As 2025 draws to a close, India-Pakistan relations are no longer shaped only by individual terror incidents or episodic military crises. They are increasingly defined by deeper structural changes inside Pakistan, a clearer Indian response framework demonstrated through Operation Sindoor, and a regional environment in which major powers are recalibrating priorities without sentimentality.
The Delhi car blast earlier this year, which disrupted what intelligence assessments suggest could have evolved into a wider campaign, reinforced a question that is now widely asked in India: how will New Delhi respond the next time Pakistan-sponsored violence crosses an unacceptable threshold?
The answer lies not in announced doctrines or public red lines, but in understanding how Pakistan is signalling intent, how India has already responded once, and why Kashmir continues to sit at the centre of Pakistan’s strategic thinking even when the geography of violence shifts.
Op Sindoor remains the most important reference point for assessing India’s current approach. It was not projected as a doctrinal watershed, nor was it described as a template for all future action. Yet, it demonstrated several realities that now shape public and strategic expectations. India is prepared to employ conventional force below the nuclear threshold. Political authorisation can be obtained swiftly. Responses can be precise, controlled, and calibrated to impose costs without being drawn into open-ended conflict.
Equally important is what Sindoor did not establish. It did not lock India into fixed timelines, limited durations or narrow escalation ceilings. There was no implication that future responses must be brief, symbolic, or tightly time-bound. On the contrary, the absence of explicit time-bracketing was itself a signal. India retained freedom of choice over when to act, how to act, and how long pressure might be sustained. Pakistan would be miscalculating if it perceived 88 hours as a literal bracket. The deliberate ambiguity here is central to deterrence.
Predictability reduces risk for the adversary; uncertainty raises it. The lesson of Sindoor for Pakistan is therefore not that India prefers limited action, but that India possesses a range of options and the political will to employ them. That range includes the possibility of prolonged, calibrated pressure if circumstances demand it. The next time a completely different model could be witnessed.
Pakistan’s proposed 27th Constitutional Amendment represents a significant internal reorganisation of authority. By constitutionally elevating the serving army chief as chief of defence forces, dismantling the joint chiefs framework, and consolidating nuclear command under military control, Pakistan is not merely simplifying command structures. It is sending a strategic message.
The purpose of this centralisation is to project decisiveness, unity, and resolve in the nuclear domain. It seeks to convey that Pakistan’s leadership is insulated from civilian hesitation and prepared to act decisively if required. In practical terms, this is intended to reinforce the belief that nuclear capability provides Pakistan a protective umbrella under which it can continue lower-level coercive actions against India.
This signalling must be read for what it is: a calculated attempt to strengthen nuclear coercion. It is not evidence of instability or impending nuclear use, but of a belief that clearer, more centralised authority enhances deterrence on Pakistan’s terms. The challenge for India is to ensure that such signalling does not narrow its own response space. If nuclear threats are allowed to paralyse conventional and hybrid options, proxy warfare becomes rational from Pakistan’s perspective.
Deterrence, therefore, requires India to demonstrate, consistently and without rhetoric, that nuclear signalling does not negate its capacity to respond, impose costs, and sustain pressure where necessary.
The Pahalgam attack must be understood within this strategic framework. Over recent years, terrorism has been more persistent in Jammu—particularly in the Rajouri, Poonch and Kathua belt—than in the Kashmir Valley. This distinction matters. Pakistan’s political narrative and international positioning are anchored in Kashmir, not Jammu. Prolonged calm in the Valley undermines Pakistan’s relevance on the very issue it considers central to its identity and strategy.
Seen through this lens, Pahalgam appears less as the beginning of a renewed campaign and more as an attempt to reassert visibility in Kashmir at a time when tourism, civic activity, and political normalisation were sending signals Pakistan finds difficult to counter. Historically, when Pakistan has sensed erosion of relevance in Kashmir, it has resorted to calibrated disruption rather than overt escalation.
If stability in the Valley deepens and forthcoming tourist seasons reinforce positive trends, it would be unrealistic to assume that this logic will simply fade away. Pakistan’s weak economic condition has rarely constrained proxy violence. Such actions remain low-cost instruments with disproportionate psychological and political impact. What has changed is not Pakistan’s underlying impulse, but India’s willingness to absorb risk and respond.
Pakistan’s external relationships add complexity, but not freedom of action. The US now engages Pakistan primarily through the lens of nuclear risk management,
China’s westward strategic reach, and residual counterterrorism concerns in the Af-Pak space. This engagement is transactional and bounded. India, by contrast, occupies a significant place in US Indo-Pacific strategy, even if expectations are increasingly pragmatic rather than aspirational.
China remains Pakistan’s most reliable strategic partner, providing military modernisation, diplomatic cover and selective economic support. Yet, China’s own concerns about regional instability and its priorities in the Indo-Pacific impose limits. Support does not translate into encouragement for uncontrolled escalation.
Renewed strength in Indo-Russian ties adds strategic depth for India, even if it does not directly shape India-Pakistan crisis dynamics. West Asian financial support provides Pakistan some economic breathing space, but not strategic immunity.
As 2025 ends, deterrence between India and Pakistan rests on clarity without predictability. India has demonstrated willingness to act, but not how, when, or for how long, contributing to deterrence value. Pakistan has sought to reinforce nuclear coercion through centralisation, but that signal cannot be allowed to define the rules of engagement.
India’s aim is to ensure that Pakistan sees no advantage in risking another crisis. Any act of sponsored violence will bring consequences that outweigh potential gains. These consequences may unfold across time and domains, and will invariably follow. Deterrence holds when repeated experience makes clear that provocation brings costs, not advantage.
Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) | Former Commander, Srinagar-based 15 Corps; Chancellor, Central University of Kashmir
(Views are personal)
(atahasnain@gmail.com)
