ESCALATING CRISES BETWEEN INDIA-PAKISTAN AND DETERRENCE STABILITY: A PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The paper argues that India’s crafting of escalatory strategies is dangerously destabilizing
the strategic stability and deterrence matrix of South Asia. The geostrategic
transformation has accorded India a critical role under the United States’ Indo-Pacific
strategy to contain the rise of China. Most significantly, India’s conventional and nuclear
strategy appears to be aggressive and, on the other hand, Pakistan has too crafted a
reactive full spectrum strategy to inflict severe punishment upon the rival with aim to
deter it from either coercing or imposing a limited war particularly in the wake of
restructuring of India’s nuclear NFU policy. Pakistan’s volatility coupled with India’s
restructuring of nuclear policy is a sure recipe for catastrophic disaster either by doing
‘crazy things,’ ‘firing nuclear shots,’ or by displaying ‘will’ to strike first?