India’s Attack on Pakistan Was a Strategic Flop

Yesterday, President Donald Trump announced that he was willing to find a solution to the long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan. “I will work with you both to see if, after a ‘thousand years,’ a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir,” he posted on his Truth Social platform—no doubt to the consternation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has treated the status of the territory as a settled issue.

For the last decade, military conflicts between the two countries have proceeded according to expectations. In the simplest possible terms, they go something like this: Pakistan, being the smaller of the two countries by every conceivable metric, can give as good as it gets to its Eastern neighbor, provided that the engagement is short and defensive. For India to assert its dominance as the larger military power, however, the conflict must progress to a full-blown war. In such a scenario, where Pakistan faces an existential threat, or believes that its territory is about to be overrun, it may decide to “go nuclear”—even at the risk of self-destruction.

The latest test of this pattern arose in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Indian-Administered Kashmir on April 22. Quick to accuse Pakistan of orchestrating the attack, which had led to the deaths of 26 tourists, India announced a set of measures to punish its Western neighbor. These included an announcement that it was holding in abeyance a water sharing treaty that has been in place since 1960. Pakistan maintained its innocence and demanded an independent inquiry into the attack. Then, on the night of May 6 and the morning of May 7, India launched a series of missile strikes on Pakistani territory, claiming that it had killed around a hundred militants.

Pakistan says these missiles were aimed at mosques and resulted in the deaths of more than 30 civilians. In its own counteroffensive, Pakistan says it shot down six Indian warplanes. It also claims that it was able to hit 26 military installations across the Line of Control, including in the disputed area of Jammu and Kashmir. Both sides have claimed victory—just like they did in 2019, when the Pakistani Airforce responded to an Indian bombing raid in northwestern Pakistan by capturing an Indian pilot.

By the time a US-brokered ceasefire was reached on May 10, it was clear that the status quo was still in place. Over three days of intense fighting, neither side was able to land a decisive blow.

On the surface, it would appear that nothing much has changed. A terrorist attack in Indian-Administered Kashmir has once again led to a limited conflict, with both sides claiming victory for what appears to be a stalemate. Given what we know about this engagement, Pakistan’s triumphalism is a little easier to fathom: Islamabad came into this war with no other objective than to prove that it has the ability to defend itself. The onus has always been on India to justify its aggression. And the early indications are that it has failed to meet its objectives.

One of the consequences of India’s rise as an economic power is that it is compelled from time to time to test the status quo. The calculation seems to be that as India’s economy flourishes and Pakistan’s recedes, the former will be able to spend much more on defense than the latter. Ergo, a time will eventually come when India is able to subdue Pakistan even in these short-term engagements. When that happens, New Delhi will get the signal to expand its military ambitions with the eventual aim of annexing the part of Kashmir under Pakistani control—indeed, in March, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar claimed that India is “waiting for the return of the stolen parts of Kashmir.” To prevent Pakistan from using nuclear weapons in such a scenario, New Delhi will rely on international pressure from countries that are too heavily invested in the country to countenance such destruction.

But the events of the previous week have shown that now is not that time. India’s attack on Pakistan on the night of May 6 came at the cost of at least four fighter jets that were lost in battle. These include at least one Dassault Rafale warplane whose induction into the Indian Air Force was heralded as a “game changer” by Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. So one-sided was the result of the aerial battle that Le Monde described it as having exposed “the weaknesses of the Indian Air Force.” The fact that Pakistan was able to down these jets using Chinese weapons is an added cause of concern for the government in New Delhi, which has long considered Beijing a rival and an antagonist.