On 22 April 2025, a group of unknown shooters opened fire on tourists in Pahalgam valley of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), killing 26 people. Within hours of the incident, India started pointing fingers towards Pakistan without any evidence. Almost, a week has passed, and India is yet to share a single proof of evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the incident. India is yet to find any single person involved in the attack. Instead of owning its failure in securing the safety of the persons killed, Indian government started issuing threats to Pakistan and even took the extreme step of unilateral suspension of Indus Water Treaty (IWT) – an agreement which survived even during wars and cannot legally be suspended by one party alone. Indian threats of an attack on Pakistan and Modi’s brinkmanship during crisis raises the dangers of miscalculation which in a nuclear environment can have very negative consequences for the region.
Both India and Pakistan are nuclear weapon states and any crisis between the two after the overt nuclearization of the region in 1998, is described as a nuclear crisis. Following the last two crises between India and Pakistan, one in 2016 Uri crisis and the other in 2019 Pulwama-Balakot crisis, India has become more risk-seeking with time. During the 2019 crisis, India conducted the ‘so-called surgical strikes’ by crossing the international border and dropping payload inside the territory of Pakistan. The attack, although it failed to cause any damage, led to subsequent aerial dogfight and capturing of one Indian pilot by Pakistan and destroying an Indian fighter jet. At this juncture, because of the war hysteria and jingoism by Indian Prime Minister Modi and its Government, scholars believe that if India intends to attack Pakistan it has to be ‘something spectacular’ and beyond what it did in 2019. However, as Pakistan has already outlined time and again in its conventional ‘quid-pro-quo plus strategy’ any strike by India would be retaliated, and even exceeded in impact.
Modi’s statement and the response of Indian government points towards a strategy of Brinkmanship, one which increases the risks of miscalculation and can lead to strategic dissonance and broader instability in the region. Thomas Schelling has described the notion of Nuclear Brinkmanship as threats exercised by states in crises to exert coercive pressure on each other by making what he called, “threats that leave something to chance” that is, taking steps that raise the risks of escalation to all-out nuclear war. This is a dangerous strategy as opposed to rational-choice theory of deterrence where states recognizing the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) are risk-aversive and take steps to de-escalate during a crisis. Under the strategy of brinkmanship, in which states manipulate risks to achieve advantage in crises situation which can lead to miscalculation and lead states into an inadvertent war. In a nuclear situation, this is a risky strategy that can have very adverse effects for both countries as well as regional peace and stability.
Despite its negatives, Indian Prime Minister Modi, has a history of pursuing Brinkmanship strategy during crises situation to manipulate risks. During the Pulwama-Balakot crisis, India took certain steps that could have led to miscalculation and escalation between Pakistan and India. These steps included the sending of INS Arihant – a nuclear submarine – to deterrence patrol mission in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), planning to attack various targets in Pakistan through BrahMos cruise missiles, and nuclear jingoism in public speeches. These steps of India had put the two countries on the brink of a nuclear war, before, and it was only the responsible behavior of Pakistan and the decision of the government to release the Indian pilot as a prisoner of war that led to de-escalation.
In the aftermath of Pahalgam attack, India took serious escalatory decisions that can lead to retaliatory measures and miscalculation. These include the decision to unilaterally suspend IWT, the decision to revoke visa of all Pakistani’s, to conduct live military exercises, unprovoked small arms firing across various sectors of Line of Control (LoC) and sending of aircraft carrier INS Vikrant to the Arabian Sea. Moreover, India has through various diplomatic means and public speeches given threats of attacking Pakistan. According to the New York Times, India is building a case for military action against Pakistan, instead of looking for options of finding solutions. However, India should understand that any kind of risk manipulation to coerce Pakistan has the danger of miscalculation and inadvertent escalation. Pakistan has clearly reiterated its conventional strategy of ‘Quid-Pro-Quo Plus’ in the wake of any strike in any form. India is becoming quicker to flex its muscles and is unrestrained by any global pressure to limit its response. However, nuclear crises are too serious a business to keep something to chance and any mistake by India can plunge the region into a dangerous situation.
Mr Abdul Moiz Khan is Research Officer at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
