India, Pakistan Warships Collide in Arabian Sea — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Indian and Pakistani naval vessels collided in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, the first direct military encounter between the nuclear-armed neighbours since their four-day May 2025 conflict, prompting tit-for-tat diplomatic protests within 24 hours.
- Pakistan's Foreign Office identified the Indian vessel as INS Kolkata and said it made a "dangerous" course change on September 15 while repeatedly trying to enter Pakistan's SEASPARK-26 biennial exercise area since September 7; India's Ministry of External Affairs said a Pakistani vessel approached at high speed during its warship's routine surveillance in international waters.
- Retired Vice Admiral Ahmad Saeed said the encounter pattern resembles Cold War-era US-USSR "bumping" incidents, but India and Pakistan lack an Incidents at Sea agreement, a navy-to-navy hotline, or maneuvering protocols beyond the 1991 agreement's three-nautical-mile distance requirement.
- Analyst Muhammad Shareh Qazi countered that no escalation signals — such as chaff-firing near the bow — occurred, and both navies have internal court-martial channels for unauthorized actions, arguing the collision's escalation potential is limited.
- The last India-Pakistan naval collision occurred in June 2011 when PNS Babur brushed INS Godavari in the Gulf of Aden and the row faded within weeks; Saeed cautioned that unlike 2011, "both publics are primed after last year's conflict."
Why it matters: The collision exposes a structural gap: unlike the 1972 US-USSR Incidents at Sea pact, India and Pakistan's 1991 agreement sets only a minimum distance with no maneuvering rules or incident procedure — meaning each side can simply accuse the other, as both did within hours. With publics still primed by the May 2025 near-war, contained incidents now carry sharper escalation risk.
Ask SkimNews
