Once again, South Asia’s two nuclear-armed rivals – India and Pakistan – are teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice, as Washington appears to be passively watching from the sidelines.
In the early hours of Wednesday, India launched an attack on what it said were nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites in Pakistan, in retaliation for an attack on India two weeks ago by Islamist militants. On April 22, gunmen attacked Pahalgam, a picturesque hill station in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, separating tourists by religion and killing 25 Hindus and a Muslim pony-ride operator who tried to wrest a gun from attackers. India blamed United Nations-designated terrorist groups in Pakistan that want the territory of Kashmir unified under Pakistani sovereignty, and have a history of clandestine support from Pakistani security services. Pakistan denied any role in the April attack.
Pakistan says India’s targets on Wednesday included dams and hydropower projects, and that India’s strikes killed 26 Pakistani civilians. Leaders in Islamabad vowed to retaliate and the Pakistani military carried out intense shelling across the so-called Line of Control, the disputed but de facto border between the two countries.
The clash raises the specter of a full-scale conflict between neighbors who have fought four wars
since the two nations were partitioned by the British in 1947. It’s the
most serious escalation in hostilities since cross-border attacks in
2019.
Meanwhile, the United States has offered little beyond vague platitudes. “It’s a shame,” President Donald Trump told reporters when asked about the deadly attacks and counter-attacks. “I just hope it ends very quickly.” Later in the day, Trump slightly upped his offer of assistance, saying, “If I can help, I'll be there.”
Whether the president could constructively engage with both sides to prevent a further escalation is an open question. But Trump’s intervention in 2019 resulted in shuttle-diplomacy between the two nations led by top U.S. envoys, which helped diffuse tensions.
Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has called his counterparts in both countries. And Vice President JD Vance has signaled conditional support for India, as long as its military response remains measured. But words alone are insufficient when two nuclear-armed rivals are locked in a military standoff. If the United States is serious about preventing a broader regional conflict – one that could spiral into a catastrophic nuclear exchange – it must move beyond passive diplomacy and take a more assertive, sustained role in de-escalating this crisis.
This is not just an abstract threat. And Washington has stepped in to diffuse tensions in the past. During the first Trump administration, India and Pakistan came close to a “nuclear conflagration,” as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed in his memoir. Pompeo was awakened in the middle of the night in February 2019 to intervene directly, urging both sides to pull back from the brink. It worked – but just barely. The clash cooled after a skirmish, but the threat remained.
The U.S. has a long history of intervening to defuse crises in South Asia. During the 1999 Kargil War, then-President Bill Clinton summoned Pakistan’s then-prime minister and pressed him to withdraw his troops. In 2001 and 2002, U.S. envoys including Colin Powell and Richard Armitage traveled between the capitals of New Delhi and Islamabad to defuse military tensions.
After the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks on luxury hotels, a train station and a Jewish outreach center, which killed more than 170 people, the U.S. pushed
the Pakistani government to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a
U.N.-designated terrorist group based in Pakistan. Now, with both
countries once more at the brink of full-blown war, the U.S. cannot
afford to take a back seat.
South Asia’s fragile peace now rests on a more complex web of alliances than it did 20 years ago. India has since drawn closer to the West, boosting defense ties with the U.S. and NATO partners, while cutting back on its reliance on Russian arms. Even so, Russia has backed India in the current crisis, pledging its full support “in the fight against terrorism.” Pakistan, increasingly estranged from Washington after the U.S. exit from neighboring Afghanistan, has leaned hard into its partnership with China. While India lobbied allies at the United Nations to support its retaliation after the April 22 attack, China toned down the U.N. Security Council statement condemning the attack, which Pakistan perceived as a diplomatic win.
India, meanwhile, signed a historic bilateral trade deal with the United Kingdom just hours before launching its military strikes on Pakistan, showing India’s growing economic ties with a key global player and strengthening its geopolitical standing. Trump – who has been touting the prospect of a major U.S.-India trade agreement – may now have even more reason to press Pakistan to take meaningful action against terror groups operating on its soil.
Washington thus far has been hesitant to step in with action, perhaps because it’s distracted by more visible wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as Trump’s overhaul of the federal government and culture war at home. But his cautiously muted response could have far-ranging and dangerous consequences.
The truth is that Washington holds real leverage. A new U.S.-India trade deal will give the White House influence over New Delhi. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s reliance on the International Monetary Fund and aid from the World Bank, two global financial institutions based in Washington, D.C., where the U.S. wields major sway, makes it susceptible to economic pressure.
The U.S. can also pressure Islamabad to take action against terror groups through intelligence sharing and the Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, as past U.S. administrations have done. Pakistan was placed on the FATF “grey list” in June 2018 for failing to curb financing to terror groups and remained there until October 2022.
The conflict between India and Pakistan is deeply entangled in broader global politics. Washington cannot afford to treat this as an isolated, regional issue that will “figure itself out,” as President Trump recently suggested. The price of passive inaction could be immeasurably high, not just for South Asia, but for global security.
The
U.S. should lean on its growing influence in New Delhi and remaining
channels in Islamabad to push both nations toward back-channel talks and
a roadmap to de-escalate the current crisis. The U.S. has the leverage,
and it needs to use it before it is too late.
Anisha Dutta is an award-winning Indian journalist based in New York.
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