Beenish Pervais | South Asian Voices
June 18, 2026
In a new paper for the Stimson Center's South Asian Voices, Beenish Pervaiz (Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow) examines the May 2025 crisis between India and Pakistan “to provide a comparative analysis of why and how variations in crisis narratives matter for what could come next.”
May 7 through 10 marked the one-year anniversary of one of the most intense crises in decades between India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed neighbors that share a long and heavily militarized border and together hold at risk nearly 1.7 billion people. What began with a familiar trigger—a terrorist attack that India was quick to attribute to Pakistan-based groups—evolved into a crisis that differed in some key ways from earlier confrontations such as the Pulwama-Balakot incident in 2019. Among its many firsts, the crisis featured deep strikes across the international border for the first time since overt nuclearization, extensive drone and standoff operations, and one of the most significant beyond-visual-range aerial engagements in recent history. Yet despite these changes, the ending followed a familiar script with the United States stepping in to broker a ceasefire.
A year later, multiple official and semi-official accounts have emerged, from military narratives and academic volumes to think tank assessments. These include, but are not limited to, Pakistan’s Strategic Reckoning volume, including Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Khalid Kidwai’s preface, which narrates the Pakistani account of Marka-e-Haq and Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos; and, on the Indian side, edited volumes by the New Delhi-based think tanks Council for Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR) and Centre for Air Power and Strategic Studies (CAPSS), as well as Lt. Gen. (Retd.) K.J.S. Dhillon’s book on Operation Sindoor. Together with additional webinars, interviews, and expert commentaries that continue to trickle out, these post-crisis analyses offer a window into how each side is making sense of what happened in May 2025 and what it means.
From South Asian Voices