By Collins Chong Yew Keat

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: The India-Pakistan conflict almost caused the brink of nuclear brinkmanship, until President Trump again used his peace-loving agenda and his dovish art of the deal strategic mantra in getting both Delhi and Islamabad to agree to a ceasefire, and in avoiding the horror of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

Operation Sindoor of India has seen a first of many, where Prime Minister Modi’s new bold approach in responding to the conflict and in dealing with Pakistan has revised the age old doctrine of deterrence, specifically nuclear deterrence.

The attacks on Pakistan’s military installations made India the first country to attack the military sites of another nuclear-armed country, thus making the age-old nuclear deterrence doctrine obsolete.

This muscular approach directly challenges Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence doctrine. For decades, Islamabad has relied on the threat of nuclear escalation to deter India from retaliating against cross-border terrorism.

In came Modi and this dual platform is now torn to shreds, and Islamabad now finds itself in unchartered territory.

By eroding the perceived protection of nuclear deterrence, India’s new stance further tightened the margin for error in the security dimension of South Asia. Any future militant attack could now set off a chain of strikes and counter-strikes between two nuclear-armed powers.

Modi has upended the old playbook and India and Pakistan are entering dangerous new territory where nuclear deterrence is no longer a guarantee against conventional conflict. Nuclear stability, once maintained by mutual fear of major war, is now being tested by this brash policy of retaliation.

Despite this, Modi has made it clear that India’s new bold policy of treating any future attacks on Indian territories, regardless of affiliations and groups, as an attack by Pakistan, and the responses will be similar.

Modi’s Reset of India’s Power Deterrence

India’s hardened response in 2025 also underlines the stark contrast between Modi’s security posture and that of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.  Singh in 2008 faced this “strike or not” dilemma and chose to exercise restraint rather than strike back.

Modi has broken from that mold. Since taking office in 2014, he has cultivated an image as India’s “chowkidar” (watchman) – a leader who hits back.

The contrast also reflects how India’s geopolitical calculus has shifted. In 2008, India was prioritising economic growth and international legitimacy, and thus wary of rocking the boat.

By 2025, India under Modi portrays confidence on the world stage, arguing that a “muscular foreign policy” is necessary to deter future attacks.

During the week-old tit for tat conflicts, disinformation, misinformation and the info and propaganda war became prevalent, as both sides tried to project one’s own superiority.

Some have elevated the efficacy of the Chinese jets in the aerial dogfight that lasted among the longest in modern warfare, while some have pointed out the superior air defence system of India, mainly the Russian made S-400 anti missile system that has thwarted Pakistan’s missile attacks.

Both the Indian and Pakistani Air Forces have received their own praises and accusations of inferiority, and this conflict became the ground for Beijing, Moscow, and the West in seeing how their assets fare.

Washington remains the only power that has both the raw power and the trust in serving as the ultimate pressure for both sides to exercise restraint. China does not have the neutral ground nor the military muscle needed, as Pakistan remains its ally and partner and India is the decades old fierce rival.

Only the US is seen to be the only power that has both the deterrent and enforcing power, and also deep ties with both India and Pakistan to both offer a strict stick approach and the carrot incentivising method to prevent a deeper spiral of the conflict.

Russia, while aligned with India, still lacks the capacity to play a bigger role due to its current conflict with Ukraine and also partly the fear of upsetting Beijing.

ASEAN and other blocs of power lack both the power and the economic trade and dependence by India to offer any real credible capacity in supporting the mediation and restraining efforts.

When Washington thinks that being close with Pakistan can reduce Chinese influence and presence and can pressure the country to align more with America’s larger goals of securing South Asia and denying Beijing space and to build a new détente with Delhi, all these have not yielded the intended result intended.

Modi’s assertiveness has broad appeal within India's domestic politics, and he needs to maintain that. Modi’s India has made it clear that major terrorist attacks will no longer be met with patience. The era of diplomatic dossiers is over; and the era of bold retaliation is here. Where Manmohan Singh urged calm, Modi projects resolve.

For Pakistan, its military is already facing intense public pressure amid a flagging economy and political turmoil at home, and is now compelled to answer India’s attacks with more force.

For India, treating major terror incidents as direct aggression, the threshold for military confrontation is dramatically lower.
Both have now entered an era where a single attack by a militant squad can potentially ignite a chain reaction that can escalate quickly in a downward spiral.

China’s Forced Recalibration

For China, Pakistan has always been hoped to serve as both a buffer from India and a useful geopolitical partner in its quest to secure its trade and energy routes.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship Belt and Road project running through Pakistani-administered Kashmir, and the Gwaddar port remain a case in point.

Beijing has long provided Islamabad diplomatic cover and military hardware  to counter Indian influence. However, India’s new willingness to risk confrontation forces China into a more careful reconsideration, well aware that Modi’s version of India is not the same as the decades before.

Under Modi, India has grown not only militarily and economically stronger, it has also taken a direct stance in going up and breaking China’s chokehold through its Necklace of Diamonds and Act East strategies, and the open displays of affiliating with Quad and increasing presence in traditional Chinese satellite states.

In the India-Pakistan conflict, Beijing is also increasingly caught in a dilemma: Too little support might see Pakistan crumble or for it to turn into proxies which will escalate instabilities in its critical partner and create new danger in its southwestern flank, while too much support and India’s ire could complicate China’s own security calculations.

Modi’s new stance may provide China the pretext to double down on strengthening Pakistan as a counterweight, including possibly expanding Pakistan’s missile defenses or in bolstering its nuclear capacity to restore some balance vis-à-vis India.

In essence, Pakistan’s strategic toolkit is shrinking. Modi’s policy of retaliation has raised the stakes so high that the old playbook is obsolete.
Washington has always viewed New Delhi as a linchpin of its Indo-Pacific strategy to balance China, and with the next four years under Trump, this will intensify.

By retaliating militarily despite nuclear shadows, India is effectively saying instability will be met with instability, cracking the shield of nuclear weapons as cover for proxy war.

The core goal of Modi’s strategy is to deter terrorism through conventional punishment, hoping that Pakistan will get the message of this new approach and no longer be reliant on the past reliable model.

Modi’s India is creating a new bold principle with the notion that nuclear weapons will not be allowed to shield terrorism, and it remains  a high-risk, high-reward gambit. If this works, South Asia might be free from the cycle of proxy-provocation and retaliation that this region is known for.

If it fails or misfires, the consequences could be  more dire.

*Collins Chong Yew Keat is a foreign affairs and strategy analyst and author in University of Malaya.*