Pakistan’s potential adversary, India, long ago tested its nuclear weapon capability in 1974, the so-called peaceful nuclear explosion. When India tested its nuclear weapons again in May 1998, Pakistan immediately responded to the Indian nuclear tests on 28 May 1998 to restore a long-awaited strategic balance in the region despite the relentless international pressure. While understanding the logic of nuclear deterrence and risk of military escalation to a nuclear level, Pakistan proposed to India to create a strategic restraint regime (SRR), a type of arms control regime that would primarily aim to create restraint on the growing conventional force asymmetry in South Asia.
Although both India and Pakistan have never been part of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) since the very inception of the NPT, the creation of the proposed SRR would promote crisis stability, reduce the risk of a bigger arms race, avoid war-fighting strategies, and lay out grounds for strategic stability in South Asia. India declined and thereby missed the opportunity for sustainable peace and stability. Since then, both the South Asian nuclear rivals have confronted several serious military crises, including the May 2025 that could risk serious military escalation to a dangerous level.
Fortunately, nuclear deterrence remains reliable, robust, and intact in South Asia. The risk of nuclear weapon use often triggers third-party intervention, in this case, the US potentially bolstering deterrence stability and avoiding large-scale war between the two archrivals. India has never been interested in third-party intervention. Its hubris would intensify the conflict in South Asia, risking dangerous escalation that its military leadership may not desire in the first place.
Why did India decline the proposed SRR in South Asia, and why does it continue to be adamant about the perceived idea as part of broader nuclear confidence-building measures? This article unpacks this imperative further under the essential characteristics of hubris, escalation dominance, prestige, and damage limitation strategies for counterforce targeting in South Asia. Each of these rationales may best explain why India may aspire for these strategic objectives rather than clinging to any type of restraint regime in the foreseeable future.
Hubris for a dangerous confidence
With its increasing economic wherewithal, strategic partnership with the leading players in the international system, and material sources for enhancing its conventional and strategic forces, India apparently has intensified its military conflicts with Pakistan. India expects to win its political and military objectives through its economic and material sources, providing India with the dangerous confidence to launch preventive strikes whenever and however India’s politico-military leadership may desire.
But India failed to achieve such objectives every time it planned to pre-empt Pakistan with its irrational political gestures against a nuclear Pakistan. Such failure is clearly depicted in the recent credible presentation by Lt. Gen. (R) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Adviser to the National Command Authority, on 16 September 2025. Despite realising the danger of escalation, one wonders why India, in hubris for a dangerous confidence, looks for a space for waging a limited war against nuclear Pakistan. Undertaking such preventive strikes without evidence of a security threat from Pakistan is not only illegal under international law but becomes highly destabilising for the South Asian region.
As India becomes aggressive while trying to cross certain red lines in each crisis, the risk of serious military conflict escalating to nuclear use in South Asia may potentially increase to a dangerous level
Escalation dominance for damage limitation strategy
Part of the reason why India does not desire to accept the proposed SRR is India’s aspiration to retain escalation dominance with its increasing deterrent forces capability. India through the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has been developing several mega strategic projects such as the ICBMs, MIRVing, BMDs, SLBMs, TNWs, hypersonic missiles, and parts of emerging technologies such as anti-satellite, drones, and lethal autonomous weapon systems. All such weapon systems not only make India more aggressive and offensive in South Asia, but also such strategic imperatives would further boost India’s aspiration for escalation dominance.
This is to keep an extra hedge against Pakistan in both conventional and strategic force domains. The recent credible sources reflect that India has more nuclear weapons than Pakistan, which may reflect India’s strategic aspiration for a damage limitation strategy. India would desire to have lots of fissile materials, nuclear warheads, and delivery systems to keep the advantage and limit the damage during a serious military crisis against its potential adversary in the broader South Asian region. Resultantly, this may take India beyond the required security imperative for prestige and power projection in the Asian region.
Strategic departure from the minimum and the NFU
The failure of not becoming part of SRR and being an outlier to the NPT, including that of its increasing deterrent force development, India has long departed from the minimum deterrence it had earlier perceived. India falls into a strategic dilemma, that is, what is credible against Pakistan may not be minimum against China, thereby what is not minimum against China may be much more against Pakistan than required. It is a strategic puzzle that needs more serious deliberation and future scholarship.
The Indian security leadership may not be able to fix this increasing dilemma to opt between the two strategic pillars. Given its aspiration for pre-emptive strikes against Pakistan, many in India have already suggested the Indian security echelon depart from India’s traditional No-First Use (NFU) nuclear option. It is not surprising for Pakistan that India’s NFU has been modified because India has already brought dramatic shifts in its draft nuclear doctrines of 1999 in 2003.
Aggression vs restraint
Both 2019 and 2025 military conflicts indicate India’s intensifying aggressive force posture against Pakistan, trying to test the resolve of Pakistan. India is departing from political modesty, patience, and restraint to become more offensive under the nuclear threshold in South Asia. As India becomes aggressive while trying to cross certain red lines in each crisis, the risk of serious military conflict escalating to nuclear use in South Asia may potentially increase to a dangerous level that India and many regional and international players may not desire to happen in the first place. Making a terrorism episode as a pretext to strike Pakistan is not a viable strategy. It is fraught with weakness for dangerous escalation, especially when the potential adversary, in this case Pakistan against India, is also in possession of credible nuclear weapons.
South Asia with an ever-increasing nuclear flashpoint – way forward
All that being noted, it is not out of context to argue that South Asia has become an ever-increasing nuclear flashpoint. The danger of escalation to a nuclear level is working in the background of all the intensifying military conflicts between the South Asian nuclear rivals. The viable way forward to prevent such untoward military conflicts is the practice of restraint, political modesty, and agreeing on some form of SRR. More importantly, there is a need to shun the hubris for escalation dominance, power projection, and war-fighting strategies.
Credible CBMs, nuclear CBMs, and more dialogue are needed for sustainable peace and broader South Asian strategic stability. Pakistan has offered such peaceful and durable initiatives for a dialogue. It is now India’s turn to decide what to do next. One hopes that better sense prevails, and India logically follows the imperative that Pakistan proposed a long time ago.