Michael Kugelman

In early May, India and Pakistan were on the brink of war: they exchanged missile fire, sent drones across each other’s borders to conduct attacks, and engaged in aerial combat. The conflagration was thankfully short lived; after four days, the two sides declared a ceasefire, causing some analysts to dub the events the “100-hour war.” But the episode, however brief, may have reshaped deterrence dynamics between the nuclear-armed neighbors in a more lasting way.

In the following interview, Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert and a senior fellow (nonresident) at the Asia Pacific Foundation, explains why the May 2025 clashes were unique from previous India-Pakistan strikes. “The scale and the intensity of the recent conflict was so much greater than what we’ve seen for so long,” Kugelman told The Diplomat.

Even after the ceasefire, the India-Pakistan relationship is far from returning to the status quo ante. India has “suspended all trade with Pakistan, closed down the only open land border, and suspended the Indus Waters Treaty,” Kugelman pointed out. “These are drastic steps, and, in the case of the IWT move, unprecedented.”

With the benefit of time and hindsight, how serious was the India-Pakistan crisis of early May? What was different in the latest round of strikes, versus previous episodes in 2019 and 2016?

It was very serious, given the level of escalation and the scale of the hostilities. I’d argue it was the biggest test of the nuclear deterrent since both countries formally became nuclear states in 1998 – with the only possible exception of the massive military mobilization along the border in 2001 and 2002.

What we saw in May was part of a consistent pattern in India-Pakistan escalation dynamics over nearly a decade: Each side is comfortable using increasing amounts of limited conventional force below the nuclear threshold. In 2016, India staged what it described as “surgical strikes” – commandos crossing the border to target terrorists on the other side. In 2019, India launched air strikes on Pakistan, resulting in a Pakistani response and a brief dogfight in the skies before the conflict wound down.

In the most recent case, Operation Sindoor, India carried out air strikes that were greater in scale than in 2019, resulting in a more muscular Pakistani response. And, unlike in 2019, there was another phase in the conflict beyond the initial strike and counterstrike: Both sides launched missiles and drones against each other.

This consistent pattern, however, may mask just how different this crisis was from the previous ones – and in ways that amplify just how serious the escalation risks could be when the next conflict breaks out. Four key differences stand out.

First, the scale and spread of hostilities. Various forms of airpower targeted India- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and also regions in both countries beyond Kashmir. This is the first time since each country went nuclear that we’ve seen so much force used in so many places. The two did wage a brief conflict in 1999, in Kargil, but it was limited to a small geographic space. The recent conflict, brief thought it was, entailed the most use of force between India and Pakistan since the Bangladesh independence war in 1971.

Second, the advances in battlefield technologies. There were various types of missiles, but also drones. It’s the first time drones have been deployed in India-Pakistan combat.

Third, the great diversification of arms suppliers on display. Each country drew on its own indigenously produced weaponry, and supplemented it with arms acquired from multiple other countries. India used Russian weaponry as well as French jets and Israeli drones. Pakistan – for the first time – deployed Chinese-made jets and Turkish drones.

Fourth, the massive quantity of disinformation. Fake news was the ugly and discordant soundtrack to the conflict. It’s not the first time disinformation has been a part of India-Pakistan conflict, but the amount was unprecedented. There are several reasons for this. One is that since there were so many hostilities playing out over several days, there was so much content to exploit with fake news. Another is technology: AI-generated deep fakes are more sophisticated and believable than other forms of fake video and images, which brings more motivation to produce more of them. Disinformation inflames emotions and heightens tensions – the last thing you want during a serious conflict waged by nuclear adversaries.

What role did the U.S. play during the crisis and especially during the ceasefire? How important was U.S. mediation – a factor that U.S. President Donald Trump has emphasized and India has downplayed?

There's a strong precedent of U.S. diplomatic interventions during India-Pakistan military crises and conflicts, and it continued in this conflict. The State Department, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who was further empowered by his new additional role as national security adviser – was in close contact with both capitals during the crisis and called for deescalation. Other members of the Trump administration – including Trump himself and Vice President J.D. Vance – initially appeared to favor a more hands-off U.S. role. But eventually escalation reached a point where Washington concluded it needed to up its game to push the two sides to wind down. This may have been after India targeted Pakistan’s Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi – a sensitive and strategic side located near the entities that oversee Pakistan's nuclear weapons policy – or perhaps a bit before. In previous India-Pakistan crises, fears of nuclear escalation risks have prompted the U.S. to ramp up mediation efforts.

My understanding is that senior U.S. officials – mainly Rubio and Vance – led the charge to press Islamabad and New Delhi to stop fighting. Contrary to Trump’s claims, the Indians and Pakistanis likely negotiated the ceasefire themselves, with no direct U.S. mediation. The administration might have helped encourage them to agree to pursue the ceasefire talks, but it was the belligerents that worked out the truce.

I’d also argue that Washington might have been pushing at an open door. Even though India-Pakistan tensions were sky high during the final hours of conflict, each side had reached a point where they could declare victory and successfully sell that victory to their publics. Pakistan had shot down several Indian jets – India hadn’t yet acknowledged this yet, but Pakistanis were convinced of the reports that it happened. And India had scored some significant hits, including the one on Nur Khan. In effect, New Delhi and Islamabad had their own incentives to call it a day.

What was China’s role in the May 2025 crisis? Did you see any meaningful differences this time vs China’s response to post-Pulwama and post-Uri tensions?

The biggest role that China played, albeit indirectly, was military in nature. For Pakistan, using Chinese-made jets against India for the first time was a game changer. The Pakistanis used other Chinese weaponry as well, including air defense and radar systems. True, the results were mixed: The Chinese-made jets shot down several French-made Indian planes, but the Chinese air defense systems weren’t able to stop Indian firepower from hitting a range of targets inside Pakistan. And yet, the significance of Pakistan drawing on Chinese weaponry is great. With the U.S. continuing to insist that Pakistan not use U.S.-made jets against India, and with its other military partners’ comparative advantage lying in providing other forms of arms, Pakistan will continue to have a strong incentive to use Chinese firepower in future conflicts with India.

China’s diplomatic role was not terribly significant. Beijing’s ambassador in New Delhi quickly condemned the attack in Pahalgam. But otherwise, Chinese officials stayed relatively quiet (at least publicly) during the conflict, aside from calling for deescalation. It’s doubtful China served as a mediator, given its rocky relations with India, its main strategic competitor. Recent efforts by India and China to reduce tensions (which include a border patrolling deal finalized in October) would not have made New Delhi any more receptive to third-party mediation from Beijing during the crisis.

Beijing may be comfortable engaging in mediation – its role in brokering the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement deal a few years back is instructive – but it’s not the right fit for India-Pakistan. Other actors – the U.S., the U.K., and many of the Arab Gulf states – are more suitable as they have good ties with both India and Pakistan, and some of them have served as mediators in the past.

After the ceasefire, both India and Pakistan sought to claim both operational victory and the moral high ground. How did the crisis and its (at least temporary) resolution impact domestic politics in both countries?

Both countries’ publics robustly supported their government’s position and their military’s actions. This meant that both governments received a political boost from the crisis. But the boost was more significant for Islamabad, given that both the civilian and military leadership in Pakistan had been unpopular and struggling to gain public backing – even amid indications of macroeconomic stabilization following a long economic crisis.

There was certainly a rally-around-the-flag effect, but it was more than that. Pakistan’s position is that it was unfairly blamed for an attack that it had nothing to do with, and it was then punished for it with Indian strikes that killed innocent civilians. In that sense, Pakistanis saw their losses in the conflict – in terms of all the targets across Pakistan that India hit – not as humiliation, but as a victimization. And it made them support their leadership even more.

The question, however, is if these political gains will merely be fleeting. For example, Pakistan’s decision soon after the conflict to promote Army Chief Asim Munir to field marshal – seen by many Pakistanis as an unnecessary way to exploit the conflict to give Munir even more power than he already has – may backfire politically for Islamabad.

By contrast, India’s government wasn’t dealing with any crisis of popularity. Prime Minister Modi has always been popular. And the conflict entailed India hitting Pakistan hard – something the Indian public wanted to see, and expected. Still, there have been some setbacks for New Delhi after the conflict. The government dispatched seven delegations of dignitaries to 33 capitals around the world to try to get the international community to focus more attention on India’s core concern: terrorism, and Pakistan’s sponsorship of it. One of the delegations’ main messages was that the world should be wary of Pakistan. But that campaign hasn’t produced any notable change in the world’s stance. Instead, in the days that followed, Trump repeatedly praised Pakistan and even hosted a White House lunch for Munir.

This has not gone down well in New Delhi or among the Indian public. If this pattern continues, public discontent could target the Indian government, with New Delhi being blamed for not doing enough diplomatically to get the world to distance itself from Pakistan.

Looking ahead, India has pledged to pursue similar military operations after terrorist attacks. Do you think that policy will incentivize Pakistan to crack down on terror groups?

We need to look at this Indian pledge in the context of other steps it’s taken since the Pahalgam attack. It suspended all trade with Pakistan, closed down the only open land border, and suspended the Indus Waters Treaty. These are drastic steps, and, in the case of the IWT move, unprecedented. India has also suggested it will try to put the squeeze on Pakistan by pressuring funders to reduce assistance to Islamabad. We can conclude, based on these steps along with Modi’s vow to treat any future terrorist attack in India as an act of war, that India wants to play a long game. It is a long game meant to raise the costs to Pakistan of not cracking down on anti-India terror groups in the way that India would like to see.

Pakistan’s official position is that it has no more work to do on this front, and that there is no anti-India terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan. But India’s initial air strikes on Pakistan targeted areas, such as parts of southern Punjab, known to still be bastions of anti-India militancy.

One school of thought is that there haven’t previously been successful efforts to raise the costs to Pakistan of not taking sufficient action against terror, and that India’s recent steps are meant to do just that. But another school of thought is that Pakistan will respond to this growing pressure by simply doubling down and not giving in to Indian demands – while also banking on continued support from its powerful allies in China, Turkey, and the Arab Gulf, and in the West – including the U.S.

Pakistan may be more inclined to make concessions to India if New Delhi is willing to make some of its own. But those that Pakistan would most like to see – such as India changing its policies in India-administered Kashmir and/or agreeing to hold talks about Kashmir – are the least likely to happen. Furthermore, with tensions with India running so deep, Pakistan will likely feel an obligation to maintain links with actors that Islamabad has historically viewed as critical assets to counter India.

Do you see any way to make progress in India-Pakistan relations in the near term? What would you look for in terms of realistic but significant steps toward improvement?

Some observers might argue there’s good reason to think the relationship could bounce back, given that there’s a precedent of things getting better after periods of deep tensions. Just two years after the 2019 crisis, the two sides inked a new truce along the Line of Control. Going back even further, after serious crises and even conflicts the two sides have often restored cooperation, mainly on trade and commercial fronts more broadly.

But I’d argue this time around we’re unlikely to see history repeat itself. First, the scale and the intensity of the recent conflict was so much greater than what we’ve seen for so long, and so it will take time for tensions to come down. Second, the nonmilitary punitive steps taken by New Delhi have left the two sides little space for engagement and dialogue.

The good news is that the military hotline between the two sides has remained open, including during the conflict, and that will help ensure that the fragile ceasefire holds. At the end of the day, I don’t think either side has an interest in breaking the ceasefire. Modi has talked tough since the ceasefire, but he has made clear that India has no interest in returning to the conflict – so long as there are no attacks in India. Meanwhile, Pakistan wants to project to the world that it’s a peaceful actor facing aggression from India. That narrative isn’t well served by staging provocations that rekindle conflict.

There are some signposts to look for that can help us understand if the relationship is in a position to stabilize, even if only modestly. So long as the communication channels that remain in place – from the military hotline to treaty-stipulated exchanges of lists of nuclear facilities – are not interrupted, that will be a sign that at least things aren’t getting worse. Additionally, if there are some walkbacks on some of the early punitive measures – such as, for example, reopening the border for some limited trade, or allowing each side’s diplomatic presence in the other’s capital to return to pre-conflict sizes – that would suggest a willingness to keep ties on a  manageable level. Furthermore, if Indian and Pakistani officials continue to participate in meetings of multilateral organizations to which they both belong (such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization), that would be a good sign too.

What would also be helpful are some impactful Track 2 dialogues that enable some bold and innovative thinking and recommendations to percolate up to officialdom in both capitals. The India-Pakistan relationship, and the world, would benefit from new ideas that keep bilateral ties on enough of an even keel to fend off the possibility of another conflict – one that could be even more escalatory than the one in May.