The last time India and Pakistan faced off in a military confrontation, in 2019, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was awakened in the middle of the night. He worked the phone “to convince each side that the other was not preparing for nuclear war,” he wrote in his memoir.

       That clash quickly cooled after initial skirmishing. But six years later, the two South Asian rivals are again engaged in military conflict after a deadly terrorist attack against tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. And this time there is a new element of uncertainty as the region’s most important military alliances have been redrawn.

       Changing patterns in the flow of arms illustrate the new alignments in this particularly volatile corner of Asia, where three nuclear powers — India, Pakistan and China — stand in uneasy proximity.

       Where India and Pakistan get their arms

       80%

       India

       75%

       Russia used to be

       India’s main arms

       supplier ...

       40

       Russia

       36%

       France

       33%

       ... but India now buys

       more from Western

       allies.

       Israel

       13%

       10

       U.S.

       10%

       6%

       2%

       1%

       2020 – 2024

       2006 – 2010

       80%

       India

       75%

       Russia

       Russia used

       to be India’s

       main arms

       supplier ...

       40

       ... but India now

       buys more from

       Western allies.

       36%

       France

       33%

       Israel

       13%

       10

       U.S.

       10%

       6%

       2%

       1%

       2006 –

       2010

       2020 –

       2024

       China

       81%

       80%

       Pakistan

       Pakistan now buys

       most of its arms

       from China ...

       40

       36%

       ... and much less

       from Western

       countries.

       10

       Netherlands

       6%

       7%

       U.S. 0%

       France 0%

       2006 – 2010

       2020 – 2024

       81%

       80%

       Pakistan

       China

       Pakistan now buys

       most of its arms

       from China ...

       40

       ... and much less

       from Western

       countries.

       36%

       Nether-

       lands

       10

       6%

       7%

       U.S. 0%

       France

       0%

       2006 –

       2010

       2020 –

       2024

       Note: Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.

       Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

       By Agnes Chang and Josh Holder

       India, a traditionally nonaligned country that has shed its history of hesitance toward the United States, has been buying billions of dollars in equipment from the United States and other Western suppliers. At the same time, India has sharply reduced purchases of low-cost arms from Russia, its Cold War-era ally.

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       Pakistan, whose relevance to the United States has waned since the end of the war in Afghanistan, is no longer buying the American equipment that the United States once encouraged it to acquire. Pakistan has instead turned to China for the vast majority of its military purchases.

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