Pakistan’s authorities has pledged to reply “at a time, place and manner of its choosing” following an air assault from India that killed 31 individuals in Pakistan on Could 6, 2025.
The missile strike comes at a time of elevated rigidity between the 2 South Asian neighbors following a terror assault in Indian-controlled Kashmir on April 22 that resulted within the deaths of 26 Indian vacationers.
India blamed the assault on its neighbor though has but to offer any stable proof of a hyperlink between the assailants and the Pakistani state.
To grasp extra about how Pakistan’s highly effective army is viewing the incident, and weighing a response, The Dialog U.S. turned to Ayesha Jalal, an skilled on South Asian historical past and politics who’s the Mary Ricardson Professor of Historical past at Tufts College.
Who will makes the selections over how Pakistan responds?
That is clearly a protection problem, so the Pakistani army goes to take the lead. Any choice over how to answer the Indian airstrikes must be performed in session with the civilian authorities. However in the end will probably be the highly effective Pakistani generals that shall be making the selections.
In Pakistan, that is the same old method of doing issues. The army has dominated politics in Pakistan for many years. Partly, that is because of the very dynamic we’re seeing now. From the creation of Pakistan onward, there was rigidity with India, together with over Kashmir. Certainly the 2 international locations went to warfare over Kashmir inside a 12 months of the partition of India quickly after the creation of Pakistan. So the army has at all times been seen as central to Pakistan’s view of itself as an unbiased nation.
Then in 1958, the Pakistani military toppled the civilian authorities within the nation’s first of a number of army coup makes an attempt, three of which have been profitable.
Since that point onward, no civilian authorities has been capable of govern efficiently for lengthy with out the help of the military. Latest political developments within the nation – the ouster and arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and a 2024 election that resulted in a weak coalition authorities – have solely strengthened the hand of Pakistan’s army.
What can we find out about Pakistan’s military chief Gen. Syed Asim Munir?
Regardless of the Pakistani Military’s place of energy, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, the Chief of Military Employees, is somebody who has tried to maintain out of the highlight. He is named a really spiritual character – he’s a Hafiz, which means he has memorized the Quran. And he’s seen as a tricky, pretty inaccessible soldier.
He’s additionally a hawk in relation to relations with India. Talking after the Kashmir assault and earlier than India’s airstrikes, Munir warned, “Let there be no ambiguity: Any military misadventure by India will be met with a swift, resolute, and notch-up response.”
Chief of Military Employees Syed Asim Munir on July 16, 2023.
Iranian Presidency/Anadolu Company by way of Getty Pictures
This method is considerably of a departure from that of the person he changed in 2022, former Military Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa. Bajwa was extra inclined to search for a peaceable decision with India over Kashmir and different points.
Munir, in contrast, presents a a extra belligerent entrance within the face of what many in Pakistan see as Indian aggression, whereas framing the rivalry between the 2 nations in spiritual phrases.
What function has he and the Pakistani military performed up to now within the disaster?
Quite a bit has been made, particularly in India, of feedback that Munir made a couple of days earlier than the assault in Pahalgam.
Munir described Kashmir as Pakistan’s “jugular vein” and framed the long-running animosity between Pakistan and India in spiritual phrases, invoking the “two-nation” concept that states that India is a homeland for Hindus; Pakistan is one for Muslims. The idea, conveyed by a lot of India’s media, is that Munir’s was an inflammatory assertion that inspired the Pahalgam assault.
However there’s nothing in what he stated that was solely authentic or new: This has been the narrative of the Pakistani army for a number of many years. It’s merely how they discuss.
Is there proof that Pakistan’s army performed a task within the assault?
None that India has introduced as but.
India has blamed Pakistan for supporting the Kashmiri militants accountable – however hasn’t articulated what the precise relationship is between Pakistan and the militant group, The Resistance Entrance.
Actually, Pakistan has up to now had ties to a few of the many militant teams in Kashmir. For some teams, that has meant crossing over from Indian-controlled Kashmir to Pakistan for coaching.
However the argument that “Pakistan used to do it, so they must be doing it now” appears unsupported – actually, Indian hasn’t introduced stable proof to any worldwide physique.
What has the response of the worldwide group been?
India will not be on as robust of floor because it was in 2019, when a suicide bomber in Pulwama, Indian-administerd Kashmir, killed 40 members of the Central Reserve Police Drive. On that event, the worldwide group swung behind India, with the U.S. providing counterterrorism help whereas calling on Pakistan to cease sheltering terrorists.
With out agency proof of a hyperlink between the assault and Pakistan this time round, the worldwide group has discovered it tough to go together with India’s narrative of the assault. The U.S. has referred to as on either side to discover a “peaceful resolution.”
In the meantime China has indicated that it’s standing by Pakistan in a press release during which it expressed “regret over India’s military actions” whereas additionally calling on each India and Pakistan to “avoid taking actions that further complicate the situation.”
What pressures will the Pakistani military be below to reply?
In Pakistan, the view is that is India making an attempt to claim its dominance and create what analysts have referred to as a “new normal” in relationships between the 2 international locations – one during which India will retaliate to any perceived Pakistani-linked terror assault with missile strikes on Pakistan’s territory.
The idea right here is that India doesn’t thoughts escalation, in truth it’s seen as serving the Hindu nationalist goals of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
However I wouldn’t describe it as public strain on Pakistan’s army to reply, it’s extra strategic strain. Pakistan might want to stop this “new normal” taking place, and so will, for my part, very possible reply in form to the Indian airstrikes.
What can Pakistan do in response?
Effectively, for starters it has, in concept, the capability to hit over 200 Indian cities with its arsenal of missiles. However Pakistan Protection Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has already stated that strikes would solely goal Indian army targets and never civilians. Pakistan additionally has to weigh how India might reply to any retaliatory strikes.
However India has expanded the same old phrases of engagement in relation to Kashmir. Sometimes lately, combating has been contained alongside the “line of control” – the border between Indian- and Pakistani-controled Kashmir.
However the Indian airstrike was deep inside Pakistan. India says that the targets have been all terrorist, however civilians have been killed within the course of – and Pakistan’s army will be unable to simply depart it at that. A response could be very a lot anticipated, particularly now that India has upped the ante by utilizing Israeli made Harop drones in an try to focus on the Pakistani air protection system. Pakistan claims it has shot down 25 of those drones.
What are the dangers of escalation for Pakistan?
Clearly essentially the most urgent danger is that Pakistan and India are each nuclear states. If Pakistan retaliates in an escalatory method, after which India responds in a similar way, this will get to some extent the place the usage of nuclear weapons is a really actual danger.
Struggle would additionally hit Pakistan’s economic system at a time when it’s seen to be bettering after years of disaster. However that can possible be of secondary significance within the decision-making course of for Pakistan’s army if it believes that the nation’s integrity is being threatened.
As well as, Pakistan’s generals will possible be of the view that India, in attacking Pakistan, is making an attempt to thwart any financial restoration in Pakistan – with the assumption being that India’s authorities fears a robust, extra economically secure rival.
