Two Rivals. One Crisis. A War of Narratives

Rabia Akhtar

The recent Pahalgam crisis between India and Pakistan may have ended in a ceasefire, but the deeper lessons each side seems to have drawn should leave little room for comfort. While guns have fallen silent, the crisis has exposed a dangerous undercurrent, one that threatens the fragile strategic stability of South Asia.

On the surface, both sides claim victory in restraint. Yet underneath, India and Pakistan are learning very different lessons and that divergence could prove far more destabilizing than the crisis itself.

For India, the lesson is clear:

We can operate below Pakistan’s nuclear threshold. We can punish terror without fear of escalation. Precision, dominance, a new normal.

The Indian narrative sees Operation Sindoor as a breakthrough, a demonstration that the nuclear overhang no longer deters calibrated military action against terror infrastructure. In New Delhi’s view, this crisis sets a new precedent: Pakistan’s nuclear shield can be navigated with precision strikes, signaling a shift from reactive restraint to active deterrence by punishment.

For Pakistan, the takeaway is just as clear but radically different:

Deterrence worked. Conventional restraint preserved stability. Escalation was controlled, not invited. No space for war exists.

Islamabad reads the crisis as a reaffirmation of deterrence at multiple levels, nuclear, conventional, and cross-domain. Pakistan’s restraint was not weakness, but calculated strategy: measured retaliation without breaching thresholds, preserving regional stability without inviting catastrophic escalation.

A Dangerous Divergence

Herein lies the problem:

• India believes it has created space for conventional military operations under the nuclear shadow.
• Pakistan believes it has proven there is no such space, that deterrence held, and escalation was avoided precisely because India did not dare push further.

This is not just a difference in rhetoric. It is a fundamental mismatch in strategic perception.

• One side’s ‘success’ is the other side’s denial.
• One side feels emboldened to push harder next time; the other feels justified in pushing back earlier and harder.

This is a classic precondition for miscalculation and the deadliest risk in any nuclear rivalry.

Lessons Without Convergence

History teaches that crisis stability relies not on divergent victories, but on shared understandings of risk, red lines, and restraint. When adversaries don’t learn the same lessons about thresholds and dangers, the risk is not just of future crises, it’s of future crises spinning out of control.

If adversaries don’t learn the same lessons about red lines and risks, the next crisis is not just probable, it’s potentially uncontrollable.

In South Asia today, each side’s self-assured lesson emboldens it.

India believes it can strike deeper, faster, and more decisively.

Pakistan believes it can respond with greater speed and confidence.

They are on a collision course.

The Time Bomb of Divergent Lessons

South Asia does not need another crisis to test this divergence. It needs structured dialogue, mutual recognition of escalation risks, and a re-commitment to strategic restraint. Without that, the next crisis will not just be harder to manage, it may be impossible.

BASIC published two views on the subject, one Indian and one Pakistani. For this review, here is the breakdown of the two divergent views which largely reflect the broader commentary emerging from both countries. It leaves us at an inflection point: When adversaries walk away from the same crisis with opposite conclusions, the groundwork for future miscalculation is already laid.

Comparative Table: Indian vs. Pakistani Views on the Post-Pahalgam Crisis

Indian Viewpoint:
Authors: Dr. Arun Sahgal (Forum for Strategic Initiatives) and Ambuj Sahu (Indiana University Bloomington)
Title: Operation Sindoor: The Subcontinent’s First Non-Contact War

Pakistani Viewpoint:
Author: Dr. Zahir Kazmi (Arms Control Advisor, Strategic Plans Division)
Title: No Space for War: Marka-e-Haq and the Logic of Deterrence in South Asia

Rabia Akhtar is Dean Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Lahore. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Project for Managing the Atom at Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School. She tweets @Rabs_AA

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