Ambassador Nirupama Menon Rao (retd.), the former foreign secretary of India, reflects on the distortions that often shape debates on India–Pakistan policy, where outrage eclipses strategy and accusation replaces argument. She makes the case for a feminist foreign policy grounded in deterrence with discipline and engagement without illusion. There is a certain genre of writing that substitutes accusation for argument. It begins by assigning motive, then arranges facts, real, distorted, or...