Manufactured Conflict, Real Consequences
The Pakistan-India conflict is less about ideology and more about mutual convenience, with Western actors still scripting the scenes.
As Pakistan and India enter yet another military standoff, the world watches with bated breath. News cycles erupt, leaders convene emergency meetings, and analysts revisit nuclear war scenarios. However, this situation differs from previous crises, not because the risk is greater, but because the choreography has become increasingly apparent.
The conflict, if it merits being called a war, is not spontaneous. Evidence suggests it is a mutually agreed-upon arrangement between the leadership of Pakistan and India. Both nations have much to gain and significant domestic pressures to navigate. For Pakistan's ruling military and political elite, the conflict provides perfect cover to silence dissent. On the very day Indian jets launched strikes, Pakistan's parliament passed legislation enabling military courts to try civilians. This timing was not coincidental; it was calculated.
During conflicts, criticism transforms into treason. Those who question the military can be readily labeled as enemy agents. The public, already predisposed to distrust India, is easily swayed. The war has become a weapon, not against the adversary across the border, but against those at home who dare to question authority.
India employs a similar strategy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi stands to benefit from prolonged confrontation. Hindutva politics thrives on portraying a strong India facing down a historical foe. With elections approaching and dissent rising in Kashmir and Punjab, military escalation serves to consolidate nationalist sentiment and justify future security measures.
This is not warfare for national security; it is theater for political advantage.
While both governments posture, the true beneficiaries remain offshore.
The United States and its allies have long fostered division among India, Pakistan, and China, a practice the British Empire employed before them. Today, Washington continues to finance disruptive actors across South Asia under the guise of democracy promotion. Organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy have invested resources in India-administered Kashmir, shaping narratives and movements that ultimately deepen existing divisions.
In Pakistan, U.S.-backed military and intelligence elements have played both sides for decades, supporting certain factions, enabling militant groups, and maintaining tensions. In India, years of strategic cooperation have produced a political-military elite deeply integrated with Western defense and technology sectors. The result is a region kept in perpetual suspicion, development deferred, and sovereignty compromised.
While attention remains fixed on the India-Pakistan front, the actual transformation of regional order occurs quietly to the west.
In West Asia, a strategic corridor is being constructed under the banner of resistance. Iran, China, and their regional partners are establishing the infrastructure for a new Eurasian integration, one that circumvents U.S. naval control and redraws the logistical map of the Middle East.
The so-called "Axis of Resistance" has often been portrayed in ideological terms: Hezbollah, Houthis, Iraqi militias, and Syrian proxies defying Zionism and American imperialism. However, this framing misses the essential point. These groups function less as ideologues and more as guardians of infrastructure. They secure ports, oil fields, pipelines, and overland transit routes crucial to China's Belt and Road Initiative.
The 2021 Iran-China 25-year cooperation agreement, potentially worth $400 billion, is not ideological; it is transactional. In exchange for discounted oil and strategic access, China gains a land bridge across West Asia. Iran, in turn, receives economic survival and diplomatic flexibility. Ports like Bandar Abbas and Chabahar become critical nodes in this transit corridor.
China's regional interest is not speculative; it is structural. Beijing understands that to protect its global manufacturing base and ensure access to raw materials and markets, it must secure both overland and maritime routes. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), extending from Xinjiang to Gwadar, represents one segment of a much larger vision. The Iran corridor constitutes another.
However, China's calculus extends beyond economics into politics. By embedding itself in the infrastructure of so-called resistance nations, it ensures leverage over governments that the West either sanctions or isolates. This influence is subtle, it is contractual, secured through long-term port leases, telecommunications infrastructure, and strategic investments.
For China, the India-Pakistan conflict presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It destabilizes one partner (India) while reinforcing its hold over another (Pakistan). A prolonged conflict provides China with additional negotiating leverage with both nations.
Even the United States benefits from this arrangement in its own way. Quiet diplomacy continues between Washington and Tehran, even as official sanctions remain in place. In April 2025, as Pakistan and India exchanged fire, U.S.-Iran nuclear talks resumed in Muscat. Simultaneously, Beijing expanded its energy and infrastructure discussions with Tehran. These events are not coincidental; they are synchronized.
Beyond the loss of lives and regional stability, the true damage inflicted by this managed conflict is economic, with long-term implications. For Pakistan, the statistics are alarming. The country currently allocates over 3% of its GDP to military expenditures, while public health, education, and innovation remain underfunded. As of early 2025, Pakistan is projected to require an additional $6 billion from multilateral donors simply to maintain solvency. Inflation exceeds 30%, and nearly half the population faces food insecurity. The war narrative enables the state to justify emergency budgets and internal security measures, while simultaneously driving capital flight, weakening the currency, and deepening public despair.
India confronts similar economic burdens, though framed in the language of nationalism and growth. Defense accounts for nearly 2.4% of India's GDP, with significant allocations directed toward imported weapons systems, border deployments, and intelligence operations. According to SIPRI data, India remains among the world's largest arms importers while simultaneously reducing subsidies for essential services. The rural economy continues to struggle, even as Delhi invests in symbolic military projects.
The opportunity cost is staggering. A fraction of this military spending, redirected toward infrastructure, clean energy, or education, could elevate millions out of poverty. Instead, both nations remain trapped in a cycle of debt, division, and deteriorating public trust.
The India-Pakistan conflict is not fundamentally about defense; it serves as a distraction. It functions as a tool rather than representing a genuine tragedy, a spectacle rather than an unexpected crisis.
Until the public rejects this narrative, until they recognize that the border conflict represents a distraction rather than the actual, battlegroundmeaningful change remains unlikely. True multipolarism cannot emerge from managed conflicts and mutual authoritarianism. It must arise from sovereignty built on cooperation rather than spectacle.
The choice before both nations is clear: select principles over nationalist symbols. If those principles include justice, peace, and regional integration, then both Pakistan and India are currently failing their citizens. Meanwhile, the real geopolitical transformations unfold elsewhere, reshaping the future of Asia while South Asia remains locked in a theatrical but destructive performance.