India-Pakistan Conflict: From the 1999 Kargil conflict to the recent Operation Sindoor, Pakistan’s nuclear threats have remained a constant and dangerous strategy against India. The latest and most direct warning came when Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir, speaking at US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, openly threatened to unleash nuclear weapons if Islamabad faced an “existential threat,” declaring that Pakistan would “take half the world down” with it.
Speaking to members of the Pakistani expatriate community at a reception organised by Adnan Asad, honorary consul for Tampa, Munir asserted, “We are a nuclear nation. If we believe we are going down, we’ll take half the world down with us.” The Print reported the comments, said to be the first ever nuclear threats issued from American ground on a third country. The high-profile event, attended by an estimated 120 Florida-based Pakistani Americans, reportedly banned cellphones and digital devices. According to the report, a representative from the Israel Defence Forces was also present.
Munir also turned his attention to the Indus Waters Treaty, threatening military action against India if it builds dams that can curtail water flow to Pakistan. Taking note of the New Delhi act of suspending the treaty after the April Pahalgam terror attack, he asserted such an act could endanger “250 million Pakistanis at risk of starvation.” “We will wait for India to build a dam, and when it does so, phir das missile sey faarigh kar dengey [we will destroy it with 10 missiles]… Humein missilon ki kami nahin hai, al-hamdulillah ( we have no shortage of missiles, praise be to God),” Munir was quoted as saying.
From 1999 To 2025: Nuclear Brinkmanship In Every Crisis
The Kargil War was the first conflict between India and Pakistan after both had tested nuclear weapons in 1998. Then-Pakistani foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed’s warning that Islamabad would “not hesitate to use any weapon” if pushed, cast a nuclear shadow over the two-month conflict. India, sticking to its No-First-Use (NFU) doctrine, avoided crossing the Line of Control despite intense fighting. Washington then, eventually pressured Pakistan to withdraw, but the episode cemented Pakistan’s belief that nuclear threats could globalise the Kashmir dispute.
In the years after Kargil, Pakistan refined what it calls “full-spectrum deterrence” – a posture that includes strategic, tactical, and battlefield nuclear weapons. Its policy, unlike India’s declared No First Use doctrine, keeps the option of first use open under loosely defined “red lines” such as large-scale territorial loss, destruction of key military assets, economic strangulation, or political destabilisation. During the 2001 Parliament attack standoff, the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and the 2019 Pulwama–Balakot episode, senior Pakistani officials repeated nuclear warnings in public statements, a tactic that often prompted urgent diplomatic intervention by global powers.
In May 2025, a Pahalgam terror attack triggered India’s precision strikes on Pakistan-based terror camps. Four days of missile and drone exchanges followed, with both sides hitting military installations deep inside each other’s territory. Although New Delhi denies any “nuclear signalling,” US President Donald Trump claimed Washington had “stopped a nuclear conflict” that could have killed millions. Indian officials say Pakistan sought a ceasefire after Indian strikes hit near its Nur Khan air base, close to its nuclear command headquarters. General Asim Munir’s Tampa statement came weeks after Sindoor ended, and was widely seen as an attempt to reinforce Pakistan’s long-standing nuclear deterrent narrative.
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Real Risk Or Hoax?
Experts like Ashley Tellis, quoted by BBC, warn that Pakistan’s expanding and diversified nuclear arsenal with drones, precision missiles, and hypersonic weapons increases “hair-trigger” risks. India, meanwhile, has strengthened its nuclear triad and maintained a credible minimum deterrent. Yet, both sides continue to expand their capabilities. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates each holds about 170 nuclear warheads, with Pakistan projected to reach 200 by the late 2020s. Despite repeated crises, neither nation has crossed the nuclear threshold, but as former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned in 2019, and as Operation Sindoor showed, “even a small risk is too large” when nuclear weapons are involved.
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So, from Kargil to Sindoor, the script has been the same: provoke, escalate, then signal nuclear readiness to force talks on favourable terms. But though India maintains that its military actions are carefully calibrated to avoid Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds, the fundamental risk remains unchanged that any future conflict could spiral into a nuclear exchange if signalling is misunderstood or political control weakens.