On the 2nd of July 1972, India and Pakistan signed the Simla Agreement, which was meant to put an end to tensions in Kashmir. It defined the 'Line of Control', the de facto border between Indian and Pakistani territory in Kashmir. The northernmost point of this proposed border, named NJ9842, is located in a remote area of the Saltoro Mountains, right below the 700$^2$ m Siachen Glacier. The border was not defined above this point, because the UN, who brokered the Simla Agreement, assumed nobody would care for this barren and inhospitable territory. It turns out this was not the case, and in 1984 India launched a military operation to recapture the range. The resulting feuding continued until a 2003 cease-fire, took upwards of one thousand lives, and set the record for the highest-altitude battlefield in history (with some fighting happening as high as 6,749 m above sea level).
Even before the 1984 confrontation, tensions were especially high on account of both India and Pakistan sending mountaineering expeditions to peaks within the Siachen Glacier. The act of using mountaineering to push political agendas is known as 'oropolitics'.
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