Pakistan and India have managed to break out of the escalatory cycle that began on the night of May 6-7, 2025 after India retaliated with cross-border attacks on Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam, Indian-Held Kashmir, incident in which 26 Indian tourists were killed by gunmen.

India accused Pakistan of being behind the attack, claimed by a hitherto unknown breakaway group of the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba calling itself Kashmir Liberation.

The Pakistani response to the Indian attacks on May6-7 surprised India and the world by their effectiveness. The crowning prize was Pakistan’s downing of five Indian fighters, including three state-of-the-art Rafale jets.

Tit-for-tat exchanges from the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir across the length and breadth of both countries seem to have ended in Pakistani successes. Air, missile and drone components were used by both sides.

It was this writer’s view when hostilities broke out that the danger of retaliatory attacks by both countries risked escalating into an all-out war with the looming overhang of an unthinkable nuclear exchange, which has the potential not only of wiping out millions in both countries, but whose effects would be felt in the region and even the entire globe, such is the megaton capability of both countries’ nuclear........

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