The unsettled Kashmir dispute and conflicting geopolitical intentions have exacerbated the India Pakistan rivalry, and precipitated it to dangerous heights following the April 2025 Pahalgam attack. Recent developments seem to indicate that Pakistan is also emerging as strategically more superior of the two. Pakistan’s strategy is multifaceted in that it has exposed India’s vulnerabilities, compelling South Asia’s power dynamics to be redrawn. 

Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is its ultimate safety in the event India presses its failure of conventional superiority. Pakistani strategy is different from India’s declared No First Use doctrine. Islamabad deliberately retains a strategic ambiguity on the use of nuclear weapons, reserving the right to do so if Pakistan’s sovereignty or its very survival is threatened. After the Pahalgam attack, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s stance once again forces an existential calculus upon New Delhi. India’s conventional advantages are mooted because of the catastrophic risks accompanying escalation, neutralizing India’s ability to pursue large scale military objectives. The recent flare up of violence along the Line of Control (LoC) is an example of this trend. A day after Pakistan crushed........

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