rigged election, then Pakistani arming of the separatists, the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets winding up which meant the ISI and their jihadi cousins-in-arms were looking for a new project, the Indian Army's human rights violations and introduction of AFSPA in the valley, harassment of and violence against Kashmiri Hindus which caused a mass exodus of pro-India elements from the valley, and the western policy of ignoring jihadi violence in Kashmir until 9/11/2001 because they were historically aligned with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia rather than India which was assumed to be in the Russian sphere of influence --- resulted in the conflict blowing up to where it is now. You'll notice that many of these contributing factors have disappeared and the situation is likely to get better in the next couple of decades.