Twenty -seven years after the nuclear tests of Pakistan, a pressing doctrinal dilemma has focused: while nuclear arsenal has managed to dissuade the war on a large scale, a worrying pattern has emerged: the growing dependence on India in conventional and limited conventional strikes. This evolutionary challenge requires a clear and adaptive strategy to counteract it effectively.
These operations, which Delhi has designed to stay below the nuclear threshold, have expressed the reduced space in which our deterrence operates in the highly volatile environment of southern Asia. The time has come to rethink and update our understanding of deterrence, one that reflects today’s realities, where the conflict no longer comes with armies that concentrate on the borders, but with drones in the sky and missiles that hit and disappear before the world has time to respond.
On May 7, India launched “Operation Sndoor”: a coordinated assault that involves air attacks, dwarfs of drones and missile attacks in the Pakistani territory. The attacks reached a disturbing range of objectives, from religious institutions such as mosques to strategic military facilities. The Pakistani armed forces that follow a policy of “Quid Pro quo plus” with respect to India, responded in a rapid and fast way, demolishing multiple Indian airplanes, including Rafale, Mirage 2000, MIG-29 and SU-30 in a short period of less than an hour, using separate weapons and air defense systems to indicate its resolution.
But instead of decreasing, India intensified even more.
The Quid Pro Quo Plus of Pakistan aims to prevent total conflicts, but the reckless behavior of India to expand the geographical scope of their strikes at risk
The next morning, a wave of drones swins the Pakistani skies, followed a day later by new missile attacks in the air bases. It was a moment of real danger. The international community hastened to contain what was quickly becoming a fugitive crisis. The deterrence, although it was not broken, was undeniably shaken.
The will of India to act and expand the geographical scope of its attacks, echoing URI in 2016 and pulwama-Balakot in 2019, points to a gap in Pakistan’s ability to dissuade the reckless Indian behavior due to the appearance of newer technologies. In a nutshell, Pakistan’s shield is holding, although it can be frayed at the edges.
The Pakistan nuclear weapons program, born from the 1971 trauma, was based on a simple promise: make any future aggression against the country unthinkable. Between 1998 and 2015, that promise was largely celebrated. Even during moments of extreme tension such as the 1999 kargil crisis, a military confrontation of months in 2002 or the sequels of Mumbai’s attacks in 2008, India refrained from crossing the control line and the international border or undertaking a great strike in the Pakistani heart. But that calculation began to change after 2015, especially after Gurdaspur attack just weeks after the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, in UFA, was known. First, the “surgical strikes” claimed, then the 2019 air incursion after pulwama.
“South Asia has no stability of crisis or stability of the arms race. Although I do not expect a crisis for some time, perhaps several years, the region is still unstable and dangerous,” said Christopher Clary, an expert in security matters at the University of Albany, United States.
The May 2025 clash, an intense exchange of 88 -hour air attacks, drones and missile fire, marked a deeper evolution of this trend of a rapid climb under the nuclear cantilever. He exposed a new dangerous reality: India believes that it can operate in a “gray zone” just below the nuclear threshold, using a limited and precise force to impose costs without triggering the total war. Indian leaders seem to the idea that they can hit Pakistan without causing an uncontrollable escalation. From URI to Balakot, and now Pahalgam, the visible trend is that each strike is a calculated test of Pakistani resolution, and each one pushes the limits a little more.
The “Quid Pro Quo Plus” policy of Pakistan, adopted after 2016, aimed at complying with the Indian aggression with a harder blow, with the aim of closing this door of a military conflict under the nuclear step. But three incidents in nine years show that “Plus” Pakistani does not scare India enough. The success of politics is bittersweet: it avoids the total conflict, but India exploits some space to commit aggression.
Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of southern Asia at the Stimson Center, United States, agrees that “the limitations of the Quid Pro quo plus approach to Pakistan are becoming more visible in the light of the growing will of India to participate in limited conventional actions.”
Paso in false to the catastrophe
Each Indian operation is designed to normalize limited raids to the eyes of the world. If this continues, and repeated over continental Pakistan, the risk of a false step towards the nuclear catastrophe would increase as each crisis increases the bets. Having the opportunity to overturn the payload in a Balakot hill in 2019 gave way to continental strikes in 2025, establishing a higher baseline for the next clash. A more worrying aspect is that if this cycle persists, each round will compress decision -making windows in a world of hypersonic weapons.
The Play Book of India is clear: use modern technology (drones, confrontation missiles) to inflict pain while maintaining below the nuclear cables. Therefore, Modi tries, at least for his part, rewriting the rules, projecting the force to the domestic public and pointing out that Pakistan’s nuclear shadow will not paralyze India. Meanwhile, the whispers of the preventive buttress strategies have circulated in recent years with a growing frequency, although such a bet remains unlikely.
“In March 2022, An Indian Brahmos Missile Landed in Mian Channu. Delhi street it an error, Pakistani Leadership Accepthed the Explanation, But I saw it as a deliberate test of Our Defense, including ur respect time. Brahmos is central to India ‘ Little Time to Respond, Making Such Incidents Dangerously Destabilising for Pakistan, ”Dr Shireen Mazari, Who was said a federal minister in 2022, referring to debates within the system at that time.
India’s confidence in the multiple domain war, combining manned and unprepimed platforms, creates a false control sensation, as if climbing can be handled perfectly.
The proponents of this approach forget that the wars do not always proceed according to the calculated decisions, but that they often unravel through confusion.
A single false step, such as a missile or an artillery piece that is lost or an misunderstood signal, can unravel and push a tense confrontation in a full -fledged catastrophe.
What makes it more terrifying in the Indian case is that the extremist mentality of Hindutva that currently dominates New Delhi and electoral pressures push the government to demonstrate strength through limited strikes, sure that they can avoid nuclear climbing. This dynamic perpetuates the crises themselves that their leaders must handle.
“The same presence of recurrent conventional commitments highlights the precariousness of the situation, where the erroneous perceptions of the red lines could lead to an unnoticed escalation between the two adversaries with nuclear weapons,” said Threlkeld.
Democate or internal dysfunction?
After the air attacks in India on the morning of May 7 and the overwhelming reprisals of Pakistan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of India, S. Jaishankar, and the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval transmitted messages through international intermediaries that indicate that New Delhi wanted to break down. But to Islamabad’s surprise, shortly after receiving these signals, Pakistan’s airspace was polished by hostile drones. If this was a deliberate act of deception or a sign of internal dysfunction within the Indian system, it remains without being clear. However, a plausible explanation is that the uncompromising within the Security establishment of India pressed the military to climb the next step of the climbing staircase, aimed at Pakistani military facilities with unmanned platforms, despite the diplomatic obertures that suggest restriction.
In this scenario, Pakistan faces a marked choice: he continues to look for a doctrine that punishes India after the incident or forges one that stops India cold.
First, it is necessary to strengthen our conventional arsenal, which includes the acquisition of modern combat aircraft, advanced aerial defenses, fast response units and precision ammunition, to make limited strikes too expensive. Secondly, ambiguity, the use of cyber attacks, economic pressure or international legal actions to increase India costs without nuclear risks should be adopted. The ‘catalytic posture’, which implies pointing to nuclear preparation to attract international mediation, has worked well so far in the environment of southern Asia, but its excessive use runs the risk of reducing yields.
Dr Adil Sultan, A Dean At The Air University and A Former Spd Official, While Explaining HISCION OF NEXT GENERATION OF DETERENCE, SAID, “The Future Conflict is Likely to Be More Intense, Complex, and Short, Thus Requireing Quick Response Through ‘multi-domain integration’ (mdi) of all Three Services, and Ground and Space-Based Assets, with Paf Being in the Lead Due to its Inherent Agility and Capacity to Act in A Shortest Possible Time With Maximum Effect. ”
Pakistan must also emphasize red lines through robust crisis channels, especially after the orientation of the air bases.
So here we are back, 27 years later, in the same advantage of shaving, thanks to technological advancement. The nuclear bombs are still the last guarantor of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan, but each knife edge attack or missile/drones attack cannot be stopped. Nuclear weapons can only promise that if the worst comes, both parties will pay an unthinkable price.
Posted in Dawn, May 28, 2025
