{"id":39452,"date":"2025-05-11T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39452"},"modified":"2025-05-12T06:52:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T06:52:40","slug":"india-pakistan-ceasefire-shouldnt-disguise-fact-that-norms-have-changed-in-south-asia-making-future-de-escalation-much-harder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/india-pakistan-ceasefire-shouldnt-disguise-fact-that-norms-have-changed-in-south-asia-making-future-de-escalation-much-harder\/","title":{"rendered":"India-Pakistan ceasefire shouldn\u2019t disguise fact that norms have changed in South Asia, making future de-escalation much harder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Farah N. Jan<\/a>, University of Pennsylvania<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

India and Pakistan have seen the scenario play out before: a terror attack in which Indians are killed leads to a succession of escalatory tit-fot-tat measures that put South Asia on the brink of all-out war. And then there is a de-escalation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The broad contours of that pattern have played out in the most recent crisis, with the latest step being the announcement of a ceasefire<\/a> on May 10, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in another important way, the flare-up \u2013 which began on April 22 with a deadly attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed \u2013 represents significant departures from the past. It involved direct missile exchanges targeting sites inside both territories and the use of advanced missile systems and drones<\/a> by the two nuclear rivals for the first time<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a scholar of nuclear rivalries<\/a>, especially between India and Pakistan, I have long been concerned that the erosion of international sovereignty norms<\/a>, diminished U.S. interest and influence<\/a> in the region and the stockpiling of advanced military<\/a> and digital technologies<\/a> have significantly raised the risk of rapid and uncontrolled escalation in the event of a trigger in South Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These changes have coincided with domestic political shifts in both countries. The pro-Hindu nationalism<\/a> of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government has heightened communal tensions in the country. Meanwhile Pakistan\u2019s powerful army chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, has embraced the \u201ctwo-nation theory<\/a>,\u201d which holds that Pakistan is a homeland for the subcontinent\u2019s Muslims and India for Hindus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Newspapers with front page articles on the India-Pakistan conflict are displayed on May 8, 2025. Narinder Nanu\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This religious framing was even seen in the naming of the two countries\u2019 military operations. For India, it is \u201cOperation Sindoor<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a reference to the red vermilion used by married Hindu women, and a provocative nod to the widows of the Kashmir attack. Pakistan called its counter-operation \u201cBunyan-un-Marsoos<\/a>\u201d \u2013 an Arabic phrase from the Quran meaning \u201ca solid structure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role of Washington<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The India-Pakistan rivalry has cost tens of thousands of lives across multiple wars<\/a> in 1947-48, 1965 and 1971. But since the late 1990s, whenever India and Pakistan approached the brink of war, a familiar de-escalation playbook unfolded: intense diplomacy, often led by the United States, would help defuse tensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, President Bill Clinton\u2019s direct mediation<\/a> ended the Kargil conflict \u2013 a limited war triggered by Pakistani forces crossing the Line of Control into Indian-administered Kashmir \u2013 by pressing Pakistan for a withdrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, after the 2001 attack inside the Indian Parliament by terrorists allegedly linked to Pakistan-based groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage engaged in intense shuttle diplomacy<\/a> between Islamabad and New Delhi, averting war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after the 2008 Mumbai attacks<\/a>, which saw 166 people killed by terrorists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, rapid and high-level American diplomatic involvement helped restrain India\u2019s response and reduced the risk of an escalating conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As recently as 2019, during the Balakot crisis<\/a> \u2013 which followed a suicide bombing in Pulwama, Kashmir, that killed 40 Indian security personnel \u2013 it was American diplomatic pressure that helped contain hostilities. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later wrote in his memoirs<\/a>, \u201cI do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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