Route 1 terrorism as state policy, not law-and-order problem → 1971 turn to asymmetric balancing → Bhutto’s strategic depth + Zia’s thousand cuts → peace blocked at source

Route 2 Pahalgam → one attack puts a treaty that outlived three wars in abeyance → the instrument is policy, not crime → peace blocked at source

Tellis: plausible deniability + a war Pakistan cannot win + nuclear deterrent as licence → India’s dual denial: no decisive victory, no regional pre-eminence → cost turns regional → no SAARC summit since 2014 → Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan abandon Islamabad with India after Uri → counter-terror work moves to BIMSTEC, Pakistan out → Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance since Pahalgam → Pant: engagement now conditioned by Pakistan’s behaviour

coercion has not changed the incentive → Cohen: a stalemate neither side can win nor absorb → each retaliation carries escalation risk

Route 1 Pakistan’s own war with the Afghan Taliban since February 2026 → strategy turning on its author → South Asia insecure while terrorism remains policy

Route 2 SAARC dead, BIMSTEC a workaround, Indus Treaty in abeyance → whole regional order now shaped by one strategy → peace waits on that strategy being given up