SEAD, off-ramp, and the Pahalgam trigger: A conflict vocabulary grows

Terms like kinetic action, SEAD, and escalatory ladder now define how India and Pakistan are scripting a conflict that shows no signs of stepping off the warpath

Three interconnected expressions have acquired currency in our conversations since April 22, the outrage in Pahalgam. These are kinetic response, escalatory ladder, and off-ramp.

 

Before these, however, comes a term used so rarely these days, it sounds exotic: casus belli. I am employing Latin despite my first venerable news editor late D N Singh’s orders to never use “foreign” until an English alternative was available. Somehow, cause to justify conflict or war does not sound so convincing. 

 

The casus belli in this case is Pahalgam