Under the Nuclear Shadow: India and Pakistan in Open Conflict

How maturing strike capabilities and fading restraint are reshaping escalation dynamics in South Asia

Picture: Ministry of Defense of India

EDITORIAL NOTE: This text has been updated after publication to reflect that both sides agreed to an initial ceasefire.

On May 10, at approximately 14:00 CET, Donald Trump announced via social media that Pakistan and India had agreed to an immediate ceasefire, bringing a halt — at least temporarily — to a dangerously escalating conflict in South Asia.

Major hostilities began on 7 May when India launched a series of airstrikes — code-named Operation Sindoor — in retaliation for terrorist attacks the previous month that killed 26 people (see my assessment of the operation here). In the days that followed, India and Pakistan exchanged fire, including further airstrikes and drone attacks on military infrastructure. Targets included ground-based air defense systems, likely with the aim of suppressing enemy air defenses to pave the way for a broader air campaign.

On the night of 10 May, India carried out a larger wave of strikes on Pakistani military infrastructure, hitting three air bases: Nur Khan (near Islamabad), Murid, and Shorkot. In response, Pakistan initiated Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, striking Indian military targets including airbases in Pathankot and Udhampur, as well as what Pakistani officials described as a missile storage facility for Indian BrahMos cruise missiles. Both sides appear to have employed drones and cruise missiles in these attacks; imagery suggests that Pakistan also used Fateh-1 short-range ballistic missiles. In the early hours of 10 May, reports emerged that Pakistan had convened the National Command Authority, which is responsible for operational decisions regarding its nuclear arsenal. The Pakistani defense minister later denied these reports.

Later that day, a ceasefire was announced, following negotiations, reportedly facilitated by the Trump Administration. The U.S. reportedly accelerated its involvement after receiving “alarming intelligence.” While the nature of this intelligence remains unclear, it likely concerned more explicit nuclear signaling efforts by Pakistan. Within three hours of the initial ceasefire, Pakistan launched a drone attack into India, signaling a breach of the agreement. However, the night of 11 May passed without major attacks, and politicians on both sides have since made rhetorical efforts to de-escalate tensions—among other things, by declaring victory. That said, the durability of the ceasefire and the status of negotiations between India and Pakistan to resolve the conflict remain uncertain.

At the time of writing, the exact timeline of the conflict, including the sequence of attacks and escalation thresholds crossed, remains unclear. In addition, the operational picture remains murky, and reliable battle damage assessments are lacking. What is clear, however, is that this episode — whether it has come to and or will continue — has marked an unprecedented military exchange between two nuclear-armed states, one that has posed a serious risk of nuclear escalation. This post offers an initial assessment of the escalation dynamics observed during the conflict and outlines some broader implications.

Operational assessment

The information space surrounding the conflict remains extremely cluttered, in part due to deliberate efforts by both sides to obscure their own losses while amplifying claimed successes. Filtering through this noise remains a challenge.

What stands out is the extensive use of conventional long-range strike systems by both sides to target military infrastructure deep within enemy territory, including sites near their capitals, that the conflict has seen. Throughout the conflict, these strikes have occurred without significant restraint, at least when it comes to military targets. Importantly, I have not come across confirmed evidence of deliberate strikes on critical civilian infrastructure by either side, although Pakistan at one point reportedly threatened such countervalue attacks should India refuse to de-escalate (though this may have been mis- or disinformation).

At present, it is unclear whether the fighting has come to an end, or whether a renewed round of missile and drone attacks is just around the corner. In any case, neither side appears to have managed to secure a clear military advantage by the time the initial ceasefire was agreed. From an escalation management perspective, this ambiguity likely offered space for de-escalation.

Testing the stability-instability paradox

From an analytical perspective, the conflict episode has arguably put the stability-instability to its hardest test yet.

The stability–instability paradox refers to the counterintuitive dynamic whereby strategic stability in the nuclear domain — typically achieved by both sides deploying an assured retaliatory capability — may encourage greater instability at lower levels of conflict. When two nuclear-armed states believe that the risk of full-scale nuclear war is effectively deterred by their second-strike capabilities, they may perceive that limited conventional or proxy conflicts can be pursued with minimal risk of escalation to nuclear war. As a result, the very condition that prevents large-scale nuclear war (the mutual fear of nuclear catastrophe) can inadvertently lower the threshold for lower-intensity conflicts.

The stability–instability paradox is often cited as a key factor behind the intensifying proxy wars observed between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Archival records also indicate that U.S. policymakers were concerned that excessive stability at the strategic nuclear level might embolden Soviet aggression at the conventional or non-strategic nuclear level in Europe and beyond. This gave rise to the notion that a degree of ‘optimal instability’ within strategic stability was necessary to deter such behavior.

The paradox has similarly been applied to the India–Pakistan dyad in the past to explain why both states, even after achieving and maintaining relatively assured nuclear second-strike capabilities, have continued to engage in hostile conduct at both the sub-conventional and conventional levels.

The current crisis arguably presents the most severe test of the stability–instability paradox to date, not only in South Asia but across any nuclear dyad. Two nuclear-armed states were engaged in direct hostilities, launching both individual and salvoed missile strikes against high-value military targets deep within each other’s territory. Compared to previous confrontations in 1999 and 2019, this reflects a marked decline in restraint and a clear departure from efforts to confine hostilities to limited geographic areas. Nevertheless, the conflict has not escalated to the nuclear level, and overall nuclear signalling has remained largely absent (at least towards the public). What is clear is that the possession of large nuclear arsenals on either sides has not deterred Pakistan and India from conducting long-range strikes against high-value targets deep inside the enemy’s homeland territory.

Why leaders showed less restraint in their targeting policies remains uncertain. Part of the explanation may indeed lie in the presence of survivable strategic nuclear arsenals on both sides, which may have given decisionmakers confidence that neither party is interested in allowing the conflict to spiral out of control (as predicted by the stability instability paradox). Political factors, particularly leadership styles and threat perceptions, likely also played a role. Another likely factor is technological: in recent years, both India and Pakistan have acquired increasingly mature conventional long-range strike capabilities, allowing them to target operational and strategic objectives without first securing air superiority. To some extent, the pace and intensity of the escalation witnessed during the conflict may reflect this shift — one that, by the nature of the technologies involved, produces a more escalation-prone conflict environment.

At this point, one can only hope that the agreed upon ceasefire remains in effect and, if fighting starts over, the cooler heads in the room prevail.

Broader implications

For European decisionmakers, this episode also highlights two important broader points:

First, while the likelihood of nuclear use has remained relatively low throughout the crisis, it was arguably higher than at any point during the war in Ukraine. This conflict offers a stark illustration of what a genuine nuclear crisis looks like, in contrast to Russia’s attempts to manufacture one through non-credible nuclear signaling.

Second, from a NATO perspective, this underscores the importance of maintaining not only a robust nuclear deterrent but also a credible conventional force capable of operating in high-intensity interstate warfare. The type of non-nuclear exchanges currently unfolding between India and Pakistan could plausibly occur between NATO and Russia in the not-too-distant future, especially if Russia gets away victoriously in Ukraine and the United States disengages further from Europe. As in South Asia today, there is no certainty that such exchanges will lead to nuclear use, though the possibility remains distinct. European capitals must therefore take this scenario seriously and prepare accordingly.