AFTER ending in a draw on the battlefield, the epic Indo-Pak tussle has moved to the battlefield of peaceful diplomacy, where it belonged from day one. The foes are now hoping for a clear win there.

A draw often seems like a loss to the stronger side and a win to the upcoming side. In starting a war, India may have hoped to inflict one-sided, humiliating losses on Pakistan before global umpires intervened,fearingnuclearescalation.It would have wished to avenge the huge loss of face caused by the Pahalgam terrorist attack both at home and globally and to ensure deterrencein thefuture.It clearly failed to land the knock-out punch that could help it regain `honour`. Its ability to claim deterrence, too, is undercut not just by this but also by its failure to prove a Pakistani hand in the attack.

As defenders, our main aim was to avoid a knock-out punch, which we did despite being militarily and financially constrained thanks mainly to our professionally focused air force. But a second unlikely aim arose briefly among some hawks to land our own knock-out punch to deter India from waging war again. It is unclear whether we achieved such deterrence. A draw now allows both sides to focus on phases where they did well and claim a tacit win overall. For us, that is the felling of Indian Rafales; for India, it is hitting Nur Khan base, close to both our army and political capitals and many sensitive sites. Neither caused huge physical damage, but both still have symbolic value.

The tussle now moves to the battlefield of diplomacy, but both sides are still harbouring unhelpful, winner-takes-all expectations. India over-predicted its gains in war; we may be doing so with our likely gains in peace. There is a questionable new self-belief that war has magically changed us by instilling unity and patriotism, and just as we did well in it, we can now quickly excel on all our internal aims, too. This ignores the saying that in life, you get what you pay for.

We, for long, have paid hugely to develop our war-time capacity, which earned us a draw against a bigger foe. But that capacity is very aim-specific and cannot be rejigged to achieve peacetime aims or even to curb other forms of violence, like terrorism and crime. It also undercut outlays for peacetime state capacity, whose gaps will still hugely bind our post-war progress.

The upcoming budget will be an early test, for if it is uncreative and elitist again, it will show the limits of shortlived war euphoria in denting the deepstructures and logic of a highly predatory state. The unity bit is overstated, too.

There is unity against external threats but not on internal issues, as the state continues its clampdown on peaceful domestic opponents even while it has a ceasefire agreement with an external aggressor. As ever, the path to progress still lies through a vigorous democracy and civilian sway, which may both take further hits after the war, given the misplaced state view that patriotism can replace the needforboth.

We also hope to get more global support after the war against a still globally ascendant India. Early but fleeting signs, like Donald Trump`s offer to mediate on Kashmir, had cheered millions of us. But Trump holds shameful views favouring stronger aggressor states in key conflicts: asking Gazans to leave Gaza and Ukraine to cede its land usurped by Russia. Thus, in eagerly inviting his role, we run the risk of him using the US`s huge might to force unfair solutions on us, too. Amongthe key bilateral issues Kashmir, terrorism, and water global powers will be most keen to arrange talks on terrorism, as it can trigger nuclear war. The aim must be to have a strong ongoing system to verify the chargesofbothstates that the other supports terrorism against it, though neither side has givenrecentproofofthat.

They may also help on water issues so that a treaty signed under the aegis of the Western-led World Bank isn`t broken.

Global sympathy may favour India on terrorism given the history, but Pakistan on water given the law. It`s unclear if they can arrange talks on the knotty Kashmir issue despite the offer by an unreliable character like Trump. Like the budget, the outcome of the coming trip to key states by a team led by Bilawal BhuttoZardari may be an early test of our diplomatic hopes. However, only talks based on a spirit of give and take by both states can assure peace and progress for 1.5 billion-plus South Asians. • The writer has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in political economy and 25 years of grassroots to senior-level experiences across 50 countries.

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