All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. This well-known aphorism can be stretched a little to apply to India-Pakistan conflict situations. All their crises have had common features, but each usually ends in a slightly different way. The past quarter of a century is particularly instructive because the United States of America has been active in each crisis situation but its role has varied.
The 1999 Kargil conflict ended with the US mediating an end to the hostilities. The US’s role provided a cover, enabling Pakistan’s government to announce a withdrawal from the transgressions across the Line of Control and, in effect, rescue its army from an impossible situation. The Mumbai terrorist attack saw tensions peaking even while the Pakistan foreign minister was in India on an official visit. The determination then in India was that keeping a sharp focus on terrorism would be the best way to exert the maximum possible pressure on Pakistan. This position was adhered to despite numerous Pakistani efforts to give the crisis the colour of a military flashpoint — in a sense, a trap was avoided. The US’s role was important then too but it was in terms of channelising pressure on Pakistan to make it accept responsibility that the conspiracy behind the attack was hatched on its territory and the terrorists were its nationals.
After the Pulwama terrorist attack and the Balakot strike in response by India, Pakistan’s approach was to avoid getting into an escalatory situation. The US’s mediatory role to diffuse the situation after the Balakot airstrike was, therefore, effective at an early stage.
The crisis following the Pahalgam terrorist attack had several novel features. In its immediate aftermath, India had announced that the Indus Waters Treaty was being kept in abeyance. This was the invocation of a sanction that had been ring-fenced from past crises even during periods of war and the termination of diplomatic relations. Notwithstanding the enormous political significance of this, expectations had remained strongly fixated on the military action that would be taken against Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Given the egregious nature of the Pahalgam massacre, it was also evident that the action taken would be some notches higher than what had taken place after the Pulwama and Uri terrorist attacks.
What was also different was a mood of belligerence in Pakistan and the clear signals that in the event of Indian kinetic actions it would respond forcefully and not follow the template of its non-escalatory response post-Balakot. There are different explanations for this bellicose mood. The most popular of these pertains to Pakistan’s internal turbulence, the dented image of the army, and the civil-military standoff with Imran Khan in jail. A variant of these explanations has been to focus on the personality of Pakistan's army chief, Asim Munir, and his religiosity. A major military crisis with India is just what he needed to consolidate himself further.
Other explanations point to Pakistan’s frustrations with the bilateral relationship with India in general and with the state of the ‘Kashmir issue’ in particular. There were clear signs of anger in Pakistan that India was rebuffing all attempts at ‘dialogue’ — in brief, anything to show to its domestic audience that the status of Kashmir remained on the table. The more specific apprehension was that Indian claims about ‘total normalcy’ and ‘burgeoning tourist traffic’ in Kashmir were gathering traction and needed to be dramatically checked. By this logic, an India-Pakistan military crisis would be the best way to bring Kashmir back on international radar screens.
Perhaps there is some merit in each of these explanations. There is, however, little doubt that India and Pakistan have entered an altered space this May. The two signals conveyed to Pakistan after the Pahalgam attack are unambiguous. First, that no aspect of the India-Pakistan interface can remain unaffected or insulated from the consequences of terrorist attacks. Second, that kinetic and military responses will extend progressively deeper into Pakistan than ever before. Clearly both these are related to the pronounced economic and power asymmetries that have developed between the two countries in the past quarter century. Yet, it is useful to remember potential downsides alongside these very significant gains: each military crisis means a greater interest by third parties in a potential Kashmir flashpoint.
But to return to the point about how this crisis ended and the role of the US. The term, ‘Off-ramp’, is often employed by Americans to describe a way out of a particular situation. It is the equivalent of taking a side road out of a main highway. ‘Off-ramping’ has thus become standard Americanese for describing the possible ways out of crisis situations.
What was consistent with the history of the past quarter century this time around was that the US provided the off-ramps to diffuse a fresh India-Pakistan crisis. The US’s role, however, has several novel aspects this time around. Firstly, the alacrity with which Pakistan sought, or at the very least accepted, the US’s role underlines that notwithstanding the substantial erosion in their bilateral relationship, America’s influence on Islamabad is enormous and seemingly undiminished. Secondly, during the crisis itself, the US’s role became evident only when the conflict dynamics had moved up by several notches and it was evident that no other power could play such a role.
Nevertheless, its role was useful, as on earlier occasions, in ending what was a dangerous moment in India-Pakistan history. However, subsequent tweets from the US president and others suggest that the US sees its role beyond that of straightforward off-ramping and diffusing a crisis situation and extending to attempt to play a larger, even-handed, mediatory role. The longer-term implications of this enlarged role may well also be a tangible, if unintended, outcome from the Indian perspective of the latest crisis with Pakistan. That third-party interventions and mediations are what led to the origins of the conflict in Kashmir in the first place is well known. The United Nations' role transformed part of the rubble of Partition into a festering sore. That is a history that nobody in India can obviously forget.
T.C.A. Raghavan is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan