Indo-Pak 5.0; the lessons

At the time of writing, India and Pakistan have reached a ceasefire agreement. Nevertheless, anyone with even a cursory familiarity with subcontinental history since partition cannot help but be struck by a sense of deja vu at the fifth war between the two nations.

- BAIJAYANT 'JAY' PANDA

In many ways, it was the same old Pakistani playbook: provoke India with a gruesome terror attack via proxies, scream innocence when India retaliates, escalate hostilities, threaten the nuclear option, compel the world to pay attention, but simultaneously lobby frantically for help to stop the war before being decimated. Its army's search for relevance, and a distraction from its own huge unpopularity at home, once again overshadowed any consideration of Pakistan's own national interest.

Clearly, the gradual return to normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir over the past six years was too much to digest for Pakistan's army, which had plumbed new depths of unpopularity at home in recent years. Its chief Asim Munir had made that amply clear in his incendiary speech a week before the Pahalgam terrorist attack, asserting his intolerance for Hindus, in general, and commitment to stirring trouble in Kashmir, in particular.