India's commitment trap

Following the ceasefire ending the Pakistan-India crisis of May 2025, Indian Prime Minister Modi declared a "New Normal" according to which India's "Operation Sindoor" had been "paused" and any future terrorist incident in India would immediately lead to resumption of military operations against Pakistan without any proof of Pakistan's responsibility being provided. Modi also claimed that India would not tolerate Pakistan's alleged "nuclear blackmail" nor differentiate between the sponsors and perpetrators of terrorism. This declaration has placed India in a "Commitment Trap" that would trigger an Indian military offensive against Pakistan in response to any terrorist incident in India.

However, the Modi government's response to the bomb blast in New Delhi on 10 November in which 13 people were killed has so far been muted. Despite declaring this incident as a terrorist attack and arresting 8 Kashmiris on charges of complicity, India has not accused Pakistan nor enforced its new normal. In fact, the Indian cabinet adopted an anodyne resolution on 12 November which studiously refrained from accusing Pakistan. Modi described the incident as a "conspiracy" and Home Minister Amit Shah vowed to hunt down the "culprits". Investigators said that this "terror incident" was perpetuated by "anti-national forces" involving "an inter-state and transnational terror module" and as a "white collar syndicate including radicalized professionals".

A second blast at a police station in Srinagar four days later was described as "an accidental explosion" by the police, adding that "any other speculation into the cause of this incident is unnecessary". Once again India did not accuse Pakistan.

While such unusual Indian restraint is welcome, and hopefully will continue to be exercised, it is a far cry from the threatening posture of the New Normal and the belligerent statements of Indian political and military leaders that have been made recently. Perhaps Modi and his minions realise that they have become prisoners of their own commitment trap and recognise the need to escape from it.

If this is indeed the case, then the question is, why? Indian sources have claimed that this is due to lack of evidence implicating Pakistan. But then there was no evidence against Pakistan in the Pahalgam incident that led to the May crisis. A more plausible answer is that Modi has been chastened by the negative international response to the Indian offensive in May owing to which India was virtually isolated and came under pressure to accept a ceasefire. This also incurred domestic political costs for Modi, apart from undermining relations with US President Trump.

An even more likely reason is Pakistan's robust response to Operation Sindoor that exposed the myth of Indian military prowess. At the same time, Pakistan's Full Spectrum Deterrence at operational, tactical and strategic levels prevented India from resorting to its Cold Start doctrine for limited conventional war below the nuclear threshold since the Indian army and navy were not even mobilised for action. As such, Pakistan's credible nuclear deterrence prevented India from further escalation and eventually accept a ceasefire.

Unfortunately, however, such Indian restraint could prove to be temporary since Modi's commitment trap will prevent the attainment of durable strategic stability with Pakistan. This is signified by past experience. Strategic stability that was possible based on Mutual Assured Destruction following the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 was undermined by India's Cold Start doctrine of 2004. This attempt to restore India's numerical advantage in conventional weapons which had been neutralised by Pakistan's nuclear capability was made redundant by Pakistan's Full Spectrum Deterrence. This provided yet another opportunity to restore strategic stability. However, India's strategic partnership with the US against China not only enabled its conventional and strategic weapons build-up but also encouraged Indian belligerence and recklessness, leading to limited confrontations with Pakistan in 2019 and 2025.

Under its latest doctrine of Dynamic Response, India has focused on two levels of confrontation: low level sub-conventional tactics through the use of hybrid warfare and terrorism by Afghan-based TTP and BLA terrorists; as well as limited aerial attacks by stand-off systems including aircraft, missiles and drones from within its own airspace together with cyber and space-based assets such as in May 2025. In this context it should be recalled that after the Pahalgam incident and during the May crisis there was an unprecedented spike in terrorist attacks within Pakistan. Similarly, after the latest bomb blast in New Delhi there have been terrorist attacks in South Waziristan on a Cadet College, at the Islamabad district courts and FC Headquarters in Peshawar.

The intransigence of the Afghan Taliban on the issue of Afghanistan-based terrorists is also not a coincidence but a consequence of the growing cooperation between Afghan and Indian intelligence agencies, employing long entrenched Indian assets in Afghanistan.

The challenges for Pakistan going forward require maintaining strategic stability through credible deterrence at the strategic, conventional and sub-conventional levels. In the strategic domain, Pakistan must respond to India's continuing build-up through enhancing its own second strike capability, missile coverage of all Indian territory including offshore bases, and ability to penetrate India's ballistic missiles defences. At the conventional level, the capacity to neutralise numerically larger Indian forces including stand-off weapon systems needs to be further augmented, not quantitatively but by qualitative advantages. The most pressing and crucial response, however, would have to be in the sub-conventional sphere with an effective strategy to defeat terrorism, involving not only kinetic action but also a sustained diplomatic offensive against India and Afghanistan as well as political action domestically to generate support for counter-terrorism measures.

Accordingly, India's current restraint should not be mistaken for durable strategic stability based on responsible behaviour by its leaders. Their self-created commitment trap as well as their hegemonic belligerence are ingredients for a crisis waiting to happen. It is likely to start where the last ended. Pakistan needs to be fully prepared for any future contingency.