evidence: For more than three decades, India and Pakistan have sent young soldiers to this harsh environment, where they remain for months at a time, guarding a remote, uninhabited wilderness. Observers began referring to the confrontation as the Siachen Glacier conflict, after the monumental sheet of ice that dominates the landscape where the disputed borders of Pakistan, India, and China meet. [...] On April 13, 1984, the Indian Army launched Operation Meghdoot, named after a Sanskrit word meaning "cloud messenger." Using helicopters, the army inserted a platoon of soldiers to occupy the Bilafond La, one of the mountain passes favored by climbers coming from Pakistan. Soon it occupied two more passes. With these moves, India controlled the Saltoro Range, which would become the front line in the fight over the Siachen Glacier and has shaped the archipelago of military outposts that defines the stalemate today. [...] Wirsing agrees the line played a role in the conflict, but he adds, "I have no reason to think someone deliberately decided to hand this territory to Pakistan." He also has no reason to believe any peace agreements will be negotiated soon. "I have friends who say [the Siachen Glacier] should be converted into an international peace park," he says. But recent events, he notes, including continued violence in Kashmir and border tensions between India and China, make a resolution of the issue seem improbable anytime soon.