| News Details |
| Pakistan’s war option and India’s strategic response | |
K N Pandita and Fatima Baloch
Pakistan finds itself entangled on multiple fronts; careworn with deep internal unrest and mounting external pressure. The security situation in Balochistan has deteriorated sharply, with the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) regaining control over the central regions, including a stronghold in Zehri town in Khuzdar district. In response, the provincial government has imposed a blanket ban on public transport across Balochistan, citing escalating security threats as the justification.
The gravity of the crisis is underscored by remarks from former Chief Minister Jan Jamali, a pro-establishment figure, who lamented that even pro-Pakistan Baloch-- often labelled as traitors by the insurgents-- cannot travel safely in daylight through the Bolan bypass owing to frequent ambushes by BLA fighters. This reflects the broader challenge faced by the Pakistan Army, which continues to battle persistent insurgencies in both Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).
Pakistan's foreign relations remain strained. Tensions with the Afghan Taliban-led government have intensified, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of providing a haven, military support, and operational backing to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Pakistan is leveraging its ties with China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic countries to pressure the Afghan Taliban into acting against its ideological ally, the TTP. This is the same organisation which fought alongside the Taliban for two decades against the occupational forces of the U.S. and NATO. Simultaneously, Pakistan continues to blame India for supporting both the secular-nationalist BLA and the jihadist TTP --- an allegation that underscores Islamabad’s deepening strategic disquiet.
Following the ousting of the PTI government led by Imran Khan, the Pakistan Army has suffered a notable decline in public support in Punjab, a province where it traditionally enjoyed strong backing, particularly under the anti-India narrative. This erosion of trust has weakened the Army’s ability to manage domestic politics and respond to internal and external threats.
Strategic diversion and public sentiment
To stonewall its waning popularity, the Pakistan Army reportedly planned, abetted, and executed the Pahalgam attack in the Indian-part of Kashmir through proxy forces, the tactics long employed to achieve strategic objectives. The Army capitalised on the Pahalgam incident and the Indo-Pakistan war of May 2025 to shift national focus away from daily ambushes and rising casualties in KPK and Balochistan, where its position remains increasingly untenable.
In KPK, the TTP continues its campaign to dismantle the state and establish a Sharia-based regime, reminiscent of pre-2021 Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in Balochistan, secular and moderate nationalist fighters persist in their national liberation struggle, meaning independence of Balochistan from the stranglehold of the Punjabi-dominated Pakistan army.
India’s Tactical gains and strategic messaging
Despite tactical setbacks, such as publicly warning Pakistan of impending strikes, which allowed the Pakistan Air Force time to strategise its response, it achieved its core military objectives. Political constraints prevented preemptive strikes on Pakistani military assets, resulting in some losses for the Indian side. Nevertheless, Indian officials acknowledged these setbacks while emphasising their strategic gains.
India formally withdrew from the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) and launched precision strikes on Pakistani cities, targeting terrorist infrastructure, airfields, and jet hangars. These operations caused her significant damage and casualties. Though currently paused, the campaign remains incomplete and may resume in response to future provocations.
India has officially designated the Pakistan Army as a participant in a proxy war. It declared that any future terrorist attack originating from Pakistani soil would be treated as an act of war—potentially triggering the continuation of Operation Sindoor. This declaration places the Pakistan military under constant alert and international scrutiny. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has placed itself in a tenuous situation by presuming that a Pakistani nuclear device would protect the kingdom, forgetting that the nuclear option is always double–edged.
Strategic fallout and future trajectory
While India’s campaign has brought relative calm to Kashmir, Pakistan remains mired in high-intensity conflict and guerrilla warfare in Balochistan and KPK. Strategically, Pakistan has emerged from the conflict with no tangible gains. The invalidation of the IWT has severed a critical lifeline for water resources, and the threat of renewed Indian military action has curtailed cross-border operations. A co-relative phenomenon sprang in the context of the rising crescendo of nationalist insurgency in turbulent POJK. Islamabad felt that these insurgents were encouraged to intensify their struggle because the Pakistani army was helplessly engaged in facing the crisis in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. To counter this apprehension, the Pakistani army took two important steps simultaneously. The first was that it reinforced the border manpower by adding nearly a hundred thousand army men and the requisite armour on its side of the LoC, and secondly, it prompted anti-India elements like Turkey and Bangladesh to raise Kashmir in their presentations at the UN General Assembly sessions in Geneva. The purpose was to divert the attention of the POJK unrest towards maligning India.
Pakistan’s limited options
Pakistan now stands at a pivotal juncture with limited strategic options. It must choose between two stark paths:
• Escalation: Pursue decisive military conflict against India in the elusive hope of negotiating a new international framework to pressure India into halting support for the Baloch nationalist movement, reinstating the IWT, securing water resources, projecting national strength, and diverting domestic attention from internal unrest. Pakistan's recent defence agreement with Saudi Arabia may embolden its military posture, potentially dragging the broader Arab world into a regional war against India. This path appears increasingly likely, as Pakistan is actively pursuing defence agreements and diplomatic support from the United States and Arab nations. What could have been the subject about which Trump talked to the Pakistani P M and army commander in a closed room for nearly an hour and a half, with no press statement to follow? Undoubtedly, something sinister is brewing. It is for the American nation to ask why their elected president was huddling with the leaders of the country where Osama bin Laden was discovered and killed in his hiding place, only a few hundred yards from Pakistan army headquarters.
• Similar conditions apply to Afghanistan; Pakistan may also consider war against the Afghan Taliban to achieve wider objectives besides reprisals against TTP and BLA. Trump has given up his initial penchant for Canada, Iceland and Panama, and is now focusing on Bagram airfield.
• Military setback: Continued military losses in the war against the BLA and TTP are hastily eroding public support and risking disintegration, almost echoing the outcome of the 1971 war.
India’s options and regional stability
Worn out by its prolonged guerrilla war against the TTP and BLA, it may escalate tensions by launching direct military action against India and Afghanistan, provoking conflict with the Afghan Taliban and seeking international intervention to dismantle both insurgencies. It may also provoke hostilities with India to gain sympathy from religious militant groups, portraying themselves as sympathisers and defender of Kashmiri Muslims and rechristening the TTP’s insurgency as a misguided jihad. Therefore, this prospect strongly advocates a well-considered and well-planned joint strategy by India and the Afghan Taliban to be prepared for countering any threat from Pakistan’s so-called non-state actors as the first fodder for Indian and Afghan guns.
The Afghan Taliban must avoid getting trapped in a conflict with the TTP and Baloch nationalists to facilitate Pakistan’s nefarious designs. A reckless blunder at this critical stage will be fraught with serious consequences, such as deepening of internal discord, intensification of political instability, and escalation of economic crisis, etc. —conditions Pakistan could exploit to destabilise Afghanistan further.
India and the Afghan Taliban should collaborate in education, healthcare, and industrial development to create job opportunities and rebuild Afghanistan. In the past, India has played an envious role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan's infrastructure. After the American deep state has spread out its pernicious fangs against India, New Delhi should throw off every inhibition of giving formal recognition to the Taliban. Not only that, India should also publicly express resentment of the American ambition of capturing Bagram airport in Afghanistan, owing to the threat its strategic location poses for India and the region, including China. India should formally recognise the Afghan Taliban government, as Russia has done, and enhance diplomatic and strategic relations.
India must act decisively to protect moderate Shia Zaidi Muslims in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Late General Musharraf once said that Indian Muslims were Pakistan's greatest asset against India. India can reverse the situation by building its assets in Pakistan, like the Zaidi Shia Muslims, the Baloch and other nationalists. In case the TTP nears Islamabad and the Pakistan Army is left with the only option of retreat at the hands of the combined forces of TTP and Baloch nationalists, then India must prepare itself for control over the entire region of POK. The strategic framework and operational details have been outlined in our previous articles and are accessible online.
(Dr K N Pandita is the former Director of the Central Asian Studies, Kashmir and Fatima Bloch is a research scholar)
(Disclaimer: The views, observations and opinions expressed in above write up of Scoop News are strictly author's own. Scoop News does not take any onus or liability for the veracity, accuracy, validity, completeness, suitability of any of information in the above given write up. The information, facts or figures appearing in the write up in no way manifest the position, standpoint or stance of Scoop News and the Scoop News does not assume any encumbrance or answerability of the same. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent Courts and Forums in Jammu City Only)
Editor
Scoop News,(scoopnews.in)
... |
| |
|
|
Share this Story |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|