- Interesting video so far. I wonder if our military establishment is planning for this scenario which is (1) This time losses will be higher on Pakistani side as well and possibly no clear winner and (2) What can be done to thwart a significant, below nuclear threshold conventional attack by India which will include missiles, drones all over Pakistan and (3) India possibly doing a conventional attack without any false flag. Keep in mind that element of surprise clearly favors India
Pakistan has a clear military doctrine that defines the escalation of a conventional war to a nuclear zero-sum game war.
As of now India's conventional superiority in a protracted war remains and thus by implication a protracted war with Pakistan ( anything over ten days) will inevitably escalate into a nuclear war with Pakistan initiating the first nuclear strikes.
The only unknown factor is how much damage India can sustain before it chooses to call for a ceasefire
then fight a "You Tube, Social media war" of narratives.
This is exactly what happened in May 2025.
Any other nation with a 7:1 conventional military superiority would have shrugged off tactical losses and continued fighting, inflicting heavy losses on a weaker adversary, and seizing huge chunks of territory, just like Russia did to Ukraine or Azarbaijan did to Armenia. Russia has lost an estimated 1 million dead and lost thousands of tanks, guns, and hundreds of aircraft, but it has made the Sea of Azov into a Russian lake and held the crucial Crimean peninsula for eternity. Like wise the two wars between Azerbaijan and Armenia resulted in the deaths of 20,000 people and one million displaced. Ultimately a militarily superior Azerbaijan despite losses, seized the territory of Ngorno-Karabakh inflicting a humiliating defeat on Armenia.
For some unknown reason India does not want to sustain heavy losses in multiple tactical battles in a protracted war, even if it means loss of territory, and/or the survival of the adversary allowing it to recover, re-arm and pose an even greater threat. A strategic war is not in India's playbook as of now.
On two occasions India has done just that.
- In 1962 India preferred to lose 38,000 sq.km of territory to China when China was a famine stricken isolated nation with huge internal conflicts and wasn't even a member of the UN.
- A sustained campaign by India when it had support from both the Soviet Union and USA ( and had air superiority) would have ultimately defeated China and toppled the Mao regime fighting an internal revolt by Lin Piao
- Instead China survived to consolidate, and become and nuclear power directly threatening India,
- After the next war with Pakistan in 1971 China joined the United Nations Security Council as a permanent member.
- India did exactly the same thing with Pakistan in 1971 after December 16th 1971, when instead of continuing the war on the front with West Pakistan it chose not only to agree to a ceasefire but seven.months later held a peace conference at Simla and signed off on the Line of Control in Kashmir effectively ceding the territory of "Pakistan Occupied Kashmir " to Pakistan There is a vague mention in the Simla Agreement that the disputed territory of Kashmir would be solved peacefully and through "bilateral talks ".
- After 1971 Pakistan emerged from the loss of its eastern wing to become a nuclear weapons state in addition to hugely enhanced conventional weapons capability demonstrated in the skirmishs in February 2019 and May 2025. Above all Pakistan's territorial integrity is now far easier to defend since it is a contiguous integrated geographically defined nation.
- What happens in the next war will be determined by India's choice of action. A protracted war and nuclear escalation or yet again a brief skirmish and a war of narratives.
- India IS trying to involve Pakistan in a two front war once again, exactly the way it was in East Pakistan in 1971, using Afghanistan and ethnic nationalism of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. But the scenario is completely different, politically, logistically and above all strategically.
