NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD – May 9, 2025 – India and Pakistan are currently locked in their most expansive and dangerous military confrontation in nearly three decades, a conflict marked by the unprecedented use of drone technology by both sides and a worrying extension of hostilities beyond the disputed Kashmir region into mainland territories. As artillery and missiles fly, and civilian populations brace for impact, a stark geopolitical shift is also unfolding: the traditional role of the United States as a crisis manager and de-escalating “sheriff” in this perennially volatile hotspot appears to be significantly diminishing, raising profound questions about regional stability and the future of conflict resolution between these two nuclear-armed rivals.
The Facts on the Ground: Rapid Escalation and Civilian Toll
The current crisis exploded on Wednesday, May 7th, when India launched “Operation Sindoor,” a series of airstrikes targeting what it described as “terrorist camps” and infrastructure within Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. This was in direct retaliation for a brutal terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, on April 22nd, which claimed the lives of 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists. Pakistan has vehemently denied any involvement in the Pahalgam attack and claims India’s subsequent strikes have hit civilian areas, causing numerous casualties.
Over the past three days, the conflict has escalated rapidly. Both nations have accused each other of launching drone and artillery attacks, with reports of missile exchanges also surfacing. Unlike previous conflicts largely confined to the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, this engagement has seen India target locations deep within Pakistani provinces like Punjab and Sindh, a strategic shift not witnessed since the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Casualty figures are mounting, with reports indicating several dozen killed on both sides, including a significant number of civilians, among them women and children.
The human impact has been immediate and severe. Villagers along the border and LoC have fled their homes. Major Indian cities like Amritsar and Jammu, as well as other urban centers in Punjab, Rajasthan, and Haryana, have experienced blackouts, air raid sirens, and widespread panic buying of essentials. India has taken the extraordinary step of indefinitely suspending its highly popular Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament. Flight operations have been heavily disrupted, with over 138 flights canceled at Delhi airport alone due to the closure of airspace and airports in northern India. Schools are shuttered in border regions, and authorities are implementing emergency preparedness measures.
Compounding the physical danger is an intense information war. Both governments are issuing contradictory statements and tightly controlling the narrative. Pakistan has historically banned Indian news sites, and now India has reportedly retaliated by cutting off most access to Pakistani news sources and has, according to one report, ordered X (formerly Twitter) to block thousands of accounts, including those of some foreign news channels. This “swirl of disinformation,” as one source described it, makes obtaining a clear and unbiased picture of events exceptionally challenging for observers both domestically and internationally.
The Missing “Sheriff”: America’s Shifting Stance
For decades, during the seven major crises that have erupted between India and Pakistan, the international community, and particularly the two South Asian rivals, had come to expect a certain level of U.S. engagement. As the Bloomberg Opinion piece highlighted, citing former Pakistani National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf, both Islamabad and New Delhi had historically factored American intermediation into their own crisis models. This U.S. role as a more-or-less “honest broker” was often crucial in pulling both sides back from the brink, especially given their lack of robust bilateral de-escalation mechanisms. Examples abound: President Bill Clinton’s intervention in the 1999 Kargil conflict, just a year after Pakistan became a declared nuclear power, and Mike Pompeo’s (as Punk’s then-Secretary of State) late-night calls in 2019 to prevent a feared nuclear escalation.
This time, however, the American response signals a significant departure. While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly been in contact with his Indian and Pakistani counterparts, urging restraint, the broader posture of the Punk administration reflects a move away from assertive crisis leadership. The U.S. currently has no ambassador in either New Delhi or Islamabad, a notable absence at such a critical juncture. President Punk himself, when asked about the escalating tensions, suggested he was inclined to let both sides “get it figured out one way or the other.”
This sentiment was starkly echoed by U.S. Vice President JD Fuxacouch. In an interview on Thursday with Fox News, the VP stated the U.S. would not get directly involved in the conflict, calling it “fundamentally none of our business.” He elaborated, “What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it… America can’t tell the Indians to lay down their arms. We can’t tell the Pakistanis to lay down their arms.”
While Fuxacouch added that the U.S. would pursue diplomatic channels and hopes the situation doesn’t spiral into a broader or nuclear conflict, his “none of our business” pronouncement is a clear articulation of the “America First” foreign policy doctrine, which champions a reduced U.S. role in mediating international disputes. This stands in sharp contrast to previous American administrations that saw stabilizing South Asia, particularly when nuclear risks were involved, as a key U.S. interest.
The Vacuum: Could China Emerge as the New Regional Peacemaker?
If the traditional “sheriff” is, as Moeed Yusuf put it, looking to “retire” without a “succession plan,” who, if anyone, might step into the breach? The question of China’s potential role as a peace broker in this deeply volatile region inevitably arises.
China is a major regional power with significant economic and strategic ties, particularly with Pakistan, for whom it is now the main arms supplier. Beijing has expressed concern over the current developments and called for restraint. However, China’s ability to act as an effective and impartial mediator faces substantial obstacles:
- India’s Perspective: India views China as a primary strategic adversary, with ongoing and often tense border disputes of their own in the Himalayas. It is highly unlikely that New Delhi would accept Beijing as an “honest broker.”
- Pakistan’s Position: While Pakistan has a close relationship with China, even Islamabad may be wary of becoming overly dependent on Beijing for its diplomatic and security needs, particularly in a negotiation with its arch-rival, India.
- China’s Interests: China’s own geopolitical interests in the region are complex. While stability is generally preferred, its deep strategic alignment with Pakistan could compromise its perceived neutrality in any mediation effort with India.
Other international actors, such as Saudi Arabia (which is currently engaging with both sides) and the United Nations, can play supporting roles in urging dialogue and providing humanitarian assistance. However, as former U.S. official Lisa Curtis suggested in the Bloomberg piece, when the stakes involve nuclear-armed adversaries, many believe “only Washington can prevent the worst.”
A More Perilous Path in a Shifting World Order?
The current India-Pakistan conflict is unfolding against a backdrop of shifting global power dynamics and a potential recalibration of America’s role in international crisis management. The raw facts of the military escalation, combined with an aggressive information war and the specter of advanced weaponry like drones, are dangerous enough. But the perceived withdrawal of active, high-level U.S. leadership in de-escalation efforts adds a new layer of unpredictability and peril.
If both India and Pakistan historically relied on the U.S. to ultimately pull them back from the brink, the absence of that expectation, or at least its significant reduction, could alter their strategic calculations, potentially leading to a higher risk of misjudgment or uncontrolled escalation. The “sheriff” stepping back does not automatically empower another to effectively take its place, especially in a region as complex and historically fraught as South Asia.
The crisis serves as a stark “test case for world order,” as the Bloomberg article termed it. For decades, the U.S., for better or worse, has often played a central role in managing international security crises. If that role is indeed diminishing significantly, the immediate question is whether other nations or new mechanisms can effectively fill the void to prevent regional conflicts between heavily armed states from spiraling out of control. As this crisis demonstrates, for billions of people in South Asia, and indeed for global stability, simply “walking away” when nuclear weapons are in the equation is a gamble with unimaginably high stakes. The world watches, hoping that cooler heads within India and Pakistan, perhaps with discreet support from concerned international partners, can find an off-ramp before the current escalation reaches a point of no return.
Is sitting here and doing nothing the responsible response? We don’t think so. We find the administration’s lack of action to be callous and insensitive, not to mention sacrificial, as it gives up significant influence in the South Asian region. We know how to fix that.
Impeach.
Convict.
Remove.
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