Analysis: Reimagining deterrence, 28 years after Chagai

TWENTY-eight years after the nuclear tests at Chagai, the strategic environment in South Asia has shifted dramatically. The assumptions that shaped Pakistan’s deterrence posture in 1998, and the paradigm shift from ‘Credible Minimum Deterrence’ to ‘Full-Spectrum Deterrence’, were rooted in visions of a conventional invasion, mass mobilisation and large-scale armoured thrusts across the border. In contrast, the modern battlefield looks very different today. The war in Ukraine, the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, the Iran-US/Israel war and — most importantly for Pakistan — the May 2025 India-Pakistan conflict, have demonstrated how precision missiles, armed drones, electronic warfare, satellite enabled surveillance and integrated air defence systems are reshaping escalation dynamics. Speaking over the weekend at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Lt Gen Nauman Zakaria — commander of the 1 Corps who was introduced at the conference as the commander of the newly-raised Army Rocket Force Command — warned that emerging technologies were creating “new vulnerabilities… risk of miscalculation… [and a] compression of decision making timelines” that have altered “the nature of interstate conflict and strategic deterrence”. Raising of new rocket force signals a significant strategic shift, as precision weapons compress decision timelines and blur the line between conventional and nuclear signalling in South Asia This echoes what many view as the most important lesson from the May 2025 conflict: it was not that nuclear weapons failed; rather that they worked, but only in a limited sense. They prevented full-scale war, but did not stop sustained military confrontation involving missiles, drones, air operations, electronic disruption and naval signalling under the nuclear shadow. Reflecting on the May 2025 conflict, Lt Gen Zakaria said Pakistan’s response had “effectively debunked the notion of space for war in South Asia”. Historically, Pakistan’s deterrence posture has adapted t