The advent of nuclear weapons has brought into discussion the strands of strategic stability that initially occupied the Cold War rivals and later the neighboring states of South Asia. Both the Soviet Union and the United States due to distanced geography with that of settled strategic language have almost brought a positive tendency in crisis management and strategic stability. Contrary to Cold War rivals, the South Asian nuclear opponents have gone through a vulnerability of strategic miscalculation and crisis instability. That is why at most of their direct military stalemates, the US and Soviets had to jump in to defuse the crises. Moreover, Indian military modernization, deliberate maintenance of conventional asymmetry, application of sub-conventional warfare, state-sponsored terrorism, regional dominance and global aspirations interlinked with the containment of China under Indo-US strategic partnership has altogether shaped the contemporary discourse of strategic stability in South Asia. This study makes the point that the strands of strategic stability between the two regional powers of South Asia are tied to the complex web of the bilateral, regional and global framework. It is in this larger construct that strategic stability in South Asia can be best described. This study is deductive in nature and theoretically evaluates the notion of strategic stability paradigm to deconstruct the prevailing fault lines.

The ‘Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation’ has casted negative shadows over Pakistan’s security with that of strategic stability in South Asia. This paper makes the point that the emergence of strategic partnership between Indian and US has served bilateral objectives while impacting deeply on the geo-political landscape of Pakistan’s strategic interests. The fundamental strategic objective of Pakistan has been to resist Indian hegemonic role in the region. To achieve such a balance the country has not only joined security alliances in the past but had to detonate its nuclear weapons in reaction to Indian attempt to outburst the ‘balance of power’. Due to Indo-US nuclear cooperation, suddenly Pakistan came under stress as it allowed India to feed its civilian reactors by importing fuel from international market with that of using domestic fuel in its military reactors. This not only allowed India to fix energy shortfall but also sustain its nuclear weapons program. Pakistan contrary to that was set-aside and denied the similar treatment as of India. Therefore, this paper has made an attempt to objectively analyze the premises of Indo-US nuclear cooperation and highlight security implications for Pakistan. The study is deductive in nature and has used mixed method approach with qualitative research methodology.