Key Points
- Pakistan prefers negotiated and diplomatic solutions to all issues with India
- Tension in South Asia is extremely detrimental to 1.5 billion people
- South Asia is home to two geographically contiguous nuclear powers
- Weaponisation of water by India is a total defiance of international laws.
ISLAMABAD: General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, has said durable crisis management mechanisms in Asia-Pacific must include pathways for fair and peaceful dispute resolution.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore on Saturday, he strongly believed that for an enduring peace in South Asia, an early resolution of the Kashmir dispute, in line with the UN Security Council resolutions and as per the aspirations of the people, is essential.
“I believe that institutions have a solemn responsibility to promote strategic discipline, to preserve communication, even amidst crisis,” he said.
Tension between India and Pakistan escalated after the April 22 attack in the Pahalgam area of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), which claimed the lives of 26 people. India swiftly blamed Pakistan without presenting any credible evidence.
Pakistan condemned the attack and strongly denied the Indian allegations as baseless. Pakistan also offered a neutral and transparent international investigation into the incident.
On the night of May 6-7, India launched a series of air strikes on Pakistan, resulting in civilian casualties. Pakistan responded firmly and downed five Indian fighter jets and destroyed a brigade headquarters and several military posts. Both sides then exchanged missiles, which stretched over the week.
On May 10, when tensions between the two countries peaked, US President Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire had been reached between India and Pakistan.
General Mirza noted that post-Pahalgam, the threshold of an escalatory war has come dangerously low, implying greater risk on both sides, just not in the disputed territory, but all of India and Pakistan. He added that this is extremely detrimental to investments, trading, and the development needs of 1.5 billion people of both countries.
The military official noted that the weaponisation of water by holding the Indus Water Treaty in abeyance by India is in total defiance of international laws, since it is an existential threat to the people of Pakistan.
“If there is any effort to stop, divert, or delay Pakistan’s share of water, as clearly spelt out by our National Security Committee, it could be considered as an act of war,” he warned.
He went on to say that India, in violation of the UN Charter, carried out illegal and unjustified air and missile strikes targeting civilian infrastructure, including places of worship, resulting in the loss of innocent civilian lives, including women and children.
He added the assumption that Pakistan would not react to the violation of its sovereignty or territorial integrity actually lacks elementary strategic sense. “Loss of innocent lives in Pahalgam, as well as India’s aggression against Pakistan, which also killed innocent men, women, and children, are equally condemnable,” General Mirza said.
He said Pakistan has always proffered negotiated and diplomatic solutions and repeatedly offered full cooperation to India to work on all contentious issues. “Pakistan desires a peaceful coexistence with India, based on mutual respect, sovereign equality, and most importantly, the dignity and honour,” he said.
Geopolitical crossroads emerging
He said the Asia Pacific has become the geopolitical cockpit of the 21st century. “Its trajectories will shape the security architecture, not only for this region, but for the world. Yet if we are candid, we must admit that crisis management mechanisms today remain somewhat fragile, reactive, and unevenly institutionalised,” he remarked.
He said mechanisms cannot function in a vacuum of trust or amid systemic asymmetries. “Durable crisis management requires a foundation of mutual restraint, recognition of red lines, and equilibrium, not dominance,” he said.
General Mirza viewed that no framework can succeed if key stakeholders are marginalised or if cooperative structures serve as instruments of containment.
“We need institutionalised protocols, hotlines, pre-agreed procedures, and joint crisis management exercises that remove ambiguity when the escalation threatens. Fourth, crisis prevention is better than crisis fighting,” he noted.
He said strategic communication matters as misconceptions, narrative warfare, and information distortion are the oxygen for escalation. “We must disarm not only militarily but rhetorically,” he suggested.
He went on to say that emerging technologies proliferate faster than our doctrines evolve. “AI-enabled targeting, cyber disruptions, and real-time battlefield surveillance compress the decision space. Our mechanisms should accommodate this new reality,” he said.
General Mirza noted that power and interests, not morality or principles, now reign as supreme. “Structures holding the modern state system are losing vitality. Use of force with impunity is pervasive,” he said.
He added that the custodians of the liberal world have themselves jettisoned the much-cherished values of state sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights, international law, and justice.
Nuclear neighbours at risk
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee said South Asia is a home to two geographically contiguous nuclear powers—an unresolved territorial dispute of Kashmir, and the living memory of several crises that nearly spiralled out of control.
Talking about challenges in the Asia-Pacific and South Asia, he said like all other regions in the world, Asia-Pacific has had its share of security challenges, yet, at the same time, “I view Asia-Pacific as a role model of regional growth, taking maximum advantage of globalisation and its spin-offs.”
He added that the region is intricately connected in multiple domains like politics, economics, and people-to-people connection.
He was of the view that Asia-Pacific today appears to be descending into an extended era of great power contestation and strategic uncertainty.
“Increasing militarisation and juxtaposition of regionalised political issues into great power play have increased the chances of the region being the next frontier of contestation,” he warned.
He added that since the end of World War II, Asia-Pacific has largely been guided by extra-regional powers, and consequently, an institutional security architecture organic to the region itself with crisis oversight and management structures, is missing exactly when they are direly needed.
“I am very optimistic that with a constructive, cooperative, and accommodative approach, the region will be able to emerge taller out of the impending crisis,” he said.
Geopolitical faultlines deepen
He noted that South Asian strategic outlook is shaped by competing interests of the global power play, complicated Iran-West relations, perpetual instability in Afghanistan, India-Pakistan-China equation, and the unresolved Kashmir dispute that remains at the core of the India-Pakistan dyad, leading to regional instability. In the geo-strategic realm, nuclearized South Asia presents a risk of strategic miscalculation of global consequence.
He said the nuclearization of South Asia was a watershed event beyond which third-party mediation has emerged as a permanent feature of crisis management. “Emboldening of India as a net security provider by the West and its ambition to become a regional hegemon is disincentivising it to engage in conflict management options,” he said.
He went on to say that conflicts in South Asia, therefore, remain unaddressed due to weakened capacity and ineffectiveness of the multilateral frameworks, both international and regional.
He said in both Asia-Pacific and South Asia, we need not have new mechanisms; we need to re-energize and strengthen existing bilateral, regional, and multilateral frameworks.
