September 11, 2025
The Arms Control and Disarmament Centre (ACDC) at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) organized the launch of its latest Islamabad Paper, titled: “Commentary on Western Assessments of the India-Pakistan Crisis of May 2025,” authored by Ambassador Zamir Akram.
Dr. Naeem Ahmad Salik, Executive Director, SVI; and Dr. Asma Shakir Khawaja, Executive Director, CISS AJK, were among the discussants. The launch was attended by prominent academics, policymakers, and practitioners.
In his welcome remarks, Director General ISSI Ambassador Sohail Mahmood noted that the May 2024 India-Pakistan conflict was one of the most consequential events of the recent past for the two countries, the region, and possibly internationally. While the two protagonists — India and Pakistan — had advanced their respective narratives, the third-party analyses were also part of the equation in shaping global perceptions. For obvious reasons, it was critical that Pakistan’s point of view should come out clearly regarding the actual conflict, its strategic consequences, and the future trajectory.
Amb. Zamir Akram’s Islamabad Paper was a valuable contribution, in which he had focused on four distinct threads — including terrorism, military engagements, restraint, and India’s so-called ‘new normal.’ He had analyzed what the Indian narrative was on these subjects and how it was absorbed and amplified by experts and academics in the UK and U.S. think-tank community.
Amb. Sohail Mahmood underlined that India started rewriting its own narrative right after the May 2025 conflict, seeking to turn an evident setback into a ‘victory’ of sorts.
The Western assessments’ proximity to India’s official line was a function of several structural factors, including the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership. Pakistan would continue to face the twin challenges of Indian propaganda and Western biases and should adopt a proactive approach to counter misrepresentations and stress objectivity.
Earlier, Malik Qasim Mustafa, Director ACDC summarized Amb. Akram’s Islamabad Paper, which has attempted to analyze the assessment of some of the leading Western analysts and think tanks from four common key themes – terrorism, military engagements, the issue of restraint, and India’s so-called ‘new normal.’ These assessments were based on the May 2025 conflict, where South Asia witnessed 87 hours of fighting between India and Pakistan that almost brought the region to the brink of an all-out war.
In his remarks, Dr. Naeem Ahmad Salik lauded ISSI and Amb. Zamir Akram for bringing out the publication which dissected select Western think-tank reports and highlighted their subjective nature. He largely attributed the Western tilt towards India as a function of India’s significant investment in building a network of academics and analysts favoruably disposed towards its narrative.
The lack of transparency regarding India’s own military losses during the May 2025 conflict and India’s role in escalating crises was often overlooked in these Western narratives.
The narratives also readily accepted the assumption that any terrorist activity in India was backed by Pakistan, which had dangerous implications. This bias was evident in publications that used only Indian sources and disregarded critical facts, such as the number of downed Indian aircraft.
He highlighted that the lack of academic vigour and intellectual integrity in such commentaries was a matter of concern.
Dr. Asma Shakir Khwaja’s overview of Amb Zamir’s work highlighted the urgent need to ‘decolonize’ Western-centric narratives, particularly those concerning terrorism that have been instrumentalized against Pakistan. To counter this, she suggested, Pakistan should advocate for forensic transparency through platforms like the United Nations.
She said that India’s so-called ‘new normal’ was illegal, unrealistic, and against the UN Charter. Pakistan needed to tell the world that South Asia could not afford any wars. She asserted that Pakistan’s ‘Quid Pro Quo Plus’ response was the new normal.
She also underscored the data asymmetry that existed between India and Pakistan, which the latter needed to address in order to have greater traction for its narrative. She suggested that Pakistan must not only highlight the subjectivity of these biased narratives but also work to establish reliable crisis de-escalation mechanisms to prevent future wars instead of leaving the region’s fate to extremist ideologies like Hindutva.
Amb. Zamir Akram highlighted significant challenges for Pakistani analysts due to the lack of opportunity to project their views and publish in Western academic and policy circles. He argued that the few Pakistani scholars who did get published often adopted a pro-Western stance, which was arguably more detrimental than the narratives presented by Western scholars themselves.
Amb. Akram pointed to the “Five Eyes” framework as an example of a system where these allied nations aligned their perspectives and policies on various issues, further marginalizing alternative viewpoints. He noted that Pakistani scholars in Western spaces often admitted facing publication barriers.
Given this, Amb Akram proposed that the most viable option was for Pakistani think-tanks and Universities to collaborate and publish their perspectives on domestic platforms, to put Pakistan’s point of view forward and counter the prevailing biased narratives.
These presentations were followed by a vibrant Q&A session, where participants stressed the need to challenge Western narratives; the need to invest extensively in the projection of Pakistani viewpoint in Western academic and research arenas; address the challenge of think-tank–corporate sector nexus in the West which works to Pakistan’s detriment on South Asia-related issues; and growing skepticism in Washington over India as a reliable partner in serving as potential ‘counterweight’ to China.
Ambassador Khalid Mahmood, Chairman BoG ISSI, gave his vote of thanks and said that the Islamabad Paper dealt with a subject that was vital for Pakistan’s security. The war of narratives was one of many challenges that Pakistan faced today and must succeed in it through concerted efforts.
