India’s Pakistan strikes show how warfare has been normalised again

All-out war is unlikely but shifting of goalposts amid Gaza and Ukraine conflicts suggests Kashmir crisis could escalate

• Kashmir crisis live - latest updates

India's string of attacks on Pakistan overnight - a response, Delhi says, to the killing of 26 in a terror attack in Kashmir last month - comes at a time when warfare has become increasingly normalised internationally and the restraints of the global diplomatic system weakened.

Though flare-ups between the two south Asian powers are nothing new, India's Operation Sindoor is already notably more aggressive than recent military actions launched by Delhi against its neighbour in 2016 and 2019, raising the stakes for Pakistan's promised response to what it says was an act of war".