India and Pakistan Have Lost Control of the Narrative
When the rivals allow each other to reassure their domestic audiences, the chances of conflict go down. Now, facts have intruded.
Both sides need to appease their constituents.
Photographer: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images
India has always had the capacity to strike back at Pakistan in response to the actions of the “non-state actors” its military controls. What New Delhi has always struggled with is the ability to control what follows -- to limit the spiral of escalation, to retaliate without provoking full-fledged war between two nuclear-armed states.
There was a brief moment after the Indian Air Force’s strike in Pakistani territory in the early hours of Tuesday when it appeared that a way to thread that needle had been discovered. Rather than restricting itself to attacking terrorist training camps just across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir, India for the first time in decades struck areas that were undisputedly part of Pakistan itself. Strategists in New Delhi seemed confident that they’d fundamentally shifted the red lines in Kashmir and expanded India’s arsenal of possible retaliatory measures against Pakistan-backed militant attacks.