Pakistan once again finds itself amid turbulence. Political uncertainty persists, the economy underperforms, unrest remains visible in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Balochistan, while conflict along the Afghanistan border becomes a near-permanent security challenge. Yet, despite these familiar indicators of internal fragility, one conclusion must be resisted—Pakistan is not a nation on the verge of collapse. More importantly, India can ill afford the luxury of treating Pakistan as a diminished strategic concern, as is sometimes evident in strategic commentary.
Analysis in India has often oscillated between two extremes. One prematurely predicts Pakistan’s implosion under the weight of its contradictions. The other exaggerates its importance by granting it precisely the stature sought through external alignments. Neither approach serves India’s interests.
Pakistan remains, by geography alone, one of the world’s strategically consequential states. Situated at the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia and the Gulf approaches, it has repeatedly escaped the consequences of internal dysfunction because of location. It mattered to the West during the Cold War, became indispensable during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, regained centrality after 9/11 and now, amid renewed uncertainty in Iran and Afghanistan and sharpening great power competition, once again finds relevance. Pakistan’s strategic establishment has long understood that geography can compensate for governance deficits, a belief that continues to shape Islamabad’s confidence despite internal weakness.
What should concern India now is not Pakistan’s domestic disorder but the manner in which China continues to enhance Pakistan’s strategic capabilities. Reports of six Chinese-supported surveillance satellites launched by Pakistan within barely 16 months deserve comprehensive scrutiny in our strategic circles, because this represents not incremental modernisation but a structural leap in strategic capability. This is no ordinary technological cooperation. It signals deeper integration of Chinese military technology with Pakistani operational capability.
Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance architecture is increasingly becoming central to modern warfare. Real-time battlefield awareness today determines operational success as much as force ratios on the ground, especially in multi-domain operations. More concerning is apparent evidence that parts of this emerging architecture appear designed for repeated and focused monitoring of India’s northern operational theatre. Future conflict in the subcontinent will increasingly be shaped by who controls the invisible architecture above the battlefield.
India must therefore continuously assess whether sufficient technological counters exist to prevent emerging asymmetry in the increasingly contested space domain.
Pakistan’s evolving cyber capability also deserves closer and continuous attention. For years, cyber confrontation remained confined largely to isolated attacks and nuisance disruption. That era has changed. Pakistan’s military establishment now increasingly views cyber capability as an asymmetric instrument capable of offsetting conventional disadvantages. Combined with Chinese technical support, cyber operations provide Islamabad a low-cost but highly-disruptive tool to target critical infrastructure, information systems and public confidence during periods of crisis.
The future battlespace between India and Pakistan will no longer remain confined to land, air and sea. Space and cyber now represent decisive theatres where strategic advantage can be shaped long before conventional military engagement even commences.
We cannot forget that for over three decades, Pakistan has employed asymmetric instruments against India through infiltration, proxy war, terrorism, narco-financing, gun running, ideological radicalisation and underground financial networks designed to sustain long-term instability. These methods represented Pakistan’s then preferred strategy to offset conventional military asymmetry with India.
Greater attention is now needed to the integration of these established instruments with emerging technologies increasingly available through Chinese support systems. The convergence of terrorism with cyber capability, persistent space-based surveillance, information warfare and multi-domain operations can create a far more complex security challenge. Persistent surveillance denies concealment and can significantly erode operational surprise during a crisis.
Pakistan also continues to demonstrate its ability to extract advantage from competing global interests. Relations with Afghanistan remain strained, particularly due to the growing challenge posed by militant activity across the border. Yet, even here, Pakistan seeks to leverage instability to maintain relevance.
The US may no longer view Pakistan through the same lens as during the war in Afghanistan, but history suggests Washington periodically returns to Pakistan whenever regional crisis intensifies. Simultaneously, Pakistan continues deep strategic engagement with China while carefully attempting to preserve channels with the West. It remains one of the few states attempting to navigate simultaneously between American requirements and Chinese patronage. This balancing act remains dangerous, but Pakistan has historically shown remarkable skill in surviving through external partnerships.
India’s response demands balance and clarity. Pakistan cannot be treated as a casual threat simply because repeated military setbacks imposed by India in recent years have created a perception of reduced capability. Nor should we grant Pakistan the exaggerated importance it seeks by reacting to every external alignment it builds. The answer lies elsewhere.
India must accelerate civil-military fusion in national security planning; a lot is already happening in this domain. Strategic technologies can no longer remain compartmentalised between civilian institutions, private industry and defence establishments. Space capability, cyber defence, artificial intelligence, intelligence fusion and surveillance architecture demand an integrated national effort far above the currently desirable levels.
Equally important is the need to continuously weaken Pakistan’s ability to exploit strategic partnerships against India’s interests. Diplomacy, technological advancement, economic strength and deterrence posture together form the only sustainable response.
Pakistan remains trapped in perpetual internal crisis. Yet, history repeatedly demonstrates that internal weakness does not automatically diminish strategic relevance. Nations occupying critical geopolitical space often survive because great powers continue to find utility in them. India should therefore avoid two potential strategic errors it could commit—underestimating Pakistan because of its internal troubles, or overestimating it by according excessive importance to its multiple alignments.
The challenge for India is not Pakistan alone. It is the growing ecosystem of technological, cyber and strategic support systems being built around Pakistan by external powers.
Pakistan may remain internally fragile but it could be externally enabled, armed with technological force multipliers. Its decades of experience in hybrid warfare would give it full capability to generate strategic surprise. That reality deserves our fullest attention and not the erroneous narrative of a collapsing adversary that we could be misled to believe.
Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd) | Governor of Bihar and former Commander of the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps
(Views are personal)