India and Pakistan are in danger of a military conflict, with Pakistan and Pakistan standing on the verge of a standoff after 11 days when gunmen killed 26 people in the picturesque Baisaran valley in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The nuclear-armed neighbours have each announced a series of tit-for-tat steps against the other since the attack on April 22, which India has implicitly blamed Pakistan for, even as Islamabad has denied any role in the killings.
India has withdrawn from the Indus Waters Treaty, which establishes a water-sharing arrangement for Pakistan. A previous ceasefire line between them in Kashmir, a disputed region that they both claim in its entirety, was recognized as a Line of Control (LoC) by both countries in the 1972 Simla Agreement, which threatened to force Pakistan to withdraw from the agreement. Both nations have also expelled each other’s citizens and scaled back their diplomatic missions.
Despite a ceasefire agreement in place since 2021, the most recent upheaval follows a 40-person fatal attack on Indian soldiers in Pulwama, in Indian-administered Kashmir, that India launched air strikes on Pakistani soil in 2019. They have recently exchanged fire across the LoC.
And the region is now on edge, amid growing expectations that India might launch a military operation against Pakistan this time too.
However, both nations have also spoken with their counterparts diplomatically. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pleaded with S Jaishankar and Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, to find a de-escalation on Wednesday. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, on Thursday to condemn the attack and offered “strong support” to India.
Sharif met with China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, three of Pakistan’s allies, to ask for their assistance. He also urged the two Gulf countries’ ambassadors to “impress upon India to de-escalate and defuse tensions.”
Moeed Yusuf, a Pakistani national security adviser (NSA) under former prime minister Imran Khan, spoke with Al Jazeera to understand how Pakistani strategists who have worked on ties with India view what might come next.
Prior to his role as NSA, Yusuf also worked as a special adviser to Khan on matters related to national security starting in December 2019, four months after the Indian government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, revoked the special status of Indian-administered Kashmir.
Yusuf, who is based in Lahore, is currently the vice chancellor of a private university and the author of and editor of several books on regional security and South Asia. His most recent book, Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: US Crisis Management in South Asia, was published in 2018.
Al Jazeera: How would you rate the actions taken by both sides so far in the crisis?
Moeed Yusuf: Pakistan and India have long struggled with managing crises. They don’t have a bilateral crisis management mechanism, which is the fundamental concern.
Relying on third parties as the main crisis management tool has been used by both parties, with the intention of preventing both parties from escalating the situation and preventing it from escalation.
The issue that India has encountered this time is that they have followed the old rules, but that the United States’ leader hasn’t campaigned in its place.
It appears that they have so far taken a neutral and a hands-off position, as indicated by President Donald Trump few days ago. Trump claimed to be aware of the leaders of both India and Pakistan and that he believed they could resolve the conflict alone.
Both Pakistan and India have historically been at odds with one another, and that is how it has historically been. This time too, a number of punitive steps have been announced.
Even when things improve, and they may wish to do so, these are simple to set in motion but very difficult to reverse.
Unfortunately, in every situation where they are at odds with one another, the retaliatory measures are getting more and more significant, as India has decided to suspend the Indus Water Treaty, which is against the law because it doesn’t have any provisions in it.
Al Jazeera: Do you believe a strike is imminent and if both sides are indicating preparedness for a showdown?
Yusuf: It’s impossible to say in such a situation. India’s plan of action is still possible and plausible, but the time has come to consider imminent events.
What usually happens in crises is that countries pick up troop or logistics movements, or their allies inform them, or they rely on ground intelligence to determine what might happen. These can occasionally be misinterpreted, leading to misreading them for the offensive side to believe an attack might be coming when it isn’t, or for the defensive side to believe otherwise.
Pakistan must show unwavering commitment to take any chance. You don’t know what will come next, so you have to be ready.
Despite that, I don’t believe we will have a major war, but one misinterpretation or miscalculation can result in significant things.
Al Jazeera: How do you feel about the US, China, and the Gulf States’ involvement in this crisis, and how would you compare it to earlier ones?
Yusuf: My last book, Brokering Peace (2018) was on the third-party management in Pakistan-India context, and this is such a vital element for both as they have internalised and built it into their calculus that a third-party country will inevitably come in.
Instead of escalating further, the idea is that a third-party mediator will intervene and the two countries will agree to stop because that is what they really want.
Since the 1999 Kargil War, the United States has dominated the group of third-party nations. (Pakistani forces crossed the LoC to try to take control of strategic heights in Ladakh’s Kargil, but India eventually managed to take back the territory. Bill Clinton, then-US president, is credited with putting an end to that conflict.
Everyone else supports the US position, which places the need for immediate de-escalation above all else during the crisis, including China.
This changed somewhat in the 2016 surgical strikes and 2019 Pulwama crisis when the US leaned heavily on India’s side, perhaps unwittingly even emboldening them to act in 2019.
After 19 Indian soldiers were killed in an attack on an army base in Uri, Indian-administered Kashmir, Indian troops launched a cross-border “surgical strike” that New Delhi claimed targeted armed fighters planning to attack India. After the attack on the Indian military convoy that left 40 soldiers dead, Indian fighter jets bombed what New Delhi claimed were “terrorists”‘ bases in Balakot, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. India and Pakistan then engaged in an aerial dogfight, and an Indian pilot was captured and subsequently returned.)
However, this time, the White House has a president who turned around and instructed both Pakistan and India to figure it out for themselves.
Because of Pakistan, they had previously discounted the possibility of significant US support, believing they had become too close to India as a result of their strategic relationship, which I believe has hurt them more than Pakistan.
But India would have been hoping for the Americans to put their foot down and pressure Pakistan, which did not exactly materialise. The secretary of state Marco Rubio is being called once more to urge both countries to end their war.
What they have done has, oddly enough, still contributed to India’s situation so far, given that, until now, they didn’t feel as pressured to act as they might have during Pulwama in 2019.
Gulf countries have played a more active role than before. China has also made a restraint statement.
Al Jazeera: How has Pakistan’s relationship with India evolved in recent years?
Yusuf: The relationship between the two nations has undergone a radical change. Despite serious issues and India’s unilateral actions in Kashmir in 2019, we witnessed both back-channel negotiations and a ceasefire agreement.
We have tried to move ahead and reduce India’s incentive to destabilise Pakistan, but I think India has lost that opportunity due to its own intransigence, hubris and an ideological bent that continues to force them to demean and threaten Pakistan.
The leadership there is now convinced that the restraint policy was unsuccessful, and India has mishandled and abused Pakistan’s offers for dialogue.
Pakistan shouldn’t be pleading either if India doesn’t want to talk. If India does reach out, we will likely respond, but there isn’t any desperation in Pakistan at all.
For either nation, this is not a pleasant place to live. I’ve long held the conviction that improving their relationship will ultimately help Pakistan get where we want to go economically and India get where it says it wants to go regionally. For now, though, with the current Indian attitude, unfortunately, I see little hope.
Al Jazeera: Do you anticipate any direct India-Pakistan discussions occurring during or after this crisis?
Yes, I’m not sure when or with whom it will be, but I believe one of the most important lessons that Indians could learn is that trying to isolate Pakistan is ineffective.
Indus Water Treaty in abeyance? Potential suspension of the SIMLA Agreement The two nations will need to talk through these important decisions, and I believe they will do so at some point in the future.
But I also don’t think that Pakistan will make a move towards rapprochement, as we have offered opportunities for dialogues so many times recently to no avail. As I mentioned, Pakistan’s attitude toward this issue has also gotten worse.
In the end, Indians must ultimately choose whether or not to talk. If they come forth, I think Pakistan will still respond positively to it.
Source: Aljazeera
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