08-05-2025
India, Pakistan climb escalatory ladder. Anatomy of kinetic response & off-ramp
Before these, however, comes a term used so rarely these days, it sounds exotic: casus belli. I am employing Latin despite my first venerable news editor late D.N. Singh's orders to never use 'foreign' until an English alternative was available. Somehow, cause to justify conflict or war does not sound so convincing.
As I finish writing this, fresh fighting has broken out over Jammu, Pathankot and Jaisalmer, and Pakistan has just made a rare admission of the loss of two JF-17 fighter jets, while Indian sources believe they have also shot down an F-16. This is a very fast-moving story and instead of running commentary, I am getting into some key issues arising in the current crisis.
The casus belli in this case is Pahalgam and it is astounding—and disappointing—how it has faded from not just international media, but ours too. If that massacre hadn't taken place, we wouldn't be here today. Pahalgam, thus, was the first step on the escalatory ladder. Why did the Pakistani establishment and their proxies choose this action, we will analyse in another article over the next couple of days. This story isn't going anywhere.
We are also familiar with the successive steps on this ladder already climbed. The diplomatic staff cuts, vaporising of people-to-people contacts and visas, ban on overflights and finally, the holding of Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance by India, and the Pakistani counter with the threat to respond with 'reserving the right' to do just this with the Simla Agreement. As we climbed these steps on the escalatory ladder, the question often asked was: will there be kinetic action. And if so, when and what kind?
Kinetic action implies the use of military force to achieve your objective and deliver a message, as differing from diplomatic, information, economic warfare, lawfare, sanctions and so on. India took that step up the ladder on the intervening night of 6/7 May.
Pakistan followed the next night with surprisingly ambitious targeting of Indian airbases across our north and west. They were not trying to carry out any massive damage or hit aircraft yet. The nature of the attacks, instruments used and targets chosen would introduce us to another term you might need to get familiar with. It is SEAD: Suppression of Enemy Air Defence. Sometimes DEAD is preferred, destruction replacing suppression.
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If you can suppress or even partly degrade your rival's air defences, it gives your air power (fighters and missiles) that much greater freedom and safety to operate. Remember on the night of 6/7 May India carried out the attacks without any SEAD action preceding it. It might've made the action safer for the IAF strike forces, but would have been like an air raid alarm waking up the Pakistanis. This should enable us to appreciate the degree of difficulty and danger our strike elements faced.
This SEAD is precisely what Pakistan tried last night. If they had succeeded even partly, they would have come with larger attacks. This is the 'compliment' India paid back with its drone attacks. Each was targeted precisely with the same objective: SEAD. If Pakistan responds tonight, it will be the next step on the ladder.
That brings us to the concept of 'off-ramp.' It is literally like when you are peering on a highway and want to get off it for rest, a snack and in the strategic discourse, a halt to hostilities or a return to negotiation or peace. It can also apply to a bull continuing to invest breathlessly even as the markets are declining and then, at some point either losing nerve or embracing prudence to stop. Or get off the ramp.
In the India-Pakistan situations, off-ramps have come either through foreign mediation (after months of kinetic warfare over Kargil, and a long stand-off with Op Parakram) or when a situation made it possible for both sides to claim a win. Think Pulwama. When India hit a terror base in the Pakistani mainland for the first time, Pakistan had a pilot as a PoW. His return under Indian pressure became the off-ramp for both.
The ongoing story does not promise any such dramatic resolutions. On the other hand, every night sees the next step on the escalatory ladder climbed. Given how late action takes place at night, I'd suggest anybody interested in tracking it get some sleep in the day. This is a 'keep your seat belts tightened at all times' juncture.
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