Khan, Zulfqar

Abstract
The paper analyzes India–Pakistan’s lopsided nuclear deterrence and military strategies. India plans to deliberately escalate a limited war against Pakistan. Pakistan is determined to neutralize India’s schema on different planes, a limited conventional, limited nuclear to strategic nuclear wars. It is destabilizing and complicating South Asia’s nuclear deterrence matrix. Pakistan’s threshold has depleted due to its “two-frontal” security dilemma. It has considerably increased Pakistan’s reliance on nuclear weapons. It is deduced that, India–Pakistan’s inflexible and egocentric cultural mooring is inhibiting them from stepping back from perilous military strategies, which can trigger miscalculations, enhance misperceptions, or may lead to the outbreak of accidental/inadvertent limited conventional or nuclear war. Both countries need to recognize the imperative of a stable nuclear deterrence and peaceful coexistence instead of crafting unpredictable and dangerous strategies. The shared risks of nuclear catastrophe should motivate them to pursue rational and realistic policies.