For two weeks, when India promised an energetic response to a terrorist massacre that he was linked to Pakistan, the only real question seemed to be how much she was going to strike.
The answer occurred in the short hours of Wednesday, while India was sending jets on the air to hit several sites in Pakistan, and while the Pakistani army mobilized its own fleet to try to shoot Indian planes from the sky.
At the end of the day, long after the missiles had stopped flying and the murder had ended, the two parties took stock and found that they had enough to win – or to further increase the conflict.
India has deepened Pakistan that it had not done so at any time in the last decades of enmity between the two rivals of nuclear weapons. Damage to all accounts were important, with more than 20 people killed in dozens of strikes out of six in nine places, especially in the cities known for a long time to accommodate terrorist leaders sought for carnage inflicted on India.
But there was also proof more and more that Pakistan had also delivered serious blows. Two or three Indian planes fell on the Indian side of the border, according to Indian officials and Western diplomats, as well as local media reports and descriptions of eyewitness. It was exactly what India had hoped to avoid after having suffered a similar embarrassment the last time it exchanged military strikes with Pakistan in 2019.
The question is now whether Pakistan will decide that it must respond to the strikes of India on the Pakistani heart with an attack on it on Indian soil.
For the moment, Pakistan says it keeps all the options open. But diplomats and analysts have expressed a certain hope that the events of the day could offer both parties an offramp which allows them to avoid a spiral in total war. This hope was partly fueled by suggestions that conversations in the back channel had started, the Pakistani Minister for Foreign Affairs told an information chain that there had been “a certain interaction” between the national security advisers of the two countries since the military confrontation on Wednesday.
Those who are looking for signs that the two countries could be serious about the de -escalation indicated in part to India’s declarations on its strikes. In its public ads and a wave of diplomatic activities, India stressed that its action was limited and targeted and that it did not ask for climbing.
The nature of the strikes, which targeted the places associated with terrorist groups which are recognized names in India, could also help the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to repress the public anger that followed the terrorist massacre last month in Kashmir.
“These actions have been measured, non -ecological, proportionate and responsible,” said Vikram Misri, Foreign Affairs Secretary of India.
On the Pakistani side, military and civilian officials tried to keep the story focused on what they called the main victory of Pakistan to bring down Indian planes.
Pakistani officials publicly said that the country’s forces had reduced five Indian planes in total. In private conversations with diplomats, officials stressed that they had been selected. The Pakistani forces, they said, were waiting for Indian planes to start freeing their expenses before hitting them.
In a return to normality signal, Pakistan said on Wednesday evening that its airspace was once again opened.
“Our armed forces were in watch 24/7, ready to shoot down enemy planes when they took off and throw them into the sea,” said Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in an address. “The five Indian planes that were broken down last night could have been 10, but our pilots and our hawks acted with caution.”
What comes next, said analysts and diplomats, will depend on the question of whether the two parties have sufficiently extracted to satisfy their people and on the question of whether sufficient international diplomacy can be gathered at a time of global upheavals.
Shashi Tharoor, a member of the Indian Parliament, said that the horrible nature of the carnage last month in Kashmir had left the Indian government as much as a choice than to carry out a military action, “because moreover, the terrorists would feel that they could come and kill and leave with impunity.”
But he said that the Indian side had “significantly calibrated” his answer to make sure that any chance of climbing would be reduced.
“I think it was done in a way that sought to transmit very clearly that we were not looking to see this as the salvo of opening in an extended war, but rather as a single-off,” said Tharoor.
He said that there was no official Indian confirmation that the Pakistani army had shot down Indian planes. “But if it is true that Pakistan was able to shoot down some planes, they could easily be able to say that honor is satisfied,” he said.
The Pakistani side, while needing to demonstrate its strength against India, also has powerful reasons to avoid a new escalation.
Pakistan can hardly afford a prolonged war at a time of serious economic difficulties. It would also be faced with a complicated puzzle in the choice of targets within Indian territory. India has no equivalent terrorist apparatus to strike in tit-range attacks. A potential option, striking of Indian military installations, would risk serious reprisals.
Moeed Yousaf, a former national security advisor in Pakistan, said that he considered the problem as a deterrence – to specify for India that she could not hit international borders and get away with it.
“”There is a debate in the decision-making circles “in Pakistan on the question of whether his claims of success in Indian planes are sufficient, said Mr. Yousaf.” I think the options have been kept open, “he said, adding that” the ball is still in the court in India. “
Muhammad Saeed, a retired general who was chief of the general staff of the Pakistani army, said that the two parties would need to repress tensions.
“The international community must understand, no matter how distracted they are with Ukraine or elsewhere, it is a brewing crisis with massive implications,” said Mr. Saeed. “If the region passes through the open war, and there is no crisis management framework, that then? Will you continue to fly in Washington, London, Rome mediators every time? ”
He said that the global powers had to make an “push for commitment”. Otherwise, he said, “We are preparing again for the same crisis.”
Although there seems to be a large consensus on the damage inflicted by the Indian strikes on the Pakistani side, the exact nature of the reported drop in Indian planes has remained clear.
The public accounts on both sides suggested that it was unlikely that Indian planes crossed the Pakistani airspace. All the indications were that India had carried out its strikes, either in the sky or with missiles on the ground, of its own territory.
If it is true that Indian planes have not entered the Pakistani airspace, it is not clear how Pakistan would have potentially shot the Indian plane.
Pakistani military officials said they used air-to-air missiles to shoot down planes, which could not be verified independently. In interactions with foreign diplomats, Pakistani officials described the confrontation as a dog fighting almost an hour along the line that divides India and Pakistan.
Military analysts said that, given the long -range missiles that the two countries have in their arsenals, they would not need to get rid of the other airspace to make cross -border strikes against air or land targets.
Hari Kumar And Pragati KB Reports contributed to New Delhi.
