In April 2025, the terror attack in Pahalgam killed 26 civilians. India retaliated with Operation Sindoor on May 6–7 by launching a precision-guided strike on nine terror infrastructure targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). In early 2025, China inked a pact to supply advanced air-defence systems to Pakistan and ramp up its military assistance, reinforcing its strategic partnership with Pakistan. Following India’s strikes, Chinese diplomats repeated statements of support for Pakistan’s right to self-defence.
This partnership has often proven to be problematic for India. During Operation Sindoor, military hostilities reignited fears of nuclear escalation, underlining a gap in the region’s nuclear risk-reduction architecture. Further, recent reports indicating Pakistan’s reliance on China to upgrade its nuclear capabilities, and the resulting regional anxieties, have highlighted the absence of institutionalised confidence-building measures in the region.
During Operation Sindoor, military hostilities reignited fears of nuclear escalation, underlining a gap in the region’s nuclear risk-reduction architecture.
The disconnect between cross-border terrorism and the strategic nuclear fears it evokes is symptomatic of a deeper, structural problem. Non-state actors do not cause nuclear escalation in South Asia. Instead, it is a result of an entrenched absence of formal risk-reduction mechanisms between regional powers.
The Strategic Landscape of South Asia Post-1998
The Kargil War was the first conflict between two open nuclear powers since the Cold War. Despite both nations being nuclear-armed, the war was conventional and limited, though fought in the shadow of the nuclear umbrella.
While the conflict highlighted how nuclear deterrence could prevent major wars, it also permitted and even encouraged limited conventional aggression, exemplifying the stability-instability paradox. There was also ambiguous signalling of nuclear escalation. Pakistan conveyed nuclear threats via media and diplomatic channels. The ambiguity of red lines heightened the risk of nuclear escalation. The conflict also underlined the role third parties play in nuclear crises. United States (US) intervention, led by then-President Bill Clinton, helped defuse the tension, forcing Pakistan to retreat.
After the Kargil War, India officially announced its nuclear doctrine in 2003, focusing on credible minimum deterrence, the preservation of a retaliatory capability large enough to cause unacceptable harm to any aggressor. At the core of this doctrine was reaffirmation of a No First Use (NFU) policy, alongside a posture of assured retaliation at the expense of tactical flexibility. India strengthened its command-and-control structure and, to guarantee second-strike capability, accelerated the development of a nuclear triad and delivery vehicles across land, air, and sea. To counterbalance India’s Nuclear Doctrine, Pakistan, on the other hand, moved toward full-spectrum deterrence and developed a variety of nuclear capabilities, including tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs), such as the Nasr missile. Pakistan’s decision to avoid a declared NFU policy and seek operational flexibility through tactical nuclear weapons preserves ambiguity, which enhances the prospect for rapid crisis escalation. This further underscores the current absence and impending need for robust communication mechanisms.
Time and time again, China’s support for Pakistan has increased regional tensions, which, in most cases, have dissipated only after global intervention,
Furthermore, although China was not a party to the Kargil War, it played a crucial role in determining the nuclear dynamics in South Asia. Its nuclear and military relations with Pakistan, along with strategic competition with India, only added more to the nuclear uncertainties in the region. Even while practising minimum deterrence and NFU on paper, Beijing’s rapid nuclear modernisation, as seen in the deployment of Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) and Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs), and the strengthening of its nuclear triad, increased threat perceptions in India. This is furthered by each strategic competition and conflict, including the 2020 Galwan conflict and increasing Indo-Pacific competition. Additionally, China’s alleged military support and technology transfers to Pakistan added another layer of complexity to India’s deterrence calculations.
Time and time again, China’s support for Pakistan has increased regional tensions, which, in most cases, have dissipated only after global intervention, as seen during the Kargil crisis. Even with doctrinal evolution, the subcontinent has no formal arms control accords or crisis management mechanisms. There is no real-time nuclear hotline, no reciprocal inspections, and no multilateral or bilateral agreements to avoid escalation. This institutional gap has led to excessive reliance on ad hoc diplomatic interventions, as in the Kargil crisis, producing an insecure status quo in which every crisis can quickly spiral out of control under the nuclear overhang. Though there are some confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan’s missile tests, these are hampered by a lack of trust. The region continues to exist under doctrinal uncertainties. Multilateral diplomacy, although critical, remains underutilised due to deep-seated suspicions and local power politics.
Multilateral Intervention for Regional Security
The Kargil war was a crucial turning point in South Asia’s nuclear history, for the doctrinal shifts it triggered, and also for revealing the absence of regional arms control mechanisms. Regional actors have failed to translate lessons from past crises into structured, institutionalised confidence-building frameworks. With Pakistan lowering its nuclear thresholds, China accelerating its nuclear modernisation, and India adapting its deterrence posture, the risks of miscalculation have only increased. Still, the architecture to manage such risks remains worryingly underdeveloped.
The Pahalgam attack and the resurgence of nuclear scares under such attacks in even contemporary times have highlighted that stagnation in confidence-building in this volatile region, as well as the lack of multilateral diplomacy. Regionally, India must seek formal nuclear risk-reduction treaties and draw inspiration from legacy treaties such as the New START Treaty between the US and Russia, prioritising systematic crisis communication and increased doctrinal transparency.
The nuclear balance in South Asia is tenuous, primarily due to legacy conflicts, doctrinal differences, and rapidly changing trilateral dynamics among India, Pakistan, and China.
This is not an easy venture, given the historic tensions in bilateral relations between India and Pakistan; nuances unique to the neighbourhood will be present and require a focus on risk-reduction frameworks. Internationally, India can achieve risk reduction and better global accountability by leveraging strategic relationships with the US, France, Australia, and Japan to exert coordinated diplomatic pressure upon Pakistan and China. They can help prevent Pakistan’s destabilising actions and balance China’s regional assertiveness, given its global influence and leadership in nuclear non-proliferation. They can raise such concerns in multilateral forums to reduce nuclear tensions and amplify their calls for regional stability and nuclear restraint.
Such partnerships can help improve India’s deterrence posture, mitigate the escalation of crises, and promote regional confidence-building mechanisms without increasing military tensions. Similarly, multilateral support can encourage monitoring China’s dual-use technology exports to Pakistan, enhancing International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring and strengthening Nuclear Supplier Group export control guidelines.
The nuclear balance in South Asia is tenuous, primarily due to legacy conflicts, doctrinal differences, and rapidly changing trilateral dynamics among India, Pakistan, and China. While India has demonstrated strategic restraint, it cannot afford to rely solely on this posture amid the rising nuclear assertiveness of its neighbours. The strategic anxieties faced during the Pahalgam attack must underscore the need to institutionalise nuclear risk-reduction mechanisms beyond reactive responses during conflict. Multilateral alliances can act as the catalyst to formalise such structures and help India take the lead in pushing for formalised arms control treaties, red-line agreements, and structured crisis communication channels.
Shravishtha Ajaykumar is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation.
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