India and Pakistan May Have an Off-Ramp After Their Clash. Will They Take It?

For two weeks, as India promised a forceful response to a terrorist massacre that it linked to Pakistan, the only real question seemed to be just how hard it would strike.

The answer came in the wee hours of Wednesday, as India sent jets soaring through the air to hit several sites in Pakistan, and as the Pakistani military mobilized its own fleet to try to shoot the Indian planes out of the skies.

By day’s end, long after the missiles had stopped flying and the killing had come to a close, both sides took stock and found that they had enough to claim victory — or to further escalate the conflict.

India struck deeper into Pakistan than it had at any point through decades of enmity between the two nuclear-armed rivals. The damage by all accounts was extensive, with more than 20 people killed in dozens of strikes across six to nine locations, including in towns long known to harbor terrorist leaders wanted for carnage inflicted on India.

But there was also growing evidence that Pakistan, too, had delivered serious blows. Two or three Indian planes went down on the Indian side of the border, according to Indian officials and Western diplomats, as well as local media reports and eyewitness descriptions. It was exactly what India had hoped to avoid after having suffered a similar embarrassment the last time it exchanged military strikes with Pakistan, in 2019.

The question now is whether Pakistan will decide that it must answer India’s strikes on the Pakistani heartland with an attack of its own on Indian soil.

For now, Pakistan says it is keeping all options open. But diplomats and analysts expressed some hope that the day’s events might offer the two sides an offramp that allows them to avert a spiral into all-out war.

Those looking for signs that the two countries might be serious about de-escalation pointed in part to India’s statements about its strikes. In its public announcements and a flurry of diplomatic activity, India emphasized that its action was limited and targeted, and that it did not seek an escalation.

The nature of the strikes, which targeted places associated with terrorist groups that are recognized names in India, could also help the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi quell the public anger that followed last month’s terrorist massacre in Kashmir.

“These actions were measured, nonescalatory, proportionate and responsible,” said India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri.

On the Pakistani side, military and civilian officials tried to keep the narrative focused on what they called Pakistan’s major victory in bringing down Indian aircraft.

Pakistani officials publicly claimed that the country’s forces had brought down five Indian aircraft in total. In private conversations with diplomats, the officials emphasized that they had remained restrained. Pakistani forces, they said, waited for Indian planes to begin unleashing their loads before hitting them.

In a signal of some return to normalcy, Pakistan declared on Wednesday night that its airspace was open again.

“Our armed forces were on standby 24/7, ready to shoot down enemy jets the moment they took off and throw them into the sea,” the Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said in an address. “The five Indian planes that went down last night could have been 10, but our pilots and falcons acted with caution.”

What comes next, analysts and diplomats said, will depend on whether the two sides have extracted enough to satisfy their people, and on whether sufficient international diplomacy can be mustered in a time of global upheaval.

Shashi Tharoor, a member of the Indian Parliament, said the gruesome nature of last month’s carnage in Kashmir had left the Indian government no choice but to carry out some military action, “because otherwise terrorists would feel they could come and kill and go away with impunity.”

But he said the Indian side had “sensitively calibrated” its response to make sure any chance of escalation would be reduced.

“I think it was done in a manner that sought to convey very clearly that we were not looking to see this as the opening salvo in a protracted war, but rather as a one-off,” Mr. Tharoor said.

He said there was no official Indian confirmation that the Pakistani military had downed Indian planes. “But if it is true that Pakistan was able to shoot down a couple of aircraft, they could easily be able to argue that honor is satisfied,” he said.

The Pakistani side, while needing to demonstrate strength against India, also has powerful reasons to avoid further escalation.

Pakistan can scarcely afford a protracted war at a time of severe economic hardship. It would also face a complicated puzzle in choosing targets inside Indian territory. India has no equivalent terrorist apparatus to hit in tit-for-tat attacks. One potential option, striking Indian military installations, would risk serious reprisals.

Moeed Yousaf, a former national security adviser in Pakistan, said he saw the issue as one of deterrence — to make clear to India that it cannot strike across international borders and get away with it.

“There’s debate within decision-making circles” in Pakistan about whether its claims of success in downing Indian aircraft are enough, Mr. Yousaf said. “I think the options have been kept open,” he said, adding that “the ball is still in India’s court.”

Muhammad Saeed, a retired general who served as chief of the general staff of Pakistan’s army, said the two sides would need help in tamping down tensions.

“The international community must understand, no matter how distracted they are with Ukraine or elsewhere, this is a brewing crisis with massive implications,” Mr. Saeed said. “If the region spirals into open war, and there is no crisis management framework, what then? Will you keep flying in mediators from Washington, London, Rome every time?”

He said that world powers must make a sustained “push for engagement.” Otherwise, he said, “we’re setting ourselves up for the same crisis again.”

While there appeared to be a broad consensus on the damage inflicted by Indian strikes on the Pakistani side, the exact nature of the reported downing of Indian aircraft remained unclear.

Public accounts from both sides suggested that it was unlikely that Indian aircraft had crossed into Pakistani airspace. All indications were that India had carried out its strikes, either from the sky or with ground-based missiles, from its own territory.

If it is true that Indian planes did not enter Pakistani airspace, it is unclear how Pakistan would have potentially brought down the Indian aircraft.

Pakistani military officials said they had used air-to-air missiles to shoot down the planes, which could not be independently verified. In interactions with foreign diplomats, Pakistani officials described the face-off as a nearly hourlong dogfight along the line that divides India and Pakistan.

Military analysts said that given the long-range missiles that both countries have in their arsenals, they would not need to breach each other’s airspace to carry out cross-border strikes against air or ground targets.

Hari Kumar and Pragati K.B. contributed reporting from New Delhi.