Abid Latif Sindhu
Strategic stability is a term closer to dexterity; if one may call it in Orwellian terms, it is also a tyranny of sorts in Kafkaesque parleys. In strategic studies, which itself is more of higher politics played on geographic chessboards, strategic stability is a Cold War construct with a close linkage to deterrence theory. The first proponent was Thomas Schelling. Situationally, it is a stage where the probability of war is minimised by reducing all the incentives for a first strike between nuclear-armed countries. In the present-day shark-tank environment, where one doesn’t get clear lines to define and separate geo-politics from geo-economics, strategic stability is like the second peak after the valley; you either see it from a distance or are there with many operational serendipities of sorts.
Glenn Snyder, Kenneth Waltz, Robert Jervis and even Nye opined that strategic stability between nuclear-armed states can be a cognitive precinct to deter nuclear war, but surely, squarely and necessarily will cause a spate of small wars as the friction in global moorings is felt. Strategic stability between states therefore, lies somewhere between competition, contestation and conflict. When this happens, it is decided by the factors of history, geography, culture and the appreciation of all three combined.
In the Indo-Pak scenario, these two countries are more prisoners of history and geography rather than geopolitics. Even the prisoner’s dilemma does not define the crest and trough of the waves generated both in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.
The challenges to strategic stability in the Subcontinent have always remained gyrated towards crisis stability due to Indian hegemonic overtures in the region, arms race instability by India’s desire to have more-as more is good-and the escalatory dangers as a result of some brand-new doctrine by India every five years of peace.
India is expanding the envelope of conflict by doling out concepts like Cold Start, PAO (Proactive Operations), DRS (Dynamic Response Strategy), Surgical Strikes, and now, after May 2025, the New Normal of whatnot. These are highly provocative warfighting doctrines indeed.
Modi, like Sisyphus, is embroiled in his own commitment trap. In Operation Marka-e-Haq, the war frenzy built by Indian inflammatory reporting in India’s media made it very difficult for Modi to justify the ceasefire. The charged, extremist right-wing Hindutva mongers of Akhand Bharat were asking, What ceasefire?-and thus the pause in Operation Sindoor-and there goes the strategic stability of the region. The Indian PM enunciated and made it clear to his political audience, as well as the strategic elite of Pakistan, that the USA had played no role whatsoever in the ceasefire. The denial perpetuates instability and questions the prospect of restraint if the chips are down again. The stability-instability paradox defines that there is an inverse relation between nuclear and conventional stability. However, the four-day war between India and Pakistan created far-reaching strategic, operational, tactical, doctrinal and technological effects-effects almost equivalent to Galileo’s assertion that the universe is heliocentric rather than geocentric.
Pakistan’s strong deterrence, i.e., Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD), was ably demonstrated in Banyan-al-Masroor. The masterstroke of Pakistan was unwrapping the shroud of the fog of war, layer by layer, and yet wrapping everything in jus ad bellum. The strategic restraint shown by the armed forces in those days is a lesson to be taught in the annals of military strategy. FSD has, in the past, as well, prevented the outbreak of all-out war under Cold Start, DRS or the present New Normal.
Pakistan’s strong deterrence works in both directions, East and West (West here is true west, not geographical west).
Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence enables Pakistan to demonstrate restraint on one hand and reject any Indian attempts at achieving compellence, even though India tried to create both horizontal and vertical escalation, albeit very timidly.
India in the region projected its asymmetric power equilibrium, where India, due to its conventional numerical superiority, rising economy and demographic bulge, continues to explore space for a limited conflict while avoiding Pakistan’s perceived nuclear threshold. Even India’s catalytic nuclear posture based on the USA’s intervention and the disproportionate response is plugged by Pakistan’s doctrine of FSD in strategic planes and the Quid-pro-quo (plus) in the tactical one.
The New Normal, if ever tried again as a concept by India, will face a lot of cost-prohibition as now Pakistan has shifted to offensive deterrence from that of defensive deterrence. The pied piper of the Subcontinent still wants to play the tune of the illogical logic of Mutually Assured Destruction, or peace and stability will have a chance.
Ashley Tellis, the man in the docks now for espionage against the USA, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs, “India’s Great Power Delusion,” where he advised India on its concepts of strategic autonomy and multipolarity. India has to recalibrate; otherwise, soon it will become a strategic liability. It has to learn a lesson or two in adaptive realism, though India thinks that due to two factors, it is globally very relevant: one, leveraging through minilateralism, like QUAD, I2U2, trilaterals and bilaterals; second, it thinks that its distributed leverage as an emerging economy, an IT powerhouse, a resourceful diaspora and military might will ensure its place at a higher pedestal sooner than later.
India has to realise that it is still situated in the US-China binary. Maximally, it can be a bridge, but a bridge to nowhere if India continues to rock the boat in the region with Pakistan and China. It is part of the Global South but aspires to be situated in the North-running with hares and hunting with hounds does not bode well in geopolitics. Strategic patience, not alignment, is India’s rational choice. It has to resolve its issues with Pakistan or face strategic exhaustion. It cannot be a great-power wannabe undertaking plausible deniability through deceitful operations in Balochistan and KP.
As far as the stability of the region is concerned, Pakistan has the liminality of being the liminal power, both with India in strategic terms and with Afghanistan in physical terms.
For strategic stability and peace in the region, India has to recalibrate. The composite dialogue process of 2004 is to be re-initiated. There already exist over 30 agreements and understandings between the two countries, like the 1988 non-attack agreement, advance notification of missile tests, military exercises, exchange of lists of nuclear installations, etc. Confidence-building measures (CBMs) can only take root if the seeds are sown in soil, rather than spread over rocks and shores.
New CBMs concerning cyber-attacks, command-and-control centre attacks-especially nuclear ones-use of lethal autonomous weapons, and application of new critical technologies are also to be included in the bucket list.
Within the pause mode of Operation Sindoor, Mr Modi, if he wants to see the region stable and away from any strategic miscalculation, then the Indus Waters Treaty has to be activated along with a host of other confidence-building measures.
Stories outlast civilisations. Mr Modi has to decide: is he part of a revanchist civilisation or a protagonist in the new story of peace, liberty, progress and stability in the region?
If the pause remains and does not convert into a redux, recalibration based on restraint, sanity and rationality, then both vertical and horizontal escalations will restart from the same rung of Herman Kahn’s escalation ladder where it was left on 10 May 2025. The Doomsday Clock is already at 89 seconds to midnight. To become radiologically involved in sanity, Mr Modi-let’s eat half a dozen bananas for cognitive indulgence and change the landscape of manufactured ignorance amongst the strategic elite of India.
The writer is a freelance contributor on security-related issues. He is also a PhD scholar who can be reached at sindhulatif@gmail.com Twitter: @Abid_Latif55
