After the killing of 26 tourists including 25 from other parts of India and a Nepali citizen, tensions are boiling over between India and Pakistan. The perpetrators of the attack, a militant group called The Resistance Front, is an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is widely believed to have ties to the Pakistani state and military.

Following the attack, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security announced the suspension of its participation in the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, downgraded diplomatic ties and closed the Attari–Wagah land crossing between the two countries, signalling a rapid shift from grief to calibrated retaliation.

A similar pattern first emerged in January 2016, when gunmen stormed the Indian Airforce’s Pathankot airbase, killing seven security personnel before being repelled after a 15-hour firefight.

In the wake of that strike, India publicly reaffirmed its commitment to peace even as it vowed a “befitting response” to those responsible. The measured language—avoiding immediate cross-border reprisals—allowed both sides to steer back from the precipice of conflict and maintain the fragile status quo on the Line of Control (LoC).

That restraint frayed in September 2016, when assailants attacked an Indian Army brigade headquarters in Uri, killing 19 soldiers. India then announced it had conducted “surgical strikes” against militant camps across the LoC, a rare admission of cross-border operations, while Pakistan denied any incursion took place.

Tensions peaked briefly but subsided once senior officials on both sides agreed to de-escalate through diplomatic channels and limited media statements, illustrating how brinkmanship and subsequent restraint have become twin facets of Indo-Pakistani crises.

The cycle repeated on February 14, 2019, with a suicide bombing in Pulwama that killed 44 Central Reserve Police Force personnel. Delhi blamed Jaish-e-Mohammed, and 12 days later Indian jets struck targets in Balakot, Pakistan, marking the first air raid across the border since 1971.

A cross border air incursion was also carried out by Pakistani jets on the following day with one Indian Air Force MiG 21 interceptor being shot down by Pakistani forces and the pilot captured but later released - subsequently lowering tensions. The drama underscored the hair-trigger nature of the rivalry, yet both sides ultimately stepped back, helped by interventions from Washington and other mediators.

In a noteworthy departure from the tit-for-tat of earlier years, India and Pakistan agreed to observe a ceasefire along the LoC in February 2021 after more than 250 violations in the first two months of that year. Criminal exchanges of fire and civilian casualties had peaked in late 2020, but the new truce, backed by daily hotline consultations and flag-meeting protocols, has largely held—albeit amid widespread scepticism about its durability.

Throughout these episodes, external actors have played a discreet but decisive role. In 2016, the White House publicly urged both sides to avoid escalation after reports of Indian commandos crossing into Pakistani territory.

In 2019, US diplomats pressed Islamabad to release the captured Indian pilot swiftly, forestalling further military exchanges.

Similarly after the recent Pahalgam attack, Western capitals have called for restraint in light of the atrocity, recognising that even limited retaliatory measures can unleash a broader conflict in a nuclear-armed region.

The decision to pause dialogue under the Indus Waters Treaty marks an escalation of strategic pressure - one called an act of war by the Pakistan side. For decades the accord has guaranteed India’s use of the eastern rivers and Pakistan’s rights over the western system, while mandating regular data exchanges.

New Delhi’s suspension also allows it to withhold crucial hydrological information, raising the spectre of water shortages in Pakistan’s Punjab and Sindh provinces, where roughly 80% of irrigated agriculture depends on regulated flows. Economic reprisals further compound the diplomatic rift which has also seen India expel Pakistani military advisors attached to its diplomatic mission.

India has also slapped higher import duties on Pakistani textiles and halted Wagah trade routes, triggering a sharp sell-off in Pakistani equities and fuelling concerns of capital flight. With bilateral trade already minimal, Islamabad’s markets have proved vulnerable to political shocks, reinforcing Islamabad’s reluctance to pursue a prolonged stand-off. At ground level, civilians bear the brunt of these cycles.

Villagers in districts along the LoC recount nights punctuated by shelling and the rattle of small-arms fire, while farmers in Pakistan’s Indus basin worry that missing flow forecasts could lead to devastating crop losses.

Back in 2021, relief over the ceasefire at that time gave way to unease, as communities remained wary that any resumption of hostilities would disrupt livelihoods and risk mass displacement. Those same communities will likely be feeling the same way today.

In retaliation for India's actions around the Indus water treaty, Pakistan has now unilaterally suspended the 1972 Shimla-accords making it much more likely for either side to launch a military operation to alter the existing lines of the LoC.

However for New Delhi which is focused on escaping the middle income trap and building up its manufacturing base, any prolonged conflict could derail economic growth targets.

For Pakistan however, with no real economic prospects to escape squalor and rapidly devolving revenue sources, it is more likely that a response would come from a zero-sum mindset with state ideologies intersecting with extremist sentiment.

Still in the absence of any real benefit from a short or protracted military action, deescalation by both sides remains a highly likely outcome as tensions subside in the coming days and weeks.