The 2025 military escalation between India and Pakistan once again revealed the enduring fragility of peace in South Asia. What might have served as a moment for restraint and regional crisis diplomacy instead became a showcase of doctrinal rigidity, ideological assertiveness, and strategic coercion. Far from stabilizing the region, India’s conduct during the conflict reflected a deeper structural problem: a strategic culture built not on consensus or integration, but on hegemony and dominance.

While India often promotes itself as a responsible regional power and a key player in the evolving global order, its behavior in times of crisis repeatedly undermines these claims. The post-2025 regional climate: tense, fragmented, and increasingly militarized, owes much to India’s doctrinal posture, which is rooted in ancient realist philosophy and increasingly shaped by contemporary ideological nationalism.

India’s conduct during the conflict reflected a deeper structural problem: a strategic culture built not on consensus, but on dominance.

To understand India’s strategic behavior, one must look to its civilizational conception of power and politics. Indian strategic thought has long drawn from the ideas of Kautilya (Chanakya), the ancient realist whose Arthashastra laid out a framework of perpetual preparedness for rivalry, deception, and coercion as the defining tools of statecraft. The Kautilyan worldview, which views neighbors as inherent threats and alliances as temporary conveniences, remains deeply influential in the way modern Indian policymakers approach regional security.

The 2025 India-Pakistan conflict provided further evidence of this strategic disposition. Rather than engaging through multilateral platforms or seeking de-escalation through dialogue, India responded with a posture of unilateralism and calculated aggression, reflecting a doctrinal reliance on deterrence through dominance.

This realpolitik orientation is compounded by the rise of Hindutva as the ideological engine of the Indian state. The transformation of India’s internal political landscape under the Bharatiya Janata Party has produced an increasingly exclusionary national identity, in which Hindu majoritarianism has come to define both domestic policy and foreign posture. Relations with Pakistan, a Muslim-majority state and India’s most enduring rival, have been particularly affected.

In the context of the 2025 crisis, public discourse within India, shaped by nationalist media and political messaging, framed the conflict not just as a geopolitical necessity but as a civilizational contest. Strategic decisions appeared to be driven as much by the desire to project ideological superiority as by the logic of state security. This fusion of domestic ideology and external policy has introduced a dangerous rigidity into India’s doctrine: one where restraint is equated with weakness and diplomacy with capitulation.

While India asserts itself as a regional leader and a net security provider, its repeated reluctance to invest in regional institutions betrays a different agenda. Multilateralism, when not serving its strategic interests, has often been marginalized in favor of bilateralism defined by asymmetry. India’s consistent sidelining of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, especially during periods of heightened tension with Pakistan, illustrates this preference.

The Kautilyan worldview remains deeply influential in how modern Indian policymakers approach regional security.

The 2025 episode followed a familiar pattern: no attempt was made to convene a regional forum or activate crisis management protocols involving neighboring states. Instead, India chose to act unilaterally, reinforcing perceptions of strategic impatience and hegemonic intent. This undermines trust, weakens regional institutions, and ensures that South Asia remains one of the least integrated regions in the world. With intraregional trade accounting for less than six percent of overall trade, and over half a billion people living below the poverty line, the costs of continued fragmentation are immense.

The gap between India’s projected military power and its operational effectiveness also came into sharp relief during the 2025 conflict. While India has invested heavily in military modernization by acquiring advanced platforms such as Rafale fighter jets and long-range missile systems, its ability to translate these assets into strategic outcomes remains questionable. As in the aftermath of the 2019 Balakot airstrikes, the 2025 escalation featured tactical missteps, including contested battle damage assessments, gaps in real-time intelligence, and poor escalation control.

These shortcomings point to a troubling overreliance on symbolic military actions that offer little in the way of long-term strategic gains. The emphasis on demonstrative force, often calibrated for domestic political consumption, masks deeper institutional weaknesses in command, control, and crisis preparedness. In a region where both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons, such miscalculations carry potentially catastrophic consequences.

The strategic geography of South Asia further amplifies these dangers. The Himalayas, once considered natural buffers, have become militarized frontiers of conflict, not just between India and Pakistan, but also between India and China. The trilateral dynamic among these nuclear-armed states introduces multiple escalation pathways, with the potential for overlapping crises.

India’s confrontational posture, visible not only in its Pakistan policy but also in its border standoff with China, reflects a strategic mindset increasingly drawn toward power projection rather than conflict avoidance. The 2025 crisis exposed how thin the line has become between conventional confrontation and strategic instability. Without robust crisis-management frameworks or confidence-building mechanisms, each new conflict raises the specter of uncontrollable escalation.

This fusion of domestic ideology and external policy has introduced a dangerous rigidity into India’s doctrine.

India’s growing alignment with the United States through the Indo-Pacific strategy complicates this landscape further. On the one hand, this alignment positions India as a strategic counterweight to China. On the other hand, it exacerbates regional tensions by reinforcing India’s perception of strategic encirclement, particularly in the context of China’s expanding presence in Pakistan through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Instead of responding with diplomatic engagement or economic integration, India has opted to double down on its narrative of containment, thereby reinforcing its adversarial posture toward both Islamabad and Beijing. This narrative, rooted in a sense of siege and a doctrine of strategic exclusion, limits India’s ability to act as a credible leader in its neighborhood.

The central paradox of India’s strategic ambition is thus revealed. While it seeks global recognition as a stabilizing force and democratic counterbalance to authoritarian powers, it continues to undermine the foundations of stability in its region. Leadership requires legitimacy, not just capability. And legitimacy, particularly in an area as diverse and conflict-prone as South Asia, must be built on cooperation, inclusivity, and shared progress. Yet India’s doctrine offers none of these. Instead, it reproduces mistrust, fuels arms races, and deepens fault lines, both ideological and territorial.

This doctrinal drift has not gone unnoticed. Among South Asian neighbors, there is growing wariness of India’s intentions. Rather than being a unifying force, India’s strategic approach has alienated those it claims to lead. This regional disunity not only weakens collective responses to shared challenges such as poverty, climate vulnerability, and infrastructure deficits, but it also invites greater external interference, reducing South Asia’s collective agency in the global order.

The 2025 escalation should have prompted strategic recalibration. Instead, it served as another data point in a longer trend of doctrinal intransigence. India’s belief in coercion as a primary policy tool, its ideological hardening under Hindutva, and its rejection of multilateralism all point to a security vision that is fundamentally incompatible with regional peace. If India is to realize its aspirations of global influence, it must begin by transforming its role in South Asia, from that of an insecure hegemon to a responsible stakeholder. This transformation is not merely a matter of optics or diplomacy; it necessitates a fundamental reevaluation of India’s strategic doctrine.

Security in South Asia cannot be imposed through dominance, it must be cultivated through shared trust and institutional cooperation.

Security in South Asia cannot be imposed through dominance. It must be cultivated through shared trust, institutional cooperation, and a willingness to engage even the most difficult adversaries in dialogue. India’s size and capabilities place a special responsibility on its shoulders. But responsibility, unlike power, cannot be asserted; it must be earned. As long as New Delhi’s doctrine continues to be shaped by suspicion, exclusion, and ideological assertion, it will not be the guarantor of regional peace, but its primary obstacle.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.