TThe crisis of the crisis of India and continuous spiral Pakistan. Pakistan's military claims killed 40 to 50 Indian soldiers along their de facto border in cashmere and killed 29 Indian drones on Thursday evening and Friday morning, in response to India hitting several locations in Pakistan on Wednesday that he claimed to be “terrorist camps”.
The current unrest was launched by the deadly terrorist attack last month against tourists in the part controlled by the Indine of the region produced of Kashmir, which made 25 Indians and a Nepalese national death. New Delhi has broken blood out on Islamabad, who denied complicity and called for an independent investigation. But with the two parties that blame the other for each escalation, the war in its own right seems to be worrying.
Thursday, the Pakistani army chief General Ashi Munnir was held at the top of a reservoir during a military exercise to address his troops. “That there is no ambiguity,” he said. “Any military mishap of India will be greeted by a quick, resolved and notch response.”
For Bharat Karnad, A Professor emeritus in national security studies at the New Delhi's Center for Policy Research, everything is based on Bringing, which is “something of a hot head,” he says. “It is a Koranic literature, one of the real believers, who spoke of Ghazwa-e-Hind”, referring to a holy war against India mentioned in the hadith.
Conversely, Fawad Chaudhry, a former information minister of the Pakistani minister of the former Imran Khan primary, believes that Indian chief Narendra Modi is the branch in chief and began to redraw borders in cashmere to guarantee his heritage in the face of falling noders.
“He wants to be a larger leader than Gandhi or Nehru,” Fawad told Time. “So I think he will extend the theater of war.”
The specter of two nuclear enemies of nuclear weapons again exchanging blows on a disputed territory that they have already carried out two wars naturally alarmed the international community. On Wednesday, the secretary general of the United Nations António Guterres warned This “military solution is not a solution”.
In the last two covers that India and Pakistan clashed considerably in cashmere in 2016 and 2019, the United States played a key role in the de-escalation of tensions. However, today's Trump administration adopts a work approach, with vice-president JD Vance developer Fox News that spit was “fundamentally not our business”.
“The Pakistani do not have this” leaving “that they used to count on Washington to roll like the cavalry to save them,” explains Karnad.
So, are we all screwed up then? Not so fast. In the melee, it is rather galloping an improbable referee: the Gulf States, in particular Saudi Arabia, which today play a very familiar key role.
On Thursday, the Minister of Saudi Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, made a surprise visit to India to meet the Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar and help negotiate a climb. Peace is clearly in the interests of Riyadh, given Saudi Arabia currently welcomes some 2.6 million Indians working alongside a similar Pakistani cohort. After all, when the cashmere attack took place, Modi was in Djeddah to discuss the economic corridor of India-Middle East-Europe and advance an investment agreement worth 100 billion dollars.
“The Gulf States, by the nature of their relations with Pakistan and India, will become more active to urge the two states to exercise a restraint,” said Samina Yasmeen, director of the Center for Muslim States and Societies of the University of Australia-Western. “It is in their interest to ensure that the region is stable.”
However, it is a remarkable transformation for Saudi Arabia in particular, which has long been the world's pre -eminent exporter of Islamist terrorism. From funding 9/11 To conduct the war against the Houthis supported by Iran in Yemen at the torture and murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom was an undeniably destabilizing presence.
However, the regional dynamics have changed in recent years. The influencing economic and diplomatic influence of the Gulf corresponding to the interests replacing ideology as the main engine of foreign policy, as illustrated by the remarkable negotiations (although ultimately abandoned) towards the normalization Relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
In any case, the great historical powers are no longer the only standards of global influence. Apart from the Saudis, nations like Qatar and water fill the void. Rather than stirring the flames by supporting a colleague from the Islamic State Pakistan in the current crisis, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates exhorted restraint. Doha even went so far as to relieve New Delhi in the ship, at least according to a Indian reading.
However, things are complicated. China remains a key investment and security partner in Pakistan, and it was Chinese J-10C fighters armed with its PL-15 missiles that shot down five Air Force Air Force on Wednesday. In addition, China is another applicant of the disputed cashmere, controlling two bursts of the territory adjacent to its border.
“China cannot stay away from this conflict,” says Chaudhry. “Any territorial adjustment of India will not be acceptable to China. It's not for Pakistan – it's for the own interests of China. “
But the fact that these are interests, rather than values or ideology, which ultimately stimulate all regional actors mark a distinct gap of orthodoxy. For a long time, Pakistan hung on to the idea that as a Muslim state, it had a higher pretension of loyalty in the Gulf compared to India. Today, however, despite religious differences and divergent value systems, India has become a very important actor in the Gulf.
“These are not the strict alignments that we have seen in the era of the Cold War”, explains Yasmeen “It is a more fluid situation in which all these countries – India, Pakistan, included – maintain and explore what they can obtain from other parts.”
Iran, for example, is another Muslim country that shares a border with Pakistan, which hosts a large Shiite population itself. However, Iran is undoubtedly in better term with India than Pakistan these days. Tehran A expressed “Sincere condolences” to India during the terrorist attack on the cashmere. The Iranian Foreign Minister on Wednesday visit New Delhi a few hours later exit Islamabad and proposed to help de -escalation tensions. Like many countries across the Gulf, India has important interests in Iran, including a long -standing agreement to develop and exploit the Shahid Beheshti terminal at the port of Chabahar, including an investment of $ 120 million and a line of credit of $ 250 million for infrastructure development.
In the end, no regional actor wants another Indian-Pakistani war. However, analysts fear that a Rubicon has been crossed.
A burning problem is the suspension by Modi of the industrial water treaty which governs water flows to the south to Pakistan and his desire to renegotiate him for the benefit of India.
And on April 24, Pakistan suspended the 1972 Shimla agreement, which essentially means the cashmere control line – the de facto border – simply proves a cease -fire border. Under international law, a ceasefire line can be changed to the advantage of one or the other party by military means. “A psychological barrier has been raped,” says Karnad. “Now, the Indian army has a legal sanction to make more than destroy a few tanks, positions of firearms, then go back.”
All this means that even if careful diplomacy provides a ramp excluding ramp with current tensions, there will be no rapid solution and constant mediation will be necessary to prevent things from boiling in the future.
“Many now depends on the question of whether Saudi Arabia exerts pressure on India,” explains Fawad. “Otherwise, the war is imminent.”
