The China-Pakistan Nexus and the Future of Indian Deterrence

A month on from the 86-hour conflict following Operation Sindoor, the need for India to recalibrate its military doctrine and deterrent strategy has not been greater since the 1962 Indo-China War. Conventional wisdom would explain that India’s numerical military superiority over Pakistan would be decisive, but that perception crumbles under the realities of modern conflict. This essay examines the limits of India’s conventional advantage, the evolving nature of warfare along the Line of Control, and the strengthening China-Pakistan nexus. The argument concludes with a call to bolster the already-promising modernization and indigenization efforts undertaken by the Indian government to put in place a stronger deterrent to meet future threats – both direct and proxy – before they escalate.

Ever since the Uri and Balakot Air Strikes and the following confrontation in 2019, both India and Pakistan have significantly increased their military footprints. From the fiscal year 2018-19 to 2025-26, India’s defense budget has increased from $43.2 billion to approximately $78.7 billion, reflecting a 9% increase annually. Still, India intends to increase this fiscal year’s planned expenditure, following the recent conflict. Pakistan’s defense budget has continued to consume a larger share of the GDP annually. And, following Operation Sindoor, analysts suggest there may be a 20% hike in the defense budget, possibly by offsetting cuts in development spending – in an already struggling economy. India’s defense budget is more than 10 times greater than Pakistan’s (approximately $7.6 billion), and this disparity is reflected in the numerical advantages India possesses in conventional arms and personnel.

Figures from Times of India

However, these comparative advantages are deceptive in practice. While India maintains a significant edge on paper, both sides are heavily entrenched along the Line of Control, rendering the possibility of any military breakthrough minimal. Professor Christine Fair, a noted expert on security issues in the subcontinent at Georgetown University, explains that the Pakistan Army thinks and acts less like a conventional force and more like an insurgent organization; it does not think of victory in traditional terms, but on episodically demonstrating that it cannot be defeated. In such a situation, neither side can achieve a decisive outcome through kinetic military action, such as India reclaiming all of Kashmir. Even marginal territorial gain would come at great cost, and any limited conflict would likely end in a return to the status quo ante bellum.

Fair emphasizes that India lacks the escalation dominance necessary to force Pakistan into strategic concessions. Anyway, conventional mobile warfare is an anachronism in an era wherein warfare is defined by drones, cyber-attacks, and cross-border missile attacks. So, India’s military superiority does not translate into credible coercive power in a limited conflict scenario.

Secondly, there is the China factor. India ought to continue increasing its defense expenditure, both in terms of international procurements and indigenous military capacity, to retain strategic deterrence – not against Pakistan but a much more formidable China. Over the past decades, India has de-hyphenated from Pakistan, while the latter and its de facto leaders, the military and the ISI, continue to obsess over India for their own domestic legitimacy. Our geopolitical benchmark is no longer – and should never be – a chronically debt-ridden, failing ‘Republic’.

Rather, it is Beijing, which cannot afford a stable India capitalizing on its manufacturing sector as the largest consuming economy, the United States, pivots away in search of safer, cheaper, and more reliable suppliers. Hence, China’s involvement, through numerical and logistical support for Pakistan, is perfectly clear and undeniable. China has effectively blurred the lines between a bilateral skirmish and a proxy-supported engagement. According to India's Centre for Joint Warfare Studies, Beijing helped reorganize Pakistan’s air defense and satellite systems to monitor Indian troop movements more effectively. Satellite support and radar redeployments were reportedly coordinated during the critical window after the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. Anticipating the Indian response, China helped strengthen its proxy’s logistical capabilities. This intelligence support reveals the extent of China’s entanglement in the conflict – well beyond weapons transfers. Furthermore, China’s willingness and efficiency is unparalleled in the timely delivery and operational integration of conventional arms bound for Pakistan, its largest arms customer, accounting for 63% of Chinese weapons exports.

Pakistan’s dependency on China translates into more than supply; it fosters strategic alignment. As a result, India’s persisting fear of a two-front war has evolved from the hypothetical scenario involving a weak-Pakistan and strong-China, to one in which China operates alongside an increasingly capable and compliant proxy. Pakistan’s military capacity may be marginally inferior now, but it is being rapidly levelled, if not enhanced, by Chinese technology and doctrine and its own industrial military complex. Thus, to prepare for future contingencies, India must orient its defense planning not around episodic clashes with Pakistan, but around sustained competition with a China-Pakistan axis that presents a far more complex and durable threat. Thus, military capability is nearly at parity, and the strategic deterrent necessitated is much larger still.

However, there is a solid foundation to build upon. During the conflict, the seamless integration of internationally procured and indigenous defense equipment was on full display, both performing admirably in defensive and offensive roles. The boons of India’s defense partnership with Russia especially came to the fore. The S-400 system, coupled with the Indian Aakash air defense system, successively neutralized every Pakistani drone swarm and – the rather impotent – Fatah-1 and Fatah-2 missile salvos. Concerning offense, the BrahMos missile was used to strike Pakistani military bases during the hostilities, and the Chinese-origin Pakistani radar systems offered no response to the supersonic, ramjet-powered rockets. The BrahMos missile (based on the Russian P-800 Oniks) is the paragon of the synergy between foreign and domestic defense collaboration. Manufactured in India by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India's DRDO and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyenia, it is underpinned by critical Russian technology. Thus, given that 2 S-400s are yet to be delivered due to the war in Ukraine and that India looks to step up its naval footprint in the Indo-pacific, wherein it seeks to integrate S-400 systems also, it has an unrealized stake in ending the war. India would benefit from more Russian and, critically, American goodwill and advanced military equipment.

However, there is a caveat. India does not have equivalence in air-to-air combat. Indian Chief of Defence Staff, Anil Chauhan, admitted at the Shangri-la Dialogue this year that at least one Rafale was brought down in conflict. Reuters reports that it was Chinese 4.5^th Generation equivalent of the Rafale, the J-10 C, armed with the (Chinese-origin) P-15 air-to-air missiles that the PAF used to bring down its counterpart. China also possesses 5^th Generation J-20A Mighty Dragons, deployed along the Line of Actual Control on the Indo-China border; Pakistan possessing these aircrafts soon is not a question of whether or when. India must put its foot on the pedal for the 5^th Generation AMCA jet that it plans to introduce a squadron of by 2035 – the Indian military rarely meets its planned dates for the introduction of military vehicles. India hastily needs a strategic deterrent for potential air-to-air combat.

In sum, although India’s military superiority appears unassailable on paper, there are evolving threats from a strengthening China-Pakistan nexus. These threats demand that the Indian government bolster domestic defense capacity and international weapons procurement – something it has proven its success at already. The recent conflict exposed both the strengths and the gaps in India’s defense preparedness, from successful use of integrated air defense systems and the BrahMos missile to vulnerabilities in air-to-air combat. The popularity of the Pakistani military will fall in due time, prompting its army to send irregulars again into Kashmir – or even deeper into India – for the next terror attack. The strongest possible deterrent is therefore essential to affirm to Field Marshal Asim Munir that, in the aftermath of such an event, India possesses the capability to inflict punitive and debilitating costs.