The fifth Indo-Pak war was as much one of the bombardment and imposition of an Indian narrative as it was of aerial conflict. India always had global superiority in marketing its narrative in the Western World — a narrative of a ‘shining’ and peace-loving democracy threatened by the export of Islamic terror by its western neighbour. But this narrative may well become tarnished because of its recent (6-10 May) and failed attempt to assert its kinetic superiority in Pakistan’s airspace.

The timing and genesis of this war were suspicious from the start. It had led many in Pakistan to think that it was no more than shadow boxing. Imran Khan’s sister said so publicly. It took a serious turn on the public and social media when Najam Sethi impressed upon Karan Thapar (on 28 April) the gravity of India leaving Pakistan with no option but to go nuclear.  Najam did this by throwing a curveball at Karan through his provocative suggestion (that he continues to adhere to) that Pahalgam was a false flag. This exploded a depth charge in the Indian media, as I think it was meant to. The counter-charge of an Indian false flag was never going anywhere. Still, it did allow an angry and proportionate rebuttal to the off-the-cuff, routine Indian allegation that Pakistan had sponsored the Pahalgam terror. Much more important, however, in this publicly aired debate was the explicit pronouncement that Pakistan would inevitably have to resort to the nuclear option. We know that it didn’t come to that, and hope that it will never come to pass. Nonetheless, it underscores in this dangerously nuclear age the overarching truth so beautifully expressed by President Kennedy six decades back in his famous “Peace Speech” that must still resonate in our ears: 

“Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy — or of a collective death-wish for the world” ( JFK’s Commencement Address at American University, Washington DC, June 10, 1963)

Resolution Day Vs Republic Day: Forgotten Legacy Of 23 March

The Najam-Karan debates of 28 April and 8 May were inconclusive, but they did eventually highlight and presage the actual issues that unfolded so swiftly in the following two days: 9-10 May. It is these that I shall try to point towards presently.

John Mearsheimer has argued with conviction that India cannot possibly be a Regional Hegemon. Besides economic insufficiencies, India lacks the military power, Mearsheimer argues, to control the “escalation ladder”— in other words, have “escalation dominance”, which Mearsheimer considers to be the ability to dictate and control the pace and intensity of any military conflict at its own will and every ‘rung’ of the military ladder, in conventional, unconventional, nuclear and other coercive forms. He has been proven right, with India suing for peace after only 5 days. 

This being the objective situation, despite India’s contrary claim to be a Great Power on the world stage, with neither India nor Pakistan having “escalation dominance”, Meirsheimer suggests, as does Donald Trump and every other sensible and rational person, that a resort to arms and any attempt by either party to find a military solution on the sub-continent will inevitably reflect the ‘bankruptcy of policy’ that President Kennedy pointed out 62 years back and lead inevitably to mutual annihilation. Hence, a negotiated Peace is the only solution. This sounds eminently sensible and reasonable. But is it possible or feasible? 

The answer, to my mind, is ‘No’. Both have been tried in the last 77 years. Only one military engagement (in 1971) yielded a fruitful result for one of the parties (India) —and that fruit has also turned sour, with the people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) turning against their erstwhile Indian ‘liberators’. The other four military engagements — in 1948, 1965, 1999 and 2025— have not yielded the desired results for either party; they have solved nothing; no permanent peace has ensued; the conflict stands frozen in a perennially temporary ‘ceasefire’. 

The war that redefined the world | World War II

 India seeks and needs hegemony, Pakistan (above all) wants to and must survive

The other option —of a negotiated peace settlement between the two countries — has also been tried during the same 77 years but yielded only transient and illusory benefits. I need not allude to all those series of attempts (from 1 November 1947, when Mountbatten came to the Lahore Conference, onwards and onwards) to negotiate peaceful settlements, because they are all too well etched in public historical memory. Some of these attempts might be considered to have succeeded. For instance, the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty and the 1972 Simla Accord. Both have now been repudiated. Based on historical records, this further strengthens my contention that a peacefully negotiated permanent settlement between the two parties is not feasible either. We have, quite simply, exhausted all options of either........

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