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 with 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.         

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https://m.thewire.in/article/security/india-pakistan-in-a-nuclear-dyad-the-war-that-cannot-achieve-anything

India-Pakistan: Our very own ‘small potatoes’

From the relentless badgering on Operation (Op) Sindoor, it is clear that we are being conditioned for the next round. With a dispute over what the dispute is about in first place, it can only be a matter of time when the cycle of crisis-to-conflict kicks in, yet again. Gauging from preceding military exchanges, while the bad news here is that our own ‘little incursion’ will be on a higher note, the good news is that the military conflict may yet turn out ‘not a big thing.’

The usual crisis-to-conflict cycle has a terror attack of egregious proportions provoking an Indian backlash at the conventional level, to punish and deter. The Indian counter has been deliberately kept limited both in scope and duration. Likewise, Pakistan has also taken care to limit its conventional rebound.

Lately, however, India has gone on to evince indifference to Pakistan’s tacitly-held out nuclear card, by indicating a readiness to climb up the escalatory ladder. Ostensibly, India’s striking of airfields associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons’ complex was to show Pakistan that it was less-than-deterred. Such risking of escalation was to reinforce its conventional deterrent by exhibiting a nonchalance towards ‘full spectrum deterrence’ posited by Pakistan. It enabled coming good on the rhetoric on ‘Pakistan’s nuclear bluff.’ This stands incorporated into India’s ‘new normal’ doctrine: India will disregard Pakistan’s ‘nuclear blackmail.’

Indian feigning of unconcern in face of risk could do with an alternative explanation than helpfully offered in some detail by the doubly-retired chief of defence staff (CDS), General Anil Chauhan.

Querying the General’s narrative

The strange exchange between the then CDS and the air chief provides the clue. It’s another matter that the air chief had no business taking his cue from the CDS, who in the current arrangement only has an advisory role. The former CDS admits that his office was institutionally ill-equipped for such decision-making, revealing that his small staff was expanded by an cell of ‘best set of officers’ (43:33); the ad-hocism of this arrangement is clear from confusion over its nomenclature – research or implementation cell.

Indeed, given the Pakistani outreach amidst calls from friends, a new reality had emerged after the 29 April meeting (7:55) with the prime minister described by the former CDS. At the juncture, Indians were aware of the third-party role of the United States (US). They reckoned on Pakistani restraint under US influence. This allowed India to chance a risky blow targeting select places – Nur Khan, Sargodha and possibly Kairana hills - despite their known association with the Pakistani strategic deterrent.

Consider if the Pakistanis had not committed to the US, would they not have responded to the four spells of strikes from pre-dawn and well into the morning and instead wound up their 48 hour Operation Bunyan al Marsoos in 8 hours (26:00)? The former CDS’ account that awareness of their dwindling ability to strike back decidedly influenced the Pakistanis to throw in the towel (28:50) sounds somewhat self-serving.

Chauhan betrays no indication in his recount of the decision whether their political master and other stakeholders were consulted. The general’s recall of the meeting with Prime Minister Modi on the use of force (8:26), has no mention of the cabinet committee on security, though the committee met the following day and may have endorsed the marching orders given at the meeting on 29 April.

However, those guardrails were regarding the attacks on terrorist camps on the first night. There is no record of the CCS ratifying the expansive follow-on attacks of the fourth day, though makes a passing mention of its meetings (30:10); nor does Chauhan inform of any consultations on the escalatory matrix and the decision-making authority to move up the ladder.

Indeed, Chauhan is quite clear: “(O)bviously over here we didn’t seek political decisions because those decisions were very clear. But if we had to seek political decisions it would have taken time. Whereas in these operations, in these fast pace of operations, which are happening overnight and at various domains over vast distances to understand that itself becomes very challenging (32:00).”

Indian flippancy – immediately after and a year on – is cover for an apt exploiting of the closing window on an opportunity and the seemingly ‘free hand’ given them. The ‘complete freedom of action’ given the military sounds suspiciously like the abdication of responsibility by the regime, reminiscent of General Naravane’s recollection in his unpublished book on the close-run incident on Kailash range against the Chinese. A retired air marshal under whose watch Sargodha was attacked claims no knowledge of the Kairana episode (1:05:50), while ingratiatingly contrasting the ‘operational freedom’ given the services by ‘this dispensation’ with previous ones (1:05:00); a thoughtful share that possibly got monitored favourably enough to land him a post-retirement job.

General Chauhan reveals the dangerous determinism that results when the military is left to itself, saying, “if you want to change (the escalation ladder) in between, this is not possible (33:50).” The air marshal is equally clear that the Sargodha attack did not need governmental decision, but was made in-house (1:04:40). This perhaps explains why the Pakistanis were kept on the phone even as the CDS gave the go-head for the Sargodha strike (34:05); though at another place in the talk he contradicts himself claiming the Sargodha and Nur Khan strikes were already done with when the Pakistani call came in (28:12).

Untested rungs

The manner Op Sindoor played out suggests that it will serve as a template for future military conflicts, since it enables the two sides to ventilate without going overboard. An untried rung exists: continuing non-contact exchanges of greater scope, intensity and duration.

An expanded military conflict could include – additionally - a transgression of borders by (wo)manned air power to complement the firepower of loitering drones and missiles, ballistic from the Indian side and cruise from Pakistan. Even if India was to throw in the repeatedly-promised sea power, with its impact taking time to manifest the effect would only be in a thickening of non-contact operations and a widened area of incidence.

Limitations in magazine size – a logistics lesson learnt the hard way separately by the US and Ukraine - on both sides would keep the two sides to a graduated escalation pathway. A hint that India is mindful of the quagmire Pakistan can pose is in the speculative slotting of an air warrior to head the western integrated theatre command if and when raised, implying it envisages predominantly non-contact operations on this front.

Yet, the conflict could turn into war if it goes on long enough. Russia’s war on Ukraine and that of the US on Iran show how best laid plans get waylaid. The ongoing air defence preparations by both sides could prove resilient enough to reassure each that it can last the distance. Support from respective strategic partners may add fuel: Chinese and Turkish for Pakistan and of Israel for India.

Persisting with the buffer of a stand-off conflict occasions greater risk of sliding into the more dangerous: contact warfare. It’s only when either was to throw in land forces into the conflict milieu that escalatory prospects truly kick-in.

India has recently created the capability – finally and at long last - for this and has a ‘dynamic response strategy’ to go with it. It has the temptation to deploy it to good effect. It may assess that it could exploit Pakistani vulnerability on its western border, and create favourable facts on the ground. Even so, India has taken care to keep these forces agile and, therefore, retractable.

In a ‘raid and revert’ role - in a replay of the post-Uri wide-front raids - tactical use of these is not in itself violative of the status quo on the frontline. If instead operational level dividend is sought in a ‘seize and hold’ mode - as at Siachen or in a ‘reverse Kargil’ or by taking back Pakistan-occupied areas - escalation gets ruled in.

Territorial transgressions are more difficult to explain away than the momentary violation of air space. In such a case, optics may drive Pakistani reaction rather than strategic good sense. Its holding to its quid pro quo-plus promise could prompt over-reaction. The need for the army for a good showing to retain its hold on Pakistani politics and that of its recently-elevated leader to earn his five-star spurs would be part of the impetus to escalate. Impending escalation could be projected to instigate third-party interest, noting that last time it managed to convert initial disinterest into avid involvement.

A third party’s mediatory activity has utility for India too, allowing it to climb off a high horse; especially if Pakistan when bested in the non-contact phase - it ups the ante to a contact war. To begin with, India does not wish to go the whole hog down a military route. Peace probes provide a much-needed off-ramp. Plausible deniability currently attends the re-forged links with the Pakistani establishment, almost in line with the US-revealed understanding arrived at between the two sides. It also knows better now the cost of discounting third party efforts.

The takeaway

The employing of the military for a meaningful political end is strategically fraught. In a nuclear dyad, military means cannot possibly serve any sane political end. The international order having become more accommodative of war itself, military conflicts not amounting to war – at least at their outset - will likely punctuate the regional future into the middle term.

The under-explored rungs of the escalatory ladder and an endurance-testing duration of such conflicts may see these plateau at a mutually affordable level. Consequently, though such a future is unwelcome in itself, it is not as bad as it could otherwise be. That the political direction by the head of a nuclear power is a laconic ‘we need to do something big’ (10:17) to ‘teach Pakistan a big lesson’ (9:04) shows how bad it can really get.

This finding should serve as incentive to timely get the parliamentary system of accountability and checks and balances into place, which in the security sphere is a revitalised cabinet committee on security.