On April 24, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood before a crowd in the northern state of Bihar and, in a rare shift from his usual Hindi, delivered a warning in English: “India will identify and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth. India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism. Terrorism will not go unpunished.” The message, spoken just two days after the deadliest attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir in over two decades, was not just for domestic consumption or for Pakistan, which New Delhi blames for the attack; it was a signal to the world that India was preparing a forceful military response.
Kashmir is now once again one of the world’s riskiest flash points. It is not yet clear which group was responsible for the April 22 attack, which killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam, a scenic hill station in Kashmir, but the atrocity has brought India to a sadly familiar juncture. Previous episodes of terrorist violence in Kashmir have led India to strike its neighbor Pakistan, which Indian officials insist is the source of the militancy that still plagues the disputed territory. Modi’s rhetoric this month echoes the speeches he made in 2019 before Indian jets struck Pakistan after a suicide car bomb in Kashmir killed 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers. That year, Pakistan hit back, downing an Indian fighter jet and capturing its pilot, and the two nuclear-armed countries neared the precipice of a widening conflict.
But the situation cooled in 2019, thanks in large part to good fortune. Indian fighter jets missed targets and did not kill anyone inside Pakistan; the Indian pilot survived and was returned promptly by Pakistani forces; and both governments used their control over domestic media to claim victory. Strong intervention by foreign powers, including the United States, incentivized de-escalation. Lisa Curtis, then an official in the Trump administration, noted in 2022 that senior U.S. officials got on the phone with both sides and “worked through a plan to de-escalate and bring down tensions.”
Today, however, the conditions are not as conducive to de-escalation. The situation in Kashmir is more volatile than before. India’s hard-line policies under Modi and the imposition of direct central rule on Kashmir have fueled deep alienation in the Muslim-majority region. The recent massacre has reignited hostilities between India and Pakistan as Indian leaders and public figures call for revenge and Pakistani officials decry India’s policies in Kashmir.
New Delhi could choose simply to attempt a quieter, covert form of retribution against Islamabad, but that is unlikely to satisfy a public that seems to want more concerted action. Overt military action remains a distinct possibility. In 2019, Qamar Javed Bajwa, then Pakistan’s army chief and de facto the most powerful decision-maker in the country, was looking to reconcile with India. By contrast, his successor, Asim Munir, is politically besieged and needs to demonstrate strength; he was already making belligerent statements about India’s actions in Kashmir a week before the April 22 terrorist attack. The Trump administration is not paying a great deal of attention to the region (it has yet to appoint ambassadors to either country, and relevant State Department officials have yet to be confirmed) and, unlike in 2019, it has no U.S. forces in nearby Afghanistan to worry about. It is unclear whether the United States will do much to help lower tensions today. With Modi’s rhetoric leaving little room for compromise, Pakistan’s military leadership under pressure to respond forcefully to any Indian strike, and China’s growing involvement in the region, events in Kashmir risk triggering uncontrollable escalation.
A COMBUSTIBLE MIX
At the heart of the Kashmir crisis is a combustible mix of religious nationalism, authoritarian governance, and unresolved political grievances. Modi’s government claims to have returned “normalcy” to Kashmir when, in 2019, it stripped away the constitutional provisions that allowed the disputed territory a form of autonomy. The prime minister and his allies insisted that the move would better integrate the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir, then known as the state of Jammu and Kashmir, into the rest of the country and ensure stability and more rapid economic growth. But ideology drove the government’s Kashmir policy: Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party had long wanted to eliminate the special status enjoyed by India’s only Muslim-majority state, more forcefully subject Kashmir to New Delhi’s control, and erode the distinctness of Kashmiri identity.
Tourism in Kashmir has indeed increased in recent years, with many Indians drawn to its picturesque landscape. But the reality on the ground remains one of pervasive fear and violence. Kashmir has endured recurring militant attacks, including the killing in Pahalgam, and the continued imposition of draconian laws and heavy security deployments. The region’s Muslim-majority population, already alienated by three decades of conflict between Pakistani-backed separatists and Indian security forces, has found itself further disenfranchised and disempowered by the 2019 transformation of Kashmir from a state with a special constitutional status into a union territory directly governed by India’s federal government. The move also opened the region to property purchases by nonresidents, raising concerns about demographic changes and the loss of local control. Authorities have imposed near-total control over information, weakened local governance, and created an environment where dissent is stifled, leaving the region more unstable and less governable.
Events in Kashmir risk triggering uncontrollable escalation.
These policies have fueled a sense of siege, as have years of security clampdowns, curfews, communication blackouts, and the detention of Kashmiri political leaders. Local elections were suspended for five years. Unsurprisingly, local support for the Indian government has all but dried up, making it harder for security and intelligence services to collect the kind of information that could have headed off this month’s attack.
Modi’s approach to Kashmir is inseparable from his broader political strategy, in which he projects strength as a Hindu nationalist strongman, promises violent retribution against enemies, and seeks to rally domestic support through exploiting moments of national security crisis. Indian officials have framed both the 2019 airstrikes and the “surgical strikes” of 2016—when, according to New Delhi, Indian troops raided militant “launch pads” in Pakistani-held territory after attacks on Indian security forces—as decisive blows against cross-border terrorism. In truth, they had far more political utility than strategic consequence.
Open-source analysis and international reporting cast doubt on the effectiveness of the 2019 strike, yielding little evidence of significant militant casualties or damage to infrastructure. Although the subsequent Pakistani retaliation led to the loss of an Indian fighter jet and the capture of its pilot, the crisis de-escalated because of lucky breaks, with interventions by foreign powers including the United States helping to lower temperatures. Indian strikes did not kill anybody in Pakistan, and the Indian pilot shot down over Pakistani territory lived to share a cup of tea with Pakistani soldiers before being delivered back to India unscathed. Both sides were able to claim victory through their pliant national media. In the run-up to 2019 Indian parliamentary elections, these operations served to burnish Modi’s image as a strong leader who had successfully punished Pakistan.
LOOKING TOUGH, ACTING TOUGH
The recent Pahalgam attack has exposed the hollowness of this strategy. Despite the government’s repeated claims that Indian actions in recent years had established deterrence, militant violence has continued, and the security situation in Kashmir remains fraught. The 2019 strikes did not cow Pakistan or separatist militants; the cycle of attack and reprisal persists, with each incident raising the stakes for escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
In a memoir published in 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed that India and Pakistan came perilously close to a nuclear exchange in February 2019 after India’s airstrikes inside Pakistan, with both sides reportedly preparing for escalation until urgent U.S. intervention helped defuse the crisis. During his election rallies that spring, Modi repeatedly invoked nuclear themes, boasting that India had “called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff” and suggesting that India’s own nuclear arsenal was not just “kept for Diwali,” the Hindu festival in which people set off fireworks. He used such nuclear saber rattling to demonstrate his government’s toughness.
But now, Modi’s rhetoric has boxed him in. Having set a precedent, he faces intense public and political pressure to respond forcefully to each new attack, even when India’s options are limited or risky. The government’s incessant focus on punishing Pakistan—stirred by hypernationalist Indian media coverage—rather than on crafting a coherent long-term strategy with specific requests of its neighbor has narrowed the space for de-escalation and left New Delhi with few tools except coercion by military means.
India will likely initiate cross-border artillery or missile strikes, airstrikes on suspected militant targets, or even limited ground incursions across the line of control (the unofficial border between the Indian- and Pakistani-administered parts of Kashmir), actions intended to be forceful yet fall below the threshold of full-scale war. But they could lead to escalation, prompting immediate Pakistani reprisals, such as retaliatory shelling, airstrikes, or even larger conventional operations, with the ever-present risk of miscalculation triggering broader conflict and, worse, posturing with nuclear weapons.
On the other side of the border, Pakistan is mired in a severe political and economic crisis, with its military, the country’s most powerful institution, deeply unpopular and its most popular political leader, the former prime minister Imran Khan, languishing behind bars. The military could use conflict with India over Kashmir to shore up its legitimacy, as it has often done in recent decades. Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, is under pressure to restore the military’s credibility. He is more likely to respond forcefully to Indian actions than his predecessor, Bajwa, who hoped to forge friendly ties with Modi’s India but failed. Pakistan military’s doctrine of “quid pro quo plus” retaliation means that any Indian strike, no matter how limited, will be met with a response designed to inflict equal or greater pain. That imperative risks fueling rapid uncontrollable escalation.
Despite its internal political turmoil, Pakistan retains a robust nuclear deterrent and support from China, which has its own interests in Kashmir. The multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a showpiece infrastructure investment project, runs through Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Beijing also vigorously opposed India’s moves to end Kashmir’s special status in 2019 and asserted its own territorial claims there by moving its forces in the summer of 2020 into Indian-controlled areas of Ladakh some 200 miles to the east, sparking a military standoff that continues to this day. China’s involvement adds a dangerous new dimension to the crisis, raising the specter of a two-front commitment for India and complicating any calculations of escalation with Pakistan. On Sunday, Beijing expressed its “support” for Pakistan’s “sovereignty” and “legitimate security concerns.”
India has only limited options when it comes to responding to attacks such as the one at Pahalgam, and they are fraught with peril. Covert operations, such as the assassination of a top terrorist leader or Pakistani intelligence or military official, may offer plausible deniability but are unlikely to satisfy the voluble political and public demand for action. Cross-border airstrikes carry a high risk of retaliation and escalation, especially given Pakistan’s current posture and Munir’s need to demonstrate resolve. The Indian armed forces, meanwhile, face significant modernization challenges and are extensively committed on the disputed border with China, making it hard for them to sustain a prolonged conflict or head off challenges on two separate fronts.
Pakistan, for its part, could see a limited conflict with clear off-ramps facilitated by backchannel talks and the intervention of external powers as a way to rally domestic support and distract from internal crises. But Islamabad remains in a precarious economic situation and is also facing challenges on its western borders with Afghanistan and Iran. Chinese interests in the region further complicate Indian decision-making, as Beijing may be concerned about protecting its investments and strategic position. Pakistan’s policy of “quid pro quo plus” raises the possibility of rapid escalation.
The most dangerous scenario is one in which an Indian military response provokes a stronger Pakistani counterstrike, setting off a chain reaction that neither side can easily control. With both countries on high alert and nationalist sentiment running hot, the risk of miscalculation or accidental escalation is far greater than analysts and the public seem to understand. In the worst-case scenario, this could rapidly spiral into a full-fledged war shadowed by the threat of the use of nuclear weapons and the prospect of catastrophic destruction across South Asia. That the 2019 crisis ended peacefully is no guarantee that the next one will as well. Nuclear-armed states cannot depend on luck to head off a potentially calamitous escalatory spiral.
AN ERA OF WAR
Modi’s recent speech in Bihar, with its sharp rhetoric and global messaging, was not just a response to a terror attack. It was the latest act in a high-stakes drama that has transformed the region into a dangerous flash point. As both India and Pakistan face internal crises and external pressures, the temptation to use the tragedy in Kashmir as a stage for political theater is greater than ever. He may not remember what he told Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine: “This is not an era of war.”
In the past, international actors, most notably the United States, have played a crucial role in defusing crises in South Asia. This was true of the 2019 crisis, when U.S. and other Western officials actively and persistently pressed both the countries to exercise restraint. But today, the world is tired of squabbles between India and Pakistan, and appetite for intervention in South Asia is low. The withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan has further diminished Pakistan’s importance to the United States. President Donald Trump’s recent remark that India and Pakistan will “sort it out one way or another” reflects a broader diplomatic vacuum, with little prospect of third-party mediation providing an off-ramp from escalation.
This lack of external pressure, combined with the domestic incentives for both Modi and Munir to appear fierce, makes the current situation uniquely combustible. The cease-fire on the line of control, which has held for four years, offers little reassurance that either side is highly invested in peace and stability. Neither has addressed core disputes, engaged sincerely with the other, or sought to build trust. The cease-fire remains fragile and reversible. That the leaders ofboth India and Pakistan are incentivized to stand firm reduces the space for compromise and increases the likelihood of confrontation. The risks of escalation, whether intentional or accidental, are higher than ever, with the consequences of miscalculation potentially calamitous for South Asia and the world.
