Dan Sabbagh writes:

India’s string of attacks on Pakistan overnight – a response, Delhi says, to the killing of 26 in a terror attack in Kashmir last month – comes at a time when warfare has become increasingly normalised internationally and the restraints of the global diplomatic system weakened.

Though flare-ups between the two south Asian powers are nothing new, India’s Operation Sindoor is already notably more aggressive than recent military actions launched by Delhi against its neighbour in 2016 and 2019, raising the stakes for Pakistan’s promised response to what it says was “an act of war”.

Nine locations were targeted in the operation, India said, and its military released video of what it said were “terrorist camps” being bombed in Pakistan. Four of the targets were in Pakistan’s populous Punjab region, which had not been attacked by India since the two countries fought a full-scale war in 1971.

Pakistan said that at least 26 civilians were killed. Although India’s aim was, according its foreign minister, Vikram Misri, to “deter and prevent” further terror attacks, Islamabad vowed to respond, raising the question of how long a tit-for-tat between the countries could last.

It is an uncomfortable moment, not least because India and Pakistan possess considerable stocks of nuclear weapons, each with about 170 warheads. Their armies and air forces are sizeable: India has 1.23 million troops and more than 500 combat jets, against 560,000 for Pakistan and more than 400 combat jets.

Though nobody seriously expects all-out fighting, changes to the global context suggest that violence between the two nuclear powers could escalate. Shelling has already been taking place across both sides of the line of control in Kashmir, with Pakistan reporting five dead on its side and India counting seven. [Continue reading…]