Adil Sultan and Itfa Khursheed
IPRI JOURNAL SUMMER 2021
Hypersonic Weapons in South Asia:
Implications for Strategic Stability
Dr. Adil Sultan
*
& Itfa Khursheed
**
Abstract
The development of new technologies and their use for military means has
narrowed the gap between the technologically advanced and less
developed countries.
1
This may have disturbed the traditional balance of
power with greater prospects of conflict between states with asymmetric
military potential, besides increasing the risks of conventional and nuclear
entanglement.
2
The dangers are more pronounced in South Asia where
growing conventional disparity coupled with new war fighting doctrines
continue to strain strategic stability, thus making it imperative for the
other side to strengthen its ‘cross domain’ deterrence posture.
3
India’s
recent test of Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV),
4
which apparently aims to build its credentials of a technologically
advanced country; once operationalised, would proffer an option of a
preemptive conventional counterforce strike against Pakistan’s short
range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) – to deter Pakistan from the early
deployment of its SRBMs and to create space for India’s limited war
fighting doctrine of ‘Cold Start.’ In response, Pakistan is likely to develop
countermeasures that could ensure the integrity of its Full Spectrum
Deterrence (FSD) posture. This action-reaction syndrome could trigger a
new arms race with increased risks of miscalculation in a future military
crisis between the two nuclear armed states. This paper aims to discuss
* Dr Adil Sultan is a Director Nuclear and Strategic Affairs at Centre for Aerospace and
Security Studies (CASS)
**Ms Itfa Khursheed is a researcher at CASS, Islamabad
_____________________
@2021 by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute.
IPRI Journal XXI (1): 61-81
https://doi.org/10.31945/iprij.210103
