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Indian military strategy has tended to neglect the link between the conventional and nuclear domains in a nuclear weapons environment. We argue that this anomaly is evident in two broad areas: the conception of "war," and the complexity produced by new technologies that span the two domains. First, we show with empirical evidence that "limited war" in a nuclear environment is misnomer: the reality is more appropriately called "marginal conflict" owing to its extremely restricted nature. It follows that strategic planning and posture must be tailored accordingly. We then highlight the risk of escalation produced by conventional technologies that carry potential cross-domain nuclear effects, noteably with respect to cyber, artificial intelligence, missile defence and space. We note that the complex strategic effects produced also complicate military-strategic interactions traversing geographic domains, noteably South, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia. The paper concludes with some reflections on the reasons for these lacunae in Indian strategic thinking and what might be done about them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why does combat success sometimes fail to produce a stable and durable post-war settlement? In the 1965 war, India successfully defended against a Pakistani invasion, but did not improve the long-term security of Kashmir or establish deterrence against Pakistan. I argue that, to deter rivals after war, states must couple battlefield success with credible signals of resolve, such as retaining captured territory or risking a wider war. In 1965, India used both denial and punishment strategies, but both failed to establish post-war deterrence because it judged the necessary signals of resolve to be too costly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]