MUZAFFARABAD: Leading strategists and academics on Monday cautioned that regional stability in South Asia remained fragile amid technological shifts, narrative manipulation and India’s attempts to normalise limited warfare.
The event, moderated by research officer Tayyaba Khurshid, was attended by academics, analyst,s and members of the strategic community.
In her opening remarks, CISS AJK Executive Director Dr Asma Khawaja described South Asia’s security environment as one of “tri-compression”—of space, time and domains—where electronic warfare and cyber operations had reshaped the strategic calculus. Stability between India and Pakistan, she said, “remains fragile” amid the growing centrality of emerging technologies.
Arms Control Adviser at the Strategic Plans Division retired Brig Zahir Haider Kazmi termed the book “a befitting rebuttal to Indian assertions”.
He argued that while nuclear deterrence continued to underpin strategic stability, India’s compellence strategies had magnified escalation risks. He stressed the need to integrate cyber-warfare considerations into defence planning and to dismantle “constructed narratives” that distorted regional realities.
Dean of Social Sciences at Quaid-i-Azam University Prof Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal spoke of warfare’s “tangible and intangible” dimensions and criticised Pakistan’s limited influence in shaping academic discourse.
“We remain under a form of literary colonisation,” he said, pointing to biases in international publications, including a recentForeign Policyarticle that, he argued, downplayed India’s Agni-V while portraying Pakistan’s ICBM programme as a threat to the United States.
Another contributor, Dr Atia Ali Kazmi, President of the Global Peace Strategy Forum, outlined Pakistan’s shift toward an indigenous deterrence model integrating nuclear, conventional and grey-zone capabilities. Citing Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsous, she said Pakistan had demonstrated calibrated cross-domain deterrence grounded in precision, restraint and credible response.
Editor of the volume, Dr Rabia Akhter, Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Lahore, said India’s strategy in occupied Jammu and Kashmir amounted not only to military domination but “ideological occupation.” She warned that New Delhi sought to normalise limited war under the nuclear umbrella and reiterated that Kashmir remained the key flashpoint. “India initiated the crisis, while Pakistan prevented escalation by responding with maturity and restraint,” she maintained, adding that India was constructing a “permanent crisis machine — with Kashmir as its headquarters.”
Describing the book as a timely contribution amid the region’s rapidly evolving deterrence landscape, speakers and participants called for deeper academic engagement to counter biased global narratives and strengthen Pakistan’s strategic scholarship.
At the end of the event, the CISS Executive Director presented souvenirs to the speakers.
