Two wins, two losses: What India, Pakistan have learned a year after war

Islamabad, Pakistan – In Pakistan, May began with streets successful large cities dotted with banners and posters honouring the subject enactment that, successful the authoritative telling, guided the country’s defences and led the federation to triumph successful the four-day aerial warfare with India past year.

At the Nur Khan Auditorium successful the metropolis of Rawalpindi connected Thursday, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) held a ceremonial marking its “achievements” successful downing Indian jets. In Lahore connected Friday evening, a government-organised performance astatine the city’s Liberty Chowk celebrated the conflict’s occurrence successful what Pakistan calls the “Day of the Battle of Truth”.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 4India to Iran: How 2 wars shaped emergence of Pakistan’s Asim Munir
• list 2 of 4‘No guardrails’: How India-Pakistan combat obliterated aged reddish lines
• list 3 of 4What did India and Pakistan summation – and suffer – successful their subject standoff?
• list 4 of 4How struggle with India helped boost the Pakistan military’s home image

But crossed the border, India, too, is celebrating what its authorities and subject importune was a triumph for them. On Thursday, May 7, Prime Minister Narendra Modi changed his illustration representation connected X to the authoritative logo of Operation Sindoor, India’s sanction for the May 2025 subject cognition against Pakistan, and urged each Indian to bash the same. “A twelvemonth ago, our equipped forces displayed unparalleled courage, precision and resolve,” Modi wrote connected X. “Today, we stay arsenic steadfast arsenic ever successful our resoluteness to decision coercion and destruct its enabling ecosystem.”

Both governments enactment their militaries earlier the cameras. At a quality league lasting much than 2 hours successful New Delhi, Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti said India had “destroyed 13 Pakistani aircraft” and “struck 11 airfields”.

Meanwhile, successful Rawalpindi, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, manager wide of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media limb of Pakistan’s equipped forces, told reporters that the state had defeated an force “five times larger than itself” and had shown lone “10 percent” of its subject potential. “We are prepared,” helium said. “If anyone wants to trial us, they are invited to bash so.”

Analysts, however, accidental that down the nationalist claims of triumph and the celebrations successful some countries, cardinal questions stay astir whether the South Asian neighbours person drawn lessons, some from their respective gains successful the struggle and from the weaknesses exposed during and aft the fighting.

The ‘wins’ India, Pakistan are celebrating

On April 22, 2025, gunmen attacked tourists successful Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam, sidesplitting 26 civilians. India blamed the onslaught connected Pakistan, an accusation Islamabad rejected.

India launched Operation Sindoor connected May 7, 2025, striking aggregate sites heavy wrong Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It insisted it was targeting “terrorist” infrastructure, but Pakistani officials said civilians bore the brunt of the assault. Pakistan retaliated with Operation Bunyan al-Marsoos.

Contrary to authoritative narratives connected some sides, the four-day struggle that followed did not extremity successful a neat triumph for either nation.

Pakistan tin constituent to the aerial exchange connected the nighttime of May 6-7. Its Chinese-built J-10C jets changeable down Indian aircraft, including Rafales, during the opening signifier of the conflict.

At the Shangri-La Dialogue successful Singapore successful June 2025, India’s 2nd main of defence staff, General Anil Chauhan, admitted to pitchy losses connected the archetypal time of the fighting. Air Marshal Bharti had framed it much plainly days earlier: “Losses are a portion of combat.”

Pakistan besides emerged with what galore analysts saw arsenic a diplomatic and communicative advantage. It accepted US President Donald Trump’s assertion that helium had brought astir the ceasefire that ended the warfare connected May 10, nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, and has, implicit the past year, emerged arsenic a important diplomatic force, acting arsenic the main mediator of a ceasefire successful the US warfare connected Iran.

For its part, India tin besides constituent to important subject outcomes. Its BrahMos long-range missiles struck aggregate Pakistani airbases, including Nur Khan successful Rawalpindi and Bholari successful the Sindh province.

India besides utilized Israeli-made drones that penetrated arsenic acold arsenic Karachi and Lahore, and it suspended the Indus Waters Treaty connected April 23, 2025, a pact that governs river-water sharing betwixt the neighbours. The determination carries consequences acold beyond the subject exchange.

While commercialized outer imagery released by Western companies extensively documented harm astatine Pakistani subject installations, the aforesaid companies, Maxar, present renamed Vantor, and Planet Labs, released nary imagery of the Indian subject sites allegedly struck by Pakistan during oregon aft the conflict.

Meanwhile, Pakistani losses were subjected to open-source scrutiny, portion Indian losses were not. Both readings of the struggle incorporate elements of truth. Yet, neither is complete.

The spread betwixt the 2 narratives is not simply rhetorical, accidental analysts. It has consequences for however honestly each broadside is absorbing what the struggle really revealed, and however earnestly the task of addressing genuine vulnerabilities is being taken.

Pakistan’s unresolved gaps

At Thursday’s quality league successful Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s subject offered its astir elaborate nationalist relationship yet of what it has done to bolster its capabilities implicit the past year.

Pakistan-made missiles and launcher are displayed during a subject parade to people Pakistan Day, successful Islamabad connected March 23, 2024 [File: AP Photo]

Lieutenant General Chaudhry announced the ceremonial operationalisation of Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC), which the subject described arsenic being “equipped with modern exertion and susceptible of targeting the force with precocious precision from each direction”.

The presumption unveiled a bid of recently inducted systems successful the past 12 months: the Fatah-III supersonic cruise missile; the Fatah-IV, with a stated scope of 750km (466 miles); and the Fatah-V, described arsenic a 1,000km (621-mile) deep-strike rocket system.

“The Rocket Force was not created specifically to ‘solve’ the BrahMos problem,” said Tughral Yamin, a defence expert and erstwhile brigadier successful the Pakistani army.

“Its intent was organization and doctrinal: to streamline and accelerate accepted rocket decision-making portion maintaining a wide separation from Pakistan’s atomic deterrent architecture.”

Muhammad Faisal, a Sydney-based defence and overseas argumentation analyst, agreed with that favoritism but pointed to the applicable implications.

“Pakistan present has credible and usable accepted onslaught options,” helium told Al Jazeera. “It volition not halt India’s high-speed standoff strikes. But successful the adjacent round, India could expect Pakistan’s accepted cruise rocket retaliation.”

However, Adil Sultan, a erstwhile Pakistan Air Force commodore, cautioned that the ARFC remained a enactment successful progress.

“The rocket unit seems to beryllium inactive successful its improvement phase,” helium said, adding that newer systems, specified arsenic the Fatah-III, look to supply “a credible effect against BrahMos and different high-speed projectiles”.

Pakistan’s broader subject procurement has continued successful parallel. Islamabad raised its budget by 20 percent, allocating 2.55 trillion Pakistani rupees ($9bn) for subject expenditure, according to fund documents presented by Minister of Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb successful June past year.

That included 704 cardinal rupees ($2.5bn) for instrumentality and carnal assets.

A 2025 study by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission noted that Beijing had offered to merchantability Pakistan up to 40 J-35A fifth-generation combatant jets, though nary deliveries person yet taken place.

In December 2025, Washington notified Congress of a proposed $686m package to upgrade Pakistan’s F-16 fleet, extending its operational beingness to 2040.

Christopher Clary, a governmental idiosyncratic astatine the University astatine Albany, cautioned against interpreting the upgrades arsenic a straightforward displacement successful capability.

“We don’t cognize whether this volition beryllium conscionable a ‘Red Queen’s race,’ wherever some sides contention arsenic accelerated arsenic imaginable conscionable to enactment successful the aforesaid comparative presumption against 1 another”, helium told Al Jazeera, “or if 1 enactment volition propulsion distant the adjacent clip around”.

Beyond the hardware

Despite these upgrades, Pakistan’s aerial defence posture remains its astir exposed vulnerability, analysts constituent out.

Its Chinese-supplied HQ-9B surface-to-air rocket strategy failed to intercept the BrahMos missiles during the May 2025 conflict.

A mosque successful Muridke, Pakistan, was deed by Indian missiles connected the nighttime of May 6-7 past twelvemonth [File: Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]

Islamabad, according to Pakistani defence expert Yamin, is present pursuing the longer-range HQ-19 ballistic rocket defence system, with induction anticipated aboriginal successful 2026.

Faisal, the Sydney-based analyst, described the Pakistani Air Force’s (PAF) opening show connected May 7, 2025, arsenic impressive, but said that the aboriginal stages of the struggle exposed important weaknesses.

“The PAF’s show successful the archetypal signifier of the struggle was genuinely remarkable,” helium said. “It displayed some coherence and escalation discipline. However, aboriginal BrahMos strikes connected airbases depicted gaps successful crushed aerial defences.”

New weapons systems alone, Faisal argued, would not beryllium enough.

“Pakistan volition person to conscionable this situation done hardened shelters, dispersals, and urgent runway repair capacities to debar being incapacitated successful the adjacent conflict,” helium said.

The University astatine Albany’s Clary noted that the BrahMos missile’s combat debut had altered the strategical calculations for some sides.

“The BrahMos had ne'er been utilized earlier successful combat”, helium said, “and truthful its usage successful 2025 volition person fixed Pakistani aerial defence planners, and the Chinese manufacturers that marque galore of the Pakistani systems, a look astatine the technology”.

Whether determination are straightforward countermeasures, oregon whether dealing with a hypersonic cruise rocket similar BrahMos remains beyond Pakistan’s existent technological reach, is inactive unclear.

Yamin argued that the struggle besides underscored the diminishing worth of geography arsenic strategical depth.

Strikes reached Nur Khan, Bholari and installations arsenic acold southbound arsenic Sukkur.

“The struggle demonstrated that geography unsocial nary longer provides strategical extent successful the property of long-range precision weapons, drones, cyber capabilities, and satellite-guided systems,” helium said.

Faisal enactment the doctrinal implications much directly.

“Deep strikes into Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi show that ‘geographic immunity’ has eroded,” helium said. “Doctrinally, Pakistan’s subject is indicating mentation for accepted strikes from some crushed and sea-based platforms to onslaught the Indian heartland, adjacent astatine its confederate shores, acold from Pakistan.”

But that appraisal is analyzable by fiscal realities. Islamabad accrued defence spending adjacent arsenic it chopped wide national expenditure by 7 percent to comply with its International Monetary Fund indebtedness programme.

Meanwhile, India’s defence fund for 2025-26, according to Indian fund documents, stands astatine astir $78.7bn, astir 9 times Pakistan’s authoritative allocation.

India’s quieter reckoning

India’s authoritative posture since the struggle has mostly been 1 of vindication.

Praveen Donthi, a New Delhi-based expert astatine the International Crisis Group, described it arsenic an “opaque conflict” betwixt 2 nuclear-armed nations.

An Indian paramilitary worker stands alert on a thoroughfare successful Srinagar, the summertime superior of Indian-administered Kashmir. Security forces are connected alert crossed parts of Indian-administered Kashmir connected the day of the warfare betwixt Pakistan and India [Faisal Bashir/SOPA/LightRocket via Getty Images]

Alongside the subject exchange, helium said, a parallel warfare of misinformation was fought online.

“Such misinformation had amazingly allowed for an absorbing end, arsenic some sides could assertion victory,” helium told Al Jazeera. “Neither broadside wants to concede its losses.”

Second Chief of Defence Staff Chauhan’s remarks successful Singapore stay the closest India has travel to accountability connected its craft losses. He said India had mislaid aircraft, “rectified tactics” and returned “in ample numbers” to onslaught Pakistani airbases. But helium had declined to specify however galore craft were lost.

C Uday Bhaskar, a retired Indian Navy serviceman and manager of the Society for Policy Studies successful New Delhi, defended India’s reticence arsenic operationally necessary, noting that Operation Sindoor still remains active, lone connected intermission per the government, successful India’s framing.

But, helium said: “It would person been much due for a ideology similar India if this connection had been made successful parliament by the defence minister,” helium told Al Jazeera.

The diplomatic fallout has besides proved uncomfortable for New Delhi.

India insisted that the ceasefire that ended the warfare was settled bilaterally, rejecting repeated claims by Trump that helium deserved credit, adjacent arsenic Pakistan publically thanked the US president and nominated him for the Nobel Prize.

The opposition shaped however the aftermath was interpreted internationally.

Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir’s subsequent trajectory underscored the shift. In June past year, Trump hosted him for a White House lunch, the archetypal clip a US president had privately received a Pakistani military chief without civilian enactment present.

By April 2026, Munir’s planetary emergence had taken him to Tehran arsenic the archetypal determination subject person to question determination since the US and Israel launched warfare connected Iran connected February 28. He played a cardinal relation successful the April 8 ceasefire betwixt Washington and Tehran, and has continued to play a salient mediatory relation since.

Meanwhile, India’s evolving doctrine, which treats large attacks arsenic acts of war, carries risks of its own.

The International Crisis Group’s Donthi said that New Delhi believes it has “called Islamabad’s bluff implicit what it presumption atomic blackmail by engaging successful a constricted struggle beneath the atomic threshold”.

India’s superior information for diplomatic re-engagement, helium said, is “the credible and verifiable enforcement of the prohibition connected each anti-India militant groups”.

So, the inherent conditions that led to past year’s warfare stay unresolved.

“Due to communal distrust and the lack of reliable connection channels, the likelihood of struggle reigniting is significant,” Donthi said.

The h2o front

Of each the vulnerabilities exposed by the conflict, the 1 that appears to beryllium attracting the slightest factual argumentation responses is the h2o issue, accidental analysts.

People locomotion connected a span built connected the River Jhelum successful Sopore successful Indian-administered Kashmir, connected May 7, 2026. The Jhelum River flows done India and Pakistan nether the model of the Indus Waters Treaty [Nasir Kachroo/NurPhoto via Getty Images]

India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) connected April 23 past twelvemonth and has yet to reinstate it.

The pact underpins 1 of the world’s largest contiguous irrigation systems, supplying much than 80 percent of Pakistan’s cultivation water, according to the World Bank, and sustaining the livelihoods of much than 240 cardinal people.

Pakistan’s effectual h2o retention capableness stands astatine astir 30 days, compared with India’s – betwixt 120 and 220 days.

Pakistani Minister for Planning Development Ahsan Iqbal, addressing a authorities gathering connected h2o connected April 30, said that India’s attempts to usage h2o arsenic an instrumentality of unit highlighted “a superior outer magnitude to Pakistan’s h2o security.”

Experts caution against viewing the determination arsenic an contiguous operational crisis.

Erum Sattar, a US-based autarkic h2o instrumentality and argumentation scholar, argued that India’s invocation of “abeyance” from the pact has nary ground successful the treaty’s ineligible framework.

Under the treaty’s terms, she said, India remains obligated to stock information connected h2o releases and stream conditions.

“While not having this accusation surely impacts Pakistan’s h2o information and needs to beryllium catalogued and contested, its contiguous effects are limited,” she told Al Jazeera.

Naseer Memon, an Islamabad-based biology specialist, agreed.

“India’s suspension of the IWT is amerciable and unethical, but it does not airs immoderate imminent threat,” helium said, arguing that interior failings, including poorly maintained canals, outdated farming practices and unsuitable cropping patterns, posed much contiguous dangers.

Hassan Abbas, an Islamabad-based h2o and situation consultant, offered a sharper assessment.

“The worst result for Pakistan’s h2o information is not hypothetical,” helium told Al Jazeera. “It already occurred and was legitimised by the Indus Waters Treaty.”

Abbas argued that the pact had, from its inception, formalised alternatively than prevented Pakistan’s h2o insecurity. “In effect, the pact fto India instrumentality each the h2o that could beryllium taken, and ‘gave’ Pakistan what couldn’t,” helium said.

The longer-term outlook is little reassuring. Sattar argued that the infrastructure Pakistan is present rushing to physique whitethorn connection diminishing returns arsenic temperatures rise.

If planetary temperatures summation by 3-4 degrees Celsius (37-39F), she said, betwixt one-third and fractional of the region’s glaciers could disappear.

“Pakistan volition request to larn however to physique an system that delivers for its radical with a drastically reduced magnitude of water,” she said. “That is the existent menace to nationalist security, not, per se, transboundary h2o challenges.”

Clary offered a much measured assessment. A illness of the IWT practice would go “a large governmental and economical irritant successful the India-Pakistan narration for the indefinite future”, helium said, but noted that “irritants are seldom triggers for conflict”.

India has said that the pact will stay suspended until Pakistan takes what New Delhi describes arsenic credible and irreversible steps against cross-border equipped groups that people India and Indian-administered Kashmir.

But 12 months aft the rocket exchanges, nary diplomatic solution is successful sight.

Faisal, the Sydney-based scholar, said the doctrinal logic connected some sides was inactive playing out.

“Pakistan has to show long-range accepted rocket strikes and drones flying… implicit large Indian cities during the adjacent crisis,” helium said. “Only past volition this enactment beryllium disavowed by some sides.”

Bhaskar, for his part, offered a informing that chopped crossed some capitals.

“Both sides ought to put successful Plan B diplomacy and quiescent channels to power the escalation,” helium said. “For erstwhile it occurs, it volition beryllium precise rapid.”