Narrowly Dodged Crisis: India-Pakistan Ceasefire and the Stability-Instability Paradox
Indian-Pakistani Armed Conflicts: An Examination of the Military Clashes Between India and Pakistan, Without Nuclear Weapons Involvement
A potentially disastrous showdown between India and Pakistan appears to have been avoided this past weekend, as the two nations agreed on a ceasefire following a tense military standoff - the most significant confrontation between the two countries in recent history. While ceasefires are always iffy and susceptible to violation accusations, both sides have de-escalated and seem sincere in their intentions to defuse tensions. It's essential to keep a watchful eye on this unstable region, where any conflict between nuclear-armed adversaries carries grave consequences. Fortuitously, history has yet to show an instance of such an encounter resulting in full-blown nuclear war, thanks to a mysterious phenomenon called the stability-instability paradox.
This paradox, deeply studied by international relations scholars and security experts, sheds light on the delicate balance between deterrence and destabilization in the context of nuclear weapons. The presence of nuclear arms significantly shifts the strategic reasoning of war, making large-scale direct conflicts between nuclear powers less likely. Simultaneously, it increases the probability of smaller, limited, or low-level conflicts happening.
For instance, ever since Pakistan demonstrated its nuclear capability in 1998, India and Pakistan have found themselves at odds on numerous occasions. Less than a year after Pakistan's first nuclear test, India and Pakistan clashed in the brief Kargil War over disputed territories, particularly Kashmir. Flares of tension have continued since, with the most recent instance occurring in 2019. This phenomenon is also evident in other nuclear-armed nations, as displayed by the Soviet Union and China, who fought a brief but bloody border war in 1969, and more recently, India and China skirmishing over their Kashmir border in 2020 and 2021.
Though crises between nuclear states don't always result in peaceful resolutions, delicate negotiations are necessary to deescalate tensions. However, an understanding of the strategic logic behind nuclear and conventional conflicts allows us to breathe a momentary sigh of relief following this latest display of the stability-instability paradox in action.
Logic of Military Force
It's commonly thought that the risk of nuclear war would deter two nuclear powers from engaging directly due to the logic of mutually assured destruction, often cited by scholars as a major cause of the lack of extensive direct conflicts between Soviet and American forces during the Cold War. The assumption is that nuclear powers have a diverse range of nuclear weapon delivery systems for their arsenals to survive and counter-strike if hit first. Moreover, a single nuclear weapon possesses catastrophic destructive capabilities, making nuclear wars practically impossible to defend against and near impossible to win. Therefore, the strategic logic of nuclear weapons primarily seeks to deter threats against vital interests or state survival.
However, since neither side in a conflict wants to use nuclear weapons, they will only do so in extreme circumstances to safeguard their most essential interests. This means that states can use conventional warfare to achieve less significant goals, as the strategic logic of nuclear weapons breaks down in such situations. Conventional warfare involves a conscious decision to display that the conflict's stakes do not reach the existential threshold or vital interest level. As a result, states can deter another state from threatening their vital interests while simultaneously engaging in conventional combat over less significant issues.
Residual Risks
Although the risk of escalation is minimal, it is essential to recognize the potential dangers. For instance, the relatively scant empirical support for the strategic logic of nuclear weapons raises concerns that the nuclear peace currently observed may be due to the small number of nuclear states. Moreover, when historical nuclear states have been attacked by non-nuclear adversaries, they have generally refrained from deploying their full might.
Managing this risk requires not only a shared interest in avoiding nuclear war but also a shared understanding of how to signal red lines and resolve disputes. This understanding may be absent in some new and aspiring nuclear-armed states, amplifying concerns about the possibility of a nuclear war.
Unveiling the Stability-Instability Paradox
States have always used various means to subtly communicate their intentions and capabilities. In cases of conflict, decisions on when, where, and how military force is used (or not used) are often intended to signal the next step if the situation doesn't change.
Nuclear crises are no exception. Russian President Vladimir Putin's language regarding nuclear weapons and his actions in mobilizing nuclear forces have served as signals of his involvement in a conflict to other actors, particularly the United States, with the purpose of deterring deeper involvement. Similarly, India's mobilization of its Territorial Army, despite appearing escalatory, may concurrently have sent strong signals of resolve that contributed to resolving the conflict.
Fortunately, neither India nor Pakistan chose to signal their willingness to use nuclear weapons during this most recent crisis, although there were numerous opportunities to do so if circumstances had spiraled out of control.
A New Strategic Nuclear Logic?
The current international order is experiencing a period of transformation due to challenges from other major powers. Historically, changes in the international order have been violent, and only since World War II have they included the possibility of multiple strategic logics available to nuclear-armed states. If the international order serves to shape strategic logic, then a new strategic nuclear logic, which disrupts the stability-instability paradox, might arise at some point, making nuclear wars possible. It remains to be seen how India and Pakistan will behave in future crises and whether this new strategic nuclear logic will take shape.
Dr. Max Margulies is the chief research officer of our website at West Point.
Colonel Patrick Sullivan, PhD, is the director of our website at West Point.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Information Sources:
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- [4] Sagan, Scott D. The Limits of Strategic Intelligence. Princeton University Press, 1993.*
- [5] Schlosser, Eric. Command and Control. Penguin Press, 2013.*
- The stability-instability paradox, a concept deeply studied by defense and security experts, underlines the delicate balance between deterrence and destabilization in military politics, especially regarding nuclear weapons.
- In the context of general-news, the latest India-Pakistan ceasefire offers an instance of the effectiveness of political negotiations in deescalating tensions, despite the residual risks associated with the stability-instability paradox in nuclear powers.
