Kashmir Theater 2.0

A few days ago, former Indian Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan stated that the recently signed Makkah Defence Pact "has made Pakistan overconfident". He added that the unresolved India-China boundary issue continues to pose a risk of friction, noting that "Pakistan will remain a major security concern for India." According to Chauhan, Pakistan has "reduced the space for conventional military operations and relied on sub-conventional warfare, including cross-border terrorism and proxy war". Consequently, he argued, "India must be able to increase the cost of a proxy war for Pakistan so that it stops using this as an instrument of state policy."

India's deeply ingrained institutional hostility toward Pakistan blinds its military leadership to strategic realities. During the May 2025 crisis, Pakistan effectively altered the conventional warfare paradigm, creating a threshold India could not cross. This failure forces India to retreat into sub-conventional warfare, launching the very "cross-border terrorism and proxy operations" it falsely accuses others of. Operating through Afghanistan for two decades, these operations have systematically targeted Pakistani citizens and institutions. Moving forward, Pakistan must sharply increase the costs of India's covert proxy wars.

The issue of "overconfidence", however, warrants further commentary. The confidence Pakistan gained from its May 2025 strategic victory against India has only continued to grow. While the Pak-Saudi defence pact and the subsequent Makkah Agreement - designed to address security in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world - had no direct bearing on India, they effectively neutralised US influence and intervention in the region, accelerating its integration into the Global South. India, which increasingly aligns itself with the Global North, now faces the dread of isolation within the Global South - a geopolitical shift that has arguably deflated the "Sindoor 2.0" balloon. Ultimately, the current reality reflects India's shattered confidence rather than Pakistan's overconfidence.

However, Chauhan's repeated mention of military and strategic "collusivity" between Pakistan and China – meaning some secret, deceitful, illegal cooperation between the two – needs to be thrown back on his face, as the relationship between the two is open and institutionalised – not only in the relams of defence but also in economics and regional politics. The May 2025 conflict has, however, brought to light the depth and range of this relationship. The world was perhaps unaware of Pak-China operational interoperability - defined as conducting joint operations against a common adversary - or interchangeability, which entails substituting or deploying units, personnel, and platforms across a shared theater. This, and real-time space support, via the BEIDOU satellites; collaborated electronic and cyber warfare; and AI-enabled military integration between the two has only actuated in the May 2025 conflict.

Going one step further, the Pak-China cooperation and preparedness for the Kashmir Theater is much older and comprehensive than publicly announced. The Pak-China Shaheen Exercises are a series of military drills conducted in China's northwestern regions, including Jiuquan, Yinchuan, and the Korla Air Base in Xinjiang. These locations all fall under China's Western Theater Command - the exact same command that moved into Ladakh in 2020, where it reportedly continues to occupy 2,000 square kilometres of territory.

The exercise at Korla featured PAF's JF-17s, Mirages, F-7PGs and ZDK airborne-early-warning aircraft alongside China's J-8s, J-11s, JH-7s and KJ-200 AEW&C aircraft, SAM radars and other ground forces. Currently, China and Pakistan have security structures in the wider Khunjerab-Karakoram-Gilgit-Baltistan space due to CPEC requirements.

China is building roads, tunnels, logistics, surveillance, airfields and communications on the Tibet-Xinjiang side. The Shaksgam Valley, ceded to China by Pakistan in 1963, has gained significance as China has started constructing new roads, establishing logistics camps, and building cement-production facilities there. China has also continued a tunneling project that seems to lead toward Siachen, a development that will provide direct access to Depsang and Daulet Beg Oldi.

India, on the other hand, is building multiple all-weather reinforcement corridors into Ladakh with 1,670 km of new roads in a bid to strengthen access to DBO and Depsang. The Zojila and Shinko La tunnels are specifically designed to provide all-weather access to Leh and DBO. Additionally, India is reinforcing its forward aviation and multi-domain surveillance in the area while building new airfields. These infrastructure developments in Shaksgam and Siachen represent the deepest strategic collaboration yet between Pakistan and China, granting China complete tactical cover on the northwest. Ultimately, this will compound the existing pressure points between China and India, such as Doklam, Taksing and Tawang.

All these preparations confirm that the two sides are at loggerheads. They deeply distrust each other and clearly anticipate a confrontation in the near future. Will the Kashmir Theater then serve as the next battlefield in a future conflict, such as a potential "Sindoor 2.0"?

It is not just the PAF and PLAAF collaborating; their ground forces also conduct the Warrior Army Exercises, featuring intense physical fitness routines like compound calisthenics and power training. Furthermore, Exercise Sea Guardian, which features complex air defence and naval submarine drills, has become a regular fixture between the two states. In May 2025, the Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikrant approached within 400 nautical miles of Pakistan's coast. However, it was deterred from advancing further because Pakistan's potent anti-access capabilities could easily strike it down.

So, will the next battle be in Kashmir? Will it be a two-front, three-front or a multi-front war? Will the tunnels under Shaksgam and those passing Zojila cross-open at a point of showdown in DBO? Will India's disregard of the Indus Water Treaty force Pakistan to escalate in the north? Will India think it has to hurry before China and Pakistan further integrate in space, ISR, EW and data-sharing, filling each other's gaps for the next 6GW? Will the US, facing an economic and diplomatic downturn, be ready to stand behind India, as China stands behind Pakistan? Will best-buddy Israel be left with enough spine to deliver India a win, when it hasn't been able to secure one for itself?

The truth is that denial and lies are being used by India as strategic weapons. Defense Minister Rajnath Singh calling Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan part of India, and FM Jaishankar labeling Pakistan's international mediation as dalali while boasting about a successful "Operation Sindoor" are all spectacles of a baffled mindset. This leadership is simply trying to hide its embarrassment behind a façade of pretense and ruse - a mindset that can never accept its own shortcomings and therefore can never correct itself.