Operation Sindoor has exposed a fundamental flaw in Pakistan’s nuclear thinking: the belief that nuclear weapons can shield it from India’s conventional military retaliation. The May 2025 crisis challenged this assumption, demonstrating that India could retaliate under the nuclear shadow while exercising considerable escalation control. Its no-first-use (NFU) policy, coupled with disciplined and calibrated use of force, offered a crucial lesson in managing conflict between nuclear-armed adversaries. Yet, rather than reassessing its strategic assumptions, Pakistan’s strategic community appears unwilling to confront what the crisis revealed. Recent remarks by Lieutenant General Mazhar Jamil (Retd), former director-general of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (2015–17) and adviser to its National Command Authority, illustrate this reluctance. His address at an international think-tank forum offers a telling example of how Pakistan continues to misread India’s nuclear posture, strategic restraint, and approach to escalation.
