India-Pakistan Naval Collision Raises Fears of Unintended Escalation

Islamabad, Pakistan — More than a year after India and Pakistan engaged in a four-day air war involving missiles and drones, the two South Asian neighbors came closest to a direct military standoff since then on Tuesday, when naval vessels collided in the Arabian Sea.

The incident sparked immediate tit-for-tat accusations. On Wednesday, Pakistan’s government summoned India’s top diplomat in Islamabad, mirroring New Delhi’s move just hours earlier to summon Pakistan’s charge d’affaires and file its own protest.

This marks the first direct military encounter between the nuclear-armed rivals since the May 2025 conflict, which brought both nations closer to all-out war than at any point in decades. However, precise details of the collision remain contested, with neither side releasing video footage, track data, or independent accounts. Each government has placed blame squarely on the other’s vessel.

Analysts warn that the event highlights the dangers of accidental escalation in waters where few diplomatic or military mechanisms exist to de-escalate tensions between the two countries.

Conflicting Accounts

Pakistan’s Foreign Office stated on Wednesday evening that its navy had been conducting its biennial SEASPARK-26 exercise within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) since September 1. An EEZ extends 200 nautical miles from a nation’s coast, encompassing both territorial waters and international waters where other countries can pass freely but cannot exploit economic resources.

According to Islamabad, an Indian vessel identified as the guided-missile destroyer INS Kolkata repeatedly attempted to enter the exercise area starting September 7. On September 15, Pakistan claimed Kolkata made a “dangerous” course change that led to contact with PNS Hunain, an offshore patrol vessel reported in local media.

“Pakistan strongly rejects this belligerent Indian action,” the Foreign Office said, alleging a violation of a 1991 bilateral agreement requiring warships to maintain a distance of at least three nautical miles in international waters.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs countered that its warship was conducting “routine surveillance” in international waters when a Pakistani vessel approached at high speed and maneuvered unsafely. Neither government officially named the ships involved in their formal statements, and India has neither confirmed nor denied the identification of the INS Kolkata.

The navies last collided in June 2011, when Pakistani frigate PNS Babur brushed against Indian frigate INS Godavari in the Gulf of Aden during a pirate-rescue mission. Both sides blamed each other then, but the dispute faded within weeks.

Risks of Miscalculation

Retired Vice Admiral Ahmad Saeed of the Pakistan Navy described the pattern of close-quarters encounters as similar to Cold War-era “bumping” incidents between Soviet and U.S. ships in the Black Sea. However, he cautioned that India and Pakistan are poorly equipped to manage such situations due to the absence of a bilateral Incidents at Sea agreement or a navy-to-navy hotline.

“Article 10 sets a distance, but it gives no manoeuvring rules and no procedure for investigating an incident afterwards. That gap is exactly why each side can just accuse the other,” Saeed told Al Jazeera.

Saeed expressed greater concern about potential follow-up actions, such as fire-control radar lock-ons or helicopter overflights, which could lead to actual casualties.

Conversely, Muhammad Shareh Qazi, a Lahore-based security and maritime analyst, pointed to the 1991 agreement’s requirement for 30 days’ written notice before military exercises and noted that no signals of escalation, such as the firing of chaff, were observed.

“If this collision really had the potential to escalate militarily, you’d have noticed by now,” Qazi said. He added that both navies have internal accountability channels, meaning unauthorized actions by a captain could face court-martial proceedings separate from diplomatic protests.

Diplomatic Outlook

While Qazi linked current sea tensions to unresolved boundary issues like the Sir Creek dispute, he suggested that clear demarcation could reduce ambiguities over future interactions. Saeed remained more cautious, noting that the rapid public protests from both governments indicated the incident had not been contained quietly.

“What made the moment riskier than 2011 was that both publics are primed after last year’s conflict, which was not the case in 2011,” Saeed said.

The situation bears resemblance to recent confrontations between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, where vessels have come within meters of each other. Whether this week’s collision will de-escalate or intensify depends largely on diplomatic developments over the next 48 hours.

“If an official statement suggests there was a genuine cause to manufacture an incident for the purpose of escalation, then yes, there may be a real possibility of this happening again,” Qazi said.