The Centre for International Strategic Studies (CISS) has sounded a timely and troubling alarm: India’s much-touted ‘new normal’ is not a stabilising doctrine but a destabilising gamble in a nuclear-armed region. By attempting to normalise escalatory behaviour and justify unilateral military strikes under the rubric of counter-terrorism, New Delhi is undermining the fragile deterrence that has so far prevented South Asia from sliding into catastrophe. As CISS delegates explained during a recent dialogue with Australian scholars and officials, this narrative has been central to India’s security posture since 2019 and has been reasserted this year. The shift is unmistakable. India has been signalling an intent to employ conventional military force, exemplified by operations such as Operation Sindoor, while asserting that Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent will not constrain its options. In effect, this challenges the long-standing nuclear balance by seeking to fight ‘limited wars’ under a nuclear overhang.
The real danger here is miscalculation along with intent of course. Limited war doctrines between nuclear-armed states are inherently unstable. They rely on assumptions about thresholds, signalling and restraint that can unravel under pressure, misinformation or domestic political compulsion. Regional and security experts have repeatedly warned that it is precisely miscalculation that could trigger a rapid and uncontrollable escalation. The events of May 2025 should have served as a sobering lesson. India launched a unilateral military action after alleging Pakistani involvement in the Pahalgam attack, despite providing no credible evidence. Pakistan responded as any sovereign state would and the crisis only de-escalated after urgent US intervention produced a ceasefire. It is pretty much clear as day that had Pakistan not responded firmly, or had external mediation arrived any later, the region could have moved perilously close to a point of no return. That crisis was not an accident; it was the direct consequence of an unhinged policy that treats escalation as a tool rather than a last resort – aka Modi’s India. CISS has also questioned a key assumption underpinning Western support for India’s military modernisation: that New Delhi will serve primarily as a counterweight to China. In practice, India’s enhanced conventional and nuclear capabilities remain overwhelmingly oriented towards Pakistan. The irony is stark. The May 2025 conflict demonstrated India’s inability to achieve its objectives against Pakistan, raising serious questions about claims of strategic prowess against far more formidable powers.
Unable to impose its will militarily, India has increasingly leaned on chaos as policy, investing in proxy violence and destabilisation. This path, too, is fraught with danger. The persistent risk of another attack inside India, whether false flag or indigenous, being swiftly blamed on Pakistan remains high. The unfortunate reality we have to contend with is that each such episode creates the pretext for renewed adventurism, with all the attendant risks of escalation. And none of this is sustainable. A nuclear-armed state cannot be allowed to behave with such recklessness, eroding norms while expecting restraint from others. Pakistan has shown that it will continue to restrain India’s war-fighting doctrine, but restraint alone cannot be the region’s only safeguard. What is urgently required is sustained international pressure, particularly from Western capitals, to compel India to act like a responsible nuclear power rather than a revisionist actor testing the limits of escalation. Who can afford a ‘new normal’ built on permanent brinkmanship, strategic arrogance and the illusion that escalation can be endlessly controlled without devastating consequences.
