The strategic landscape of South Asia is undergoing its most profound transformation since the overt nuclearisation of India and Pakistan in 1998. Emerging Disruptive Technologies (EDTs) – artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, hypersonics, quantum sensing, cyber offensive tools and the militarisation of space – are additive capabilities, but they are also rewriting the grammar of deterrence, crisis stability and escalation control in a region already operating at lowered thresholds of war.
Deterrence between India and Pakistan has rested on a fragile but familiar analogue-era compact: deliberate pacing of escalation, visible red lines and the assumption that rational state actors would ultimately pull back from the brink. That compact is now under visible strain.
Consider what happens when an AI-augmented border surveillance system misreads troop movements on the Line of Control and triggers automated alerts; when a cyber intrusion severs command links as a crisis unfolds; or when drone swarms equipped with quantum sensors shadow a submarine carrying sea-based nuclear forces in the northern Arabian Sea. These are no longer hypothetical scenarios; they are plausible in the near term. In each case, decision time compresses from hours to minutes. Machines begin to shape perception; perception drives pre-emption; and rationality risks being outrun by algorithms.
What makes this particularly concerning is the differential, rather than absolute, asymmetry in the adoption of these technologies. Bharat, bolstered by partnerships with both Russia and the West – through QUAD arrangements in the Indo-Pacific and proximity to AUKUS-related ecosystems – is acquiring and experimenting with advanced platforms across multiple domains. This generates an aspiration towards a doctrinal shift: from deterrence (discouraging hostile action) to compellence (shaping an adversary’s behaviour through escalation pressure).
But compellence in a nuclearised environment is far from assured. It requires coherence in command integration, doctrinal clarity, reliable intelligence and the ability to control escalation across several domains – none of which is guaranteed. The gap between India’s expanding ambitions and its uneven capabilities is itself a source of instability. When one side believes it can strike faster or operate below the threshold of attribution, deterrence becomes brittle not because of superiority, but because of misjudgement.
This drift is amplified by a risk-tolerant strategic culture in New Delhi, influenced by Hindutva-driven narratives of civilisational ascendancy and 'limited war' options. The belief that technology now permits Bharat to initiate hostilities, choreograph escalation and terminate conflict on its terms is strategically hazardous, especially in an environment where escalation ladders are multi-domain and feedback loops are compressed.
Pakistan has never been complacent. The challenge we face is not simply technological asymmetry but decision-time imbalance, a variable as consequential as numbers of missiles or warheads. Three imperatives are essential.
First, we must continue to reinforce institutional capacity to monitor, assess and counter EDTs, especially in maritime and hybrid domains where technological churn is fastest. Second, our doctrinal thinking must continue to evolve, integrating AI, cyber and space dimensions into full-spectrum deterrence. Doctrines designed for an analogue environment cannot hold in a digital battlespace. Third, we must develop credible, tailored capabilities that preserve deterrence without entering a destabilising arms race. Stability lies in maintaining balance and assured retaliatory capacity, not matching adversaries system-for-system.
None of this can be achieved in isolation. Strategic risks of this magnitude demand cooperative approaches; however, the political space may be limited. The last structured Pakistan-Bharat dialogue on nuclear confidence-building measures ended over 13 years ago – before commercial space networks proliferated, before AI began entering targeting cycles and before hypersonics complicated early-warning systems. Those CBMs would no longer map onto today’s multi-domain environment.
Pakistan should explore every viable avenue: bilateral restraint measures on EDTs, cyber and information-security dialogue within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and even a depoliticised revival of Saarc as a technical forum for transparency on dual-use technologies. These approaches do not create vulnerability; they build predictability.
At the global level, Pakistan has taken a leadership role in advocating “meaningful human control” over military AI at platforms such as the Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM) summits. We must continue shaping emerging norms rather than inheriting rules crafted by others.
The fabric of strategic stability in South Asia is being reshaped by technologies that outpace law, doctrine and diplomacy. We no longer have the luxury of time. Pakistan must invest simultaneously in foresight, capability and normative influence to ensure that the next crisis does not slide into catastrophe simply because machines moved faster than human judgment.
The choices we make today will determine whether South Asia masters these disruptive technologies or is endangered by them.
The writer is an arms control adviser at the Strategic Plans Division and a former brigadier. The views are solely his own.
