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Why compressed nuclear decision times should worry both India and Pakistan

Nauman Zakaria is right that stability depends on responsible statecraft. But it cannot only be demanded from the adversary and must also be demonstrated in one’s own force posture.

Lt Gen Nauman Zakaria, Commander of Pakistan Army’s I Corps, on 30 May spoke at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on the India-Pakistan strategic equation. He emphasised that nuclear reaction times between India and Pakistan have compressed from minutes to seconds, making the South Asian strategic landscape dangerously unique.

His remarks covered deterrence, crisis management, disinformation, artificial intelligence, escalation risks and the need for dialogue. He claimed that Indian sub-continent stability is being weakened by supposed Indian militarisation, adversarial rhetoric and the absence of reliable crisis-management mechanisms.

While much of the speech was more hot air than hard argument, two claims deserve attention.

First, the familiar Pakistani argument that India and Pakistan live in a uniquely compressed geography. This is often presented as a special Indian sub-continent condition; two nuclear-armed rivals sharing borders, short distances, limited warning time and intense political hostility. The implication is that escalation in the subcontinent is uniquely dangerous because missiles, aircraft and political decisions all operate under extreme time pressure.

There is some truth here. New Delhi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and major military formations are geographically close. In an India-Pakistan crisis,........

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