India and Pakistan‘s tit-for-tat strikes following a terror attack in India-controlled Kashmir two weeks ago have reignited fears of a potential nuclear conflict in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Both countries possess roughly 170 nuclear warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and though the world has seen numerous flare-ups between the two neighbours over the decades, yesterday’s strikes are a chilling reminder of the speed at which the stakes can escalate.
India insists its attacks, launched as part of Operation Sindoor, were ‘focused, measured and non-escalatory’ and targeted only ‘terrorist infrastructure’ in the eastern Pakistani region of Punjab and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
But officials in Islamabad described them as an ‘act of war’ that hit civilian areas, before shooting down up to five Indian fighter jets and launching retaliatory strikes across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border separating India- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
At least 31 civilians in Pakistan and at least 13 in India have already been reported dead, with other nations warning against any further action that could tip the conflict into a full-scale war that ‘the world cannot afford,’ according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Following the initial trading of missile attacks, several Indian drones have reportedly been downed by Pakistani air defence systems and an Indian soldier was killed in Pakistani shelling at the LoC.
India has now evacuated tens of thousands of citizens from their homes near the LoC in India-administered Kashmir in anticipation of further retaliatory attacks.
Meanwhile, the tit-for-tat strikes have forced the international community to confront the nuclear dimension of the India-Pakistan standoff and the devastating consequences that could occur should the violence continue to escalate.
India’s Agni-V missile, with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), lifts off from the launch pad at Wheeler Island off India’s east coast
Pakistan’s Hatf-IV Shaheen-1 missile, an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, taking off during a test-firing from an undisclosed location
Pakistani nuclear-capable cruise missile is seen after being launched from a submarine during a test firing at an undisclosed location in Pakistan
India’s nuclear policy is built around a long-standing commitment to ‘credible minimum deterrence’ and a ‘No First Use’ (NFU) doctrine.
However, experts have noted that India’s posture on nuclear weapons has evolved in recent years as its arsenal was modernised and diversified, and some officials have cast doubt on whether the NFU policy remains sacrosanct.
India’s warheads are primarily plutonium-based, produced at military sites outside international safeguards, and its estimated 172 nuclear warheads can now be delivered via land, sea and air.
Delhi therefore boasts a fully established nuclear triad, having fielded nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) such as the INS Arihant and introduced multiple missile delivery platforms.
India’s Agni series of missiles form the backbone of its land-based deterrent, with the latest Agni-V capable of reaching targets over 5,000 kilometres away according to the CSIS Missile Defence Project – enabling Delhi to hit all of Pakistan and large parts of China.
Islamabad, by contrast, rejects any commitment to a No First Use policy.
Its nuclear posture is guided by what it calls ‘full spectrum deterrence’, allowing Pakistan to unleash its nuclear weapons when faced with a conventional military threat.
Islamabad’s arsenal is also estimated at 170 warheads, but analysts caution it is expanding faster than any other nuclear state.
Most of Pakistan’s warheads are thought to be deployed via mobile launchers and short-to-medium range missile systems, including the Shaheen, Ghauri, and Babur platforms.
The Shaheen-III is believed to offer a range of 2,750 km, enough to strike any part of India.
While Pakistan has not yet fully developed a nuclear triad, there are indications it is working to introduce a credible sea-based deterrent, having held missile launch tests from conventional submarines.
India and Pakistan have relatively comparable nuclear arsenals, but at the conventional military level, their capabilities begin to diverge.
India, one of the world’s largest economies and its most populous nation, fields over 1.2 million active soldiers and an additional 250,000 personnel in its navy and air force. This dwarves Pakistan’s forces, which total fewer than 700,000.
Delhi also vastly outspends cash-strapped Islamabad in conventional military terms.
SIPRI’s 2024 data shows India’s military budget reached $86 billion, nearly nine times Pakistan’s $10.3 billion.
Yet defence experts caution that Pakistan’s military capabilities remain ‘in the same order of magnitude’ as those of India, thanks in part to its formidable arsenal of short- and medium-range missiles, and the fact that – unlike India – it need not divert substantial military resources to monitoring China.
Both countries are also racing to modernise their military arsenals and warfighting capabilities.
Pakistan derives much of its military technology from Russia and China – some 82% of Pakistan’s military imports between 2019 and 2023 came from Beijing, according to SIPRI.
India, meanwhile, once heavily reliant on Russia, has in recent years diversified its purchase of defence equipment westwards, primarily to the benefit of France and the US.
Military aviation experts suggested that joint Pakistani-Chinese manufactured fighter jets used Chinese missiles to shoot down Indian air force assets – including Rafale and Mirage fighters produced by France’s Dassault Aviation – in yesterday’s retaliation, alongside export versions of Russia’s Su-30 and MiG-29.
India unleashes strikes across eastern Pakistan and Kashmir overnight
The remnants of what appears to be a French manufactured fighter jet lies on the ground after being shot down in Wuyan in India-administered Kashmir’s Pulwama district May 7, 2025
An army soldier examines a building damaged by a suspected Indian missile attack near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan controlled Kashmir, in Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Researchers warned in 2019 that a nuclear exchange in such a densely populated region could leave 125 million people dead within days, laying out a hauntingly detailed account of the havoc such a conflict would wreak.
Their article, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2019, reported that a nuclear war would ‘kill tens of millions of people immediately and would create enormous environmental impacts, causing famines that affect millions – or even billions – around the world’.
‘The direct effects of this nuclear exchange would be horrible; the authors estimate that 50 to 125 million people would die, depending on whether the weapons used had yields of 15, 50, or 100 kilotons,’ the article read.
‘The ramifications for Indian and Pakistani society would be major and long-lasting, with many major cities largely destroyed and uninhabitable.
‘Smoke and radioactive particles would ‘spread globally within weeks… cooling the global surface, reducing precipitation and threatening mass starvation’.
Recognising the potential for a cataclysmic fallout should the conflict between India and Pakistan intensify, world powers have called for cooler heads to prevail.
China, which has supported Pakistan in developing its military capabilities and supplied technological input to enhance Islamabad’s missile forces, said: ‘India and Pakistan are neighbours who cannot be moved away, and both are also China’s neighbours. China opposes all forms of terrorism.
‘We call on both India and Pakistan to prioritise the overall situation of peace and stability, maintain calm and restraint, and avoid taking actions that would further complicate the situation.’
US President Donald Trump meanwhile characterised the clash as ‘a shame’. ‘They’ve been fighting for a long time… I just hope it ends very quickly,’ he said.
Turkey, a Muslim-majority country that has long had close military and economic ties with Pakistan, took aim at India for ‘running the risk of starting all-out war’ and urged both sides to ‘show good sense’. It also advocated for an independent investigation into the April 22 attack.
