This crisis should NOT be downplayed.
I am currently reading
Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren. I have to say, Pakistan's situation vis a vis India reminds me a lot of Israel's with Egypt and the Arab world c. 1967. Both are dwarfed by their enemies, both feel any war may well be a war for survival, and thus both are in a situation where enough pressure could provoke them to strike first to knock out their enemy. I fear Modhi, with election-year myopia and public opinion whipped to a fevered pitch (first by the suicide bombing, then by the capture of this pilot), might push Pakistan over the edge.