False Flag Operations and Strategic Stability: Revisiting the May 2025 India-Pakistan Crisis

Abstract

On 22 April 2025, a mass shooting at the Baisaran Valley in Pahalgam, Indian illegally occupied Kashmir (IIOK), claimed the lives of 26 civilians—including tourists—and injured 20 more. India swiftly attributed the attack to Pakistani-backed militants, suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, closed shared airspace and land routes, and initiated Operation Sindoor, launching missile strikes on alleged terror camps across the border. Pakistan rejected the allegations, labeled the incident a false flag operation, and called for a neutral investigation, while enacting diplomatic and trade countermeasures. This episode—referred to as the “Pehalgam incident”—underscores the escalating breach of strategic stability in South Asia via narrative manipulation and covert provocation. This article explores the deployment of false flag operations as instruments of hybrid warfare within the nuclearized Indo‑Pak rivalry, with the Pahalgam incident serving as the focal case. False flag operations—covert actions designed to appear as though executed by another actor—pose acute risks of misperception, crisis spirals, and inadvertent escalation in high-stakes, nuclear-armed dyads. Employing a qualitative case-study methodology, this study reconstructs the April–May 2025 crisis using official government statements, policy communiqués, international news outlets, think‑tank analyses, and open‑source intelligence. Through strategic analysis, the research evaluates the operational, diplomatic, and deterrence dynamics unleashed by the incident. Findings reveal that false flag operations severely erode strategic stability, increasing the likelihood of miscalculation and inadvertent escalation, especially where nuclear deterrence depends on credible signaling and mutually assured thresholds. The Pahalgam crisis prompted water-security manipulation, cross-border military strikes, and bilateral treaty suspensions—illustrative of false flag tactics’ ability to destabilize region-wide frameworks. The article concludes by advocating for strengthened bilateral dialogue channels, robust transparency and verification frameworks, and third-party crisis mediation mechanisms. In emphasizing proactive countermeasures—such as institutionalized crisis hotlines and confidence-building protocols—it contributes to the broader discourse on managing strategic risks posed by hybrid tactics in nuclearized regions.