Owing to the immense destructive power inherent to nuclear weapons, this class of weapons offers a decisive strategic edge to a state against its adversaries. In the context of the India-Pakistan dyad, this dynamic plays out in such a way that if both adversaries are nuclear-armed, nuclear deterrence comes into play, which creates a pathway—albeit dicey and risky—toward mutual restraint.
However, if one adversary is nuclear-armed, while the other is not, then the latter stands a good chance of coming at the receiving end of military aggression. This is precisely the logic that explains nuclearization of South Asia.
Pokhran-I and the Illusion of Peaceful Intentions
The first nuclear test in South Asia —Pokhran-I—was conducted by India in 1974 in the Pokhran Test Range, Rajasthan. Codenamed as the “Smiling Buddha,” New Delhi ironically termed the test as “peaceful nuclear explosion.” Furthermore, the Indian political leadership, mainly Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Defense Minister Jagjivan Ram, and External Affairs Minister Swaran Singh made claims that India’s nuclear ambitions were restricted to the peaceful applications of nuclear technology.
However, from the get-go, the Pokhran-I delineated a few realities. One, despite New Delhi’s verbosity at portraying its nuclear program as peaceful, practically New Delhi had acquired a latent nuclear capability that could be converted into a weapon at any time of its choosing and convenience. Second, the timing of the tests indicated that from the outset, New Delhi’s nuclear program was not insulated from India’s domestic political environment.
The 1970s marked a decade of crisis in India. More specifically in 1974, Indira Gandhi’s iron-fisted government was facing a popularity crisis, while the Indian society was mired in political turmoil and upheaval. Pokhran-I, therefore, was New Delhi’s desperate clutching at a straw that could reignite a sense of national prestige and pride among the people.
Strategic Repercussions for Pakistan
In the backdrop of India displaying its latent capability to go nuclear, Islamabad was prompted to actively and seriously pursue its nuclear weapons program. It is pertinent to note that Pakistan had embarked on a peaceful nuclear program during the 1950s, however, the initiative was never pursued with much seriousness.
It was not until the India-Pakistan war in 1971 and India’s nuclear test in 1974, that a coherent politico-military attention was attached to this matter. The foundations of India’s nuclear program were however laid prior to India’s creation as an independent state. Reportedly, it was Jawahar Lal Nehru who was particularly in an awe of the strategic and diplomatic prowess that nuclear weapons had brought to the United States during World War II and the Cold War period.
Military Escalation & Rise in Tensions Post-Pokhran – I
The 1980s witnessed an increase in India-Pakistan bilateral tensions resulting from a military confrontation at Siachen (1984) and Operation Brasstacks (1986-1987). In 1984, the Indian military launched Operation Meghdoot, which entailed a massive military mobilization to the Siachen Glacier. The Indian troops were airdropped to occupy key positions on the glacier with the aim of asserting strategic control over the contested high-altitude territory.
Operation Brasstacks, on the other hand, was a mammoth “war-game” as New Delhi termed it – in India’s Rajasthan state alongside the India-Pakistan border, opposite Pakistan’s Sindh province. Barely thirty miles away from Pakistani territory, Brasstacks was the largest-ever war game ever seen on the subcontinent, involving 1300 tanks, more than a thousand armored vehicles, and 400,000 troops.
Although officially termed as a military drill, the sheer scale and magnanimity of the Indian military’s mobilization indicated it to be a prelude to war. While Pakistan responded by mobilizing its own forces along the eastern front, the standoff between the two militaries continued for around three months.
The two incidents indicated India’s emboldened and growing aggressive posture vis-à-vis Pakistan, whereby New Delhi sought to project its conventional military superiority and assert its dominance in the region. These events only served to further Pakistan’s drive to develop a deterrent of its own to cap India’s hegemonic pulses.
Pokhran-II: The Unrealized Prelude to India’s Regional Hegemony and Military Bullying
The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which had long advocated for declaring India as a nuclear armed state led to India’s second nuclear tests. BJP’s foreign policy resolutions ominously orchestrated the prevalence of unprecedented external threats to India, marking the beginning of a consistent narrative that portrayed India as encircled, with its global influence declining. The overt declaration of possessing nukes was therefore cathartic.
In May 1998, under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India conducted Pokhran – II, a series of nuclear tests codenamed Operation Shakti, however this time not cloaked in the verbatim of ‘peaceful purposes.’ While China was cited as New Delhi’s allegedly principal security concern, through its hyper-nationalist claims and threats to Pakistan, it became abundantly clear that it was rather Pakistan that New Delhi was wishing to keep at the receiving end of its unbridled aggression.
The political and media discourse, with its attention focused on Pakistan, claimed that India’s nuclear capability would redraw the strategic map of South Asia. Here it may also be noted that while China had conducted its first nuclear test in 1964, New Delhi on the other hand had waited for almost a decade before carrying out its own so-to-say ‘nuclear’ test in 1974, that too without citing any immediate Chinese threat at the time.
Immediately after India’s detonations, its mainstream political leadership issued provocative statements and open threats against Pakistan. Laden with inflammatory rhetoric, the Indian leadership threatened to occupy Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). The tests therefore, were not a mere demonstration of capability, they were in fact a precursor to conventional and perhaps even nuclear blackmail.
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Furthermore, India’s domestic rhetoric clearly indicated that; one, India’s nukes were fulfilling its internal political ambitions and bolstering nationalist credentials, and two, the nukes allowed New Delhi to act as a regional hegemon. In this context, India’s declaration of being a nuclear-armed state further upped the ante, triggering alarm bells within Pakistan’s strategic circles.
Chagai-I and II: Pakistan’s Rejoinder
India’s nuclearization sent shockwaves to the balance of power in the region. As a consequence, it was on Islamabad to resolutely and decisively respond against the Indian actions to establish nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan. Hence, quite naturally, Pakistan’s nuclear response was not a function of prestige or domestic political considerations. It was rather a dire strategic necessity.
In the lieu, on May 28 and 30, Pakistan conducted its nuclear tests. Six in number, and conducted at the Chagai hills of Balochistan, the tests demonstrated not just Pakistan’s nuclear capability, but its capacity to restore strategic balance, and to put up a front against India’s bullying.
Hence, while for India, nuclearization meant asserting a global status and appeasing domestic audiences, for Pakistan, it meant a dire security imperative that ensured its survival in the face of an increasingly assertive and nuclear-armed neighbor. Pokhran-I and Pokhran-II disturbed the regional balance in India’s favor. Chagai-I and II, on the other hand, recalibrated that balance and ushered in a new phase of strategic deterrence in South Asia.
Since then, while nuclear deterrence in South Asia has indeed walked a tightrope, it has nevertheless delivered by ruling out an all-out military confrontation. Although the eruption of localized or limited crises has been somewhat commonplace such as the limited Kargil conflict in 1999, the Uri-Balakot incident in 2016, and the Pulwama-Balakot crisis in 2019— however, restraint has largely prevailed.
The recent military conflict once again highlighted that flirting with the nuclear overhang by aiming at launching limited conventional attacks continues to be a risky gamble. A robust nuclear deterrence and strategic stability in South Asia hinges on both countries acting as mature nuclear powers—rejecting brinkmanship in favor of dialogue, transparency, and a commitment to deterrence stability.
Maryam Raashed
Maryam Raashed is a Research Associate at the Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan.
