NCA Adviser Khalid Kidwai says Pakistan always demonstrates restraint and responsibility as key components of its nuclear policy
National Command Authority (NCA) Adviser Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, also a former director general of the Strategic Plans Division that is a paramilitary unit responsible for safeguarding Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, has said that strategic deterrence and limiting operational cap on crisis escalation are in-built in Pakistan’s capability of the full spectrum deterrence.
“Our strategic deterrence remained unshaken and fully effective during the May 2025 standoff with India,” he said while addressing a high-level session – stability of Pakistan’s strategic deterrence – at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) in Islamabad. “The stability of our strategic deterrence was never compromised, and Pakistan has triumphed in terms of stability of nuclear deterrence due to its robust conventional response,” he said.
Khalid Kidwai, a former lieutenant general of the Pakistan Army, said that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would continue to define limits of India’s kinetic freedom of action. He said that the Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC) provides an additional layer of strategic deterrence between operations of conventional forces and the potential employment of nuclear forces, thereby in some ways raising the nuclear threshold. He said the ARFC has simply responded to a need of the modern battlefield while nuclear deterrence remains in place as the ultimate shield against India.
Unlike India, the NCA aide said that Pakistan has time and again demonstrated that restraint and responsibility were the key components of its nuclear policy. After the Pahalgam false flag operation, he pointed out that India’s ‘strategic’ judgement in risking a large-scale nuclear war or nuclear holocaust can only be labelled as one of the most bizarre and irresponsible acts in the annals of military history. He said the large size of the Indian Army does not tell the entire story like the Arab armies does not tell the whole story against Israel.
He recalled the years from 1998 onwards, as Pakistan’s nuclear capability, slowly but surely, embarked on a well-defined and focused force development trajectory under the National Command Authority and the Strategic Plans Division, it matured and grew into a robust operationalized force as a comprehensive triad, in the ASFC, in the NSFC and in the AFSC. He said that quality, technology and training were the force multipliers that determine the victor in an armed confrontation.
Khalid Kidwai observed that ‘Sindoor operation’ has embarrassed India and boomeranged on its planners. “India not only failed to attain any of the politico-cum strategic-cum-military objectives; far from it, it suffered major military reverses especially in the Indian Air Force (IAF),” he told the audience. He said that Pakistan’s full spectrum deterrence worked in both directions, east and west, and it was no bluff. He said India’s desire for seeking the so-called space for limited war, despite a nuclear overhang, remained shrunk as it opted to limit its initial escalation as openly admitted.
The NCA aide remarked that the term strategic deterrence was born out of necessity after the atomic shocks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, as the world realized that a single weapon could annihilate a complete city. He underscored the emergence of a new normal in South Asia’s strategic environment following the recent escalation-cum-retaliation between Pakistan and India. He highlighted that the four-day conflict, lasting only 87 hours, was a profound test of both conventional and nuclear deterrence, as well as the integration of modern technologies in warfare.
