evidence: The Siachen War is a salutary lesson in how military operations in these mountains can escalate far beyond their initial intentions. In 1978, India sent army mountaineers to explore the 76-kilometer long Siachen glacier, which forms a wedge between territory held by Pakistan and China in a bleak, glaciated no man’s land high in the Karakoram mountains. Pakistan had been allowing foreign climbers into the region and India wanted to check what was going on. Based on interviews I conducted for my book, there was no intention on the part of either India or Pakistan to start a war. But as Indian military mountaineers returned every summer in the following years, Pakistan sent its own men up to find out what the Indians were up to. Soon mountaineering expeditions mutated into military patrols and the two countries became convinced the other planned to take over Siachen. In 1984, both countries made plans to occupy the Saltoro ridge that overlooks the Siachen glacier — not because they particularly wanted it, but because they did not want the other side to have it.