Big Take Asia Podcast

Why India and Pakistan Almost Went to War

On today’s Big Take Asia podcast: The increasingly intense conflict between India and Pakistan took a deadly turn in the last few weeks. Then the US surprised everyone by getting involved.

A boy surveys the remains of their damaged house following cross-border shelling between Pakistani and Indian forces in Salamabad uri village on May 8.Photographer: Basit Zargar/AFP/Getty Images

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By Rebecca Choong Wilkins, Yang Yang, and Naomi Ng

May 12, 2025 at 9:27 PM UTC

Updated on

May 13, 2025 at 3:57 AM UTC

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Last week, India and Pakistan saw the worst fighting in half a century — and came close to an all-out war. But the conflict came to an uneasy and sudden halt after President Donald Trump declared the two countries reached a ceasefire.