After the ceasefire: What lies ahead for India and Pakistan?
Air strikes, "dogfights", drone incursions, missile barrages - and at last, a US-brokered ceasefire.
In just four days, India and Pakistan witnessed a dramatic escalation with a rapid sequence of military engagements, heightened concerns over regional stability, and the growing potential for a broader conflict between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
The immediate trigger was a deadly militant attack on tourists, mostly Hindus, in Indian-administered Kashmir on 23 April, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan without providing any evidence.
India responded with 'Operation Sindoor,' claiming to strike the 'terrorist infrastructure' of banned militant outfits deep inside Pakistani territory.
In retaliation, Pakistan launched 'Operation Bunyan al-Marsus,' asserting it had hit multiple targets within India.
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The conflict saw the deployment of advanced weaponry, including air strikes, drone incursions, and missile barrages, offering both nations a harrowing glimpse into what 21st-century modern warfare in South Asia would look like.
Experts believe that despite the ceasefire, an ominous cloud of dangerous uncertainty continues to hang over the two countries.
International diplomacy
As military tensions between Pakistan and India reached a dangerous peak, analysts observed that a narrow window for de-escalation remained open, even amid drone and missile strikes. Both sides proclaimed partisan victories, fuelling nationalist narratives at home.
'Elite discourse and public opinion in Pakistan remain celebratory, largely due to the downing of Indian aircraft despite the drone and missile attacks,' Farhan Hanif Siddiqi, an international relations scholar at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, told Middle East Eye.
'India, on the other hand, is asserting a 100 percent success rate in neutralising alleged Pakistani incursions. These competing narratives could help create an off-ramp.'
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Amid escalating hostilities between India and Pakistan, international diplomacy played a crucial role in preventing a wider conflict.
While regional powers - including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, China, and Iran - urged immediate restraint, the United States initially adopted a hands-off approach.
On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said the conflict was 'fundamentally none of our business', signalling Washington's reluctance to intervene directly.
However, this stance shifted dramatically following a series of alarming developments: high-intensity aerial skirmishes, a surge of Pakistani drones testing Indian air defences, and explosions at Pakistan's Nur Khan Air Base near Islamabad between Friday night and Saturday morning. These events triggered urgent intervention from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President Vance.
According to CNN, citing Trump administration officials, by Friday, the US State Department had received grave intelligence assessments suggesting the conflict could spiral dangerously.
Faced with that reality, Washington felt compelled to assume a more assertive and effective role in brokering a ceasefire.
Durable ceasefire?
While the ceasefire between India and Pakistan is a welcome development, analysts widely view it as tenuous due to deep-rooted mistrust and historical animosities.
Further undermining its credibility is India's post-agreement rhetoric, which framed the truce as an informal 'understanding' rather than a binding accord.
New Delhi's messaging appeared designed to downplay any perception of international mediation or formal commitments, likely aimed at mitigating domestic political backlash and preserving strategic autonomy. This was further emphasised on Monday when India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a statement saying that India would 'watch Pakistan's behaviour'.
At the heart of the conflict between the two lies the unresolved Kashmir dispute that casts a long shadow over prospects for lasting peace between India and Pakistan.
'This ceasefire is welcome, but how long will it last?'
- Jamshed Mir, Kashmiri activist
Both nations claim the region in its entirety, and decades of conflict, punctuated by recurring outbreaks of violence, have steadily eroded public trust and diplomatic optimism for a durable settlement.
Within hours of the latest ceasefire taking effect, both sides accused each other of violations, including cross-border shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) - a heavily militarised, 740-kilometre de facto border slicing through the contested Kashmir region. These immediate breaches underscored the fragile nature of the truce.
'This ceasefire is welcome, but how long will it last?' Jamshed Mir, a Kashmiri political activist based in Rajouri, Indian-administered Kashmir, told MEE.
'Every four or five years, tensions flare between India and Pakistan, and the Kashmiri people living along the LoC end up bearing the brunt of the conflict between the two armies.'
Though precise data on casualties and economic losses remains unverified, local sources report substantial disruption to civilian life, infrastructure, and livelihoods on both sides of the LoC.
Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst, said US statements during ceasefire negotiations appeared to favour Pakistan.
'First, Rubio says India and Pakistan agreed to hold talks on 'a broad set of issues,' which India will have little interest in,' he posted on X. 'Then Trump says he wants to look at a 'solution' for Kashmir, which India will surely reject' - unless it refers to just Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which is unlikely.
'These are two significant concessions to Pakistan,' Kugelman added, speculating that the US may have reassured India it would not demand reversal of punitive actions like suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, while maintaining pressure on Pakistan over counterterrorism.
Meanwhile, Christopher Clary, assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany, observed that international scrutiny of Pakistani militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, targets of Indian air strikes, is likely to persist.
'The world is full of vexatious problems and dangerous crises,' he told MEE. 'Diplomats do more firefighting than preventive medicine, even if they aspire to both.'
Evolving nature of warfare
The recent escalation between India and Pakistan highlights a dramatic shift in the nature of warfare in South Asia, transitioning from traditional military engagements to more technologically advanced, multi-domain tactics.
Analysts argue that India's air strikes on Pakistani cities marked a departure from established rules of engagement, signalling a new era of strategic instability where even the once-sacred international border is vulnerable to direct military action.
Unlike previous clashes, typically limited to small arms fire and artillery exchanges along the LoC, this confrontation saw missile strikes and the large-scale use of weaponised drones, including both reconnaissance and combat variants.
India targeted sites in Pakistan's populous Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while Pakistan retaliated with strikes on Indian cities such as Amritsar, Jammu, and Jaisalmer.
The escalation of attacks from the disputed Kashmir region into mainland urban areas sets a dangerous precedent. The expansion of target zones signals a shift in strategic calculations, raising the potential risks of broader confrontations in the future.
Technology reshapes dynamics
Over four days of high-intensity exchanges, India and Pakistan deployed advanced military technologies that significantly altered the nature of regional warfare. India fielded French Rafale jets, while Pakistan responded with Chinese-supplied J-10Cs and PL-15E missiles. Both sides also deployed hundreds of drones - many domestically produced or acquired from allies - for reconnaissance and precision strikes, avoiding pilot casualties.
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'It was an epic air battle of the 21st century,' a senior military official told MEE.
These operations were accompanied by sustained air strikes and anti-aircraft fire, creating a high-risk environment where deterrence and provocation blurred. Strikes penetrated deep into each country's territory, targeting air bases and critical defence infrastructure, prompting full-spectrum alerts.
Analysts warn that the use of autonomous systems and precision munitions heightens the risk of miscalculation, accelerating escalation and complicating diplomatic restraint.
Ebad Ahmed, a Denmark-based media analyst, noted that global coverage focused less on the causes of the conflict or Pakistani militant groups blamed for last month's attack in Indian-administered Kashmir and more on the origin of weaponry, such as Chinese, Israeli, and French.
"It raised broader concerns over arms proliferation," Ahmed told MEE.
What lies ahead
As of Monday afternoon, the military operations chiefs of India and Pakistan were preparing to engage in direct communication, two days after a ceasefire was announced. However, there were no immediate indications that either side was prepared to repair their deeply strained diplomatic relations, tensions that had been festering well before the latest round of military escalation.
The political landscapes in both countries remain largely unchanged, each driven by entrenched nationalist ideologies that leave little room for compromise.
In India, the rising tide of Hindu nationalism is steadily reshaping the country's secular foundations, fostering a more uncompromising stance towards Pakistan and narrowing the space for diplomatic engagement.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, a powerful military establishment remains the dominant force in national policymaking, operating amid persistent political instability and mounting security challenges on its western frontier, including increased militant activity by the Pakistani Taliban and Baloch separatists (the latter of which they blame India, in part, for stoking).
While the recent ceasefire has paused active hostilities, it has not addressed the root causes of the conflict, and the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty remains in effect, providing fodder for further strains.
Without sustained diplomatic engagement, mutual trust-building, and credible conflict resolution mechanisms, the threat of renewed violence remains high.
'The future holds no space for another war,' a Pakistani military official told MEE. 'It is sealed - not because we don't have the capacity, but because the international community cannot afford one.'
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