EXPERT INTERVIEW – One week after a deadly terror attack, India and Pakistan stand at the precipice of military conflict, and as one scholar and editor noted Tuesday, “the risks of escalation…are higher than ever.”
The catalyst for the crisis is last week’s attack in the long disputed territory of Kashmir, in which gunmen opened fire on a group of tourists in Pahalgam, in the part of Kashmir that is controlled by India. 26 people were killed. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed militants based in Pakistan for the attack, and on Tuesday, Modi said he had given his military “complete operational freedom” to respond.
For its part, Pakistan has denied any involvement, and noted that India has shown no evidence that the killers had any ties to groups inside Pakistan. Nevertheless, senior Pakistani officials said Wednesday that they believe an attack from India is imminent.
The two countries have been to the brink of major conflict before – most recently in 2019, when an attack claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group killed more than 40 Indian security forces in Pulwama, and India carried out an air strike inside Pakistani territory. Exchanges of fire followed, but ultimately that crisis ended without major escalation.
Among the many concerns now, one is paramount: if there is an Indian military strike – and most observers believe one is coming – will the two countries be able to manage an extremely dangerous “escalatory ladder” of attacks and counterattacks.
On Wednesday, Cipher Brief expert Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a former British Foreign Service official with extensive experience in South Asia, called the current situation “extremely dangerous” – more so than during the 2019 showdown.
“I really do hope I'm wrong,” he said, but he noted that Modi “takes a much, much harder line on Pakistan” than his predecessors. “And the other thing is that the Indian press is baying for retaliation. So I think he would find it very, very hard to resist.”
Willasey-Wilsey spoke on Wednesday with Cipher Brief Managing Editor, Tom Nagorski. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
THE CONTEXT
- Gunmen near Pahalgam in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir opened fire on tourists on April 22, killing 26 people. The militant group “Kashmir Resistance” claimed responsibility for the attack. It is the deadliest such attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the incident a “terror attack” and vowed that “those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice.” Indian police said two of the four suspected attackers are Pakistani citizens.
- India has since imposed a series of punitive measures against Pakistan, including temporarily suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, a water-sharing agreement, downgrading diplomatic relations, and canceling regional visa exemptions for Pakistani nationals.
- Pakistan has denied involvement in the attack. It has responded to the Indian measures by suspending all cross-border transit and trade with India; ordering all Indian military advisors to leave Pakistan; and closing Pakistani airspace to Indian airlines. Pakistan has also temporarily suspended the 1972 Simla Agreement — a peace accord that established the “Line of Control” in Kashmir — and warned that any Indian restriction of water flows to Pakistan would be an “act of war.”
- Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar said late Tuesday that his government had “credible intelligence” that India would launch a military strike in response to the Kashmir attack in the next 24-36 hours. Tarar said New Delhi intends to use the attack as a “false pretext” for a strike and that “any such military adventurism by India would be responded to assuredly and decisively.”
- In 2019, the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Kashmir that killed 46 Indian security forces. India responded with an air strike on Balakot, Pakistan targeting an alleged training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed. After the strike, Pakistan downed an Indian warplane and took its pilot prisoner. The pilot was later returned. It was the first time since the India-Pakistan war of 1971, and since both states became nuclear powers that either side’s warplanes had crossed the Line of Control.
- India became a nuclear power in 1974, and Pakistan followed suit in 1998; India maintains a declared no-first-use nuclear policy, but Pakistan has said it reserves the right of first use in response to conventional threats if its nation’s existence is threatened.
The Cipher Brief: These two nations have gone to the brink and sometimes a little bit past the brink in prior episodes. How dangerous do you think this moment is?
Willasey-Wilsey: I think this is extremely dangerous. The risks of escalation are there. I think what we need to look back to is that very crucial last instance of this nature in 2019, when the Jaish-e-Mohammed, another terrorist group, mounted an attack in Indian-held Kashmir and killed 40 paramilitary soldiers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India decided that retaliation was required and initiated an aerial attack on a place called Balakot. This was believed to be a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training site on the top of a mountain, but the importance of it is that it was not in Pakistan-held Kashmir — it was in Pakistan itself.
What Modi was essentially saying was, if you do this stuff, we are going to attack Pakistan. We're not going to do the attack in Kashmir, where there has been a conflict raging ever since 1947. We're going to make the attack inside Pakistan. So he laid that down as a marker.
I think what we can really expect on this occasion is that there will be a retaliation and it will be inside Pakistan. It won't be in Kashmir.
What went wrong in 2019 from the Indian point of view is that an Indian aircraft was shot down and an Indian pilot was captured. That enabled Pakistan to leverage the situation in their favor. And in fact, Pakistan came out looking really quite good because it treated the pilot extremely well. It arranged for his immediate release. It sort of ended 50-50, I think, much to the irritation of the Indian side. So I think Modi is going to be very careful this time that no one gets captured. And it seems to me that rules out aviation crossing into Pakistan, and it probably rules out special forces or armed or land forces crossing into Pakistan. So I think there's a pretty good chance that what we'll look at is actually a missile strike.
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The Cipher Brief: What would the targets be? Do you think India would restrict any attacks to places where some of these groups allegedly operate?
Willasey-Wilsey: I think that's right. I'm not sure it is such a long list really, because if you look back to 2019, the Jaish-e-Mohammed, their base is in a big bustling Punjabi town called Bahawalpur. And you couldn't really attack Bahawalpur because of the risk of massive civilian casualties. So in the end, they chose a training camp which was on the top of a mountain. No one really knows how many people were killed. But it sort of laid down a marker.
In this case, the Indians are alleging that the group that carried out this attack, the Kashmir Resistance, are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is the other big Kashmiri terrorist group. They have a base inside Pakistan in a big bustling town called Muridke. They have a very large enclosure, roughly 200 acres, in Muridke, which could be a target. Lots of innocent civilian peoples live in Muridke as well; it would not be without very serious consequences if they did attack Muridke, but I imagine that's where Pakistan will be looking to defend.
There will be other targets as well, but I think Muridke would be right up there.
The Cipher Brief: Do you think it's not possible politically for Prime Minister Modi to not have a military response at this point? Do you take it as a fact right now that something like that is coming?
Willasey-Wilsey: I do. I hope I'm wrong. I really do hope I'm wrong. Firstly, Modi is a much more strident leader than his Congress Party predecessors. He takes a much, much harder line on Pakistan. Second, he set that precedent in 2019, which he will think worked because they got six years of relative peace in Kashmir as a result.
And the other thing is that the Indian press is baying for retaliation. So I think he would find it very, very hard to resist. I don't think he would want to resist.
He'll be careful. I think he'll be as careful as he can. But there is a danger that if we get large-scale casualties, that Pakistan then will be obliged to respond. And that's where the real danger in this lies. Not actually in the first strike. It's in the retaliation that the danger really lies.
The Cipher Brief: Officials in the military often use the phrase “escalatory ladder.” How concerned would you be about that escalation, once a back and forth begins?
Willasey-Wilsey: The escalation ladder is very tricky in that area because Pakistan has a first nuclear use policy. India has a second nuclear use policy. And Pakistan in 2019 took the line that for every missile you fire at us, we will fire three back. That's a pretty steep escalatory ladder.
The point at which Pakistan feels sufficiently threatened to use what would probably be a very low-yield nuclear weapon comes much sooner than one would like. Now that's not going to happen in this case unless things spiral way out of control, but the escalatory ladder is steep.
The Cipher Brief: The Trump administration has made clear that it intends to stay out of this. What role, if any, is there here for outsiders? Iran has offered to mediate. The Chinese, as they often do, have said they might play a role. Is there some hope for outside diplomacy? And if so, where might that help come from?
Willasey-Wilsey: In 2000, when there was a big terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, both the U.S. and UK played a very important role in deescalating. And in 2008, after the Mumbai hotel bombings, the United States played a role in deescalating. But on both occasions, the U.S. managed it by saying, leave it to us, we will make sure that Pakistan dismantles the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Now, the Lashkar-e-Taiba has not been dismantled. And so India's tolerance for the involvement of third parties is much less than one would hope.
I think there's an interesting point here, which is that since the 7th of October attack in Gaza, I think there is a tolerance amongst the international community that terrorist attacks are responded to with airstrikes and/or missile strikes. I think that also – and this is a worrying point – there's been a creeping acquiescence of civilian casualties as well. So in 2019, Modi was very careful to avoid civilian casualties. This time he might feel that he can be slightly less careful.
I think there's another important point in all of this, which has not been aired at all really – and this absolutely in no way justifies the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. But the Pakistan army is feeling under enormous threat in the province of Balochistan. There was an attack last month on a passenger train carrying 440 passengers, and that was a big hijacking. Thirty-three terrorists were killed. Apparently only 27 civilians were killed, but I think the real figure was probably much higher, probably including security forces. In February, 18 Pakistan soldiers were killed in an attack in Kalat. And only last week, 10 Pakistani soldiers were killed in the capital of Balochistan, Quetta.
There is a real belief in Pakistan that these attacks are promoted by India, albeit that the Baloch Liberation Army is operating from a rear base in Afghanistan. This is a conviction that the Pakistanis have. They have not produced the evidence. They claim to have the evidence of discussions between terrorists and their controllers, but they've not published it. So I think that Pakistan may have felt that it was time equal the register, to some extent.
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