May 2025 Conflict and Nuclear Deterrence: CSS 2027 Answer

Likely CSS 2027 question: “The India-Pakistan conflict of May 2025 tested, but did not break, nuclear deterrence in South Asia.” Discuss in the light of the evolution of Pakistan’s nuclear programme and doctrine, and suggest how strategic stability can be maintained.

Variants: “Evaluate Pakistan’s nuclear programme as a guarantee of national security”; “Lessons of Marka-e-Haq for Pakistan’s defence policy.”

Syllabus topic: IV, Nuclear Program of Pakistan. This topic was not asked directly in CSS papers from 2015 to 2026. This is a predicted question, not a confirmed one.

Short answer

The May 2025 conflict tested nuclear deterrence but did not break it: nuclear weapons failed to prevent a limited war, yet they capped escalation and pushed outside powers to stop the fighting. India’s “new normal” makes stability more fragile, so Pakistan needs credible deterrence, crisis communication and dispute resolution.

Outline for quick revision

Introduction: two nuclear states at war; deterrence defined; thesis
Evolution of the programme: origins; 1998 tests; doctrine and thresholds; full-spectrum deterrence; command and control
May 2025 conflict: trigger; Operation Sindoor and Bunyan-um-Marsoos; air battle; information and diplomacy
Did deterrence hold? Failed to prevent war; limited the war; conventional credibility; the “new normal”
Lessons: conventional deterrence; diplomatic gains; economic security
Recommendations: crisis communication; CBMs; strategic restraint; address triggers; safety and civil use
Conclusion

Reference colours:
Quotation / documentPersonality / historySyllabus bookCurrent referenceOfficial report / policy

1. Introduction

In May 2025, for the first time, two nuclear-armed states fought each other with missiles, drones and fighter jets across their international border, not only along the Line of Control. Within four days, India struck targets deep inside Pakistan, Pakistan retaliated against Indian air bases, and a ceasefire was announced under heavy American diplomacy. The crisis showed both the danger and the stabilising power of nuclear weapons in South Asia.

The statement claims that deterrence was tested but not broken. This answer argues that it is largely valid: nuclear weapons did not prevent a limited war, but they capped its escalation and pushed outside powers to stop it. Yet India’s “new normal” doctrine means the space for conventional conflict under the nuclear threshold is growing, making stability more fragile.

Definition: Deterrence is the prevention of an attack by convincing the adversary that the costs of attacking will far outweigh any gains. Nuclear deterrence rests on capability, credibility and communication; Pakistan’s doctrine moved from credible minimum deterrence (after 1998) to full-spectrum deterrence, covering threats at every level from tactical to strategic.

2. Evolution of Pakistan’s Nuclear Programme

Origins: a response to India

Pakistan’s programme was driven by insecurity after the 1971 war and India’s first nuclear test in 1974. Z.A. Bhutto made the bomb a national goal, and the work of Dr A.Q. Khan and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission gave Pakistan enrichment capability by the mid-1980s despite US sanctions.

“If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.”
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Foreign Minister, 1965

Overt nuclearisation, 1998

India’s tests in May 1998 left Pakistan with little choice but to respond, despite offers of aid and threats of sanctions from the West. The Chagai tests established open nuclear deterrence between the two rivals.

Personality / history: After India’s tests at Pokhran (11 and 13 May 1998), Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests at Chagai, Balochistan, on 28 May 1998 and one more on 30 May, under PM Nawaz Sharif. The day is marked as Youm-e-Takbeer. The programme had begun after the 1971 war, under Z.A. Bhutto, with Dr A.Q. Khan’s enrichment work at Kahuta.

Doctrine and thresholds

Pakistan keeps its doctrine deliberately ambiguous, but it has made clear that its weapons are meant to deter India and that it reserves the right of first use. This ambiguity is designed to offset India’s larger conventional forces.

Personality / history: In 2002, Lt-Gen Khalid Kidwai, head of the Strategic Plans Division, told Italian researchers (Landau Network) that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were “aimed solely at India” and would be used only if India conquered a large part of Pakistan’s territory, destroyed a large part of its armed forces, strangled it economically or pushed it into large-scale political destabilisation. These are the four “thresholds”.

Full-spectrum deterrence

After India announced its “Cold Start” doctrine of quick, limited offensives, Pakistan developed short-range systems such as Nasr (60 km), long-range missiles such as Shaheen-III (2,750 km), the Babur-3 submarine-launched cruise missile for a second-strike capability, and the Ababeel multiple-warhead missile.

Official report / policy: The SIPRI Yearbook 2026 (June 2026) estimated that India had 190 nuclear warheads, including 12 assessed as deployed for the first time, and Pakistan about 170; China had more than 600.

Command, control and safety

Pakistan has built a centralised, civilian-chaired command structure and strict security for its arsenal, especially after the A.Q. Khan proliferation scandal of 2004. International concern now focuses on its missile range rather than its custody of weapons.

Official report / policy: Pakistan’s nuclear command and control rests on the National Command Authority (set up in 2000, given statutory form by the NCA Act 2010), chaired by the Prime Minister, with the Strategic Plans Division as its secretariat and each service’s strategic forces command. Pakistan has not adopted a no-first-use policy, which it sees as necessary against India’s conventional superiority.

Official report / policy: On 19 December 2024, the US government sanctioned Pakistan’s National Development Complex and three other entities over the long-range ballistic missile programme; Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer claimed Pakistan was developing missiles able to strike “well beyond South Asia, including in the United States”. Pakistan rejected the sanctions as biased.

3. The May 2025 Conflict: What Happened

The trigger

The killing of 26 tourists at Pahalgam was blamed by India on Pakistan, which denied involvement. India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, and Pakistan warned that stopping its water would be an “act of war”.

Current reference: The attack on tourists at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir (22 April 2025, 26 killed) was blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants; Pakistan denied involvement and offered a neutral inquiry. Within two weeks the two nuclear states were at war: a non-state attack had triggered a state-to-state crisis.

Operation Sindoor and Bunyan-um-Marsoos

On 7 May India struck nine sites in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, which it called terrorist infrastructure; Pakistan said civilians and mosques were hit. After Indian missiles hit several Pakistani air bases on 10 May, Pakistan launched Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos against Indian military targets, and a ceasefire was announced the same day.

Current reference: In May 2025, after Indian strikes on 7 May, Pakistan responded with Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos on 10 May, and a ceasefire was announced the same day. The civil and military leadership acted in unison, combining military response, diplomacy and an information campaign, and General Asim Munir was promoted to Field Marshal on 20 May 2025.

Map: The May 2025 conflict: main strike locations (as reported by both sides) — **Map:** The May 2025 conflict: main strike locations (as reported by both sides)

The air battle and its claims

The largest air battle of the missile age took place on 7 May, with Pakistan’s Chinese-built J-10Cs and PL-15 missiles facing India’s Rafales. Both sides made competing claims, but India’s own military leadership acknowledged losses.

Current reference: Pakistan said its air force shot down six Indian aircraft, including Rafales, on 7 May 2025. India’s Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan acknowledged losses at the Shangri-La Dialogue (31 May 2025) without giving numbers, saying what mattered was “why” they were lost; India’s air chief later claimed Pakistani aircraft were downed, which Pakistan denied. President Trump repeatedly said that “seven jets” were shot down and that the war “could have gone nuclear”.

Information and diplomacy

The conflict was also fought on screens, with fabricated Indian TV reports, while Pakistan’s civil and military leadership coordinated military, diplomatic and information responses. The United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran and others pressed both sides to stop.

Current reference: During the May 2025 conflict, major Indian TV channels broadcast fabricated stories, such as the “destruction” of Karachi port and the “fall” of Islamabad, which were later debunked even by Indian fact-checkers (Reuters Institute, Oxford, 2025). The information war ran alongside the military one.

4. Did Deterrence Hold? A Critical Examination

Deterrence failed to prevent war

Nuclear weapons did not stop India from striking Pakistan’s heartland, including Punjab’s cities and air bases near Rawalpindi. Since Kargil (1999), each crisis (2001-02, 2016, 2019 and 2025) has seen India test how far it can go below the nuclear threshold.

Syllabus book: Peter Lyon, Conflict between India and Pakistan: An Encyclopedia (2008), documents the wars and crises between the two countries, including the 1971 war in which India’s military intervention, backed by the Indo-Soviet Treaty, decided the outcome in East Pakistan.

Deterrence limited the war

Both sides struck carefully chosen targets, avoided major ground offensives and accepted a ceasefire within days. The fear of escalation to nuclear use was the main reason outside powers intervened so quickly; as President Trump later claimed, the conflict “could have gone nuclear”.

Syllabus book: P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen P. Cohen, Perception, Politics and Security in South Asia: The Compound Crisis of 1990 (2003), show how, in a nuclear South Asia, misperception between India and Pakistan can turn a local crisis into a nuclear danger that draws in outside powers.

Pakistan’s conventional credibility

Pakistan’s ability to respond conventionally, through its air force and missile forces, restored deterrence without nuclear signalling. This showed that a credible conventional response is the first layer of deterrence, with nuclear weapons the last.

The danger of the “new normal”

India now declares that any major terrorist attack will be treated as an act of war and rejects “nuclear blackmail”. Combined with the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty and India’s growing arsenal, this lowers the threshold for future conflict and leaves little time for diplomacy in the next crisis.

Current reference: In his address of 12 May 2025, PM Narendra Modi declared that India would “not tolerate any nuclear blackmail” and would treat terrorist attacks as acts of war, a “new normal” that lowers the threshold for Indian strikes and puts pressure on Pakistan’s deterrence.

5. Lessons and Pakistan’s Response

Strengthening conventional deterrence

Pakistan has reorganised its forces to make conventional retaliation faster and more credible, reducing reliance on the nuclear threat.

Current reference: On 13 August 2025, PM Shehbaz Sharif announced the Army Rocket Force Command to control conventional missiles and rockets such as the Fatah series, separate from nuclear forces, and the 27th Amendment (November 2025) created the post of Chief of Defence Forces. In May 2026 Pakistan tested the 750 km Fatah-IV cruise missile.

Diplomatic gains

The crisis raised Pakistan’s diplomatic standing: Washington offered to help resolve Kashmir, Pakistan’s ties with the US warmed, and it signed a mutual defence agreement with Saudi Arabia. These gains depend on Pakistan remaining a responsible nuclear state.

The escalation ladder in May 2025

Terror attack: Pahalgam, 22 April
Indian strikes: 7 and 10 May
Pakistani response: Bunyan-um-Marsoos, 10 May
Nuclear shadow: outside pressure leads to a ceasefire

Current reference: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement on 17 September 2025 (“any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”); on 7 August 2026, Turkey joined them in the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement.

Economic security as defence

A nuclear state with a weak economy remains vulnerable to pressure, sanctions and debt. The National Security Policy rightly puts economic security at the core of national security.

Official report / policy: Pakistan’s first National Security Policy (2022-2026), launched in January 2022, puts economic security at the core of national security and calls for a shift from geopolitics to geo-economics, using Pakistan’s location for connectivity and trade.

6. Maintaining Strategic Stability: Recommendations

Crisis communication

Revive and strengthen the DGMO hotline and create direct, reliable channels between national security advisers so that the next crisis can be managed before missiles fly.

Restore confidence-building measures

Build on existing agreements, namely prior notification of ballistic missile tests (2005), non-attack on nuclear installations (1988) and reducing the risk of nuclear accidents (2007), and add new ones on drones and cruise missiles.

A strategic restraint regime

Pakistan’s old proposal for a Strategic Restraint Regime, linking nuclear restraint, conventional balance and conflict resolution, should be revived at bilateral and international forums.

Address the triggers

Most crises begin with terrorism and Kashmir. Pakistan should act verifiably against all militant groups, while pressing for dialogue on Kashmir and the restoration of the Indus Waters Treaty.

Safety, non-proliferation and civil use

Keep strengthening nuclear security and export controls, seek mainstreaming through the NSG on a non-discriminatory basis, and expand peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which already supply a significant share of Pakistan’s electricity.

7. Conclusion

Pakistan’s nuclear programme, born of the trauma of 1971 and India’s tests, has been the ultimate guarantee of its security since 1998. The May 2025 conflict showed that deterrence is tested but not broken: nuclear weapons did not prevent a limited war, but they kept it short and brought outside powers rushing to stop it. Pakistan’s credible conventional response, coordinated diplomacy and responsible conduct strengthened its position. Yet India’s “new normal” makes the next crisis more dangerous, so lasting stability requires crisis communication, restraint and the resolution of disputes, above all Kashmir, rather than reliance on deterrence alone.

The May 2025 Conflict and Nuclear Deterrence: Likely CSS 2027 Question with Full Answer