Signaling solidarity is not the same as issuing a blank check of military intervention. Islamabad is not offering Riyadh a covert “nuclear button,” and Riyadh is not signing up to fight in Kashmir. Defense cooperation ≠ automatic war pledge, and signaling ≠ nuclear guarantee.

@rabsaa.bsky.social has released her edited volume, "Strategic Reckoning: Perspectives on Deterrence and Escalation Post-Pahalgam", offering timely insights into the dynamics of deterrence, crisis management, and regional security in South Asia. www.belfercenter.org/research-ana...

Beyond Nukes. Pakistan’s Army Rocket Force Command aims to hit hard without crossing the nuclear line, cleaner command, better targeting, and a faster kill chain to stress Indian IADS. Why this matters & what to watch next! Here's my initial assessment of ARFC. pakistanpolitico.com/arfc/

Like seriously! Who’s with me?

Beyond the Brink: Game Theory and the Future of Indo-Pak Security in the Age of Stealth open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

Third Nuclear Age is already here. May 2025 showed how non-nuclear tech, politics, and misperception can unravel deterrence. @nktpnd.bsky.social breaks it down with Ejaz Haider. youtu.be/il_GY3h34Ec?...

To all my PhD students!

From Escalation to Explanation: The Fight for the Last Word substack.com/profile/3030...

We are not just witnessing a decline in the humanities, we are watching a civilizational shift toward control, fragmentation, and forgetting. What happens when a society stops teaching meaning? McGilchrist offers a warning we can’t ignore. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

The world does not need more deterrence posturing. It needs strategic humility. In this piece for @belfercenter.bsky.social, I reflect on the Nobel Laureate Declaration and its urgent call to recalibrate how we think about nuclear risk. www.belfercenter.org/research-ana...

Pakistan’s resistance to the FMCT is not a diplomatic anomaly. It is a calculated stance shaped by asymmetry, strategic parity concerns, and treaty design flaws. I unpack the strategic logic behind Pakistan’s position. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

Just launched: Elusive Stability by @alizia1992.bsky.social. If you care about where South Asian nuclear and strategic debates are headed, this Substack will shape how we think about tomorrow’s crises today.

I am happy to launch my Substack, Elusive Stability. Subscribe, engage, and take the debate forward. open.substack.com/pub/alizia1992…

Actually after trying to do a very simple operation to merge data from two GeoTIFF files I now understand why Oppenheimer is involved with this. It is a cautionary tale...!!!

“We are eternal vibrations, not accidents of matter.” Tesla’s message transcends time. A call to awaken, resonate, and return to the source. Love is the highest frequency. A reminder that the universe may be less mechanical and far more conscious than we imagine. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

India’s new Agni-V "bunker-buster" is no ordinary missile. It's a conventional warhead meant to strike deeply buried nuclear sites. But the strategy behind it is deeply flawed. My new piece in Dawn explains why. www.dawn.com/news/1925251...

“Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” Guided by these words, we signed the Nobel Laureate Assembly Declaration in Chicago to stop the drift toward nuclear war. Clear steps. Shared responsibility. Urgent action. thebulletin.org/2025/07/the-...

🗨️"Pleasing #Trump isn’t #Putin's priority. Putin has no reason to stop." 👉 @belfercenter.bsky.social‘s @mbudjeryn.bsky.social ‬ ➡️Full show: f24.my/BJVm.x @en.france24.com #Trump #Ukraine

In an article published in Foreign Affairs, Mohammed Tabaar argues "Israel’s June 13 assault on Iran, designed to decapitate Tehran’s military and nuclear program, is one of the worst setbacks the Islamic Republic has ever experienced." www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/islam...

Rethinking Strategic Depth in the Age of AI: Lessons from May 2025 open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

Is India rewriting the logic of nuclear deterrence in South Asia? Yes and it is doing so openly, deliberately, and dangerously. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

Disappointed to see this from Chatham House: removing source data from chart, referencing secondary sources, using outdated nuke data when updated is available, misrepresenting “nuclear arsenal” data. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Her is link to primary data source: fas.org/initiative/s...

The new e-book on Operation Sindoor is not just a post-crisis account, it is India’s blueprint for normalising pre-emptive force against Pakistan. My latest analysis examines why this strategic shift should alarm anyone concerned with nuclear stability in South Asia open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

What if Huntington’s clash never truly happened and Fukuyama’s end never arrived? 25 years later, we revisit the thinkers who tried to define the world. Some got it right. Most missed the tremors. Check out my mew post on rereading globalization in 2025. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

Embed EDTs into Crisis Simulations open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

In a post-May 2025 world, deterrence stability depends not only on nuclear doctrines but also on how EDT usage is framed, signaled, and constrained. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

From the 4-day Indo-Pak clash to the Iran-Israel war and Ukraine, emerging tech is the architecture. Algorithmic Fractures: How Emerging Tech Rewires Strategic Stability open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

In a world of shifting alliances and sharpened rivalries, Pakistan stays the course, balancing great powers by playing the space in between!

From Cold War calculus to Trump 2.0, Pakistan has sustained relations with competing powers by leveraging relevance. Here’s my latest substack on Pakistan’s quiet masterclass in geopolitical calibration. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

In the next episode of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research (CSSPR) Webinar Series, I look forward to hosting Ludovica Castelli , PhD for a conversation on her excellent co-authored book, "The Global Third Nuclear Age. The book can be read here: lnkd.in/g-gdG25P

Just played Metro Exodus with my son on his birthday and it hit closer to home than I expected. A post-nuclear Russia, survival choices, moral costs. Sometimes, the most powerful lessons on deterrence come not from policy papers, but from pixels. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

Beyond warheads and doctrines lies something deeper: mindset. 🇮🇳 vs 🇵🇰 Two arsenals. Two histories. Two strategic cultures. In my latest post, I break down what really separates Indian and Pakistani thinking on war, peace, and deterrence. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

This post isn’t about comparisons or criticism. It’s about a collective sense of loss. Because the India that once embraced its diversity helped stabilize South Asia. Here are my reflections: We miss that India too, Naseeruddin Shah! open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

I have tried unpacking Pakistan’s Deterrence Ladder, a concept missing from most strategic debates. For Pakistan, it is not about escalation. It is about calibrated signaling especially relevant in the post-May 2025 reality. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

A nuclear Iran would redraw the deterrence map of West Asia and not in Pakistan’s favor. Even as we respect Tehran’s threat perceptions, we must ask: at what cost comes nuclear parity? open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

My summer read just arrived! What if the particle and the prayer are part of the same equation? As I prepare to leave the US and return back home to Lahore, Capra’s 'The Tao of Physics' becomes my companion and compass, asking the questions I must carry into the next chapter of my becoming.

America has maintained since Reagan that a nuclear war can never be won, and must never be fought. And every day America plans and invests and maintains the forces to fight and try to “win” a nuclear war.

In a world where perception shapes escalation, it’s time to bring crisis gaming into the public eye. Crisis Gaming in the Public Eye: Deterrence for a World That Watches open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

We borrowed Cold War logic. Adopted Western escalation ladders. Internalized someone else's fears. But what if South Asia needs its own deterrence grammar? It’s time to #DecolonizeDeterrence open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

From jamming Rafales to owning the battlespace, here’s how Pakistan rewrote the airpower playbook. open.substack.com/pub/rakhtar/...

My review is out of this great book by Andrew Futter, Ludovica Castelli, Cameron Hunter, Dr. Olamide Samuel, Francesco Silvestri, and Benjamin Zala. It is an ambitious and necessary contribution to rethinking how we study nuclear politics in the 21st century. academic.oup.com/ia/article-a...

Holding Francis Fukuyama personally responsible for not ending history when he had the opportunity

My response in The Friday Times to the @foreignaffairs.com article by Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi. The claim that Pakistan seeks ICBMs to target the U.S. is strategically detached from Pakistan’s doctrinal realities. Rebuttal: Pakistan In The New Nuclear Age thefridaytimes.com/26-Jun-2025/...

Read Vipin Narang and Pranay Vaddi on the risks posed by the new nuclear age—and how the United States can manage the multiplying threats from China, North Korea, and Russia:

Still the sharpest warning for our age of denial.

The June 13 Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear and military leadership mark a watershed in regional deterrence dynamics. By targeting nuclear infrastructure and eliminating key IRGC and scientific figures, Israel has exposed the limits of nuclear latency as a shield.

@thewire.in The May 2025 crisis shows that nuclear deterrence in SA is not brittle, it is evolving. As Kahn’s escalation ladder flattens into simultaneity across conventional, cyber, and info domains, we've seen that restraint stems from strategic clarity, not passivity. thewire.in/security/sou...

This is an excellent piece by @rabsaa.bsky.social for TheWire.in ,explaining how nuclear weapons continue to play a stabilizing role in South Asia. She rightly argues that the next crisis will start from a higher baseline. Worth your while. thewire.in/security/sou...

Another option that Israel has demonstrated in Syria is to deliver troops by air to go in and destroy an underground facility. Would be a very dangerous mission, of course. www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/w...