Online Desk: ‘Deterrence’ in military parlance is, simply put, to ‘deter’ a potential adversary of the outsized consequences and disproportionate response to any (military) adventurism. Deterrence is established when two sides possess the means to inflict losses on each other in case of hostilities and hence decide not to initiate hostilities. Deterrence can be ‘conventional’— through capabilities of conventional air, land, sea, cyber and space forces or ‘non-conventional’ through possession of nuclear weapons and capabilities.
Before Pulwama/Balakot in 2019, conventional and non-conventional deterrence averted military escalation between India and Pakistan, especially military incursion in mainland Pakistan by India. Kargil war (May-June 1999) before that was fought across an undefined border termed as Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, where there is a tacit understanding and practice of occasional flare-up on and from both sides.
Pahalgam/Operation Sindoor in 2025 ratcheted up hostilities and India, ‘undeterred’ by Pakistan’s conventional and non-conventional military capabilities, launched brazen attacks on some 6 cities in Pakistan proper and AJK. So, the deterrence broke down. A broken deterrence needs to be re-established, hence Pakistan following its strategy of ‘quid-pro-quo plus’ equalised its losses and re-stablished deterrence through Operation Bunyan Marsoos. Deterrence is said to be established when both sides are standing on the equal rungs of the imaginary two-sided ‘Escalation Ladder (EL)’, militarily and perceptually. This equal status ‘may’ control further escalation.
This cycle of deterrence breakdown and re-establishment can go on, if the escalation continues which may result into a ‘limited’ (uni/bi-service war or conflict limited in aim, scope and space) or a full-scale/all-out war. In India Pakistan’s military construct, traditionally deterrence breakdown ‘would’ escalate into a conventional military conflict, that may inch towards a ‘possible’ nuclear exchange, when continued fighting degrades a weaker Pakistan’s forces and infrastructure, results into spatial losses, causes population casualty or threatens Pakistan’s existential economic well-being – all understood to be Pakistan’s traditional redlines or ‘thresholds’. In a nutshell, a conventional war is generally thought to precede a nuclear war.
Selection of target and choice of munitions can also be escalatory. Indian attack on population centres and its use of long-range Brahmos (1500 km) missiles were escalatory. Pakistan exercised unprecedented restraint and limited its damage to the Indian air and ground assets, once Indian AD system was compromised consequent to the integrated, full spectrum Pakistani riposte involving air-land-cyber and space components.
Indian allegation of Pakistan using Shaheen missile (range 2,700 km) compared to the short-range Fatah Series, is at best a cover-up, coming after Delhi having realised its own mistake of using strategic Brahmos. Both countries need to go to the drawing board and use the lessons learnt from the recent standoff to recalibrate their restraint, deterrence and escalation regimes. India in particular needs to get out of the ‘perceptual trap’ of blaming Pakistan for non-functional toilets in Pune and resorting to blatant escalation in case of any militant activity, trampling all norms and tenets of statehood and neighbourliness.
There may be no Trump to facilitate the next ceasefire, or the world reaction might be too late than Pakistan’s response to the Indian provocations, that may be even deadlier, given the pressures and imperatives of its own demography, and India’s perpetual brinkmanship.
Only nukes will restrain a bellicose India! Period.
