[enugu]

The incentives of the Pakistani generals to permit organizations like LeT to commit further terrorist attacks is a different domain from whatever the local political situation is like in India. There has been a past regime where Pakistani generals were able to train and send militants regularly to conduct terror attacks in India. Without an effective response from India putting pressure on these generals, that can easily become the new normal again.

[lazide]

Do you think (plausibly) threatening to cut off water to large swathes of Pakistan, or blowing up some random terrorist camps, is the bigger actual threat?

[enugu]

Cutting off water supply is clearly the bigger threat. However, it involves a longer time frame - building infrastructure which one expects not to use in a normal situation.

Importantly, even once built, it selects the wrong targets, not terrorists or military bases - but regular people who will be faced with scarcity of water and food, as the crops use Indus water. This would be something highly unethical, and also not something sustainable - once visuals of hunger start reaching screens across the world, the force to restart the supply would be strong.