As the world waited with bated breath, the ceasefire between India and Pakistan — two nuclear-armed powers that looked increasingly willing to engage in an all-out war — appeared to be holding into Sunday.
That’s despite the U.S.-brokered truce’s shaky start, which saw explosions and sirens ring out over towns in contested Kashmir only hours after the ceasefire was declared Saturday as senior officials from both India and Pakistan accused each other of violating the terms of the agreement.
India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri warned late Saturday that his military had been ordered to “deal strongly” with any breaches, while Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said it would do the same but that it “remained committed” to a stop in military attacks.
But the nature of four tense days of extensive clashes and cross-border military strikes, alongside a rapid escalation in the use of new technology that allows each side to hit deeper into the other’s territory, shows how fragile the ceasefire is.
So does the level of animosity between the two countries, with religious nationalism stoked by the deadly militant attack, in which 25 Hindu tourists and a guide were executed, that sparked this conflict.
India accused Pakistan of being behind the attack and fostering terrorism in the region, a claim that Islamabad denied repeatedly.
The exact death toll from the heavy shelling and artillery fire exchanged along the Line of Control, the contested border separating the Indian and Pakistan-administered sections of Kashmir, is still unknown.
Indian officials said more than two dozen people were killed in their territory.
A deadly militant attack targeting tourists in the disputed territory of Kashmir has added fuel to longstanding tensions between India and Pakistan, pushing them to the brink of war. CBC’s South Asia correspondent Salimah Shivji breaks down why the attack has stoked fears of wider conflict between two nuclear powers.
Angry rhetoric, modern war technology
The conflict unfolded within a cloud of disinformation, claims and counterclaims, fuelled by social media, that made it hard to decipher what was happening on the ground. Days were filled with angry rhetoric and accusations from both sides, while the nights were dominated by explosions, laser-guided missiles and heavy artillery fire.
But the worst military confrontation in decades between the two South Asian rivals was also its first conflict where weaponized drones took centre stage, making the outcome more unpredictable.
Waves of unmanned drones — such as remote-controlled loitering munitions that are known for their ability to stop mid-air and wait for a target — dipped into rival territory and pushed the conflict to the brink of a full-fledged war.
Punishing non-military tactics have also inflamed tensions between the two countries and have the potential to further jeopardize the fragile ceasefire.
Last month, India suspended a crucial treaty that regulates how water is shared in the subcontinent, a move that is unchanged by this weekend’s truce agreement.
Pakistan desperately needs the water from headwaters, located upstream in India, for 80 per cent of its agricultural output and a third of its hydropower.
The treaty had remained untouched through previous wars and flare-ups between India and Pakistan, but not this time — another sign of how dangerous a flashpoint the dispute over Kashmir still is.
India does not currently have the capacity to divert water, but Pakistan sees the suspension of the treaty and the threat to deprive Pakistan of its crucial water supply as an “act of war.”
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80-year conflict over Kashmir
Some analysts say drawn-out conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have normalized the world to war, allowing violence to spiral in this confrontation between India and Pakistan.
War breaking out is “a daily reality and one that has expanded the realms of the imagination for hawkish planners in hotspots around the world,” Samir Puri, of the London-based Chatham House think-tank, told the Guardian.
India and Pakistan have bitterly fought over the strategic Kashmir region in the Himalayas for nearly 80 years, including in two official wars and a serious conflict in 1999.
Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but each only controls a part of it, divided by the Line of Control, a heavily militarized de facto border. China also administers a smaller section to the east.
Previous flare-ups in 2016 and 2019 were quickly contained and tensions fizzled, with many pointing to the fact that each country has nuclear arsenals as a major deterrent.
“If you look at the history of the India-Pakistan relationship … you see a certain amount of responsibility, a certain amount of escalation control even at the height of [previous] wars,” disarmament expert and Jawaharlal Nehru University associate professor Happymon Jacob told CBC News.
American involvement
As the easier-to-deploy drones and more precise modern war technology inched closer to hitting strategic military sites, with each side trading blame and the rhetoric hitting a fever pitch, the surprise ceasefire was announced.
Once again, it was international diplomacy that played a crucial role in bringing about a ceasefire between the two nuclear powers.
The United States had initially hinted it thought the brewing conflict wasn’t America’s problem.
India fired missiles into Pakistan two weeks after a deadly attack in India-controlled Kashmir. Andrew Chang breaks down this latest escalation. Then, how Prime Minister Mark Carney navigated his first meeting with Donald Trump.
Two days prior to the truce being announced, Vice-President JD Vance told Fox News that the U.S. couldn’t “control these countries” and that the confrontation was “fundamentally none of our business.”
The U.S. sees India as a key partner and friend, as a counter to Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, while Pakistan’s importance has waned since Washington’s withdrawal from neighbouring Afghanistan.
The laid-back approach alarmed analysts, including Ayesha Siddiqa, senior fellow at King’s College London.
“The rowdy boys have been left to fight alone with no headmaster present to march them to their respective corners,” she wrote in an op-ed for the Financial Times.
Some say Washington’s hand was forced by a deep fear of nuclear action, given heightened rhetoric from Indian and Pakistani officials and alarming intelligence reportedly received by U.S. agencies.
Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio worked the phones, reaching out to the country’s leaders and Pakistan’s influential army chief, Gen. Asim Munir.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made it a point to thank the American president “for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region.”
New Delhi downplayed it.
India has historically been reluctant for international involvement in the Kashmir dispute, and Pakistan has welcomed and encouraged it.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Kingdom, also played key roles in the diplomatic push for a ceasefire — a sign of how much geopolitical interest there is in the South Asia region.
Tricky to mediate
Mediating a climb-down for both India and Pakistan is always tricky. Each is eager to paint every military action as a win and craves getting the last word, even as they call for non-escalation.
On Sunday, India turned to bragging about its military strikes. In a virtual address to open a facility making supersonic missiles, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh noted that “the roar of the Indian forces reached all the way to Rawalpindi,” which is where the Pakistani army is headquartered.
But contrary to what Indian officials wished, the growing economic power did not decisively show its military was superior to its rival, analysts said.
“While overall national power vis-a-vis Pakistan has grown in favour of India, the military gap remains too small for Delhi to impose its will on Rawalpindi or deter it from supporting cross-border terror,” analyst C. Raja Mohan wrote in The Indian Express.
India was conspicuously quiet and provided no comment after Pakistani forces claimed that it had shot down several Indian fighter jets when the clashes initially broke out.
Top military leaders from both countries are set to speak on Monday.
It’s been years since high-level negotiations took place between the countries about Kashmir — and India is resistant to the idea.
But hopes remain high, with even the newly installed Pope Leo XIV saying he hoped “the upcoming negotiations may soon lead to a lasting agreement.”
Rubio said that negotiations on a broad set of issues, assumed to include Kashmir, will take place at a neutral site.
But it’s not clear yet where, when — or even if — those talks will go ahead.
