Islamabad, Pakistan – On Wednesday evening, as Pakistan grappled with the aftermath of a wave of missile strikes from India that hit at least six cities, killing 31 people, the country’s military spokesperson took to a microphone with a chilling warning.

“When Pakistan strikes India, it will come at a time and place of its own choosing,” Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a media briefing. “The whole world will come to know, and its reverberation will be heard everywhere.”

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Two days later, India and Pakistan have moved even closer to the brink of war.

On Thursday, May 8, Pakistan accused India of flooding its airspace with kamikaze drones that were brought down over major cities, including Lahore and Karachi. India confirmed the drone assault, but said it was responding to a provocation from Pakistan — missiles and drones launched towards cities and air defence systems in India and Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan denied that charge, and subsequent accusations of missile and drone attacks on parts of Indian-administered Kashmir on Thursday night.

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With Pakistan denying any missile or drone strikes against India, Chaudhry’s warning of upcoming retribution remains alive, hovering over the 1.6 billion people of South Asia, 17 days after armed gunmen killed 26 male civilians in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, triggering the current escalation.

Experts say how Pakistan responds will likely be shaped by its desire to demonstrate that it can hurt India, without pushing the crisis over the edge into a full-blown conflict.

“We are still far away from a war, but we are much closer than we were 24 hours ago,” said Christopher Clary, assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany.

Next target: Military bases?

Clary said that the next “logical escalatory” step for both countries might be to target each other’s military bases.

“We have already seen this with air defence-focused strikes,” Clary told Al Jazeera, referring to the Indian drone attacks that tried to target Pakistani radar systems overnight on May 7-8, and New Delhi’s claims that Pakistan launched missiles and drones towards its military facilities.

“But I fear other strikes are likely in the next 24 hours. I think we are still several days from de-escalation,” Clary said, adding that more deaths are likely.

India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since gaining independence from British colonial rule in August 1947, especially over the scenic Kashmir Valley in the northwestern subcontinent. Both control parts of it, with China in control of two thin slices. India claims all of Kashmir, while Pakistan claims all of Kashmir except the parts held by China, its ally.

They have fought multiple wars over Kashmir. The last major escalation occurred in February 2019, when India accused Pakistan of supporting armed groups responsible for a suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian soldiers in Pulwama, in Indian-administered Kashmir.

In response, India crossed the border for the first time since the 1971 war, launching air strikes in Balakot, Pakistan’s northwest, claiming to have hit “terrorist infrastructure” and having killed “hundreds of fighters”.

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Pakistan countered that the area was a forest and reported no casualties. It responded the next day with its own fighter jets, leading to a dogfight and the downing of an Indian jet. The captured pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, was later returned to India, easing tensions.

Kamran Bokhari, senior director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, DC, called the current situation “much more dangerous” than in 2019.

India, he said, appeared to be locked into an “escalatory spiral”.

“In case Pakistan makes a move, India will respond and up the ante,” he said.

“This is a new situation for Pakistan. For the military to say that it will respond in a time of its own choosing suggests they want to think it through, to strike in a manner that does not lead to escalation. But how that materialises is a function of capability and constraint.”

‘A deliberate response’

It took India 12 days to respond to the Pulwama killings with the Balakot strike in 2019. In the current conflict, the Indian response took even longer, 15 days, via “Operation Sindoor,” which struck multiple Pakistani cities, including ones in Punjab, close to the Indian border.

Some analysts argue that while Pakistan has so far calibrated its response diplomatically and militarily, the drone strikes on Thursday morning marked a “serious escalation”.

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“The military is expected to respond in a manner that is firm and resolute, drawing on both public and political support. The scale of Pakistan’s response will be quite telling,” said Arsla Jawaid, associate director at global consulting firm Control Risks, while speaking to Al Jazeera.

She said Pakistan is likely to opt for precision strikes targeting Indian military assets while avoiding civilian casualties.

“This could issue a decisive response while minimising further escalation. The latter will be a critical calculation in any Pakistani response,” she added.

Sahar Khan, a Washington, DC-based security analyst focused on South Asia, agreed that Pakistan will “definitely” respond.

Khan said India had crossed several “red lines,” including suspending the Indus Waters Treaty after the Pahalgam attack, and launching missile and drone attacks. The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), mediated by the World Bank and signed in 1960, governs the distribution of Indus River waters, critical for millions across the subcontinent, particularly in Pakistan.

“The question is, what will they [the Pakistani military] target? That will determine the escalation dynamics and the eventual off-ramps,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I think Pakistan will retaliate, showcasing its military capabilities. Its defence systems remain intact, and that is an added incentive to respond,” Khan added.

‘Who blinks first?’

With brinkmanship at its peak and both sides locked in aggressive posturing, the greatest fear remains that even a small miscalculation could lead to a fully fledged war between two nations with more than 150 nuclear weapons each.

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Bokhari warned that India’s strikes in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous province, marked a dangerous precedent.

“By attacking Punjab, which was almost unthinkable, India has now made this the new normal. This is a real slippery slope,” he said.

Jawaid concurred, noting that drone strikes on Pakistani urban centres also suggest a shift in red lines.

“That opens the door to a sustained and heightened risk of escalation, which is deeply problematic due to the risk of miscalculation on both sides. We are in a case of who blinks first,” she said.

But Khan believes that there are a few potential off-ramps.

“The first is the international community, such as the US, China, and Russia, urging restraint. The second is for India and Pakistan to show willingness to redefine red lines, like India agreeing to the IWT again and Pakistan agreeing not to strike Indian military targets,” she said.

Jawaid, however, warned that even if India and Pakistan avoid a war, their already deeply strained equation has changed – there’s a new normal that will define it.

“The longer this is sustained, the more challenging it becomes,” she said. “The bilateral relationship is already fraught with heightened tensions, which will continue even if the current conflict settles down, especially due to unresolved issues around natural resources and Kashmir, which remains a flashpoint.”