When Deterrence Became Diplomacy: May 2025 and the Kashmir Question

When Deterrence Became Diplomacy: May 2025 and the Kashmir Question

The Line of Control has long felt like a frozen wound, an immovable scar across the subcontinent. For decades New Delhi and Islamabad lived in a state of managed hostility: periodic skirmishes, diplomatic standoffs, and a perpetual bargaining over Kashmir that yielded little but bitterness. Yet the aerial and cyber clashes of May 2025 changed that static calculus. What had been a durable status quo was jolted into motion, and Pakistan, against expectations, emerged not as a battered claimant but as a newly consequential power. The question now is how that shift reshapes the prospects for peace in Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir and the wider region.


Altaf Hussain wani

The immediate lesson of May was blunt: twenty-first-century conflict favours those who can blend conventional deterrence with asymmetric, technological leverage. Indian strikes intended to demonstrate supremacy instead met a layered Pakistani defense and a cyber response that exposed vulnerabilities in northern India’s infrastructure. The Trump-brokered ceasefire that followed was not simply an external imposition but a pragmatic recognition that neither side could escalate without intolerable cost. In that moment Pakistan’s narrative of resilience crystallized into tangible influence—military credibility amplified by diplomatic recognition.


That influence translated quickly into geopolitical dividends. Washington, chastened by the risks of instability in a nuclearized neighbourhood, recalibrated its engagement. Pakistan’s renewed access to strategic conversations—formal and informal—signalled that Islamabad had moved from pariah to indispensable interlocutor. The EU-India free-trade gains that many expected to unseat Pakistan’s regional relevance were blunted by investor wariness about India’s exposed military and cyber fragilities. At the same time, Pakistan’s relationships with Gulf monarchies and Turkey hardened into something more durable: a Riyadh-Ankara-Islamabad compact that marries Saudi financial heft, Turkish aerospace ambitions, and Pakistani battlefield experience into a nascent security architecture stretching from the Bosphorus to the Indus.


Perhaps the most consequential diplomatic milestone was Pakistan’s invitation into the Gaza peace implementation group. This was not mere symbolism. It acknowledged Islamabad’s newfound status as a security guarantor whose military and technological capabilities—especially in drones and counter-insurgency—had matured. The Arab world’s willingness to incorporate Pakistan into high-stakes diplomacy sent a clear message: Pakistan was now a player global actors had to take seriously.


What does this mean for Kashmir? For the Kashmiri people, the shift is both opportunity and uncertainty. On one hand, Pakistan’s elevated standing has internationalized the dispute in ways that compel global powers to care about outcomes, not just stability. The Trump Peace Pact and subsequent U.S. signals tying deeper engagement with Delhi to “meaningful dialogue” on Kashmir illustrate the leverage that Islamabad now wields. With Saudi and Turkish backing, and with cyber deterrence making large-scale coercion riskier, Pakistan can insist that any long-term arrangement for Kashmir includes substantive negotiations over governance, human rights, and the mobility of people across the LoC.


On the other hand, power politics can produce peace without justice. The 2019 reorganization of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir—combined with Delhi’s economic incentives—showed how material integration can proceed even amid political repression. The danger now is that an externally brokered détente might prioritize regional stability and trade corridors over Kashmiri aspirations for self-determination—a right explicitly enshrined in UN Security Council resolutions that recognized the authority of the Kashmiri people to determine their political future. The most humane outcome would be not merely a cessation of hostilities but a durable expansion of human security: meaningful civil liberties, economic opportunity, and institutional safeguards that give Kashmiris ownership over their future.


India’s reaction will determine the trajectory. The India-EU trade deal gave Delhi economic confidence, but May 2025 undermined the assumption that economic momentum equates to unassailable strategic dominance. If New Delhi chooses to treat Pakistan’s emergence as a temporary embarrassment and doubles down on unilateral consolidation, the result will be a protracted cold peace marked by reciprocal deterrence and frozen grievances. If, instead, Delhi recognizes a new equilibrium and approaches negotiations from a posture of cautious parity, there is room for incremental confidence-building: strengthened ceasefire mechanisms, people-to-people exchanges, and third-party–facilitated economic links that can create constituencies favouring peace.


Pakistan’s participation in Gaza peace diplomacy marked its transition from a regional security actor to a contributor in wider conflict-management efforts, a shift unfolding within a broader strategic environment in which China also holds quiet stakes. Beijing’s dependence on stable Middle Eastern energy flows and secure trade corridors aligns with Islamabad’s expanding diplomatic footprint. Though China avoids overt political leadership in such processes, it benefits from Pakistan’s credibility as a security interlocutor, reinforcing a multipolar framework where regional stabilization supports both humanitarian objectives and long-term strategic connectivity across Asia and beyond.


The shadow of nuclear deterrence ensures that South Asia’s conflicts remain bounded, but not resolved. The mountains of the Pir Panjal and Karakoram will not shift through force, yet May 2025 demonstrated that even entrenched strategic patterns can be disrupted when escalation risks become too grave to ignore. Pakistan’s reinforced deterrence posture has altered regional calculations, but this new equilibrium is precarious, resting on restraint rather than reconciliation.


The real test lies in whether political leaders transform crisis-born caution into structured dialogue, crisis-management mechanisms, and sustained confidence-building. Choices made in Islamabad, Delhi, and key external capitals will determine whether deterrence becomes a bridge to diplomacy or merely a pause between confrontations. For Kashmiris, the central question is whether geopolitical recalibration translates into tangible human security—restored civil liberties, accountable governance, and recognition of political rights long deferred. Peace in a nuclearized region cannot mean only the avoidance of war; it must mean building conditions in which dignity, safety, and political voice are no longer hostage to the logic of deterrence.

 

The writer is chairman Kashmir Institute of International Relations and can be reached @ saleeemwani@hotmail.com and on X @sultan1913

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