After May’s clashes with Pakistan, India must be ready to deal with its troublesome neighbor without losing focus on its wider ambitions.
The most populous country, the world’s fourth-largest economy, and the fourth-largest military has long been an enigma for external observers. India is a civilizational state, but unlike other such states—China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey—India is a status quo power, not a revisionist one. Even on the Indian subcontinent, where India perceives itself as the hegemon, it has been a benevolent one and has not tried to unilaterally alter its borders with its neighbors.
This applies even to India’s western neighbor, Pakistan, the country that was carved out of historical India. Despite intense provocation from and four days of fighting with Pakistan in May, the Indian government’s responses remained measured, and its press statements could even be described as anodyne.
Terror attacks inside India are not new, and the Pakistani deep state’s support for anti-India terror groups is equally well-documented. For decades, India chose to respond to this sponsored terrorism with strategic restraint and diplomacy. Even after the Modi government adopted a more retributive approach in 2016, the change was more symbolic than transformative. Restraint was maintained in 2016, 2019, and again in 2025, even as India ascended the escalation ladder each time.
The emotional rhetoric that accompanies any military tension between India and Pakistan can make anyone suspicious of the notion that India’s posture towards Pakistan is rooted in pragmatic realism. However, New Delhi’s historical preference for regional stability was on clear display when, after four days of fighting, it promptly agreed to a ceasefire.
Unlike revisionist powers that seek to redraw borders or undermine adversaries’ legitimacy, India has, from 1947 onward, accepted Pakistan’s existence as a sovereign nation and refrained from actions that might threaten its territorial integrity, even when such actions could have offered a tactical advantage to India. This is despite the consistent propaganda of the Pakistani state, especially its military-intelligence establishment, which claims that India seeks to undo Partition or the creation of Pakistan.
The Indian state remains ruled by the conviction that any reckless resort to irredentism or subversion would only disrupt the fragile subcontinental balance. This is regardless of the ideological affiliation of the party in power. New Delhi has also avoided taking advantage of Pakistan’s internal vulnerabilities with respect to the various ethnic and sub-nationalist insurgencies within Pakistan’s restive territories.
Even during the last war that India and Pakistan fought, the 1999 Kargil conflict, India refrained from crossing thresholds that might have led to an existential destabilization of Pakistan.
The calculus is clear: while punitive responses have occasionally been warranted, the irreversible collapse of the Pakistani state or its total descent into unmanageable chaos would present a far greater security dilemma for India than any instant gratification derived from aggressive adventurism. This strategic temperance is the recognition that the dangers of escalation, especially between two nuclear-armed neighbors, render conventional notions of victory obsolete.
Much has been written about India’s “No First Use” (NFU) doctrine. Yet, its deeper implication as a tool of grand strategy is often overlooked. India’s public espousal of NFU deserves particular mention. India has rejected the lure of nuclear weapons use or threats for any short-term political advantage. This moral posture has ensured that no Indian government has gone down the path of preemption. In addition to reassuring Pakistan and allaying China’s concerns, it has helped India earn global respect as a responsible nuclear state.
This is the reason why the United States made an exception to its policy and signed a civil nuclear deal with India in 2008. No other country has been accorded this privilege. And this maturity and predictability have made India a favored partner in the emerging security architecture of the Indo-Pacific.
India’s NFU policy is here to stay, even though some senior government leaders have threatened to review it during times of military crisis with Pakistan. It would be misleading, however, to take such threats at their face value since their purpose is to emphasize that India’s restraint is the product of its own free will.
In India’s strategic calculus, China is the principal antagonist, while Pakistan serves as a distraction, albeit a costly one in terms of bandwidth and resources. This reorientation is visible in defense procurement patterns, diplomatic bandwidth, and the shifting geography of Indian strategic partnerships.
For India’s security planners, Pakistan constitutes a secondary threat, albeit a burdensome one, while China is the most challenging and serious rival. This strategic calculus is clearly reflected in India’s approach to engaging with the world and preparing its defense.
The realignment of military, diplomatic, and economic resources towards the Indo-Pacific, the deepening of partnerships with the United States and other like-minded powers, and the pursuit of technological and naval superiority—all signal a nation seeking to transcend the limitations of subcontinental rivalry. This is evident in India’s strategic reorientation, which seeks to utilize its deepening military, technological, and economic capabilities to transition from a reactive to a proactive foreign and security policy. India’s prudent and calculated responses to Pakistan’s provocations reflect a desire to avoid being drawn into subcontinental entanglements and instead focus on the Indo-Pacific region.
While often caricatured as reactive or bellicose, Indian policy towards Pakistan is, in fact, a study in the subtle orchestration of restraint and strategic reorientation. It is a policy that seeks not the annihilation of an adversary but the quiet relegation of that adversary to the margins of history. This policy will likely prove a more enduring form of victory. By refusing to be defined by its most volatile neighbor, India is choosing to define itself on its own terms, on a broader canvas, with an eye not on the next border skirmish but on the unfolding arc of global power.
About the Authors: Aparna Pande and Vinay Kaura
Aparna Pande is the Director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute.
Vinay Kaura is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies at Sardar Patel University of Police, Security & Criminal Justice, Rajasthan, India.
Image: Amit kg / Shutterstock.com.
