INDIA’S LIMITED WAR FIGHTING DOCTRINES AND THE MAY 2025 PROVOCATION: CHALLENGES TO DETERRENCE AND STABILITY IN SOUTH ASIA

Abstract

The May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan highlights the growing dangers of conventional conflict or limited war, which risks slipping out of control, thus increasing the risks of nuclear exchange. Rather than engaging in negotiations for dispute resolution, the Indian government has continuously been transforming its conventional war-fighting doctrine to establish hegemony through compellence. Indian strategic thought and technological modernisation can be identified as primary drivers behind this Indian behaviour, as it aspires to create a Greater India or Akhand Bharat. From 1947 to the nuclearisation of South Asia, India once changed its war-fighting doctrine. However, from 2003 onwards, the Indian armed forces have been continuously going through a transformative and restructuring phase. Using massive retaliation as nuclear blackmail against Pakistan, India aspires to create space for limited conflict and surgical strikes using advanced weapon systems, under the Dynamic Response Strategy, below the nuclear thresholds as a new normal. At the same time, Indian Integrated Battle Groups would be ready to undertake offensive operations under the Cold Start Doctrine, if the conflict escalates to a full-scale conventional war. This paper evaluates Indian conventional war-fighting doctrines while concluding that Pakistan needs to diversify its response options to raise the retaliatory cost so as to deny India space for a limited war below the nuclear thresholds. Due to domestic pressures and the desire to dominate escalation rungs, any limited conflict in South Asia carries high risks for slipping out of control, thus ending in a nuclear exchange.

Bibliography Entry

Zaman, Shams uz. 2025. "India’s Limited War Fighting Doctrines and the May 2025 Provocation: Challenges to Deterrence and Stability in South Asia." Strategic Thought (7): 55-80.