Pakistan’s New Nuclear Strategy Is a Crisis in the Making

Proposals to deploy front-line tactical nuclear weapons, on the basis that India will not respond to their usage, is folly. Yet that is precisely what Pakistan’s military leadership is seemingly proposing.

by Manpreet Sethi Radm Sudarshan Shrikhande Arun Sahgal

With the kind of nuclear strategy Pakistan seems to be following, it is choosing to stand on the edge of the nuclear cliff. The “zero range” pronouncement may be perceived in the Strategic Plans Division as a major doctrinal shift, but it changes little for India. It remains important for New Delhi to assiduously continue to improve the efficacy and the survivability of its own triad. With a stated Indian strategy of retaliation to cause unacceptable damage, the trigger could be called anything by the adversary. The response, unfortunately, would be far more than zero for that country, the environment, the region, and the world.

Pakistan needs to reflect deeply on this misperceived notion of deterrence. As Haider wrote, such decisions “cannot be left to a few in a closed club.” Meanwhile, the words of U.S. president Joe Biden resonate: “I think (Pakistan) is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world…with nuclear weapons without any cohesion.”

Formulations like full-spectrum deterrence, buoyed by new weaponry, may seem cohesive to Rawalpindi. But that is not the case in either New Delhi nor Washington. Policymakers from both ought to make this clear to Pakistan’s military leadership.

Dr. Manpreet Sethi is a Distinguished Fellow at Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi, India.