Ceasefire Can't Mask India-Pakistan's Dangerous New Conflict Norms

And after the 2008 Mumbai attacks , which saw 166 people killed by terrorists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, rapid and high-level American diplomatic involvement helped restrain India's response and reduced the risk of an escalating conflict.

As recently as 2019, during the Balakot crisis – which followed a suicide bombing in Pulwama, Kashmir, that killed 40 Indian security personnel – it was American diplomatic pressure that helped contain hostilities.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later wrote in his memoirs ,“I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019.”

Washington as peacemaker made sense: It had influence and a vested interest.

During the Cold War, the US formed a close alliance with Pakistan to counter India's links with the Soviet Union . And after the 9/11 terror attacks, the US poured tens of billions of dollars in military assistance into Pakistan as a frontline partner in the“war on terror.”

Simultaneously, beginning in the early 2000s, the US began cultivating India as a strategic partner .

A stable Pakistan was a crucial partner in the US war in Afghanistan; a friendly India was a strategic counterbalance to China . And this gave the US both the motivation and credibility to act as an effective mediator during moments of India-Pakistan crisis.

Today, however, America's diplomatic attention has shifted significantly away from South Asia . The process began with the end of the Cold War, but accelerated dramatically after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. More recently, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have consumed Washington's diplomatic efforts.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, the US has not appointed an ambassador in New Delhi or Islamabad, nor confirmed an assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs – factors that must have hampered any mediating role for the United States.

And while Trump said the May 10 ceasefire followed a“long night of talks mediated by the United States,” statements from India and Pakistan appeared to downplay US involvement , focusing instead on the direct bilateral nature of negotiations.

Should it transpire that Washington's role as a mediator between Pakistan and India has been diminished, it is not immediately obvious who, if anyone, will fill the void.

China, which has been trying to cultivate a role of mediator elsewhere , is not seen as a neutral mediator due to its close alliance with Pakistan and past border conflicts with India . Other regional powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia tried to step in during the latest crisis , but both lack the power clout of the US or China.

This absence of external mediation is not, of course, a problem in itself. Historically, foreign interference – particularly US support for Pakistan during the Cold War – often complicated dynamics in South Asia by creating military imbalances and reinforcing hardline positions .

But the past has shown external pressure – especially from Washington – can be effective.

The recent escalation unfolded against the backdrop of another dynamic: the erosion of international norms since the end of the Cold War and accelerating after 2001.

America's“war on terror” fundamentally challenged international legal frameworks through practices such as preemptive strikes against sovereign states, targeted drone killings and the“enhanced interrogation techniques” of detainees that many legal scholars classify as torture.

More recently, Israel's operations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria have drawn widespread criticism for violations of international humanitarian law – but have resulted in limited consequences.

In short, geopolitical norms have ebbed away, and military actions that were once deemed red lines are being crossed with little accountability.

For India and Pakistan, this environment creates both opportunity and risk. Both can point to behaviors elsewhere to justify assertive actions that they have undertaken that, in previous years, would have been deemed a step too far – such as attacks on places of worship and sovereignty violations.

But what truly distinguished the latest crisis from those of the past is, I believe, its multi-domain nature. The conflict is no longer confined to conventional military exchanges along the line of control – as it was for the first five decades of the Kashmir question.

Both countries largely respected the line of control as a de facto boundary for military operations until the 2019 crisis. Since then, there has been a dangerous progression: first to cross-border airstrikes into each other's territories, and now to a conflict that spans conventional military, cyber and information spheres simultaneously.