Once again, South Asia’s two nuclear-armed giants, India and Pakistan, are dancing on the edge of catastrophe. Following India’s May 7 “Operation Sindoor,” the region has been plunged into yet another high-stakes standoff — a deadly game of provocation, retaliation, and restrained escalation where one misstep could ignite a regional inferno.
India’s pre-dawn strikes on six targets inside Pakistan, framed as retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that claimed 26 lives, have been justified under the banner of counterterrorism. Yet, one can’t ignore the broader ambition lurking behind New Delhi’s muscular posturing: a bid to assert regional dominance and set the tone for a “new normal” where preemptive strikes on Pakistani soil are just another tool in India’s foreign policy playbook.
Curiously, no public evidence was offered linking Pakistan directly to the Pahalgam attack, and India brushed aside international calls for restraint. The real message was for Islamabad: India is no longer willing to play by the old rules of tit-for-tat diplomacy and containment.
Pakistan, for its part, delivered a swift and bruising response. In what Islamabad framed as a textbook case of self-defence, five Indian fighter jets, including the highly touted Rafales, were shot down. The symbolism was clear: no matter how advanced the fighter, no one is untouchable.
Yet, even as both capitals flexed their military muscles, the deeper reality looms: nuclear deterrence still holds, but it is a fragile shield. Both nations are acutely aware of the fine line they walk — one that permits air strikes and limited missile exchanges but stops short of ground invasions or attacks on sensitive territorial sites, which could plunge them into uncontrollable escalation.
Experts like Gen Asif Yasin Malik caution that to stay below the nuclear threshold, both sides will likely stick to air combat or missile skirmishes, carefully avoiding the red lines that might trigger a catastrophic response. But others warn the dangers remain razor-sharp. Brig Naeem Salik, of the Strategic Vision Institute, warns that even a stray missile hitting a sensitive target could cause the escalation ladder to collapse, pushing both nations into a conflict no one can control.
For now, Pakistan is casting itself as the more measured actor, committed to avoiding escalation despite India’s provocations. Yet the destruction of the Rafales — a significant blow to India’s military prestige — is already fueling calls among Indian hawks for further retaliation. And here lies the most perilous danger: the tit-for-tat cycle spiraling beyond the reach of diplomacy.
Behind the scenes, global powers from Washington to Beijing, and even regional players like Qatar, are scrambling to cool tensions. But let’s be honest: no amount of hurried phone calls or backchannel nudging can erase the deep-seated mistrust between Delhi and Islamabad. As former Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood rightly points out, de-escalation will require more than crisis management. Major powers must stop tiptoeing and press India to abandon its aggressive rhetoric and policies if any meaningful progress toward conflict resolution is to be made.
This is the tightrope India and Pakistan now walk: projecting strength without triggering full-scale war. Both hope to climb down when it suits them — but history tells us such exits are temporary and dangerously vulnerable to miscalculations.
The downing of five Rafales also carries ripple effects beyond South Asia. India’s loss may spark uncomfortable questions among its Western partners, especially the U.S., which has long envisioned Delhi as a “net security provider” in the Indo-Pacific, counterbalancing China. If India’s cutting-edge fighters can’t hold their own against Pakistani defences, it raises hard questions about India’s readiness to wield state-of-the-art Western technology effectively. As analyst Christopher Clary observes, the U.S. may come away from this crisis reassessing India’s military capabilities — and eyeing Chinese missile performance with intense curiosity.
At the end of the day, the world watches two nuclear neighbours teeter dangerously close to the abyss. The only safeguard? Not weapons, not alliances, not even international mediation — but the political discipline, on both sides, to step back. Because when nuclear-armed rivals play chicken, the margin for error is vanishingly small. And the cost of failure is a price no one, anywhere, is ready to pay.
