Ashish Singh
ON April 22, 2025, the illusion of calm in Kashmir was shattered. Armed militants attacked a group of Indian and foreign tourists near Pahalgam, killing 26 and wounding many more. Eyewitness accounts suggest the attackers asked the religion of the victims before executing them—a chilling echo of communal targeting that has dominated the discourse ever since. The Resistance Front, a known proxy of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility, calling it a “message” to the Indian state. But the attack was more than an act of terror—it was a trigger. And with it, the subcontinent has entered an unmistakable spiral toward war.
India responded within hours. Blame was swift and direct: Pakistan, accused of once again using terrorism as a strategic tool. New Delhi expelled senior Pakistani diplomats, suspended all backchannel negotiations, and placed its military on operational alert across forward positions in Kashmir and Punjab. But the most consequential decision came later that day—India formally suspended the Indus Waters Treaty. The historic 1960 agreement, long seen as a rare pillar of cooperation, was cast aside as a relic unworthy of trust. For South Block, this was no longer about isolated violence. It was about ending a decades-long tolerance of Pakistan’s duplicity.
Islamabad, unsurprisingly, rejected the accusations and denounced the suspension of the water treaty as “environmental warfare.” But the response was notably different this time—not defensive, but provocative. Pakistan’s army chief made a televised address, declaring that “any aggression will be met with full force.” In the days that followed, both countries moved troops to forward posts, redeployed air assets, and began public evacuation plans along sensitive zones. The pattern is unmistakable: the rhetoric is warlike because war is now closer than diplomacy.
Unlike past flare-ups—be it after Kargil, Mumbai, or Balakot—there are no natural off-ramps this time. The region’s political weather has changed. India, under a government that has spent years building a muscular national security posture, has no domestic room to de-escalate. The media is unified in its demand for a “decisive blow.” Public anger is beyond containment. Opposition leaders are also rallying behind calls for retaliation. This is not just about vengeance; it’s about asserting control over the national narrative.
In Pakistan, the state is fractured but militarized. With civilian leadership sidelined, economic collapse worsening, and IMF conditions tightening their grip, the military has once again taken center stage. For Rawalpindi, confrontation is both strategy and necessity—a way to rally nationalism, mute dissent, and deflect attention from a crumbling economy. Kashmir, once a diplomatic liability, is now being invoked as the core of national identity. War talk isn’t just tolerated—it is institutionalized.
Religion, too, looms large over this confrontation. The Pahalgam attack’s targeting of victims based on faith has fueled communal tensions in India, where political narratives are often infused with religious overtones. In Pakistan, Kashmir is framed as a religious obligation—an unfinished chapter of Partition. Internationally, the attackers’ invocation of jihadist rhetoric has further complicated the optics, making it harder for global actors to ignore the sectarian dimension of the violence. The religious framing of the conflict adds a combustible layer to an already volatile geopolitical faultline.
The global response to the spiraling India-Pakistan standoff has been hesitant, fragmented, and ultimately inadequate. The United States, traditionally a stabilizing force in South Asian crises, finds its diplomatic bandwidth overstretched. With its foreign policy fixated on managing strategic competition with China and sustaining support for Ukraine in its ongoing war against Russia, Washington has issued routine calls for restraint but has not initiated any robust mediation effort. Its deepening strategic partnership with India—reflected in defense agreements, intelligence sharing, and its central role in the Quad—has also limited its neutrality. While it maintains a functional relationship with Pakistan, especially on counterterrorism and regional stability, its influence over Islamabad has sharply diminished.
China’s posture has remained characteristically opaque but subtly assertive. As Pakistan’s chief economic patron and political ally, Beijing continues to back Islamabad in global forums, even if unofficially. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative, passes through disputed territory, making Beijing a stakeholder in the broader Kashmir issue. Although it has stopped short of directly provoking India, China has shown no interest in diffusing the crisis either. In fact, its strategic calculus benefits from prolonged instability between its two regional rivals, keeping India distracted along its western front.
Russia occupies a particularly complex position. As the war in Ukraine grinds into its third year, Moscow has been forced into deeper engagement with non-Western allies, including both India and Pakistan. India remains one of Russia’s largest arms buyers and a key diplomatic partner at forums like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). However, Pakistan has quietly expanded its ties with Moscow through energy cooperation, grain imports, and limited military exercises. With Russia now trying to hedge its bets, it is no longer the unambiguous ally New Delhi once relied upon during crises. Yet paradoxically, this dual access may place Russia in a unique position to broker behind-the-scenes de-escalation—if it chooses to act before the situation crosses the threshold of control.
Europe’s role has been largely peripheral. While France continues to deepen its defense ties with India—particularly through Rafale deals and joint counterterrorism initiatives—most European powers are consumed by internal challenges and the fallout from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The UK, though historically tied to the subcontinent, has had little influence over either capital in recent years, and the EU lacks the unified diplomatic heft to intervene meaningfully. The United Nations has, once again, proven ineffective—unable to move beyond generalized statements due to geopolitical gridlock in the Security Council.
Turkey and Iran, while vocal in their support for Pakistan, remain constrained by their own regional entanglements. Their posturing is more ideological than strategic. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), as expected, condemned India’s response to the Pahalgam attack, but its statements hold little practical consequence in altering the trajectory of escalation. Meanwhile, Gulf countries—deeply invested in both India’s economy and Pakistan’s labor market—have issued only muted responses, wary of alienating either side.
In an increasingly multipolar and fractured world order, where major powers are distracted, overcommitted, or unwilling to choose sides, the India-Pakistan conflict risks becoming the next global failure of preventive diplomacy. Unlike the Cold War era, when superpower pressure often pulled South Asia back from the brink, today’s diffuse power centers offer no coherent restraint. The mechanisms for crisis management are either eroded or paralyzed, and without urgent, coordinated action, the world may sleepwalk into a war it cannot afford to ignore.
The risk is no longer hypothetical. This is no longer a situation of “if” but “when.” Both countries are in pre-war posture. Borders are hardened. Air spaces are surveilled. Strike capabilities are loaded and within range. The nuclear question, long the psychological deterrent to open conflict, is now losing its edge. With India’s no-first-use doctrine under review and Pakistan’s first-use ambiguity intact, the spectre of a limited nuclear exchange no longer belongs to the realm of fiction.
Worse, the economic and humanitarian consequences of even a short war would be catastrophic. Energy routes across the Arabian Sea would be disrupted. Refugee flows would swamp fragile borders in Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Armed groups—dormant or suppressed—could find fresh legitimacy in chaos. And in the haze of war, democratic values in both nations would face their sharpest decline in decades.
The failure to prevent this war will not lie only with Delhi or Islamabad—it will rest equally with global powers who treated this decades-long crisis as a manageable rivalry. It is not. It never was. Pahalgam has shown that the idea of “managed hostility” is over. South Asia is no longer sitting on a fault line—it is now living through its rupture.
Many say, There are no brakes left. Only a countdown.
C. Counter Currents
