Washington: The risk of war between India and Pakistan will remain fairly high over the next 15 years and both countries will continue to build up their nuclear and missile forces, a US National Intelligence Council projection for 2015 has claimed.

The threat of major conflict between India and Pakistan will overshadow all other regional issues during the next 15 years, it claimed, adding both countries will see weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) as a strategic imperative and will continue to amass nuclear warheads and build a variety of missile delivery systems.

India most likely will expand the size of its nuclear force. Pakistan's nuclear and missile forces also will continue to increase. A noticeable increase in the size of India's arsenal, however, would prompt Pakistan to further increase the size of its own arsenal, it claimed.

Continued turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan will spill over into Kashmir and other areas of the subcontinent, prompting India to take more aggressive pre-emptive and retaliatory actions, it said.

The future being contemplated by US intelligence officials is part of a long-ranging forecasting endeavour compiled in the National Intelligence Council 2015 Project, which seeks to come up with a range of scenarios the world could face then.

PTI