Hypersonic Weapons and Escalation Control between India and Pakistan: Risks and Challenges for Deterrence

Abstract

South Asia’s deterrence environment is increasingly strained as India accelerates its development of hypersonic weapons, raising concerns about rapid, inadvertent, or misinterpreted escalation during crises with Pakistan. The paper analyses how hypersonic weapons alter escalation control in a nuclear dyad characterised by proximity, limited communication mechanisms and doctrinal opacity. The paper employs Escalation Control Theory and examines four variables i.e., signalling clarity, decision-time compression, ambiguity of intent and threshold permeability, to evaluate how hypersonic capabilities disrupt the processes through which India and Pakistan attempt to manage escalation. This study has used qualitative methodology for process-tracing, drawing on open-source reporting, doctrinal statements, technical assessments and two empirical episodes such as the BrahMos missile fired by India in March 2022 and the May 2025 Four-Day War initiated by India. The paper argues that the presence of hypersonic weapons magnifies pre-existing weaknesses in South Asian crisis management by compressing decision-making time, increasing the risk of misinterpreting signals and heightening fears of counterforce vulnerability, thereby reducing the practical space for calibrated escalation control. Hence, without operational communication channels, the introduction of hypersonic systems will compress the escalation ladder to a degree that undermines deterrence and strategic stability in the region.