Pakistan, June 30 -- While February 2019 may have only shattered India's confidence in its multi-billion-dollar war machines, May 2025 has totally shattered its dream of becoming a regional hegemon. Moreover, the four-day war between India and Pakistan in May 2025 has proved how vulnerable the two nuclear neighbours are to each other's military strategies and targeting philosophies, thus creating a scenario of a new Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

While a Cold War dictum that the nuclear states do not go to war with each other due to the presence of undefendable nuclear weapons held its ground after the establishment of MAD, the same was not to happen in South Asia due to enduring rivalries between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, I...