Day of the Marauders, 55th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): The Union of Concerned Scientists' Doomsday Clock might officially be at 89 seconds before midnight, but my own sense of impending doom sets the clock far closer to the end of the world.   

India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed nations, have exchanged deadly, although non-nuclear, strikes. Jets have been shot down over Kashmir and civilians killed. The conflict could quickly spiral beyond the nations' borders.

I've never been to Kashmir (I've never been on the Asian continent), but by all reports it's one of the world's most beautiful places. It's literally the setting of the fictional Shangri-La, paradise on Earth. Mountainous and remote, it includes the India-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistan-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract. India and Pakistan have been contesting the boundaries and each others' claims to sovereignty for decades.

The last time the dispute escalated to a military confrontation was in 2019. Then, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was awakened in the middle of the night. He worked the phone in an attempt to convince each side that the other was not prepping for nuclear war. That clash quickly cooled after India dropped bombs in a wooded hills near a madrasa that it claimed was harboring terrorists and Pakistan dropped some munitions on the Indian side soon after. Things remained touchy for awhile  time with the news in both countries in a jingoistic overdrive before returning to an uneasy middle ground.

That was six years ago. The attacks last week were very different: The Indian military did not drop bombs in the middle of the woods this time. The strikes hit near major population hubs, and Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people, including a child, have died. The world is expecting Pakistan to retaliate and it’s hard to imagine this skirmish ending in memes and a media frenzy.

Formerly, the U.S .would have stepped in and steadied the situation, calming the fire, and leading diplomacy. That's not the case now. The President's financial and personal self-interests aren't served by this conflict, and a detached Trump simply called the escalation, “a shame.”

“We just heard about it,” he said of the Indian strikes. “They’ve been fighting for a long time. I just hope it ends very quickly.” Shortly after the strikes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was briefed on the military actions. Rubio tweeted that he’s “monitoring closely,” as if watching a crisis unfold on TV counts as leadership.

This isn’t just embarrassing, it’s dangerous. The world no longer sees America as the stabilizing force it once was. Instead, it sees disinformation replacing intelligence, posturing instead of policy, and a White House that can't, or won’t, lead.

This is how trust collapses. This is how vacuums of power form, and authoritarian regimes boldly step into such vacuums. China has an obvious interest in a potential nuclear war breaking out on its border and in an area to which it has claims of its own. They're likely to step in and attempt some diplomacy, but with their ties to Pakistan and their own territorial interests in the area, they may not be as trusted by either side as the U.S. once was. China could decide to step in with military action. It's less clear how Shia Iran will react to the situation in Sunni Kashmir.

I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but Kashmir and situations like this have long been considered likely scenarios for the start of World War III. Add to this the stunning level of sheer incompetence and absence of leadership in the United States, where the president doesn't see how he personally could make a profit off this crisis, and the situation becomes even more dangerous. Add to this the current situations in Ukraine and Palestine, where Russia or Israel might decide to use fighting in the Kashmir as a diversion to escalate their own war efforts, and things are even more dire. 

When the world needs more than ever the cool-headed diplomacy of an Obama or even a Biden in his prime, we instead have the self-serving narcissism of a mentally diminished Trump, surrounded by his boot-licking lackeys who dare not question their dear leader. 

I don't see this all ending well for anybody.