It could be useful to initiate an exercise in comparison when, at the time of writing, the world is anticipating with anxiety what Pakistan will do now as retaliation for the recent Indian air attacks against targets on Pakistani-held territory, and hence the next step in an ongoing process of escalation, this time started by the killings by a terrorist group of some 26 mainly Indian tourists in side the Indian-held part of ever-contested Kashmir. And now the Indian retaliation for this event, based on Indian claims that neighboring Pakistan must be held responsible for terror attacks originating from Pakistani-controlled areas (claims as usual rejected by Islamabad) – but also on Indian claims to have directed the retaliation specifically and exclusively on terrorist targets, not on Pakistani military (or civilian) targets, i.e., a measured, proportionate response, meant to punish, not to escalate.
So now the question (at the time of writing) is exactly how Pakistan will retaliate the Indian retaliation – if and since retaliation (despite Indian claims to relative moderation) is indeed seen as politically necessary or inevitable: in the absence of similar terrorist groups in India, comparable to those in Pakistan, what targets do the Pakistani leaders have in mind for their retaliation, sufficient to make a strong enough point but (again) limited in scope/sensitivity in order to credibly signal non-interest in further escalation. Meanwhile, the US, China, Russia, the EU, the UN, and other relevant and affected actors combine prayers and interventions hoping that escalation will not be allowed to get out of hand.
This current exercise in escalation management – if managing is indeed what is happening – has a lot in common with, and a lot to learn from, the case of Iran and Israel, and the various stages of their volatile relationship; two countries comparable to India and Pakistan in terms of regional/global political and military weight, a history of adversarial relations and complex external links, and then there is the comparable but differential nuclear factor. So pending the next steps in the current Indian-Pakistani drama – dangerous further escalation towards the brink of nuclear intercourse or the reverse, by self-restraint and/or foreign intervention, de-escalation and backing away from the brink – a comparison with the comparable case of Iran-Israel/US is analytically, perhaps also politically, useful.
The Qasem Soleimani episode January 3, 2020
Soleimani was the all-powerful leader of the Quds Force of Iran’s dominant IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) – operator-in-chief of Iran’s proxy warfare operations in the region and as such a kind of Nr 2 in the Iranian hierarchy and as such a chief target of Israeli (and US) armed intelligence. Until he was assassinated on January 3 2020 – together with a prominent Iraqi militia leader – at Baghdad Airport in Iraq by a US drone strike.
Even the lead US military are said to have been rather shocked when learning that President Trump (this was Trump 1), having been presented with 6 different options, swiftly decided on nr 6, killing the man, regardless of escalation risk.
So the rather anxious world was now facing the question: How will the Iranians respond, or retaliate? How will they, in their state of politicized rage, calculate the ratio between politically necessary response and the escalation risks at hand, bearing in mind the realities of a combined US-Israeli threat. As we recall, their calculations were further complicated by the air tragedy that occurred in Teheran in the midst of the high tension; the mistaken shoot-down at Teheran Airport of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, by IRGC air defense. For the Iranian response would inevitably define the ensuing US (US/Israeli) retaliation, retaliation-to-the-retaliation, and hence further steps in the ladder of dangerous, perhaps ultimately uncontrollable escalation.
It took a while, and then the Iranians let the world know what would be their kind and degree of retaliation: they chose a demonstrably limited response – a series of missile attacks against a number of US bases in Iraq, reportedly even with some signals of forewarning as to the timing, such that while many US troops suffered from a rather severe headache for some time, there were no casualties.
And upon learning about this Iranian response, clearly indicating interest in de-escalation, President Trump could the day after, with great pomp and fanfare, tell the world, surrounded by his then security establishment, that the US had decided not to retaliate against the (limited and measured) Iranian response, hence had decided to let further escalation be. In the context of global and regional tension at the time, these steps by first Iran and then the US were received by audible sighs of relief. Continued escalation then, in that context, really would have been dangerous. For at that time, after Donald Trump had unilaterally – at the urging of colleague Benjamin Netanyahu – withdrawn from the JCPOA deal on Iran´s nuclear build-up and introduced maximum sanctions pressure, leaving the region wide open to de-stabilization, years before October 2023 and the ensuing events.
The art of armed strategic signaling is a curious exercise, ingrained with danger, not least if the parties are or aspire to be nuclear powers.
2024 Israel-Iran action-reaction, and escalation management
The Soleimani case is one example, among many in the region, notably between Iran and the Israel-US duo. The comparison to Pakistan-India now pertains to whether in this case the parties will be able to display similar restraint as against the domestic political forces, on both sides, demanding retaliation and revenge, step-by-step.
And clearly there are in recent years several other very clear examples, notably between Iran and Israel, as from the day, October 7 2023, of the Hamas terror attack against Israel, followed by the massive Israeli retaliation process against Hamas (still continued) and reactions to this by Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the various militias in Syria and Iraq, and Israel’s responses to these proxy activities by means of i.a. targeted killings of Iranian operators in various countries. All this leading to a curious action-reaction – or retaliation-retaliation – process during 2024, testing to the limit the parties’ skill at strategic signaling, or escalation management, or, in other words, management of the dilemmas of deterrence: deter while avoiding unwanted escalation.
2024 witnessed a chain of events between Israel, supported militarily and diplomatically by the Biden administration, and Iran, a process of action-reaction in which the earlier focus on proxies (and targeted killings) was replaced by direct inter-state warfare, step-by-step, leaving the world – and involved actors – wondering what the two sides’ next retaliatory step would be, if any. These exchanges, at times a duel between the missile and drones capabilities and the air defense systems of the two sides, petered out towards the end of the year, in anticipation of the regime change in Washington and in parallel to developments in Israel’s other war fronts (and developments in Syria) with a major Israeli strike against Iran’s air defense systems, essentially leaving Iran’s nuclear and oil installation defenseless against further Israeli strikes, and essentially leaving it open what kind and degree of Iranian retaliation to that strike was being considered, if at all deemed feasible, militarily and politically.
And now it seems “Trump II” has disappointed colleagues in Jerusalem/Tel Aviv by abandoning or de-prioritizing usage of the vast military resources assembled in the region for warfare with Iran, following up on earlier Israeli successes, instead opting for renewed (JCPOA-like) negotiations with Teheran, thereby allowing Teheran to abandon retaliation (against Israel) with face saved, and essentially preventing Israel´s warrior government from unilateral war-mongering.
So we might conclude, for now, that like in the earlier case of General Soleimani, an initiated process of escalation threatening a full-blown regional war, a dangerous spiral of escalation has been if not stopped then at least halted as a result of US interference. And Iran´s weakening as a regional great power, still with considerable skills at strategic signaling and escalation management.
How about India-Pakistan in these terms? The level of threats to international peace and security clearly being comparable, the main differences can be said to lie in the fact that both are established nuclear powers – this constituting grave dangers but also elements of restraint, out of self-interest, and in the fact that the mere size/power of these neighboring countries would tend to reduce the degree of leverage of external powers, including the US and China, meaning that in their case world peace is even more dependent on their own capacity to escalation management, and to manage the dilemma of deterrence. There are, in comparison, clearer limits to what outside powers, including the US, can do to prevent a full-scale war between these two, nuclear-armed, Asian giants, even for the vast difference in size and power between them.
So let us buckle up for the steps to follow, over Kashmir, in the next few days, weeks and months.
The author is ambassador, holds a PhD and is a fellow of RSAWS.
This text was previously published on Consilio International 8/5 2025.