In the wake of the Pahalgam incident on 22 April that killed 26 Indian tourists, the tension between Pakistan and India intensified. On 7 May, India attacked some 6 sites of Pakistan, primarily villages in Punjab and Azad Kashmir, which reportedly killed 31 and injured more than 50 noncombatants.

It is reported by many credible national and international sources that Pakistan in retaliation shot down at least 5 Indian jets that included 3 state-of-the-art Rafale aircraft. Neither side crossed each other's airspace while attacking each other despite the border contingency.

However, India continued to hit Pakistan, sending more than 70 Israeli-made Harop drones. Pakistan claimed to have shot all of them down. The question is: why has India under the pretext of terrorism been looking for preventive strikes below the nuclear threshold and what does it mean for broader South Asian strategic stability?

Although the two South Asian nuclear rivals are not aiming for a large-scale war after going nuclear, many argue that India, which is many times stronger than Pakistan in terms of conventional force, has aggressively been looking for space to wage a limited war under the nuclear overhang.

India is undertaking a dangerous shift in the South Asian deterrence dynamics, thereby practising coercive strategy against Pakistan. Out of frustration, it has crossed such a dangerous threshold many times with expected retaliation. Primarily, there are multiple reasons:

One, India has been........

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