KEY POINTS
- Pakistan rebukes India’s military doctrines as destabilising to South Asian deterrence
- Counsellor Husham Ahmad says belief in controllable wars is a dangerous delusion
- Calls India’s “new normal” a utopian illusion undermining nuclear stability
- Delivered during UNGA First Committee session on disarmament and security
GENEVA: Pakistan has sharply rebuked India’s emerging military doctrines, warning that New Delhi’s pursuit of a so-called “new normal” in conflict with a nuclear-armed neighbor threatens to upend decades of strategic restraint and regional stability.
Delivering Pakistan’s right of reply during the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, Husham Ahmad, Counsellor at the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, said India’s approach represents a “utopian” belief that wars can be scripted and escalation contained.
“Wars do not follow scripts,” Ahmad said. “The belief that one can initiate hostilities, control escalation, and dictate the terms of peace is delusional.”
He mentioned that strategic stability between nuclear powers has long depended on mutual risk awareness, restraint, and crisis communication, and any attempt to dismantle that equilibrium for tactical advantage was both irresponsible and reckless.
Ahmad argued that India’s evolving doctrines — envisioning conventional strikes under a nuclear overhang — rest on the false assumption of cost-free adventures, warning that such thinking undermines deterrence and erodes confidence-building mechanisms painstakingly maintained over decades.
Pakistan cautions against doctrinal adventurism
The Pakistani envoy underscored that no nuclear-armed state can afford doctrines that blur the threshold between conventional and nuclear engagement. He said India’s posturing reflects a “dangerous utopia divorced from the logic of deterrence” and urged the international community to recognise its potential to destabilise South Asia.
Ahmad’s remarks followed India’s earlier statement at the same forum, in which its delegate repeated the decades-old baseless accusations of harbouring “epicentres of terror.” Pakistan’s rebuttal turned the focus instead to strategic doctrines, asserting that aggressive postures cannot coexist with responsible nuclear stewardship.
Implications for regional stability
Pakistan’s response forms part of its broader diplomatic engagement within the United Nations framework, where it consistently calls for restraint, dialogue, and respect for established deterrence norms. Officials in Islamabad have repeatedly cautioned that attempts to create a “new normal” through limited war concepts such as Cold Start or pre-emptive doctrines risk miscalculation in one of the world’s most volatile nuclear environments.
Analysts note that Pakistan’s emphasis on deterrence stability aligns with its long-standing position that any conventional confrontation in South Asia carries inherent risks of nuclear escalation, underscoring the need for crisis communication and mutual restraint.
