FROM PAHALGAM TO POST-CONFLICT POWER PLAYS: U.S. SHUTTLE DIPLOMACY IN INDO-PAK RELATIONS FOLLOWING THE MAY 2025 CONFLICT

Abstract

One of the most contentious escalations in recent decades that was experienced in South Asia occurred in May 2025 during the Four-Day Conflict between India and Pakistan, which was instigated by a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. The paper is a critical analysis of the causes of the conflict, its quick progression into the military arena, how the shuttle diplomacy by the United States prevented a full-scale war, especially considering the threat of nuclear warfare. Comprehensively, the study examines domestic political consideration, military-technological innovations, nuclear signaling strategy, and weaponization of media in India and Pakistan through a multidisciplinary approach situation of the crisis. It examines internal political pressures in the two nations that determined the use of military forces in both operations India Operation Sindoor and Pakistan Operation Bunyan al-Marsus and the processes of an escalation and de-escalation. The efficacy and weaknesses of U.S. diplomatic intervention or its repercussions in the bigger picture of power shifts in the world powers and regional political alignments are observed. The paper will also examine the changing Indo-Pak strategic position after the war where economic coercion, digital propaganda and alignments of powers with the international powers like China and the U.S. is increasingly taking its place. The paper highlights the need to engage in lasting preventive diplomacy, cultural processes of resolving conflicts, and reducing the risk of nuclear war in the region through the analysis of the layered dimensions of the conflict and the mediation. In this Paper, It will enhance the research and study of crisis diplomacy in the 21st century as part of the management of conflicts in the multipolar and nuclearized world.