Very few Americans could find tiny Montenegro on a map. Fewer still could offer a cogent description of the differences between Slovenia and Slovakia.

Most can’t name the three Baltic countries. Yet thanks to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s charter, which was signed 70 years ago in Washington, every American is bound by law to defend with blood and treasure each of those nations, and 22 others to boot.

While India and Pakistan seem to have stopped bombing one another, the causes behind the cross-border tensions aren’t going away any time soon. The two nations are nuclear-armed; have large conventional armed forces; have had four serious wars since they became independent in 1947; and have enormous cultural and religious antipathy. This is a prescription for a disaster, and yet the confrontation is flying below the international radar – well below North Korea, Brexit, China-U.S. trade confrontations, Iran and even the “yellow vests” of France. A full-blown war in the valleys and mountains of Kashmir is a very real possibility.