Nuclear crisis to drone war

The most dangerous conflict between rivals India and Pakistan in decades continued on Friday, prompting fears that one or the other could commit the unthinkable and deploy nuclear weapons.

New Delhi has claimed to have shot down hundreds of drones fired into Indian territory, and to have responded with strikes against air defence systems in Pakistan.

Islamabad denied the allegations and said it had yet to respond to Indian air strikes against targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir that killed at least 26 people on Wednesday.

India’s “Operation Sindoor” came in response to a deadly militant attack against Indian tourists last month that India holds Pakistan responsible for. Islamabad denies involvement.

Mutual shelling continues across the Line of Control (LoC) that serves as the de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region, with both sides reporting casualties.

Both sides claim to be exercising restraint, and foreign governments are seeking de-escalation, but analysts fear this outbreak of hostilities between nuclear-armed powers could lead to dangerous scenarios.

Drone wars 

This conflict is the latest of many between India and Pakistan, but the first to feature central use of unmanned systems.

India alleges that Pakistan fired more than 300 drones at 36 areas inside its borders overnight, with videos appearing to show attempts to shoot them down over Kashmir.

Pakistan claims to have downed dozens of drones fired by its neighbour on Thursday.

Wajahat S Khan, a Pakistani-American journalist and security analyst, says a “drone war” is under way.

“The fact that new elements of warfare such as drones are now being seen raises the stakes,” he told The i Paper, suggesting this broadens the conflict beyond the conventional military clashes seen before.

Unmanned devices may be setting the stage for clashes between manned systems by revealing the positions of defence systems.

“Both sides are trying to map each other’s air defence systems, India more so than Pakistan,” Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia security researcher, told Pakistani newspaper Dawn. “After air combat between two sides the other day, the contest is now in the domain of air defences with both sides attempting to gain an operational advantage.”

Drones clashes have highlighted the international dimension of the conflict through the models supplied to each side, with India said to be using Israeli-made Harop drones while Pakistan relies on Turkish systems.

A dogfight between fighter jets on Wednesday during India’s opening attacks pitted Pakistan’s Chinese-made J-10Cs against India’s French Rafale aircraft. Indian officials reported several losses in the clashes.

Khan suggests the Pakistani fleet’s performance suggests that while Islamabad does not have “ quantitative symmetry with the Indians, meaning they are outgunned in every way… they seem to have qualitative symmetry”.

Nuclear escalation   

India and Pakistan both hold large nuclear arsenals, and rhetoric from both sides of the border has suggested that use of these weapons could be on the table.

While India has adopted a “no first use” policy, Pakistan has not.

“Nuclear weapons deployment is always an option for Pakistan…but we’re not close to using nuclear weapons any time soon,” said Khan.

“Either a huge loss to Pakistan of its military, or its civilian population, or some sort of national asset or resource, is when we could see Pakistan use its nuclear option.”

A Pakistani former official told The i Paper this week that India’s larger conventional military could force Islamabad to consider the nuclear option, noting that nuclear-capable missiles were recently tested.

A senior Indian official said there was no ceiling to potential escalation, in an interview with The Indian Express.

“If [Pakistan] will go further, we will not stop…we will go till the very end,” they said.

Syed Mohammed Ali, a security analyst in Islamabad, said both countries’ nuclear capabilities had historically served to limit their conflicts.

“Pakistan and India have enough nuclear weapons to wipe the other side out several times over,” he told Associated Press. “Their nuclear weapons create a scenario for mutually assured destruction.”

But recent crises have still brought atomic weapons to the fore. The former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo wrote that a 2019 clash that involved India striking suspected militants on Pakistani territory came close to “spilling over into a nuclear conflagration”.

A nuclear crisis could also arrive unintentionally, with fears of terror groups in Pakistan attacking or attempting to seize the country’s nuclear facilities.

Targeting critical resources and infrastructure

India has paused the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, threatening a water source that Pakistan is highly dependent upon and has described as an “act of war.”

Water from the Indus River continues to flow to Pakistan for now, and India would need major infrastructure work to cut off the supply, which some analysts believe should be on the table.

“No country can be expected to uphold a peacetime treaty while suffering the consequences of an undeclared war,” wrote Brahma Chellaney, professor emeritus of strategic studies at New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research.

“If Pakistan does not want India to turn off its taps…it must demonstrate a verifiable commitment to peace, arrest terrorist leaders, shut down terrorist-training camps and end its support for cross-border violence.”

India has also shut down commercial ports and airports and increased security around other critical infrastructure sites amid fears of sabotage attacks.

Hacker groups on both sides have claimed unconfirmed successes in targeting the others’ financial installations, and say their attacks are continuing.