Islamabad, Pakistan – India and Pakistan are on the brink of military standoffs 11 days after 26 people died in the scenic valley of Baisalan in Pahargam, Kashmir, which was controlled by gunmen.
The nuclear-armed neighbors have announced their respective strings of tatsteps to their opponents since the April 22 attack, when India tacitly denies Pakistan, even if Islamabad denied its role in the killing.
India has suspended participation in the Indus Waters Convention, which implements the water sharing mechanisms that Pakistan depends on. Pakistan is threatening to leave the 1972 Shimla deal. This threatened to commit to both countries to recognize the previous ceasefire line as control. Both countries expelled each other’s citizens and reduced their diplomatist missions.
Despite a ceasefire agreement since 2021, the current escalation is the most severe since 2019 when India launched airstrikes on Pakistani soil after India attacked Indian soldiers in Pulwama in Kashmir, which killed 40 troops. Recently, they have swapped fires across the LOC.
And this time again, amid growing expectations that India might launch a military operation against Pakistan, the region is currently at the forefront.
However, both countries are also involved in diplomatic partners. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Pakistan Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, urging both sides to find a way to de-escalation. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses on Thursday called his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, to condemn the attack and provide India with “strong support.”
Sharif urged the three Pakistan’s closest allies, China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to seek their support, and ambassadors of the two Gulf countries were “impressed to eliminate and eliminate tensions.”
To understand how Pakistani strategists who worked on their connections with India see what happens next, Al Jazeera served as Pakistan’s National Security Advisor (NSA) under Prime Minister Imran Khan, who served as Pakistan’s National Security Advisor (NSA) between May 2021 and April 2022.
Prior to his role as the NSA, Yusuf had been working as Khan’s special advisor on issues relating to national security since December 2019, four months after the Indian government revoked the special status of Kashmir, which was administered by India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Based in Lahore, Yusuf is currently the vice-prime minister of a private university and writes and edits several books on security in South Asia and regions. His latest book, Broker Peace in the Nuclear Environment: US Crisis Management in South Asia, was published in 2018.
Al Jazeera: How do you assess the movements that both parties have made so far in the crisis?
Moeed Yusuf: India and Pakistan have been struggling for a long time in terms of crisis management. They don’t have a bilateral crisis management mechanism. This is a fundamental concern.
The number one crisis management tool used by both parties is dependence on third parties, the idea that they will help suppress both of them and eliminate the crisis.
This time, I feel that the problem India encountered is that they followed an old playbook, but the most important third-party leader, the US, did not appear to support India.
As President Donald Trump showed a few days ago, they seem to have taken a neutrality and handoff position so far. (Trump said he knew both Indian and Pakistan leaders and believed they could resolve the crisis on their own.)
Pakistan’s response is directly related to India’s response, and it is how it has historically turned out, making both countries harsher on each other. This time, many punitive measures have been announced.
The problem is, these are easy to get started, but even if things get better, it’s very difficult to turn around and you might want to do so.
Unfortunately, in every crisis between them, retaliatory measures are becoming increasingly substantial, as India has decided to restrain and retain the Indus Water Treaty, as in this case India is illegal because the treaty does not provide such provisions.
Al Jazeera: Do you think a strike is imminent? Do you think both sides are showing preparations for the showdown?
Yusuf: At such a moment, it’s impossible to say. Action from India is still possible as plausible, but the imminent window has passed true concerns.
What usually happens in a crisis is when a country picks up military and logistics movements, informs allies, and relies on ground intelligence to determine what is happening. Sometimes these are misread and lead to an offensive aspect and we see an opportunity to believe that an attack will come when no one exists or when the defender is not.
Pakistan naturally must show commitment to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances. You need to be ready as you don’t know what’s coming next.
That being said, I don’t think we’re going to see a massive war, but in these circumstances you can never predict.
Al Jazeera: How do you view the role of third parties, such as the US, China, and the Gulf countries in this crisis?
Yusuf: My last book, Brakering Peace (2018), is about third-party management of the Pakistan-Indian context, and this is a very important element, as it was built internalized into the calculus of third-party countries inevitably coming.
The idea is because it’s something they really want, rather than having third-party mediators step in and the two countries escalate further.
And the leader of third-party countries’ packs is the United States since the 1999 Kargil War.
Everyone else, including China, ultimately supports the US position. This prioritizes immediate elimination above anything amid the crisis.
This has changed somewhat with the surgical strike in 2016 and the 2019 Pulwama crisis. When the US was leaning heavily towards the Indian side, it was probably unconsciously encouraging them in 2019.
(In 2016, Indian forces launched a cross-border “surgical strike.” New Delhi said he had said that after killing 19 Indian soldiers at an Indian-controlled army base in Uri, Kashmir, New Delhi planned to attack India. After attacks on Indian troops where Paktanwa state, India and Pakistan were killed, he engaged in an air dog battle, Indian pilots were captured and then returned.
But this time there was a president in the White House and he turned around and told both Pakistan and India to understand it on their own.
For Pakistan, I think this hurt India more than Pakistan, as they have discounted the potential for important US support in recent years, considering they have come too close to India due to strategic relationships.
But India would have wanted the Americans to put their feet down and put pressure on Pakistan, but that didn’t exactly happen. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s phone is playing in the middle again, where he tells both countries to get out of the war.
So what they did, oddly, has played a role in keeping India under control so far. Because India has not encouraged it to take action as it has during 2019 Pulwama.
The Gulf countries have played a more active role than before. China has also issued a statement of restraint.
Al Jazeera: How has Pakistan’s relationship with India evolved in recent years?
Yusuf: There was a change in the sea in relations between the two countries. When I took office, despite serious issues and India’s unilateral move in Kashmir in 2019, we saw a ceasefire agreement on the line of control and back-channel speech.
We went ahead and tried to reduce India’s incentives to destabilise Pakistan, but I think India lost its opportunity due to its own incompromise, hubrism and the bent ideological ideology that continues to mean and threaten Pakistan.
This has also led to changes in Pakistan. There, leadership believes that the policy of restraint had not been realized, and India misused and abused Pakistan’s offer of dialogue.
The view now is that Pakistan should not plead either if India does not want to speak. If India reaches out, we will probably respond, but Pakistan has no despair at all.
This is not a good place for either country. I have long argued that in order to reach where we want to go economically and where India says it would not happen unless they improve their relationship. But for now, with the current Indian attitude, unfortunately, I have little hope.
Al Jazeera: Do you expect direct discussions between India and Pakistan during or after this crisis?
Yes – I don’t know when it will exist or who will be with, but once this is done, it’s probably not working for the Indians to try and isolate Pakistan.
Abeyance’s Indus Water Treaty? Potential halt of Simla Agreement? These are key decisions and I think both countries need to talk to sort them out and at some point in the future they will be involved.
However, I do not think Pakistan will move towards reconciliation as Pakistan has provided many opportunities for dialogue recently. Like I said, the Pakistani mood is also sticking to this question.
Ultimately, the Indians need to decide whether they want to talk or not. I think Pakistan will still be proactive in responding to that when they come out.
*This interview has been compiled for clarity and brevity.
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