Winston Churchill once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” The May 2025 India-Pakistan crisis proved that even in the age of drones, precision strikes, information operations, and cyber warfare, deterrence still matters. What India projected as a bold experiment to impose a ‘new normal’ of coercive punishment against Pakistan swiftly unraveled under a calibrated and credible Pakistani response. In trying to dominate the escalation ladder, India exposed not just its military vulnerabilities but also the fundamental instability of brinkmanship between two nuclear-armed states.
The crisis onset followed the same old pattern of the last four South Asian crises: a terrorist incident occurred in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), a territory disputed between India and Pakistan since 1947, resulting in the deaths of 27 innocent tourists. India, in its adventurism, sidestepped any internal or open investigations and, without a shred of evidence, blamed Pakistan for the attack. The first FIR, filed minutes after the incident, already accused Pakistan of facilitating the terrorists. A media frenzy quickly ensued, with Indian print, electronic, and social media channels aflame with venomous calls for revenge, not against terrorists, but against Pakistan. The Indian media and the government pretended that seeking proof was unnecessary before accusing non-state actors in Pakistan, almost as if evidence was irrelevant to employing its so-called punitive measures against Pakistan. What followed was a rapid downward spiral of escalating tensions across multiple domains, with no end in sight.
Dominance in escalation is inherently unstable; it fosters dangerous arms races and raises chances of accidental escalation.
India, through its actions on the night of 7 May, tried to create a so-called ‘new normal’, which, in retrospect, failed miserably. India’s Operation Sindoor employed its prized French-origin Rafale fighter jets, equipped with beyond-visual-range (BVR) SCALP missiles and Hammer bombs, to strike 26 targets deep within Pakistan’s mainland and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, causing civilian casualties. Pakistani fighter jets had already scrambled and were strategically positioned to intercept the Indian Air Force (IAF). In the ensuing fight, Pakistan deployed C J-10C fighter jets, CM-400AKG precision strike missiles, and PL-15 beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles to down two French Rafale multirole aircraft, two Russian Su-30 MKIs, and one MiG-29. The loss of multiple aircraft by India, confirmed by the international community, led to reputational costs for India, rather than reinforcing deterrence. Later that night, India sent multiple drones inside Pakistan, in civilian, densely populated areas and military installations, which were successfully taken down.
Pakistan’s ‘One Notch-Up’ Response
Pakistan’s response during the whole crisis was measured and decisive. On May 8th, before Pakistan’s counterstrikes within India, Pakistan’s military spokesperson warned that any retaliatory action by Pakistan would be so impactful that its reverberations would be felt globally. Moreover, he categorically stated that Pakistan, “will respond at a time, place, and scale of [its] choosing and that response may be one notch up [emphasis added] from what the enemy expects.” The one-notch-up response was in line with the Quid-pro-Quo Plus (QPQ+) doctrine, as outlined by Pakistan after the Balakot Strikes in its Operation Swift Retort.
It is important to understand that India’s shock over the loss of its Rafale fighter jets played a critical role in triggering another series of airstrikes on the night of May 9, escalating the crisis further, targeting several Pakistani military bases with missiles. After the failed Balakot strikes in Pakistan in 2019, Indian PM Modi had claimed that India would have succeeded if only it had the French-built Rafale fighter jets. Hence, after losing two of its French fighter jets to Chinese-made J-10C, India launched its missile and drone strikes against multiple Pakistani military installations as revenge. Pakistan’s Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) confirmed that India fired air-to-surface missiles targeting three Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bases: Nur Khan, Murid, and Shorkot. In response, Pakistan acted decisively while simultaneously calling out India for its reckless escalation.
Pakistan’s ‘one notch up’ response demonstrated its resolve to impose disproportionate costs on Indian aggression.
On ‘First Light’, on 9th May, Pakistan struck Indian military bases as well as platforms that were used to target Pakistan in an Operation named Bunyan-um-Marsus (wall of steel). Pakistan targeted 26 military locations, using Fateh-1 and Fateh-II guided rockets alongside drone strikes and cyber operations, including airbases, ammunition depots, BrahMos depot, and S-400 batteries. India was found wanting in its response, as numerous verifiable claims from satellite pictures and imagery analysis, that came later, corroborated the downing of two Rafales and SU-30s and a S-400 battery.
This isn’t the first time India has misread the situation. In 2020, General Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, advisor to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, described India’s surprise during the 2019 Balakot episode, when Pakistan responded with Operation Swift Retort. He articulated Pakistan’s policy of Quid Pro Quo Plus (QPQ+), noting that a limited Indian attack would not go unanswered and that any misstep could quickly lead to a dangerous spiral.
“Professional Indian planners should have realized,” General Kidwai warned, “that the rush to a nuclear crisis was only a few steps away… India would be left with no option but to step back and seek face-saving through international mediation.” At the heart of this recurring dynamic, he emphasized, is the unresolved Kashmir dispute; an issue India has long sought to sideline, yet one that continues to drive volatility in South Asia.
India’s 2025 actions show it has not learned the lessons of 2019. Once again, escalation gave way to international intervention, sought hastily by India. Around 84 billion USD of losses have reportedly been incurred by India during the crisis, according to a conservative estimate. On May 10, U.S. President Donald Trump announced in a tweet that both sides had agreed to a ceasefire. Trump also claimed that the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) from both countries would meet at a neutral location, highlighting how India’s initial aggressive posturing ultimately resulted in a diplomatic setback rather than the strategic gains it claimed or sought.
Key Takeaways from Pakistan’s Response
Several important lessons emerge from this crisis. First, Pakistan demonstrated the critical importance of maintaining a credible, multi-domain deterrence posture by leveraging advanced technologies and diverse capabilities, including air, land, naval, drone, cyber, and information operations. Second, Pakistan’s integrated response blended conventional deterrence with strategic political messaging, alongside ensuring seamless coordination across all military branches to achieve supremacy across the conflict spectrum. Third, Pakistan’s measured yet decisive retaliation targeted Indian military assets, logistics, and infrastructure, clearly signaling its refusal to tolerate asymmetric escalation.
India’s adventurism in striking Pakistan’s mainland eroded established deterrence norms and invited diplomatic setbacks.
Building on its current doctrine, Pakistan can further enhance deterrence by integrating disruption-based tools, such as soft-kill systems, jamming, and cyber interference, into its broader doctrine. These capabilities operate below the kinetic and nuclear thresholds and offer a flexible response space, contributing to escalation control and greater strategic agility. Such a layered approach would complicate decision-making for India, as it introduces credible, ambiguous, and sub-conventional response options, raising the risks as well as costs of initiating limited military aggression against Pakistan.
Multi-Domain Operations and Escalation Dynamics
The May crisis was one of the clearest examples of multi-domain operations being conducted under high-stakes conditions. While both states sought to avoid full-scale war, their actions across multiple domains, including military, cyber, naval, drones, and informational aspects, demonstrated the potential for escalation. India escalated the crisis not only through missile and drone strikes on Pakistan’s military bases but also by intensifying its offensive campaign in the maritime domain. Pakistan responded to Indian military strikes with not just military but also cyber-attacks. This cross-domain escalation is a dangerous and escalatory trend, especially when coupled with technologies that feature precision, agility, lethality and remoteness.
Going forward, Pakistan’s strategic thinking must account for an adversary that behaves irrationally and is willing to risk regional stability through unwarranted adventurism and escalation. This would compel Pakistan to respond with a measured but firm approach, delivering a response at least a notch up to signal resolve and prevent further escalation.
Clearly, India has drawn some misplaced lessons from this crisis. Some analysts have wrongly inferred that in a future crisis, India would initiate strikes against Pakistan’s mainland and even its nuclear infrastructure in response to any terrorist attack on Indian soil. Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor of The Economist, was quoted in Dawn as saying, “India wants to demonstrate escalation dominance, signaling to Pakistan that it believes it can dominate and control any further rounds of escalation.” Mr. Joshi noted that India’s choice of targets revealed a clear intent to escalate. “The decision to send drones over Lahore and Karachi, and to target explicitly military sites, represents a significant step up in the Indian campaign,” he maintained. Others claim, casually that, “ If India could attack the Nur Khan air base with impunity, it could also target the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which manages Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.” The notion that an attack on SPD would incapacitate Pakistan’s nuclear assets or decision-makers is a naive suggestion, to say the least.
However, suppose Indian strategists increasingly believe that limited strikes on Pakistan’s mainland or even its nuclear-related sites can be carried out with impunity. In that case, such assumptions erode the fragile threshold of nuclear deterrence, invoking a strong response from Pakistan and injecting instability into future crises. The Indian belief in “escalation dominance” is not a strategy of control but dangerous brinkmanship. It pressures both sides to climb the escalation ladder more quickly, bypassing diplomatic off-ramps. These developments signal a disturbing shift from strategic restraint to risk-acceptant behavior, with potential consequences that would extend far beyond the subcontinent.
Where to from here?
The crisis has brought out two starkly different playbooks. The Indian playbook is extremely risk-acceptant, using coercion and brinkmanship to achieve escalation dominance. Whereas Pakistan’s playbook is measured, calibrated and based on increasing the cost of Indian aggression; as cautioned by Pakistan’s DG ISPR: “If one side [referring to India] is trying to carve out space for war, it is playing with fire,” while also clarifying that a conflict between two nuclear powers is “absurd, inconceivable, and sheer stupidity.”
Escalation dominance is not a strategy of control but dangerous brinkmanship with regional and global consequences.
Dominance in escalation is inherently unstable; it fosters dangerous arms races, increases misperceptions, and raises the chances of accidental escalation. India’s quest for escalation dominance would destabilize the South Asian region, increasing the risk of a full-scale conflict. In the May crisis, India’s effort to escalate dominance was met with Pakistan’s calibrated multi-domain response, raising the threshold for escalation further and leading it to seek an off-ramp with U.S. brokered ceasefire.
Striking deep into Pakistan’s mainland and targeting military sites beyond Kashmir marked a significant departure from past crises. By doing so, India raised the stakes, increasing the risk of miscalculation and destabilizing established deterrence norms. Pakistan’s response to India’s quest for establishing a new normal also demonstrated that escalation does not necessarily translate into strategic victory, but invites prolonged instability. As the current crisis has paused, a lesson for Pakistan’s deterrence will hinge on convincing India that any escalation, even limited, will result in disproportionate costs across all domains.
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.
