A year since Balakot, five lessons in crisis behavior
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It has been a year since India and Pakistan engaged in a short but lethal air battle, the most liberal use of air power between the two sides since 1971. The bilateral relationship has since been worsened by India’s abrogation of Article-370 and annexation of Kashmir. Looking back, it is clear the 2019 crisis and Pakistan’s “Operation Swift Retort” marked a watershed in an altered landscape with new risks and threat perceptions in South Asia. A year on, what lessons can be learnt from events last February?
First, the biggest takeaway from the February crisis was the extent to which it redefined external assessments of Pakistan’s resolve and capabilities. Following India’s alleged surgical strike across the Line of Control back in 2016, India claimed to have successfully found space to conduct kinetic operations below the nuclear threshold and suggested that the BJP both could and would resort to pre-emptive strikes against Pakistan in the future to assert regional dominance and signal conventional superiority.
But in terms of anticipating response, the events of last February arguably marked the biggest strategic miscalculation South Asia has seen since Pakistan’s ill-advised Kargil incursion. That Pakistan’s air defences performed ably under crisis conditions and the Pakistan Air Force exhibited a swift retaliatory response to India’s intrusion served to drill home Islamabad’s tactical capability to not only absorb but respond effectively to lightning strikes in a limited-crisis scenario.
Secondly, the near-war scenario that developed over the skies of Kashmir, together with Delhi’s unilateral annexation of Indian-administered Kashmir on August 5, served to internationalise the Kashmir dispute and catapult it to the forefront of global flash points. The virtual lockdown that has existed in Indian-administered Kashmir since August 5 has created a dangerous new equilibrium for Kashmiris as well as the wider region. As India now attempts to demonstrate a return to normalcy in the valley, it will be forced to lift the curfew and ease up on the communications blackout. When this happens, more disenfranchised and subjugated young Kashmiris will take to the streets to protest Indian brutality, creating risks for either another Pulwama-style attack and possibly even an Indian incursion across the LOC into Azad Kashmir to distract from the rebellion. If that happens, events will swiftly spiral into another full-blown regional crisis.
Thirdly, war sells in India. The Balakot crisis and naked display of military exhibitionism produced in the wake of India’s initial incursion into mainland Pakistan, shows that there is a sizeable, growing domestic constituency in India that actively supports the idea of war with Pakistan. This is a dangerous political development because it creates perverse incentives for the ruling BJP to routinise brinkmanship for electoral dividends.
In the future, the worry is that rather than emulating Islamabad’s mature and measured tone in the aftermath of crisis, Indian media and defence analysts will continue to employ jingoistic rhetoric to encourage its politicians to engage in strategic one-upmanship.
Fahd Humayun
Months before India’s general election, it was clear that India’s policy planners who signed off on the Balakot misadventure were motivated by a heady mix of rightwing hyper nationalism, with social media amplifying ordinary Indians’ belief in their armed forces’ military superiority. In the future, the worry is that rather than emulating Islamabad’s mature and measured tone in the aftermath of crisis, Indian media and defence analysts will continue to employ jingoistic rhetoric to encourage its politicians to engage in strategic one-upmanship.
Fourth, there were no third-party takers in February. Historically, climbing down from brinkmanship in South Asia has been made possible because of active third-party crisis intervention. The absence of third-party involvement in the Balakot crisis signals two trends in South Asia: the first is that international players played a perverse role in fomenting the crisis, by not only failing to disabuse India of the costs of escalation after Pulwama, but by actively goading India to attack Pakistan and exaggerating the opportunity costs of military conflict.
The second trend is that despite (or perhaps because of) the risks of uncontrolled escalation, existential deterrence held in South Asia. In the absence of third-party de-escalation, there was an implicit understanding that crossing the nuclear threshold would invite catastrophe. Notably, the off-ramps in the crisis that served to defuse the crisis were provided by Pakistan, when Prime Minister Imran Khan returned Indian Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman within 24 hours of his capture.
Finally, there was no triumphalism at home. The Balakot episode was an unequivocal victory for Pakistan, which managed to shoot down at least one Indian fighter plane and capture an Indian pilot. Pakistan, furthermore, emerged as the saner and more rational of the two crisis actors by virtue of its measured tone during the crisis and skilful unifying of domestic political voices. Despite the political win, however, there was little demonstration of triumphalism or chest-thump in Pakistan. If anything, the Balakot episode left a subdued and somber impression on those who had lived to witness it, as well as the realisation that absent more effective crisis-management mechanisms, the slide to conflict could easily be repeated.
A year on, the bilateral landscape in South Asia remains far from crisis-proof. While any number of events may trigger the next crisis, including unilateral action by a risk-acceptant BJP establishment in India, a better understanding of the drivers of crisis and subsequent escalation pathways may help policymakers prepare for future contingencies in the face of growing regional uncertainty.
– Fahd Humayun is a political science PhD candidate at Yale.
