Ceasefire secures a pause, not peace between India and Pakistan

ISLAMABAD  –  After days of rising tensions, missile and drone strikes, and near-daily warnings from both sides of further escalation, a flurry of quiet diplomacy appears to have averted a deeper crisis between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

In a statement on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he and Vice President J.D. Vance had engaged in backchannel talks with senior Indian and Pakistani officials — including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, the Indian foreign minister, and the powerful Pakistani army chief, General Asim Munir.

As a result, both countries agreed to an immediate ceasefire and pledged to begin talks on a “broad set of issues” at a neutral location.

There were no details on where or when those talks would be held. But in the fraught context of South Asian diplomacy, the announcement alone signaled a sharp shift — away from the retaliatory strikes and spiraling rhetoric of recent days, and toward a cautious, U.S.-brokered détente.

Behind the scenes, U.S. intervention appears to have played a decisive role. According to CNN, a small circle of senior Trump administration officials — including Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio (who is also serving as interim national security adviser), and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — had been closely monitoring the situation. On Friday morning, they reportedly received classified intelligence that raised alarm about the possibility of dramatic escalation over the weekend.

Vance personally called Prime Minister Modi later that day. According to administration officials, he warned that the conflict risked spinning out of control and urged India to communicate directly with Pakistan. At the time, Washington believed both sides had fallen silent — and that getting them back to the table was urgent. Vance also outlined what CNN described as a potential “off-ramp” the U.S. believed Pakistan might accept.

While the U.S. did not draft the ceasefire agreement itself, officials told CNN that Vance’s outreach, followed by Rubio’s overnight efforts with counterparts in both capitals, was seen as the key trigger for bringing the two sides back into dialogue.

Yet as the guns fall silent, the narratives are only just beginning to take shape — and they tell very different stories.

In Pakistan, officials and military-linked analysts have dubbed the recent conflict Operation Bunyān un Marsoos, presenting it as a watershed moment in modern air combat. The state’s narrative casts the episode as a lopsided victory: a massive air battle involving over 100 aircraft, they say, ended with five Indian jets downed — including three French-made Rafales — and no Pakistani losses. Seventy-seven Indian drones were reportedly destroyed in what Islamabad describes as the largest swarm drone attack in modern history, repelled through a mix of kinetic and electronic warfare.

Ballistic and hypersonic missile attacks, including BrahMos air-to-surface strikes, were largely intercepted, Pakistan claims, showcasing what officials describe as a maturing domestic air defense grid. For Islamabad, the message is clear: Pakistan didn’t just deter — it dominated, all without crossing the nuclear threshold.

“The era of restraint is over,” one Pakistani official said. “We’ve proven we can calibrate our response with precision, not just rhetoric.”

More broadly, the Pakistani narrative seeks to recast Islamabad’s global standing. Despite the hostilities, the IMF tranche went through — a detail officials frame as a vote of confidence in Pakistan’s economic trajectory. Key Muslim powers such as Saudi Arabia and Türkiye issued statements of solidarity, while China called for restraint. Western powers, according to Pakistani officials, tilted toward neutrality — far from the pro-India tilt New Delhi had hoped to showcase.

And while India had spent years positioning itself as South Asia’s net security provider, Pakistani officials now argue that the conflict has unraveled that image — re-hyphenating India and Pakistan in the world’s eyes, and pulling Kashmir back into the international spotlight.

In India, reactions have been more fractious. Ajai Shukla, a defense analyst and former Army officer, decried the ceasefire as yet another “unfinished operation.” “Pakistan has been let off the hook again,” he posted, accusing the Modi government of backing down just as military momentum was building.

Brahma Chellaney, a veteran Indian strategic thinker, was even more scathing. Drawing a through-line from Kashmir in 1948 to Ladakh in 2021, he called the ceasefire another instance of India “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” He added the aborted Operation Sindoor to what he described as a long list of squandered gains.

For many in Pakistan, however, the conflict marked something deeper — not just a military flare-up, but a psychological reset. India had, for years, lost its central role in Pakistan’s political imagination. A critical mass of young Pakistanis had grown up without visceral animosity toward India. That generational detachment, many now believe, has been forcibly reversed — a reversion to the anxieties and antagonisms of the 1990s.

Rubio, for his part, praised the “wisdom, prudence, and statesmanship” of both Modi and Sharif — language clearly calibrated for international audiences. For Washington, long wary of being drawn into a South Asian standoff, the deal amounts to a diplomatic win.

Whether it holds is another matter. The coming days will show whether this ceasefire marks the beginning of a substantive dialogue — or merely a pause in a much older, deeper, and increasingly digital hostility.