Just how bad can the India-Pakistan crisis get?

The most likely outcome is that the latest deadly flare-up between India and Pakistan will end relatively soon: In the little over 25 years that the two countries have possessed nuclear weapons, both have become very good at engaging in tense and violent confrontations without them escalating to threaten the entire planet. When he announced the cross-border missile strikes that began what India is calling “Operation Sindoor,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri described his country’s actions as “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible.” Neither side has yet sent ground troops into the other’s territory, which would be the clearest sign yet of a wider war. On Wednesday, India launched missile attacks into Pakistan in response to a brutal massacre of tourists in April by militants that the Indian government alleges have links to the Pakistani state. Since then, the two countries have been trading artillery and drone strikes across the border, with around four dozen deaths reported so far. All the same, in its scale and intensity, and without an obvious off-ramp for the combatants, some analysts are describing the current conflict as the most dangerous episode of violence between India and Pakistan since the Kargil War of 1999, in which hundreds of troops were killed on both sides. Just because the two sides don’t want the crisis to escalate doesn’t mean it won’t anyway. The road to war Since majority-Hindu India and majority-Muslim Pakistan were partitioned in 1947, they have fought four major wars and a number of smaller skirmishes. The primary source of tension between the two has been the disputed region of Kashmir, which since 1972 has been divided by an unofficial border known as the Line of Control. Even in peaceful times, alleged violations of the line and cross-border firing have been relatively common. India also accuses Pakistan of sponsoring a long-running Islamist insurgency in the parts of Kashmir it controls — which Pakistan denies, although it does openly support autonomy for the region. The stakes of the conflict were raised by the introduction of nuclear weapons, which India first tested in 1974 and Pakistan acquired in 1998. The year after Pakistan got its nukes, the Kargil War began when Pakistani fighters covertly crossed the Line of Control and took up positions in Indian-administered Kashmir. The war, which lasted around two months, is often held up as the primary counterexample to the idea of “nuclear peace” — the concept that nuclear weapons make war less likely because of the risk of escalation. Pakistan and India demonstrated that two nuclear powers can fight a war, albeit a short and relatively limited one, using only conventional weapons. Some political scientists have used India and Pakistan’s case to demonstrate what’s known as the “stability-instability paradox”: The introduction of nuclear weapons makes large-scale war less likely, but small-scale violence more likely, because each side assumes the other will not want to escalate. There have been a number of additional flare-ups in the years that followed, and they’ve been getting gradually more intense and dangerous with each new episode. “You can see the quantitative, qualitative, sort of growth in the Indian response to Pakistan in the last 24 years,” said Happymon Jacob, an Indian security analyst and the editor of India’s World magazine. In 2001, after terrorists attacked the Indian parliament, the Indian government accused Pakistan’s intelligence services of being involved in the attacks, and both countries amassed nearly 1 million troops on the border, but ultimately did not go to war. Similarly, in 2008, after terrorist attacks in Mumbai killed nearly 200 people, India again refrained from direct strikes against Pakistan. In 2016, after 19 Indian troops were killed by militants in an attack on a base in Kashmir, India responded with “surgical strikes” at militant camps across the Line of Control. Then in 2019, after 40 Indian police were killed in a suicide bombing, India carried out airstrikes against militant targets on Pakistani territory. Pakistan responded with strikes of its own on the Indian side of the line, which led to an air battle and downing of an Indian fighter jet. Since then, the conflict has been relatively quiet, even as clashes between India and its other nuclear-armed neighbor, China, have been more intense. That all changed last month. The current crisis began on April 22, when gunmen killed 26 people in Pahalgam, a popular tourist resort in Indian-administered Kashmir, appearing to specifically target Hindu men. A militant group called the Resistance Front has claimed responsibility, but India says the group is an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that carried out the Mumbai attacks and which has alleged links to Pakistani security services. The Pakistani government denies any links to the attacks and the Indian government has not presented any direct evidence of their involvement, but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to “raze whatever is left of the terror haven,” referring to terrorist camps in Pakistan. After weeks of rising tensions, including cross-border fire, the expulsion of diplomats, and India’s withdrawal from a key water-sharing treaty, the military conflict began in earnest on Wednesday when India fired missiles into Pakistan, targeting nine sites “where terrorist attacks against India have been planned,” according to the Indian defense ministry. At least 31 people, including women and children, were killed, and two mosques were hit, according to Pakistani authorities. Pakistan has responded with drone and missile strikes of its own against Indian military targets. The attacks and counterattacks have been ongoing. Pakistan also appears to have downed a number of Indian aircraft, though the exact number is unclear and both sides are accusing the other of spreading misinformation. Searching for the exit For the moment, there isn’t an obvious “off-ramp,” which would allow the two sides to defuse tensions. For instance, in 2019, Pakistan’s release of a captured Indian pilot helped deescalate the crisis. Srujan Palkar of the Atlantic Council has written that a renegotiation of the water treaty that India has suspended could provide an opportunity for dialogue. (Pakistan relies on the Indus River system, which passes through India, for much of its agriculture and economic activity. Amid the growing crisis, Indian officials have threatened to withhold that water.) "“The United States has always been the default crisis broker between India and Pakistan, but it is becoming more awkward for Washington to play that role.”" - Joshua White, former director of South Asian affairs on the Obama administration’s National Security Council The brutality of the Pahalgam massacre touted with the fact that Modi’s government had been touting Kashmir as a safe and pacified tourist destination made a strong Indian military response almost inevitable, and one need only look at the examples of September 11 or October 7 to see how the anger provoked by a deadly terrorist attack can lead a country into a long-term war. Nationalist fervor is running high in both countries, but ironically, Foreign Policy magazine editor Ravi Agrawal suggests that the sheer amount of misinformation circling around the conflict could help defuse it by making it easier for both sides to claim victory. For the moment, the two sides don’t appear to have much interest in talking. America’s role in the crisis is also something of a question mark. US diplomacy has played a critical role in resolving India-Pakistan crises in the past, including in 1999 and 2019, but Joshua White, former director of South Asian affairs on the Obama administration’s National Security Council, said America’s leverage is not what it once was. While the Indian government has been growing ever closer to Washington, thanks to their mutual distrust of China, the US-Pakistan relationship has deteriorated since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio has been in touch with the governments of both countries. President Donald Trump has declared the fighting a “shame” and said, “They’ve gone tit for tat, so hopefully they can stop now,” and added, “If I can do anything to help, I will be there.” Vice President JD Vance was more equivocal, saying that while the US would encourage both sides to deescalate, “we’re not going to get involved in the middle of war that’s fundamentally none of our business.” In contrast to other recent crises, such as 2016 and 2019, the US has not criticized India’s strikes on Pakistan. “The United States has always been the default crisis broker between India and Pakistan, but it is becoming more awkward for Washington to play that role because of the thinner, more tenuous, and more conflictual relationship that it has developed with Pakistan in recent years,” White said. Will the crisis go nuclear? India’s defense ministry claims it demonstrated restraint by striking against alleged militant targets rather than Pakistan’s military in its initial strikes, but the situation has already escalated. Pakistan’s retaliation did target the Indian military (there aren’t non-state “militants” to attack on the Indian side, so this was basically inevitable) and India has not targeted Pakistan’s air defense systems. It’s not hard to imagine scenarios that could cause this conflict to escalate. A missile strike could — intentionally or inadvertently — cause a large number of military or civilian casualties, prompting an even larger retaliation. Indian authorities have claimed that the purpose of their strikes is to deter terrorist attacks, not to seize territory, but if they sent troops over the Line of Control into Pakistani-administered Kashmir, leaders in Pakistan might still interpret it as an invasion. Given the potentially global consequences of a worst-case scenario, these are risks people everywhere are forced to take seriously. India and Pakistan have around 180 and 170 nuclear warheads, respectively. Pakistan, crucially, does not have a “no first use” policy around these weapons, meaning it does not rule out using nuclear force to deter a conventional attack. It has also introduced low-yield “tactical” weapons into its arsenal specifically for battlefield use to counter India’s conventional military superiority. India does have a declared no-first-use policy, though some officials’ recent statements have cast doubt on it. In the current crisis, Pakistan’s defense minister has said they would only consider using their nukes if “there is a direct threat to our existence.” That sort of threat is in the eye of the beholder, but we’re still likely a long way from it, particularly given the alleged losses India’s air force has already sustained. But, said White, the former National Security Council staffer, “so long as we continue to see back and forth missile strikes, the nuclear question is not off the table.” Beyond this immediate crisis, India’s increasing willingness to use conventional military force against Pakistan — with greater and greater intensity — to respond to terrorist attacks on its territory, suggests that the fear of nuclear escalation may not be as powerful a deterrent as it once was. So far, these two long-time belligerents have demonstrated an ability to keep these conflicts limited. The main victims, as always, will be the people of Kashmir, subject to both war and increasingly dire human rights conditions. But with each new crisis, they also seem increasingly willing to push the envelope.

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Just how bad can the India-Pakistan crisis get?