The world's attention is once again focused on the conflict between the two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. The reason was the resonant terrorist attack on April 22 in India's Pahalgam in the Kashmir valley, which claimed the lives of several dozen civilians. The Government of India has traditionally announced the connection of terrorists with the Pakistani special services, and has taken a number of tough political, diplomatic and other steps. Pakistan categorically denies all charges, especially involvement in terrorism, and responds in kind.
Indian military experts suggest that the criminals wanted to draw international attention to Kashmir by planning the attack so that it coincided with the visit of US Vice President JD Vance to India and Narendra Modi to Saudi Arabia.
The air defenses, air forces, and missile forces of both nuclear powers have been put on alert. The Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikrant is located near Pakistani territorial waters. Skirmishes occur from time to time along the along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) which performs the function of the state border.
On Pakistan's initiative, an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council was convened on May 5 to discuss the situation on the border with India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has held a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs. It plays a key role in reviewing and making decisions on issues of national importance. After a meeting of this Committee in February 2019 after the terrorist attack in Pulwama, where the security situation was reviewed and counter-terrorism strategies were discussed, a few days later, the Indian Air Force inflicted airstrikes on the Balakot area in Pakistan. Based on this logic, it can be assumed that a political decision on response measures has been made.
Experts believe that a "retaliatory strike" by New Delhi against Pakistan, which would fit into the logic of "punitive deterrence," is possible in the coming days. This forecast is based on the logic of escalation, the experience of defusing previous incidents, as well as the need to save face without giving the opposition grounds for reproaches and accusations of inaction.
However, most observers are confident that the 2019 scenario will be repeated in many ways. A local armed conflict between India and Pakistan is possible, but a full-scale war is not beneficial to either side.
India-Pakistan bilateral relations (as well as India-China) periodically escalate, sometimes dramatically. This is followed by a show of force, skirmishes at the border, a parity response and de-escalation.
As for the situation at LAC, several thousand cases of ceasefire violations are registered annually on both sides. For these places, it's such a commonplace and routine that incidents don't even get into news reports.
We should not expect instant effects from blocking the waters of the Indus River by India. Experts say that it will take several years for Pakistan's agriculture to suffer damage from this. There will be nowhere to put the excess water on the Indian side by mid-June, when the monsoon rains arrive.
Another thing is that the conflict will have real consequences for the economies of the two neighbors, trade between which has already been effectively frozen for a long time. By the way, Indian stock indexes showed a noticeable drop against the background of the aggravated relations with Pakistan after the terrorist attack in Kashmir. According to Bloomberg, Indian stocks were the most unprofitable in Asia that day.
But most importantly, even the Indians themselves, without questioning their sovereign right to retaliate against Pakistan, express confidence that military measures will not fundamentally resolve the Kashmir problem, the roots of which go deep into 1947 during the partition of British India. It seems that there are no simple and quick solutions in the foreseeable future.
It is obvious that for Minsk the latest escalation of tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad further highlights the dilemma of building a balanced bilateral relationship with these capitals. All our steps in both directions will be mutually considered by the Indian and Pakistani partners through the optics of a latent proxy war between them.