This India-Pakistan showdown is dangerously different

IN THE DAYS since India launched an aerial strike on Pakistan—avenging a terrorist assault in Kashmir—each side has accused the other of conducting fresh military attacks. Fighting between the two countries is at its most intense for 25 years—and this crisis looks very different from the ones that have come before. This time the two sides are using sophisticated imported weaponry, including armed drones. They are hitting targets not just in Kashmir, but also in major cities outside it. All this is pushing the two powers into a dangerous cycle of escalation. The risk of a nuclear stand-off is going up.

India says that on the night of May 8th-9th some 300-400 Pakistani drones entered its airspace, both testing air defences and targeting military sites. It says Pakistan has continued firing artillery across the disputed border that divides Kashmir. It says that in response it has sent armed drones to attack air-defence installations in Pakistan. Pakistan, for its part, has denied mounting any offensive actions. It says India has killed civilians by firing artillery across the “Line of Control” that divides Kashmir and it claims to have shot down 77 Indian drones. Pakistan has accused India of pushing the two countries to the brink of a full-scale war.

If crises between India and Pakistan seem sadly familiar to the outside world, this one is entering precarious new territory. The two sides have broken away from the pattern they roughly followed during their two previous standoffs, which were both triggered by terrorist attacks in Kashmir. In 2016, when India sent special forces a short distance into Pakistani-administered Kashmir, Pakistan said nothing had happened and did not retaliate. In 2019, the two sides conducted quick tit-for-tat air strikes of limited impact. This time India has established a new precedent by retaliating for Pakistan’s alleged counter-strikes (as well as for the original terrorist attack).

India looks determined to establish “escalation dominance”—in other words, to show Pakistan that it has the ability and intent to respond to any further attack with a more damaging one. That makes it harder for Pakistan to find an off-ramp similar to the token air strike it carried out in 2019: an attack that would satisfy domestic audiences without triggering further Indian action. In a worst-case scenario, it could also lead Pakistan—the weaker power with more vulnerable territory—to resort to nuclear signalling, as it did during a crisis in 1990 and in the 1999 conflict, which came a year after the two sides openly tested their nuclear weapons.

The battlefield is wider than it has been in five decades. In 2019 India’s air strikes targeted the part of Kashmir that Pakistan controls and some sites just inside Pakistan proper. This time its initial air raid hit targets deep within Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, as well as its most politically and economically important one. Both sides appear to be targeting areas outside Kashmir for the first time since their last full-scale war in 1971. Even the 1999 conflict was confined to a relatively small part of the Line of Control.

“It looks like we are in a classic escalatory situation—each side wants to show that it can up the ante and demonstrate resolve,” says Srinath Raghavan of India’s Ashoka University. “If we don’t want to give an exit to the other side and are determined to demonstrate escalation dominance, then things could go awry pretty quickly.” He adds that this crisis, like previous wars between the two sides, might need significant foreign involvement to bring it to an end.

But it is unclear which foreign power can play a mediating role. China is too close to Pakistan. Britain and the European Union have limited influence in South Asia. And Donald Trump, while expressing hope that the fighting ends soon, seems not to want to get involved. America’s vice president, J.D. Vance, urged India and Pakistan on May 8th to de-escalate tensions but suggested that it was not his country’s responsibility. “We’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it,” he said.

The confrontation is made all the more dangerous by the advanced weaponry involved. India has deployed its newest Rafale fighter jets (from France), Harop “kamikaze” drones (from Israel) and a state-of-the-art S-400 air defence system (from Russia). Pakistan has long had American F-16 fighters but is now fielding new Chinese J-10C fighters equipped with PL-15 long-range air-to-air missiles, which it claims shot down some of India’s Rafales. It also has aerial attack drones from China and Turkey. (India says it suspects that the drones used on the evening of May 8th are Asisguard Songar drones from Turkey.)

Armed drones, in particular, create a new dynamic. They allow each side to conduct attacks that are more alarming and impactful than artillery fire, but not as drastic as missile or air strikes. In theory, they can reduce the risk of unintended civilian casualties. But they also allow each side to attempt bolder attacks, including on residential areas. And they confuse the escalatory calculus, often coming in waves rather than big discrete attacks, which makes it harder for each side to assess when a strike has stopped or started and who has the upper hand.

Moreover, the information environment has changed since the countries’ last major military standoff. AI-generation of images has made disinformation much easier to create and share. AI tools are making it easier to quickly censor large amounts of information online, too. Misreporting by Indian media was rampant on the night of May 8th: some outlets falsely claimed that there had been a coup in Pakistan; that Indian forces had captured its capital; and that the Indian navy had attacked the port of Karachi. Karachi port later accused India of hacking its social-media account to publish messages falsely saying it had been damaged by an Indian strike.

There are some encouraging signs. The two sides appear to have established a new channel of communication between their national security advisers, although for now that may be taking place only through an intermediary. They have apparently not yet started using ground-to-ground missiles, which would be a dangerous move as many of those can carry nuclear as well as conventional warheads. Nor has either side resorted to nuclear threats. But the world should be on high alert for any of those signals in the coming days. ■