One year after India-Pakistan conflict, ceasefire holds - but little else does

A year on, a brittle equilibrium

A year after the four-day India-Pakistan conflict brought South Asia to the edge of a dangerous escalation, the region has drifted into a brittle and deeply uneasy equilibrium, according to the BBC. The fighting lasted barely 90 hours, but the political consequences have proved far more durable, notes Dawn. While neither side got what it expected from the flare-up, very few could have predicted that less than a year later, Pakistan would emerge as the diplomatic lynchpin in the region, while India remained relegated to the sidelines.

The relationship between the two neighbours remains frozen in an unusually rigid state; there is no war, but there is no diplomacy worth the name, either. The border is shut, trade is suspended, cricket ties remain severed, and the Indus Waters Treaty remains in abeyance. Military hotlines are functioning, but they are emergency mechanisms rather than channels of engagement. Former Pakistani diplomat Husain Haqqani told the BBC that "relations remain in deep freeze," adding that neither side believes it needs to reach out to the other for either domestic or international reasons. "There have been moments of poor relations in peacetime before too, but this is one of the longest periods of frozen ties," he said.

The resulting situation is not that of stability in the conventional sense, but a colder equilibrium sustained by deterrence, mistrust and the absence of political alternatives, as Dawn describes it.

The US role and the failure of a political process

At the time the US-facilitated ceasefire was announced, there was an understanding — at least according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement — that military de-escalation would be followed by talks at a neutral venue. The US role for crisis management had been unusually visible, and President Donald Trump publicly claimed credit for helping secure the ceasefire. But that process never materialised; India quickly rejected any suggestion of external mediation and insisted that the ceasefire understanding emerged through direct communication at the level of the two directors general of military operations.

The Washington Post, in an editorial published on the anniversary, acknowledged that US officials "worked the phones and helped calm the situation," but also highlighted Indian unease over Trump’s repeated claims that he brokered the ceasefire. "A strong sense of independence and sovereignty is extraordinarily important in Indian political culture," the editorial observed, warning that strained ties could affect Washington’s ability to mediate in a future crisis.

Meanwhile, US-Pakistan ties have strengthened since the conflict, with high-level engagement between Washington and Pakistan’s leadership, according to reporting from Washington. India has concerns about a perceived tilt in US policy towards Pakistan.

A shift in the regional balance

The conflict meaningfully altered outside impressions of the regional balance, says Daniel Markey of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, as quoted by the BBC. "Before May 2025, many outside observers believed that India enjoyed an overwhelming advantage against Pakistan. Many Indians believed the same. Pakistan's ability to weather the initial Indian onslaught played to its strategic advantage, even though it is less clear what would have happened if the conflict had continued," Markey told the BBC.

Most strikingly, the conflict seems to have restored something Pakistan had long lost: geopolitical relevance. Its emergence as an intermediary in the Iran war caught many by surprise, and the conflict produced a narrative that Pakistan was strategically resilient, despite its internal difficulties. Pakistan, to the surprise of many, demonstrated a great degree of institutional coherence during the crisis, absorbing military pressure, maintaining escalation control and mounting a coordinated response involving drones, missiles and air power, according to Dawn.

Water: a new flashpoint

The Congressional Research Service (CRS), the research arm of the US Congress, drew attention to another potential flashpoint: water. The CRS noted that "the government of India has not presented evidence of a Pakistani link to the attack," yet responded by placing the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty "in abeyance." The report underscored the gravity of this move, pointing out that Islamabad controls the upstream rivers.

Water security has emerged as perhaps the most immediate and dangerous point of friction between the two countries, according to Dawn. The Indus Waters Treaty remains unilaterally held in abeyance by New Delhi.

The risk of another crisis

A growing body of commentary from US and international analysts suggests that the next such crisis between the two nuclear-armed neighbours is not only more likely, but will prove dangerous with fewer opportunities for outside powers to contain it, according to reporting from Washington. The Washington Post warned that the world may be underestimating the risks. "You know the world scene is chaotic when we’re approaching the first anniversary of a shooting war between two hostile nuclear powers and very few Americans remember it," the newspaper noted, adding that another crisis is "probably not a question of if, but when."

The editorial described the May 2025 conflict as a new form of "non-contact" war, involving missiles, drones and air power without a ground invasion. It cautioned that both sides may now believe they can fight a limited conventional war without triggering nuclear escalation — a conclusion that could prove dangerously flawed.

Analysts also warn that an India-Pakistan nuclear conflict could disrupt global food systems, leading to a 'nuclear famine' that might cause starvation on a massive scale, according to the Washington-based reporting. The conflict has highlighted the risks of nuclear war and environmental damage, with the next crisis potentially more dangerous and harder to contain.