Source: Antena M
Author: Biljana Jovićević
Both the West and the East celebrate Victory Day (VE Day) – 80 years since the defeat of fascism and the end of the Second World War, while everything that was built afterward – as a solid foundation and safeguard against its recurrence – is slowly falling apart before our eyes.
Can the latest escalation between India and Pakistan spiral out of control and lead to consequences that are difficult to foresee? This is the key question following India’s strike on Pakistani territory – involving two Asian nations that possess nuclear arsenals. In addition, a crucial and sudden question arises: who, in this new global shift, can restrain them (as was commonly done in the past) – or more precisely, who will stop them now, after the collapse of the global order established 80 years ago, at the end of the Second World War, which is being commemorated today in various locations?
New Crisis (Potentially Nuclear) Hotspot: Pakistan–India
The conflict between India and Pakistan has been going on for 75 years, since the division of the Kashmir territory between the two countries—former British colonies—although a small part also belongs to China. It has not lasted for centuries or 1,500 years, as U.S. President Donald Trump claimed when asked to comment on the escalation. Still, it is potentially very dangerous for several reasons. Trump, showing little apparent interest during an event at the White House, said that what happened was terrible, that he knows and has good relations with both sides, and offered to mediate for de-escalation.
The two countries have fought four wars so far – in 1948, 1965, 1971, and 1999, the latter being a so-called ‘limited war.’ The last major incident between India and Pakistan before last month’s massacre occurred in 2019, but escalation was successfully prevented thanks to diplomatic efforts.
The immediate trigger for India’s last night’s attack last on Pakistani territory, in the Punjab region, was an assault by militants and the killing of 25 or 26 Hindu tourists (depending on the source) in the part of Kashmir under Indian territorial administration. The attack occurred on April 22, amid the visit of U.S. Vice President JD Vance to the country. Although the attack took place during his visit, according to U.S. media reports, Vance nevertheless urged Indian authorities to exercise restraint.
The government of India, embodied by the authoritarian Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi—whose rise to power was partly enabled by a crackdown on what he claimed were ‘Islamists’ in the country, despite having been under investigation for alleged crimes (from which he was later cleared)—claims that the April attack was carried out by Islamist militants linked to Pakistan. However, it should be noted that no valid evidence has been presented to support this claim. Pakistan, for its part, called for an international investigation to determine what actually happened, but this has not happened as India refused to agree to it.
As announced after last month’s attack, India retaliated last night—between May 6 and 7—by carrying out a series of strikes on Pakistani territory in the Punjab region, killing at least 31 people. According to Pakistani authorities, among the dead were also two children. India claims that only militants were killed; however, satellite images show that civilian targets were also attacked, including the destruction of a mosque.
The Indian side claims that this marks the end of their so-called retaliatory response to the April attack, for which they hold Pakistan responsible, and that, as far as they are concerned, the response is concluded. Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities—formally led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif but effectively controlled by the military, specifically Chief of Army Staff, General Asim Munir—have declared that they will ‘avenge every drop of blood’ spilled in this attack.
The Pakistan army, which controls the current government of the country, is not particularly popular—especially among the nearly 250 million citizens, many of whom are outraged by the ousting and arrest of former popular Prime Minister Imran Khan. The army now faces the challenge of responding to such a direct attack on its territory, which could also serve as an opportunity to improve the image of both the government and the army in the eyes of the public. For this reason, they have announced that they will retaliate. Western diplomats, along with China and Gulf countries, are trying to urge both sides to de-escalate tensions, warning that a full-scale escalation would carry enormous economic consequences. However, according to Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar: … ‘Yes, there would be major economic losses in the event of any full-scale war. But when it comes to sovereignty, the integrity of the country, territorial integrity, and the dignity of the nation—then there is no price,’ he stated.
Pakistan claims to have shot down several (4 or 5) Indian fighter aircraft, while Western sources, particularly French intelligence, claim that at least one ‘Rafale’ fighter jet was downed. Countries calling for restraint are urging Pakistan to try to present the downing of the Indian fighter jet—or several of them—as a strong response to its outraged public and to stop there.
The problem is—what if they don’t stop there—and who can restrain them? Although the United States, through the reactions of Trump and Vance, as well as yesterday’s call for restraint by Secretary of State Marco Rubio (who is now also Trump’s National Security Adviser, following the reassignment of Mike Waltz to the position of UN ambassador after the Signal chat scandal), analysts fear that the U.S., essentially, does not have—as the saying goes in the current transactional policy of the White House—a ‘horse in this race’, even though the American President claims to have good relations with and to know both sides well.
For the sake of truth, previous U.S. administrations did indeed have good relations and significant influence—with the means to exert that influence—over both countries, and were able to play a stabilizing role in situations like this. However, the fact is that today Trump has significantly better relations with Narendra Modi, partly because of Modi’s authoritarian style of governance, which Trump admires, and partly due to his family’s business interests in India, than he does with the Pakistani authorities—who, in essence, are controlled by the military. Also worth noting is that part of the Pakistani opposition and supporters of the imprisoned former Prime Minister Khan claim that the U.S. was behind his overthrow from power. However, the following facts also stand: the current U.S. administration is now closer to India, which buys more weapons from the U.S., while Pakistan today purchases more weapons from China.
China is, of course, among those who have called for restraint from both sides, given that it shares a border with both countries and a small part of Kashmir is on its territory. Some analysts, in the past 24 hours, have speculated that China and the Arab Gulf States could take on a mediating role in attempts to de-escalate the conflict, which could have potentially far-reaching consequences. These countries have a vested interest in preventing the situation from getting out of control. When asked by journalists whether Britain could potentially step into the role previously held by the U.S., even British analysts say it would be very difficult, due to its infamous colonial past with both countries.
Escalation and the Possibility of Using ‘Tactical Nukes’
Europe, or the EU, is not being mentioned by anyone for now.
Experts on the Middle East and Far East, especially those dealing with this decades-long ‘frozen conflict’ that occasionally flares up and threatens to escalate, emphasize two things: that what is happening, if not contained through diplomatic efforts, could lead to potentially far-reaching consequences, considering that, in addition to the practically military junta in Pakistan, this time in India, Modi’s Hindu nationalists are in power, often referred to as religious extremists. It is important to note that the ruling party of Narendra Modi, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), actually has fascist roots dating back to the 1930s, and roots connected to right-wing Hindu nationalists. Since Modi’s rise to power in 2014, leading the country with an iron fist, the BJP has seen consecutive growth, becoming the dominant political force in the country after the January 2024 elections. Over these 11 years, India has experienced a significant decline in democratic freedoms and rights, especially for minorities, and when it comes to Kashmir, the authorities claim they have brought this region, which has a Muslim majority population, into a ‘normalcy’.
However, the way India treats its citizens of the Islamic faith is highly questionable. As Mirza Waheed, a journalist from Kashmir based in the UK, writes for The Guardian after the April massacre, ‘normalcy’ does not involve the extreme measures that India applies in this region to its citizens who belong to a minority community. People in Kashmir, according to Waheed in an interview with Democracy Now, least of all want war, because for decades and generations—just like his own family—they have been subjected to direct suffering. He shares his own experience: first, his grandfather in 1948, then his father in the 1960s and 70s in two wars, and finally, he himself in 1999.
The treatment of the Muslim minority in India, especially under Modi’s rule, has often been critically addressed by the renowned Indian writer, Booker Prize winner (1997), and activist Arundhati Roy, author of the cult novel The God of Small Things. Last year, because of this, she was prosecuted in her country for ‘terrorism.’
In any case, if a combination of global order collapse and extremists—who are difficult to restrain on both sides, in India and in Pakistan—were to prevail, and analysts remind us that incidents like the one we have just witnessed served as triggers for two of the four previous wars, with both sides unrestrained and emboldened, they could resort to the use of so-called ‘tactical nukes’ (tactical nuclear missiles), which they possess.
The West and the East Celebrate – the Order is Collapsing, a New One Yet to Rise
It’s not exactly the best news to start a day that marks 80 years since the victory over fascism and the end of World War II. But it reflects the reality the world now lives in—alongside Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which has been in full scale for three years and will be ‘paused for three days,’ as announced by Vladimir Putin. In what could hardly be a greater irony, Putin will celebrate Victory Day in Moscow with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić—who, as the EU still claims, wants to bring Serbia into Europe—at the traditional military parade.
Trump won’t be joining them—he has lately seemed somewhat disappointed with Putin, because he has not negotiated peace with Ukraine, despite repeatedly and confidently claiming he would do it ‘in one day.’ Still, he couldn’t resist ordering a military parade for July 4th, something that has never been a tradition for showing the military power of the world’s most powerful military. But as Trump put it, this is necessary because ‘we have the greatest weapons and the greatest submarines in the world’.
The collapse of the 80-year-old global order is also being fueled by Trump’s repeated threats toward Canada, Greenland, and Panama, and a potential recession triggered by tariffs—but also the dismantling of the idea of U.S. ‘exceptionalism’—as the ‘shining city on a hill’ and ‘leader of the free world’—through the persecution and deportation of migrants, pressure on the media, universities, judges, law firms, and cultural institutions (now under the jurisdiction of the familiar figure Richard Grenell, who has taken over the Kennedy Center and is threatening dissenting artists), the erosion of federal institutions—especially those involved in healthcare, science, and research—all to the shock of (yesterday’s) allies.
Both East and West Silent on Gaza
At the same time, in the past 24 hours, Israel—during a new attack on Gaza (as well as on Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, after they targeted Israeli territory)—has killed more than 100 Palestinians. For over a month now, the Palestinian population has been denied access to food, although Trump claims, ‘we’ll send them something to eat’—presumably until they are displaced so they can begin building the Riviera. Meanwhile, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian territories, which began on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas terrorist attack on Gaza (though that is not the beginning of the history of this conflict, which is as old as the one over Kashmir), has already taken the lives of around 50,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—and continues without intervention from the EU or the UK.
Britain began its official commemoration of Victory Day on May 4th with a military parade in London, attended by a few remaining living veterans, the royal family, and the government of Keir Starmer, and continues daily within the long-established culture of remembrance, while France will join the celebrations today. However, VE Day is undoubtedly being marked in a new and far from secure reality—both on the European continent and beyond.
In Montenegro, through a revision of history—modeled after and already successfully implemented project in Serbia—Tito and the Partisans are no longer seen as anti-fascists, but as Chetniks, or at best, both groups if it can’t be avoided. All that is missing here is a parade or a ceremonial academy, like the one in Belgrade, when Tito and Draža shared the screen behind Vučić. The Serbian Orthodox Church is working tirelessly on this, while the European government and president remain silent, obediently bowing when necessary.
‘The 80th anniversary of the victory of 8 May 1945 implies, more than ever, a double responsibility‘, stated France.
While the situation continues to complicate, concrete steps and a statement of that responsibility are still awaited.
