https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/op-sindoor-2-nuclear-portents-are

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/op-sindoor-2-nuclear-portents-are

Op Sindoor 2: Nuclear portents are darker than General Chauhan puts it

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Once while serving (19:34) and a second time when retired (37:41), former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Chauhan held forth that limited military operations like Operation (Op) Sindoor will unlikely escalate to the nuclear level. He assumes that Pakistan cannot escalate twice-over: first to the conventional level and thereafter also to the nuclear level.

In both talks, he noted that space for conventional operations owes to three factors. One is India’s No First Use doctrine, which - self-servingly - allows India scope for exercise of its conventional advantage over Pakistan. It does help keep the nuclear threat in abeyance, allowing India the option of limited war.

The second is that there is no threat of capture of territory in primarily non-contact - if kinetic – operations, such as Op Sindoor. This precludes tactical nuclear weapons’ use by Pakistan, allowing India greater scope for standoff, non-contact operations.

The third is that the onus for escalation on to the conventional level is in the hands of Pakistan, and once exercised, Pakistan loses out on also taking the war to the nuclear level. He believes that the escalation to the conventional level by Pakistan makes the ‘notion of escalating into the nuclear domain slightly difficult’ (38:30).

This infeasibility of a second step by Pakistan - having taken the first – presumably allows India the rationale and legitimacy to proceed with conventional operations with greater vigour. Trifle complacently, he concludes, ‘So, we are quite sure that we should be able to manage that.’

Dangerous possibilities

To Chauhan, Op Sindoor led to a ‘falsification’ of the notion that nuclear weapons deter all kinds of conventional conflicts. This is strange, considering that a limited war fought within a year of nuclearization of South Asia – at Kargil – put paid to the notion right at the outset.

Speaking of space for conventional operations (36:58), he noted that while Pakistan through its full spectrum deterrence (FSD) doctrine tries to diminish this space, India – for its part – is constantly at expanding that space. The Indian cold start doctrine, and lately, the dynamic response doctrine (cold strike) are testimony. Now, the doctrinal tussle continues as the real thing.

Chauhan believes that, ‘in future… it’s going to be a combination of contact and non-contact warfare (57:00),’ with additional space for conventional operations squeezed out of the other, newer domains of operations: cyber, space and cognition. In light of the escalated violence, it is not clear why Pakistan will abjure from FSD.

Besides, Chauhan – in a first - admits to the play of inadvertence in Op Sindoor. Warning against taking the nuclear angle lightly (59:00), he requires that next time round nuclear sites be taken out of the target list, such as the Nur Khan air base. As regards Kirana hills, he alleges the strike was unintended. Rightly, he cautions that ‘one will have to be more careful in future… so there cannot be such mistakes.’ His very sane observation is that in the heightened pace of operations errors and miscalculation can only elicit further wrong decisions.

Busting the assumption

Chauhan makes the case that by initially restricting targeting to terror camps in Op Sindoor, India kept the conflict at the subconventional level. This is only partially true, since conventional ordnance was hurled across borders by conventional armaments. Amounting to an armed attack on a sovereign state, it can hardly be said to be subconventional. At best, the operation can be characterized as one at the subconventional-conventional interface. Only Op Sindoor’s first phase meets the definition in the army’s subconventional operations doctrine:

“Sub conventional operations arena comprises armed conflicts that are above the level of peaceful coexistence amongst states and below the threshold of war. These include militancy, insurgency, proxy war and terrorism either employed as part of an insurrectionist movement or independently. Border skirmishes also fall within this category (p. 8).”

However, the subsequent days of Op Sindoor can be characterized as medium-intensity ‘operations other than war’ (OOTW), that can be cached in the term subconventional operations. The army defines OOTW as: ‘OOTW encompass a wide range of activities where military power is used for purposes other than large scale combat operations (p. 15).’

The operations on the last day arguably took the conflict into the ‘large scale’ realm, which per the air chief were conducted over a 1200 km-wide front with 200 km in depth, and, per his vice chief, used 50 long-range, precision-guided munitions. This amounts to a limited war, which on the spectrum of war is subset of conventional war (p. 12). The army defines such a war thus: ‘Conventional war conforms to the traditional image of war and is fought to achieve strategic and military objectives…. It may be total or limited in terms of duration, the range of weapon systems employed, scope, objectives and its ultimate outcome (p. 15).’

Chauhan’s claim that Pakistan escalated to the conventional level is a case of ‘the chicken or the egg.’ If limited conventional war is taken as Pakistan’s launch of Op Bunyan um Marsoos, then it must be recalled that India had already blinded a proportion of Pakistan’s surveillance and air defence capability in earlier strikes, shaping of the battlefield for the large scale strikes of the following day.

Curiously, in the recent laudatory documentary the air operations’ chief lets on that the air force’s crack at Pakistani airfields preempted Op Bunyan um Marsoos, saying, “Toh us raat yani ki dus ki subah, is se pehle ki voh hamla kar sake, hum hamla kar chuke the unki major air fields, radar sites aur command and control set up par (“That night or morning of 10^th, even prior to their strike, we had already attacked their major air fields, radar sites and command and control set up”).”

To the extent this version of events holds water, India too is implicated in upping the ante to the conventional level. Thus, neither the sequence of events nor definitional exercise vindicates Chauhan’s theorizing.

Indeed, exercising a choice in favour of escalation by either side cannot be discounted, since each side would continue to have agency in conflict. Therefore, the nuclear step is but a decision away; which if made in the ‘free hand’ environment existing on both sides, can spell radioactive trouble.

Rationally, Pakistan would to begin with resort to nuclear signaling with only if forced on the back-foot by India – which, taking Chauhan’s description of a future military conflict as guide, can only be a matter of time in a conventional war. Therefore, even if Pakistan reaches to brandish its nuclear card, it cannot be an isolated act, shorn off context, with the onus solely on it. Instead, India could well be stoking a risk to itself.

Never be too sure

The three operations – the one post-Uri, at Balakot and Op Sindoor – reinforce the Indian belief that a conflict can play out at the subconventional-conventional interface. India’s preparedness through partial and creeping mobilization of forces on the borders and the Line of Control discourages Pakistan from responding with contact warfare. Pakistan is thus restricted to a level of Indian choosing, at which India believes it demonstrated a marked advantage in Op Sindoor.

Such a perception does not account for Pakistan having kept its powder dry for most part in this exchange. The likelihood of Pakistan staying in the fight for longer next time, may make for an imitation of recent conflicts elsewhere: no victor, no vanquished. Such a circumstance can multiply political pressures within India, as a self-regarding stronger power that ought to have made short work of its weaker adversary.

Saving face is also important institutionally for a professional military. Take the case in Op Sindoor, when under the cover of a ‘free hand,’ the military continued to pummel Pakistan through the forenoon, even after it had assessed that it had already prevailed by early morning on the last day. The only rationale for this can be that the air force was given a greater leeway to get back at Pakistan after it lost aircraft to a Pakistani aerial ambush.

Pakistan has been known for its ambushes: Kargil, Op Swift Retort and the opening phase of Op Sindoor. Its next one may well be springing a contact war, escalating India’s launch of a limited military conflict into a limited, conventional war. The aim could be to force an outcome it desires: talks. Though only intended to deter, Indian readiness for this – seen in mobilizations of varying extent since Op Trident of the mid-eighties - makes a wider conventional war inevitable; setting stage for the nuclear backdrop to foreground itself.

The notion of victory

While it can be readily accepted that to begin with every effort of the military will be towards war limiation and its early termination, it’s a Clausewitzian verity that escalation is intrinsic to conflict. The military needs reminding of its own doctrinal rendering of two decades back: ‘War is prosecuted by the employment of strategy which aims at breaking the enemy’s will to fight. Disengagement from war is difficult because it develops its own dynamics and pace, which in themselves are unpredictable and could spin out of control (p. 13).’

Chauhan at his new perch as head of a well-endowed and privileged think tank in the national capital has his work cut out: either better explain why Pakistan cannot escalate twice-over or rethink his quip: ‘we are quite sure that we should be able to manage that.

https://thewire.in/security/a-free-hand-in-the-nuclear-age-is-political-abdication

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/a-free-hand-in-the-nuclear-age-is

Giving a Free Hand to the military is political abdication

The ‘free hand’ given to the military has been much acclaimed as a major reason for the operational results of Operation (Op) Sindoor. It will likely figure as a replicable lesson in the promised future iterations of Op Sindoor. However, not only must this lesson be reviewed in light of the constraints of the nuclear age, but Op Sindoor could do with a reexamination, warts and all.

Attempting one here leads to an opposite conclusion: that the free hand given in Op Sindoor amounted to political abdication. Consequently, the lesson to the contrary is that more intimate political oversight of the operational aspects in the military sphere befits appropriate civil-military relations in the nuclear age.

Some military theory

The popularly imagined ideal type has political and military circles adjacent to each other but with an overlap in-between. In the space jointly shared, the political supersedes military considerations. Outside the overlap is the essentially military space, on which matters are adjudicated with a professional lens. Yet, for military accountability to political masters the entire military circle is subject to political oversight.

Ideally, the political level sets the agenda and gives the military the necessary autonomy to execute it, with the degree of ‘freedom of action’ depending on the confidence the political leadership has in its chosen military leaders and the political delicacy of the operation. Even so, this is seldom an uncomplicated relationship; an example being the friction between Count Bismarck and General von Moltke.

Today, distinguishing ‘essentially military matters’ – from which the political class must maintain a respectful distance by leaving these to professional minds – is rendered more difficult by the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. Indeed, a principal impact of the nuclear age on military matters has been to restrict the scope of military; lest, in pursuit of autonomy, the military overstep the constraints placed on the use of armed force by the nuclear imperative.

An early nuclear theorist, Bernard Brodie, had it that the military’s role in the nuclear age is but to deter war and not to wage one. From recent revelations on Op Sindoor, it appears that this insight on the nuclear dimension is being given a dangerously short shrift.

A nuclear context to the free hand

In his telling of Op Snow Leopard in his unpublished book, the then army chief recounts that knowing that an affray involving tanks could start a shooting war, he looked back over his shoulders to his political masters for instructions. Told, ‘jo uchit samjho, voh karo,’ he decided to wait-out the Chinese. This revelation was met with the criticism that the delegation of authority on as grave a matter as war with a nuclear-armed neighbor amounted to abdication of political responsibility.

The matter rested in the overlap between the two imaginary circles - political and military – that required the political level to take a considered view with military input. No meaningful discussion followed the criticism, resulting in the ‘free hand’ recurring a few years on as the right and obvious manner of civil-military relations in a military conflict with another nuclear-armed neighbour.

A recent documentary on Op Sindoor informs that the national security adviser (NSA) briefed the prime minister that an attack on terrorist targets within Punjab (“soch se bahar” in the former Chief of Defence Staff General Chauhan’s words) could trigger a nuclear response from the Pakistan army. Yet, the political master signed off on the military operation, evidently sanguine in his hands-off supervision of the military through a trusted hand in the national security establishment, Ajit Doval, and with confidence in his deep-selected military leadership.

In the documentary, military leaders in all three colours of uniform confirm each service was prepared for escalation into a war, which could well spell a nuclear war. That Indian strike forces elsewhere were by then in assembly areas is already well known. The then naval chief once said that the navy was but five minutes from gate-crashing the landward military conflict.

Readiness for escalation helps deter it. Indian preparedness for Op Sindoor turning into a conventional war was to keep Pakistan from upping the ante up the ladder to a war. Pakistan throwing in the towel after a brief recourse to its Op Bunyan al Marsoos shows Indian escalation dominance on the last night.

Of consequence for the future, however, is the revelation that the military continued going after Pakistani targets, for over three hours after receiving their call for calling off the exchanges. Whether this had political imprimatur is not known. In either case, this was an egregious extension to Op Sindoor, befitting closer scrutiny on its necessity and escalatory potential.

The free hand vindicated?

A retired air marshal reveals that he told a white lie (“I lied”) to his air chief. He says he pretended that a strike was already underway when asked after their status by his chief, in order not to disappoint the crews long in the cockpit, ready and waiting, to preempt the possibility of the strike being called off. Later, when he in an informal setting he admitted this to the air chief in front of the defence minister present, it was glossed over.

An air marshal, who went on to head a temple trust, says he had no knowledge of the explosion at Kairana, though the hills fell within his operational responsibility. The now-retired chief of defence staff (CDS) making light of the matter said it was an ordnance-laden drone expending itself. That it did so with a visible bang near where Pakistani nuclear stockpiles are allegedly hidden shows it was not thought through in its entirety prior to launch.

In the documentary, the then director general military operations, Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai, informs that at the time when Pakistani call came in asking for a ceasefire, the response was not made then, attributing the delay – hold your breath! - to a glitch in the hotline! This is the first and only mention of the supposed glitch.

In the interim of three hours, concerned Indian diplomats in the external affairs ministry keeping American crisis manager Marco Rubio on hold inquired after the hold up. Evidently, India utilized the time gained to have a last crack at Pakistan, the go-ahead for which was given by the CDS directly to the air chief, without any thought by either of the two to his lack of jurisdiction.

During Op Sindoor, it must be recorded that a lackadaisical attitude to the rule of law and procedural integrity attended military actions in internal security. The army supported the demolishing of family houses of alleged local militants in Kashmir by using controlled explosions, even though NSA Doval in the documentary confirms that it was known early enough that the perpetrators of the Pahalgam atrocity were Pakistani. The military participated in deporting alleged Rohingyas from Delhi by air lifting them to Nicobar and then deboarding them from a naval ship into the sea off the Myanmar coast. Clearly, a free hand has a drastic underside.

The opposite conclusion

In such a reading of Op Sindoor, the political level opens itself to credible criticism of abdication. It turned a blind eye to the military disregarding ceasefire overtures; going ahead on their own accord (absent evidence of political approval) with strikes that were no longer a military necessity; allowing a ‘glitch’ in the hotline and to hold matters up without considering work arounds (if the glitch story is taken as true); and, allowing for expansive targeting (that may have included the ‘kill’ at the longest range ever) that that could trigger uncertain consequences.

Blinded and with their conventional counter strike capability dwindling, the Pakistanis could have brought into play their cruise and more capable ballistic missiles. That they didn’t do this owes not to their being over-awed, but American crisis-mitigating activity - which India is in denial over. That the next round will now begin at this higher level is almost certain. Therefore, the consequences required taking a grand-strategic call, which there is no hint of.

As for the military, it must introspect on the political call on it to expand the space for conventional punishment of Pakistan. Its over-enthusiastic execution was at such nuclear risk that it has squandered the trust a ‘free hand’ implies. They must know that the free hand given could well have proven an alibi for their political master, if things went south. They surely are aware that the political firmament does not produce the likes of Nehru anymore.

The ideal type of adjacent political and military circles with an overlap no longer holds in a nuclear age. The military circle must hereon be seen as an embedded within the political, for accountability and holistic appreciation of military pathways. There are no essentially-military matters qua operations any more. Persisting with a free hand can only imply political abdication or military usurpation of a political call.

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/unisfas-innovation-the-amiet-common 

https://www.thecitizen.in/opinion/peace-in-abyei-1362436

UNISFA’s innovation: The Amiet common market in Abyei

Abyei, a disputed territory between Sudan and South Sudan, has a settled population of the Ngok Dinka, largely owing affiliation to South Sudan, and a pastoral presence of the Misseriya, a nomadic community from West Kordofan in Sudan.^[i] When the referendum was due in southern Sudan in 2011, the referendum mandated by the Abyei Protocol^[ii] to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the Sudanese civil war was to also be conducted. However, disagreement over who could count as a ‘resident’ led to its non-implementation then. No referendum has been done ever since asking the ‘residents’ as to which country they wished to join – Sudan or South Sudan. Consequently, the Abyei dispute simmer, with the peacekeeping mission, UNISFA^[iii] - intended as an ‘interim’ one - continuing in place for maintaining the peace as agreed^[iv] between the two countries just prior to South Sudan gaining independence.

Typical of protracted peacekeeping missions, peace in Abyei has had a chequered trajectory over the last 15 years. UNISFA originally comprised Ethiopian troops and initially managed to get the two sides to the table as per their June 2011 Agreement.^[v] However, disagreements did not allow the joint supervisory mechanisms to come to fruition. With South Sudan dissolving into a civil war in late 2013, there was no movement on the national political level.

Security was vitiated by a particularly grievous incident in which the Misseriya killed the paramount chief of the Ngok Dinka in 2013.^[vi] The usual annual migration of the Misseriya southwards to access waterbodies and grazing areas in Ngok Dinka settled areas was discontinued. The peacekeepers maintained a ‘zone of separation’ between the two communities. This stand-off increased the premium on the resources of UNISFA for peacemaking and peacebuilding. The question UNISFA was faced with was how to get the two sides to engage with each other at the local level once again.

The civil affairs-equivalent section of UNISFA – the community liaison office (CLO)^[vii] – reached out to both sides through 2015 for resuming contacts. The Misseriya clans on the three migratory corridors and the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms were engaged with. The South Sudanese civil war had impacted the economic situation in Abyei, resulting in the Ngok Dinka dependence on the Sudan side. As a result, ad-hoc markets were set up along the three corridors. The UN liaison officers prevailed on the two sides to institutionalise their economic inter-dependence in creating a common, jointly managed market. The first meeting to this end was hosted under a tree at Noong in March 2016.

The CLO capitalized on this opening and sited the common market at Amiet on a clear piece of ground, recced with an eye to see that it did not get waterlogged through the June-October rainy season. Under-tree meetings in June-July 2016 set up the common market to be managed by a joint peace committee with CLO assistance and secured by UNISFA troops.^[viii] The common market slowly grew as a trading hub for the wider region.

Paradoxically, while UNISFA thus created a peace constituency in the two communities of stakeholders in the common market, it also created a ‘protection of civilians’ (POC) hotspot in light of the glaring potential target the sprawling market presented spoilers and negative forces. Consequently, UNISFA invested strategically in taking forward its innovative peacebuilding measure. It facilitated peacemaking at that local, grassroots peace process bringing the traditional chiefs in periodic meetings to oversee, inter-alia, the common market; while its peacekeepers secured Amiet. Thus, Abyei became an oasis of peace as the two countries dissolved successively into civil wars (South Sudan 2013-18; Sudan 2023-to date).

The CLO organized weekly meetings of the peace committee and quarterly meetings of the traditional chiefs. The issues addressed included the criminal activity surrounding the common market; the creation and operation of a joint community protection committee; the expansion and sanitation of the market and its environs; adjudicating in the traditional courts on commercial disputes etc. Peacekeepers maintained vigil not only on the market but also its routes of access from criminality and responded to fire accidents. Once the Ethiopians were substituted in UNISFA by a multinational force, securing the common market devolved on peacekeepers from Sector North.

A particularly stressful period was the outbreak of Covid across the world. Through the lockdown, CLO continued its field trips to ensure that the information on Covid and its precautions was understood by all, and also to regulate its spread. The common market had grown from some 1000 to about 5000 people. Occasionally reports of all manner of organized crime are received, from smuggling to weapons proliferation. Often cases of affray that can potentially escalate witness the CLO along with the peacekeeping company commander intervening in a mediatory capacity. UNISFA provided watchtowers and through QIPs and programmatic funds built a detention center, a meeting hall, solar lights and water pumps. Assistance through the joint program of the two UN country teams in Juba and Khartoum is also availed of. UNISFA also interfaces with NGOs providing services in the common market. Since humanitarian resources stand attenuated these days, the common market itself acts as a livelihood provider and gets to be a self-reliant peacebuilding mainstay.

The Amiet common market has lately expanded to become a veritable township of some 10000 comprising the Misseriya, Ngok Dinka, an assortment of Darfuris and displaced Nuer from nearby Unity State. There are also IDPs from the ongoing Sudanese civil war adding to the ethnic mix. Often the effects of the myriad ethnic conflicts in the vicinity between Ngok, Misseriya, Nuer and Twic, play out in tension in the common market. Armed actors from the civil war to the north have made an appearance to control the trade. Likewise, to its south, the Ngok Dinka local administration controls the area with South Sudanese security presence.^[ix]

The Mission has successfully capitalized on the common market as a key peacebuilding innovation.^[x] Amiet is a model for the joint management of the ten crossing points across the yet-to-be demarcated common border. As with peacekeeping in general, UNISFA is already facing a premature call to draw down, making it a victim of its own success. Abyei must be viewed in relation to the surrounding instability. UN Security Council dynamics being such and the UN funding situation being adverse, UNISFA’s mandate extension is subject to benchmarks.^[xi] Given their internal political preoccupations, both sides rely on UNISFA to remain in place. For its part, UNISFA, though not structured as a multidimensional mission, performs above its weight, making it one of the successes of UN peacekeeping at a time when peacekeeping as a key mechanism available to the Security Council is itself under cloud. Its success could be facilitated, and its model replicated elsewhere.

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^[i] For context, see https://www.accord.org.za/publication/abyei/.

^[ii] Available at https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/default/files/document/files/2024/05/sd040526protocol20between20gos20and20splm20on20the20resolution20of20abyei20conflict.pdf.

^[iii] For details, see https://unisfa.unmissions.org/en.

^[iv] Text at https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/agreement-between-government-republic-sudan-and-sudan-peoples-liberation-movement.

^[v] For mandate, see https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/1990(2011).

^[vi] Details at https://docs.un.org/en/S/2013/294.

^[vii] For CLO functions, see https://unisfa.unmissions.org/en/unisfa-community-liaison-office.

^[viii] See for description of the period https://docs.un.org/en/S/2016/864.

^[ix] For the latest situation, see https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/abyei-between-two-conflicts-suspended-peace.

^[x] For visuals of Amiet, see editions of the UNISFA newsletter https://unisfa.unmissions.org/en/document-library/blue-sentinels-unisfa-newsletter-edition-40.

^[xi] For benchmarks, see https://docs.un.org/en/s/res/2802(2025).

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India-Pakistan: The strategic paradox

The premier lesson from the limited military conflict in May 2025 between India and Pakistan is that limitation was possible since both sides were agreeable on keeping the conflict limited and the conflict witnessed a third party involvement, that of the US, in the background.

Even though the third party’s supposed role and its effect was rejected by India, the direct communication channel it prompted between the two sides operation’s branches led to cessation of hostilities.

The takeaway then for any future iteration(s) of limited military conflict between the two sides is that the two aspects must be present for limitation – the two sides tacitly agreeing on limitation and a third party’s non-intrusive facilitation.

Both may not be possible in future – with India rejecting a third party role and in either side’s ‘notion (concept) of victory’ either initially kept expansive or expanding under conflict conditions.

India’s ‘new normal’ reflects in the military domain as a continuing propensity for limited military conflict. This occasions the strategic paradox: only a conventional war that can turn nuclear can beget a grand strategic dividend but the risk cannot be run.

If and since other pathways are negated by the ‘new normal’ doctrine, it must logically follow that the doctrine has a limited strategic purpose: keeping adversarial relations in place indefinitely.

This begs the question: what is the political purpose of such use of force? The answer cannot be sought in the strategic domain, but the political; and in that, the domestic political.

On the Pakistan side, it is self-evident: adversarial relations help the army lord it over the country. On the Indian side it is equally obvious: helping dominant forces with their domestic agenda.

Deterrence Stability

The international order has witnessed outbreak of conflicts that have loosened the grip of international law against use of force. The likelihood of future iterations of limited use of force between the two sides is likely.

This has implications for deterrence stability between the two, since – as seen from past iterations of limited military conflict – not only has outbreak occurred thrice over but has been at a higher order of violence.

Since India wishes to bolster conventional deterrence of subconventional provocations by Pakistan, and Pakistan wishes to constrain Indian conventional advantages by manipulating perceptions of its nuclear threshold, there is a built-in potential escalatory dynamic.

Deterrence instability can arise at the conventional-nuclear interface if both get more ambitious in seeking more from respective level of deterrence manipulation (India at the conventional and Pakistan at the nuclear) than either ought to under strategic rationality.

This can occur if the initial notion of victory is incorrect or is revised upwards as the limited military conflict unfolds.

Limited Conventional War

The levels of conflict are taken here as: competition-limited military conflict-limited conventional war-conventional war-limited nuclear war-total war. There is scope to keep below ‘war’ with greater intensity, scope and duration of non-contact limited military conflict than witnessed in May ’25.

Escalation is when this ‘buffer’ of a wider May ’25-like limited military conflict is expanded with an extension of non-contact warfare to unacceptable levels, such as by targeting civilians and civil infrastructure; prompting the outbreak of contact warfare.

A second buffer emerges with a combination of non-contact warfare and contact warfare of lesser threatening quotient (eg. confined to the mountains theater) in a limited conventional war.

Escalation risk is higher in the drawing down of nuclear overhang even as India asserts conventional advantage; this is more likely when a limited conventional war expands to being a conventional war per se.

The threat is heightened when there is revision in the notion of victory to go with the higher level of war; when under the uncertainties that attend war - such as unsettling breakthroughs prompting over-reaction - there is a dynamic intrinsic to war taking hold; and in the political level playing to the domestic gallery.

However, there are escalation dampeners too such as third parties invigorated to intervening with greater vigour; adherence to the May ’25 lesson on wisdom of limitation; and that escalation is an exercise of ‘choice’ rather than a default outcome.

Entanglement

The May ‘25 targeting of Nur Khan, Sargodha and Kairana hills was potentially escalatory, in that it was suggestive of nuclear signaling on India’s side – that it is unimpressed by Pakistan’s nuclear card as part of its intent to demonstrate it is not deterred by ‘nuclear blackmail.’ Pakistan, for its part, plausibly denied calling up its NCA.

However, the contretemps energized US peace intervention.

Pakistan has since separated its rocket forces from its strategic forces. Counter-intuitively, Pakistan profits from entanglement, with entanglement seen as bolstering deterrence by building in inadvertence.

Pakistan’s preemptive dis-entangling effort is good for signaling non-nuclear intent; thereby indicating a readiness to meet India at its professed level of continuing with limited military conflict(s). The projected drawn-down nuclear awning incentivizes against Indian conventional targeting of nuclear complex. Pakistan is thus mindful of uncertainties at nuclear level, indicating it is sensitive to Indian indication that it will ignore nuclear signaling in its ‘new normal’ strategic doctrine.

In any case, in regional setting, threat of conventional-nuclear entanglement is exaggerated, as both states – not having the capability for LOW - can await impact to reveal the nature of the attack; thereby, do not have to be held to Cold War or superpower relevant nuclear theory and jargon.

Even so, references to entanglement are in Pakistan’s deterrence brief since projecting nuclear dangers helps secure Pakistan’s nuclear capability from Indian conventional degradation; an effort the Indian side will profess to deny, though in practice should rationally take the threat onboard.

New Technologies and Non-linear Escalation

Effects of new technology heighten the scope and intensity of a conflict, allowing for both escalatory and non-escalatory possibilities – since as mentioned escalation though an intrinsic tendency of conflict in general is equally a matter of ‘choice’. Consequently, technological upgrade can well function to up-the-ante as much as allow limiting conflict by reassuring a side.

In a multi-domain conflict, disadvantage that could have resulted in upping of the ante can be offset by technology-facilitated advantages in another domain; thereby, enabling limitation. For instance, both sides offset their respective setbacks in May ’25 with information operations in the cognitive domain targeting respective national audiences that each prevailed, thereby mitigating impact of their respective setbacks (India on the first night and Pakistan on the last night of their four-day limited military conflict).

In brief, tech upgrades in air defence will empower both to stay the distance, while targeting of air defences will be escalatory if a disarming effort; offensive air munitions may prove escalatory in damage inflicted, as was the case with use by both sides in May ’25; cruise missiles and UAS use may lead to escalatory infrastructure busting, such as by Pakistan of dams on Kashmir rivers seen as violative of IWT; and non-kinetic warfare will assume significance if AI-powered cyber attacks target civilian infrastructure.

Non-linear escalation pathways will also kick-in such as grey zone, intelligence operations and proxy war expanding, under uncontrolled conditions when autonomous actors use the opportunity to their own purposes. Overall, the cumulative impact could be an in-conflict redefinition of notion of victory.

The dual-faced nature of cognition warfare that can also target domestic space enables national mood manipulation, ruling-in de-escalation by taming street power. Pakistan in particular could manipulate third party intervention propensities with information operations directed without.

Summary

Limited military conflict is likely to continue as a policy choice for both sides, with May ‘25 lessons on limitation well-learnt. Info war targeting respective domestic audience can fill in for any deficits, as was found efficacious by both sides in May ’25.

This enablement of use of force will disincentivize strategic engagement for resolving problems as it provides both with a substitute in use of force for negotiated settlement. This suits the vested interests of both sides’ politically dominant lobbies.

However, limited military conflict is liable to escalate in a future iteration(s), with escalatory risks stemming from uncertainties in the dynamics of conflict and from contact warfare. Ambitious aims may derail initial notion of victory and third party efficacy may be limited, given India evincing disinterest.

Even so, the critical nuclear-conventional interface will unlikely to be breached since brown sahibs are equally capable of strategic good sense. It can however be threatened if limited conventional war is allowed to proceed to becoming a full-blown conventional war.

Strategic good sense is in not using a risky pathway to get to a mutually sought dividend. If such a military risk is run then only a grand strategic dividend must be an outcome. Such a dividend is belied by continuing of limited military conflicts, but may be possible in case of war itself.

Therefore, resolving the resulting paradox – that war alone can deliver grand strategic dividend but cannot be chanced - is the principal challenge for the strategic communities of both sides; one compounded by reluctance of respective power elites to permit an answer.