Here’s Why the Next Clash Between India and Pakistan Could Be Even More Dangerous

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE / OPINION — The initial phases of the India-Pakistan conflict in May followed a familiar incremental escalatory path. But in the final phase, the Indian use of BrahMos and other missiles against multiple Pakistani air bases represented a massive change of approach. In an ongoing rivalry where the final action of the previous conflict becomes the baseline for the next clash, this carries significant risk for the future.

Rarely has it been so difficult to discover what happened than with the latest India-Pakistan clash. The perceived need to deliver a positive narrative to each population, deliberate campaigns of disinformation and the requirements of operational security have cast a thick fog over the events which began with the terrorist attack at Pahalgam on 22nd April and ended with the ceasefire on 10th May.

The picture is still not crystal clear but enough is now known to analyse what happened and assess the implications for the future. What emerges is deeply worrying and it edges the subcontinent several steps closer to an ever more dangerous conflict, one in which the use of nuclear weapons could be contemplated.

There were four distinct phases.

Phase One. The attack on Pahalgam was another appalling act of terrorism against innocent tourists reminiscent in nature (if not in scale) of the 7th October Hamas-inspired atrocities in Israel. The group which claimed responsibility, The Resistance Front (TRF), has been linked to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) which (along with Jaish-ul-Mohammed - JuM) has long been associated with Pakistan. LeT is based in Muridke near Lahore and JuM’s main centre is at Bahawalpur. Pakistan has repeatedly been accused of being the sponsor of both groups and has (at least twice) promised the United States that both groups would be dismantled.

The Pahalgam attack was almost certainly conceived as a direct response to the attack by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) on the Jaffar Express train between Quetta and Peshawar on 11th March which involved 400 passengers. The Pakistani army is convinced that India provides covert support to the BLA (and the Pakistan Taliban - TTP) in their bases inside Afghanistan. Pakistan could not, of course, make the connection between the two events because such a claim would imply complicity in the Pahalgam attack.

Certainly it would be extremely difficult for LeT and JuM (both based in Pakistan’s Punjab) to cross the Line of Control (LoC) between Pakistan and Indian Administered Kashmir (PAK and IAK respectively) without Pakistani army knowledge. Indeed Pakistan’s ability to control militant crossings of the LoC in Kashmir was graphically demonstrated in 2004 when the government decided to stop them after the two assassination attempts against President Musharraf in December 2003. Since then the level of insurgency-related fatalities in IAK has dropped off a cliff from 4,011 in 2001 to 84 in 2025.

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Phase Two. India’s response followed a playbook which has been developed along cautious but incremental lines since the terrorist attack on Uri in 2016. Nineteen Indian soldiers were killed by JuM terrorists at Uri and Prime Minister Modi responded with what he described as “surgical strikes” in PAK. In truth these were underwhelming attacks against suspected terrorist launching sites. Three years later, at Pulwama in 2019, JuM struck again killing 40 police reservists. This time Modi’s response was not confined to PAK but to Pakistan itself. Indian jets bombed an alleged terrorist camp on a hilltop near Balakot barely 5 miles inside Pakistan. In a brief subsequent conflict Pakistan shot down an Indian aircraft and returned the uninjured pilot to India.

After the Pahalgam attack it was evident that Modi would again escalate his cautious but incremental approach. An article for The Cipher Brief predicted that he would attack Muridke and that he would seek to avoid killing too many civilians and would stress that the attack was against terrorism and not Pakistan itself. On 7th May the attack was launched against nine terrorist-related targets.

It is unfortunate that his commendable caution led to disastrous results for Modi. By failing to destroy Pakistan’s radar sites and air defences the attacking aircraft were all too easily visible to Chinese sensors and Pakistan’s Aerial Early Warning (AEW) aircraft. Pakistan too had predicted that India would attack Muridke and Bahalwalpur. The result was the loss of up to 5 Indian aircraft including one of its cherished new Dassault Rafales. Although India had successfully bombed key sites in Pakistan and avoided extensive civilian casualties, the self-imposed restrictions on the operation gifted Pakistan (and China) a propaganda victory with much talk about the performance of the jointly built J-10C aircraft and the Chinese PL-15 missile.

Phase Three. In deciding how to respond, Pakistan was left with a quandary. The public required a retaliation but there were no obvious sites to strike. There are no known terrorist training sites in India. So, in trying to avoid civilian casualties, Pakistan decided to hit Indian air force bases. To avoid losing aircraft, Pakistan, aware that India’s new S-400 air defence system had been installed, made extensive use of drones. The 8th and 9th May saw a rather chaotic drone war between the two sides accompanied by claims and counterclaims.

Phase Four. The decision by India to launch cruise missiles at eleven key Pakistani air bases during the night of 9th/10thth May represented an enormous step-change compared to what had gone before. The Indian Air Force Chief has recently suggested that there were no political restrictions imposed but the choice of air force bases was doubtless founded on the same logic which Pakistan had used 48 hours earlier; low risk of civilian casualties and the chance of hitting valuable aircraft and facilities. This time India took out key air defence sites. The strikes were completely successful in sending a political message to Pakistan and reasonably successful in terms of damage inflicted. NDTV has since provided some satellite analysis of the attacks.

The attack took Pakistan by complete surprise because the traditional game of cat and mouse had been abandoned in favour of a prodigious statement of Indian intent, probably caused by India’s irritation and embarrassment at losing aircraft during phase two, thanks to self-imposed limitations on the rules of engagement.

A shocked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was woken by a call from the army Chief General Asim Munir at 2:30 in the morning and there was nothing to do other than agree to a ceasefire suggested by Washington. By promoting Munir to Field Marshal and declaring the 4 days of conflict a success, Sharif put the best gloss on events. China and Pakistan trumpeted the performance of their weapons and, by nominating President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, Pakistan turned military calamity into diplomatic success and was rewarded with a lunch at the White House for the new field marshal.

India, as so often, was caught flat-footed diplomatically. A delegation sent to London to focus on Pakistan’s continuing links to terrorism was outperformed by a younger and better briefed Pakistani team led by former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari which received more airtime on TV. New Delhi was also very slow to release details of the successful missile strikes until General Chauhan, India’s Defence Chief, after some missteps talking about losses, revealed the full extent of the successful events of 10th May. India has a lot to learn from Pakistan’s slick Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).

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Conclusion

For all Pakistan’s public relations and military successes there can be little doubt that India’s massive attack on 10th May has redrawn the nature of conflict on the Subcontinent. Delicate, finely-calculated and incremental moves have been replaced by a substantial Indian statement of dominance which showed the vulnerability of Pakistan as a long thin country in which everything is within easy range of India (compared to Pakistan facing the vastness of India).

India’s suspension of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty until Pakistan completely abandons the use of terrorism was another weighty decision. That the treaty has survived for 65 years is testament to its importance and effectiveness. Pakistan is so dependent on Indus waters that some Pakistani observers see the Indian move as a casus belli in its own right.

In its inevitable and urgent review of its defensive architecture, it is likely that Pakistan will review its nuclear doctrine. And recalling the night of 9th/10th May and the matter of seconds Pakistan had to decide whether any of India’s air-launched missiles might have been nuclear-armed, there is an equal inevitability that Islamabad will explore autonomous response mechanisms driven by Artificial Intelligence. If the 10th May now becomes the template for Day One of the next conflict the world will have good reason to worry.

One very practical measure which the international community should propose is the reestablishment of the high-level political backchannel which played such a crucial role in ending the Pulwama/Balakot episode in 2019. The military back-channel (operated by the two DGMOs-Directors General of Military Operations) is no substitute.