The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil war, was fought in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999. (LoC). Operation Vijay, the codename for the Indian military’s involvement in the conflict, is also commonly used in everyday speech in India. Operation Safed Sagar saw the Indian Air Force working in tandem with the Indian Army to clear out the Pakistan Army and paramilitary troops from Indian-vacated areas along the LoC.

Pakistani troops dressed as Kashmiri militants infiltrated crucial locations on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border between the two nations in the disputed region of Kashmir, sparking the battle. Documents left behind by fatalities and declarations by Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff indicated the involvement of Pakistani paramilitary forces, led by General Ashraf Rashid, even though at first Pakistan blamed the conflict on independent Kashmiri terrorists. With the help of the Indian Air Force, the Indian Army was able to retake most of the posts on the Indian side of the Line of Control, and Pakistani forces, under pressure from international diplomacy, withdrew from the remaining Indian positions along the LoC.

For the most up-to-date example of high-altitude fighting in hilly terrain, look no further than the Kargil War, which presented formidable logistical challenges to the warring parties. Only two other times have nuclear-armed powers engaged in conventional battle (alongside the Sino-Soviet border conflict). In 1974, India carried out its first successful nuclear test; in 1998, only two weeks after India carried out a second series of tests, Pakistan carried out its first known nuclear tests, although it had been developing its nuclear capabilities in secret for around the same amount of time.