On April 22, the serene meadows of Pahalgam, a celebrated tourist destination in Kashmir, became the site of a horrifying terrorist attack. Twenty-six civilians – mostly Indian tourists – were gunned down in an act that bore the chilling hallmarks of calculated brutality. The attack, claimed by a little-known outfit, The Resistance Front (TRF), with suspected links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, shattered not only lives but the fragile illusion of normalcy in the Kashmir Valley. The massacre has ignited national grief and outrage and also forced India’s strategic and military thinkers to confront a recurring dilemma: how to respond punitively, yet wisely, in a high-stakes nuclear neighborhood.
From the 2001 Parliament attacks to the Pulwama strike, India has repeatedly faced the same conundrum: how to punish Pakistan without triggering a nuclear crisis. Each response – Operation Parakram’s costly mobilization (2001–02), the surgical strikes (2016), and the cross-border Balakot airstrike (2019) – did not yield the desired results. Today, as calls for “limited war” resurge, India must realize that symbolic military action alone cannot coerce a nuclear-armed adversary that views terrorism as a low-cost, high-reward tool.
Still, voices that believe that a calibrated military response could coerce Pakistan to rein in cross-border terrorism and dismantle the terror infrastructure are getting louder. The logic of coercion, compelling a change in adversary behavior, has thus moved from academic circles to television studios and strategic briefings. But as history and theory remind us, such paths are rarely straightforward. The fragile understanding of the concept of coercion and an even shakier grasp of what “limited war” entails further complicates the matter.
Coercion, Compellence, and Costs
Coercion, as theorized by Thomas Schelling, is the ability to inflict pain – or the credible threat of it – to manipulate the enemy’s behavior. This “power to hurt” operates like blackmail in that it exploits an enemy’s fears and needs. The threat of application of force holds more bargaining power than the actual application. Force, once applied, has to be sustained until the adversary is successfully coerced.
Coercion includes both deterrence (preventing an action by threat of punishment) and compellence (forcing an adversary to act or stop acting). Deterrence in the India–Pakistan context had arguably failed long before the Pahalgam attack. Strikes like Balakot and the surgical strikes of 2016 were intended to deter Pakistan from supporting terrorism; however, cross-border terrorism persists. We are now in the compellence phase, where India must weigh how to make Pakistan do something: dismantle terror infrastructure, curb infiltration, and most importantly, signal that future attacks will carry unsustainable costs.
India has already employed some tools at its disposal: suspension of treaties and diplomatic isolation. Yet, as seen in the aftermath of Pahalgam, these tools may lack the immediate sting needed to coerce behavioral change. Hence, military strategists have revived the idea of a limited war – a controlled use of force, short of full-scale conflict, designed to compel Pakistan without triggering nuclear retaliation.
The Mirage of Limited War
But what exactly is a limited war, and can such a war truly remain “limited” between nuclear-armed rivals with deep historical grievances? Traditionally, limited wars aim for narrowly defined objectives using constrained force, limited in scope, geography, and duration. Julian Corbett described limited war as something that does not seek to overthrow the enemy government; rather, its objectives are smaller and more limited. Another, but more prevalent, understanding of limited war focuses on the military means used by the combatants, which are way less than what they are capable of. Thus, a limited war is always understood in relation to a total or general war.
The concept of “limited war” gained currency during the Cold War when the United States thought it could fight the Soviet Union in Europe or elsewhere without the war escalating to an unlimited or total war. Thus, the Korean War and even the Vietnam War were seen as “limited” – in the sense that the U.S. could contain the application of force to certain theaters. This unidirectional assessment belies the fact that said wars were hardly limited for North Korea and North Vietnam.
The India–Pakistan dynamic introduces even more complexity. Any military action, however restrained, risks miscalculation. For a war to remain limited, both sides must understand and accept the boundaries – an unlikely scenario when trust is minimal and signaling is murky. Robert Jervis and others have long warned that misperception, informational asymmetry, and emotional pressure during crises can drive escalation far beyond initial intentions.
Also, the question of how long a limited war should be allowed to continue if those objectives are not achieved is supremely crucial. War involves two belligerents, and for a war to remain limited, both sides need to know each other’s intentions and need to overcome the information asymmetry. The immediate aftermath of the Pahalgam attack has already seen a series of retaliatory measures from both nations. India has suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, expelled Pakistani diplomats, and closed its main land border with Pakistan. In response, Pakistan has closed its airspace to Indian flights and suspended all bilateral treaties, including the 1972 Simla Agreement. These actions have dismantled key diplomatic frameworks that can potentially serve to de-escalate tensions, thereby increasing the risk of miscalculations during a conflict.
Escalation Dominance and Strategic Illusions
Advocates of limited war sometimes invoke the idea of escalation dominance, the ability to control every rung of the escalation ladder, deterring an adversary by superiority at each level. The idea posits a state’s ability to maintain such a markedly superior position over a rival, across a range of rungs of an escalation ladder, that the rival will always see further escalation as a losing bet. Such dominance, the thinking goes, serves as the most effective possible deterrent to the escalation of the conflict, as well as the most reliable means for managing escalation.
Yet history offers little comfort. Even the U.S. could not rely fully on escalation dominance during the Cold War. Between India and Pakistan, the challenge is more acute. Neither side can credibly dominate at all levels – conventional, subconventional, and nuclear. Even if India holds a clear edge on the conventional front, Pakistan’s first-use nuclear posture acts as a dangerous equalizer.
Moreover, the political purpose of war must always dictate the military means, not the other way around. As Clausewitz reminded us, war is a continuation of politics, not an escape from its difficulties. If the stated political aim is to compel Pakistan to dismantle terror infrastructure, India must ask: What happens if those objectives remain unmet after a limited strike? Do we escalate further?
Compounding the scenario is the “ratchet effect” – the tendency for each escalation to raise the baseline for future actions. The 2019 Balakot airstrikes, hailed domestically as a bold departure from strategic restraint, have now become a public benchmark. As Weitzman explained, people evaluate past events from conclusion to inception, heightening future expectations. Each escalation resets expectations.
The public’s commendation of Balakot set a dangerous precedent: future Indian governments may feel bound to act even more aggressively, lest they appear weak. Similarly, Pakistan’s retaliation and downing of an Indian aircraft created domestic pressure for symmetrical or escalated responses. This commitment trap makes it harder for states to exercise restraint without appearing to capitulate.
Strategists warn that India can no longer choose something “lower” than Balakot without undermining its credibility. If Balakot becomes the new normal, the next act of terror could trigger a disproportionate military response, setting off a chain reaction. Scholars fear this could become “a recipe for full-scale war.” On the other hand, a more forceful Indian strike could erode Pakistan’s sense of deterrence, potentially prompting the use of tactical nuclear weapons to reassert deterrence. Inaction, too, carries risk: it may embolden further attacks, rendering Pakistan vulnerable to increasingly punitive strikes.
The Need for Multidomain Coercion
India’s path to coercing Pakistan may not lie in the thunderclap of a single strike or limited war, but in the steady drumbeat of pressure across every domain where Islamabad is vulnerable. This is a strategy of cumulative compellence – a mix of kinetic and non-kinetic tools orchestrated to impose costs that corrode Pakistan’s tolerance for terrorism.
Militarily, India must signal the capability and will for precision strikes, limited in scope but sharp enough to impose cost. Such actions should not aim to destroy Pakistan’s regime or civil infrastructure but target terror infrastructures and the enablers of terror, which may include such military installations. Cross-border strikes, while politically fraught, can be justified under the self-defense clause in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter – a precedent set by the United States’ Abbottabad raid against Osama bin Laden.
However, military action alone may not suffice. For compellence to work, India must combine military precision with economic and diplomatic coercion.
Economically, India holds levers that Pakistan cannot ignore. The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is a step in that direction. By fast-tracking hydroelectric projects on the Chenab and Jhelum rivers, India could weaponize water scarcity, turning Pakistan’s parched farmlands into a political crisis. Trade restrictions, freezing of financial assets, and coordinated international pressure can compound the cost for Pakistan’s strategic tolerance of terror.
On the diplomatic front, isolation should be the goal. India’s 2019 success in greylisting Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force, a move that cost Islamabad $38 billion, proves the power of financial ostracism. Renewing this pressure, while offering Pakistan’s traditional allies in Gulf states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia stakes in Indian infrastructure projects, could sever their historic patronage of Pakistan. Meanwhile, India’s membership in the Quad, a coalition wary of China’s rise, provides a platform to up the ante on framing Pakistan as a rogue nuclear state.
Additionally, a mix of covert operations, shadow wars, and cyber capabilities can create strategic ambiguity, denying Pakistan a straightforward retaliatory path. Yet all such options must be calibrated with full awareness of escalation thresholds.
India’s strength will lie not in impulsive retaliation, but in sustained pressure across multiple fronts, backed by clear messaging and readiness for prolonged engagement. A multidomain campaign is neither quick nor glamorous. It demands patience and resolve, but unlike the fleeting satisfaction of a “limited war,” its cumulative weight could potentially force Pakistan to reckon with an inescapable truth: terrorism, once a cheap weapon, now carries a price tag too steep to pay.
Pahalgam demands a response – but not one shackled by the illusion of limited war. Military strikes, though sometimes necessary, are blunt instruments. The real test lies in making Pakistan understand that cross-border terror no longer comes cheap – politically, economically, or strategically. In this new phase of confrontation, India’s goal should be punitive clarity, not emotional escalation; a long game, not a loud one. And that may well be the sharpest form of power.