The last thing the world needs is a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The two countries are officially and popularly arch-rivals, and each suffers from a host of social, political, and economic crises that could drive them to conflict, but could also help them to seek peace if they listened to the voice of reason.
Predictably, the rising tensions between the two countries captivated the imagination of those who view any flashpoint as a harbinger of World War III. But there are millions of others who fear an “intentional slip” into a nuclear war that will turn the area stretching from the Middle East to East Asia as well as substantial parts of Russia and East Africa to rubble, with catastrophic reverberations across the entire world.
Nevertheless, many observers believe that the South Asian theatre remains under control, with the current flare-up being yet another episode in a renewed conflict between two countries with unresolved tensions spanning more than eight decades. New Delhi and Islamabad, observers opine, are engaged in a game of political and strategic messaging.
On 22 April, an attack on Pahalgam, the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, claimed the lives of 26 tourists and left 17 injured. The Resistance Front in Kashmir claimed responsibility.
India wasted no time in laying blame at Pakistan’s door, accusing its neighbour of complicity by enabling what New Delhi categorises “terrorist factions” operating in the Indian-administered enclave. For decades, India has charged that Pakistan supports Islamist militant groups opposed to Indian rule in the Muslim-majority territory, a claim Islamabad has repeatedly denied.
In retaliation, India announced the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 after 11 years of gruelling negotiations under the auspices of the World Bank. New Delhi also closed the border crossings with Pakistan, downgraded diplomatic ties, revoked visa facilitation privileges for Pakistani nationals, and expelled Pakistani defence attachés.
Islamabad denied any involvement in the Pahalgam attack, saying the Indian measures were a pretext for deliberate escalation.
On the military front, Pakistan flexed its muscles late last week by test-firing a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a declared range of 450 km, according to an official military statement. Such missile tests are customarily conducted far from border regions, typically launched from the Arabian Sea or the Balochistan deserts, southwest Pakistan.
A few days earlier, India conducted naval exercises in the Arabian Sea. According to India Today, a publication with close ties to influential Indian economic circles, civil aviation authorities were warned to steer clear of the training zones, where the Indian Navy was set to deploy live ammunition.
Military statements from both sides framed these manoeuvres as preparations “to face any possible threats”. Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tara stated that Islamabad possessed “intelligence” of an impending Indian offensive, cautioning that any aggression would meet with a “decisive” response.
Meanwhile, border skirmishes between the two countries persisted for days, and authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir issued calls for residents to stockpile food, which heightened public unease.
Since the partition of British India in 1947, which birthed Pakistan as an independent nation, South Asia has endured an unrelenting cycle of tension, three wars, and innumerable border clashes.
The first war followed the Muslim-Hindu clashes that accompanied the secession of Pakistan, one year after India gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and resulted in a population exchange, displacing 10 million people, with Hindus migrating to India and Muslims to Pakistan.
This was followed by the 17-day war in 1965, and later the 1971 conflict, which ended in the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan.
In addition to these three major wars, the border regions have witnessed numerous skirmishes, ranging from near full-scale conflicts, such as the Kargil conflict in 1999 and the Siachen Glacier clashes in 1984, to more localised confrontations. However, the majority of these incidents were limited in scope.
The advent of nuclear weapons in both nations, with India acquiring them in the early 1970s and Pakistan following suit about a decade later, has created a significant deterrent to the escalation of skirmishes into full-scale wars akin to those of 1965 and 1971.
The world was therefore taken aback by the recent escalation, despite the long-standing tensions that have existed since the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India. Under the leadership of the right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has sought to diplomatically isolate Pakistan, labelling it as a “state sponsor of terrorism” and intensifying both economic and political pressure.
However, the situation was never this tense. Pakistan did not seek this conflict because it is militarily and economically weaker than its rival. Effectively, Pakistan has little beyond its nuclear weapons to stand as a deterrent to prevent India from engaging in a full-scale war.
Moreover, India has long positioned itself as a strategic ally to the West in countering China’s regional ambitions, a role that has strengthened its relations with Israel, which serves as a crucial conduit to US decision-making circles.
While Pakistan remains militarily and economically outmatched by India, New Delhi, in turn, is no match economically and militarily to its northern neighbour, China. India is unable to attract investments on the scale that China has garnered from the US and Western Europe.
“This confrontation cannot escalate into a full-scale war,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, a political science professor. “Pakistan, as in past conflicts, will lose any military engagement, which could compel it to resort to nuclear weapons in the event of a major loss, causing immense harm to India.”
Ibrahim believes that India’s standing in the West will diminish if US-China rivalry intensifies. He predicts that New Delhi will emerge from such a conflict weakened, thereby losing its current political and strategic value to Washington.
“Pakistan cannot be marginalised simply by being labelled a state sponsor of terrorism,” Ibrahim argued. “It serves as a critical gateway for the West to Afghanistan, which is under the control of the extremist Taliban, and it is also a powerful neighbour to Iran.”
He added, “sacrificing Pakistan would be a strategic loss for the West, and any harm to India in a conflict with Pakistan would constitute another setback. This is why I believe both countries are seeking to draw global attention to the pressing issues in South Asia.”
Over the past three years, the world has been focused on the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israeli war on Gaza. The civil wars in Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara regions, the war in Sudan, the unrest in the African Sahel, the crisis in Myanmar, and tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have faded into the background.
It seems that New Delhi and Islamabad are positioning themselves on the brink of nuclear war to regain international focus. In contrast, the volatile internal sectarian and religious dynamics in both countries could, paradoxically, serve as a catalyst for the political relief necessary to prevent a catastrophic escalation, particularly given the longstanding mutual distrust between the two peoples over the past eight decades.
The presence of nuclear weapons stands as the primary obstacle to the India-Pakistan conflict expanding into full-scale war, despite the efforts of extremist factions on both sides to fan the flames of conflict.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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