India, Pakistan keep fragile ceasefire

A ceasefire is still holding between India and Pakistan. That is the good news. The bad news is that almost everything underneath it still looks broken. One year after their four-day military clash in May 2025, both sides are keeping the border quieter, but they are also digging in on blame, deterrence, and Kashmir rather than moving toward any real settlement. (apnews.com) ### What happened this week? Pakistan used the anniversary of the 2025 clash to send a very direct message: if India attacks again, the response will be stronger. The warning came from Pakistan’s military as it marked the conflict that pushed the two nuclear-armed neighbors close to a much bigger war before a ceasefire stopped the fighting on May 10, 2025. (apnews.com) ### What was that 2025 clash about? The immediate trigger was the April 2025 attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, that killed 26 tourists, most of them Hindu men. India answered with strikes it called Operation Sindoor on May 7, saying it had targeted militant infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan said the strikes hit civilian areas and then the two countries traded attacks for four days. (dw.com) ### Why does Kashmir keep dragging them back here? Because Kashmir is not just a border dispute. It is the core political wound that keeps turning every militant attack, military move, and nationalist speech into something bigger. Channel News Asia’s anniversary piece makes the point pretty clearly — the ceasefire reduced immediate violence, but the underlying dispute still blocks any durable stability or economic opening in South Asia. (channelnewsasia.com) ### If the ceasefire is holding, what is still unsettled? Three things. First, diplomacy is basically frozen. Second, each side still tells a completely different story about who escalated and who backed down. Third, even the mechanics of the truce remain politically touchy — India has pushed back on the idea that outsid(channelnewsasia.com)ar ended. (dw.com) ### Why are the narratives such a big deal? Because narratives become policy. India presents Operation Sindoor as proof that it can strike across the border in response to terrorism. Pakistan presents its own response as proof that future Indian strikes will carry heavier costs. That means the lesson both capitals may be taking from the same crisis is not “avoid the next one” but “be ready to hit harder next time.” (apnews.com) ### Is this a peace process? Not really. It is closer to a managed pause. The military hotline logic still works well enough to stop a spiral in the short term, but there is no sign of a broader political reset. No breakthrough on Kashmir. No restored trust. No shared account of what happened. That is why analysts keep calling the truce fragile rather than durable. (channelnewsasia.com) ### So what is the real risk now? The risk is not constant war every day. The risk is a sudden jump from tense calm to crisis after the next provocation — especially another militant attack in Kashmir or another cross-border strike. When deterrence is the only thing holding the line, every test of that deterrence gets mo(channelnewsasia.com)on. (apnews.com) ### Bottom line The ceasefire matters because it has kept a bad crisis from becoming a worse one. But a quiet border is not the same thing as a stable peace. One year on, India and Pakistan have stopped shooting at the same intensity — they have not solved the reasons they nearly went to war. (apnews.com)