One of the foremost experts on South Asian security and military strategy, CHRISTINE FAIR tells Mohammad Asif Khan that the United States (US) under President Donald Trump is ceding ground to China not just in South Asia but everywhere. The author of several books, including Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War, she says Pakistan needs to stop using terrorism as state policy to prevent another crisis in South Asia from spiralling into war. Edited excerpts:
How do you assess the strategic impact of Operation Sindoor on South Asia’s security landscape?
It didn’t change Pakistan’s calculus on using terrorism as a tool of foreign policy. It may have had a lot of domestic fillips for Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and his government, but at the level of strategic impact, none are visible.
How do you view Pakistan’s internal instability and economic fragility in this context?
Before Operation Sindoor, the Pakistan Army was really on the back foot because of the way it was treating (former Prime Minister) Imran Khan. And Imran Khan is very popular in Pakistan. After Operation Sindoor, the criticism of the Pakistan Army went silent. And we know that Asim Munir crowned himself Field Marshal. So the Pakistan Army is very good at calibrating public support for the institution.
With regards to Pakistan's economic fragility, Pakistan has always been, for as long as I've been following it, economically fragile. Going back to the years after the withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan, Pakistan has always been economically precarious. But what Pakistan can do: it's actually able to use its nuclear weapons to extract aid from the international community.
For example, I and countless Indians, among others, watched in complete shock as Pakistan remained on the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) grey list, instead of getting a blacklisting as it so rightly deserved. And then it was eventually removed from the grey list altogether. Well, the reason for that was if it got a blacklisting, it would no longer qualify for IMF (International Monetary Fund) funding, which would be economically disastrous for Pakistan.
So, Pakistan is able to use its nuclear weapons to make sure that it is able to get buyout packages from the international community. And those international buyout packages allow the army to continue doing what the army wants to do.
How do you see the Pakistan–Saudi Arabia defence pact in this larger context of regional security and India’s growing alignment with the US?
I don’t think there’s much to the Pakistan–Saudi pact. There was some discussion about whether or not Pakistan would extend its nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia, but the question has to be asked: who would attack Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons? So, there was a lot more signalling than substance in that pact. I don't think we have a new geopolitical arrangement that changes things in any substantive way as a result of that.
What I think is more disconcerting has been the collapse of Indo-US relations under the Trump administration, because this is a relationship that has been built bilaterally on both sides, going back to (US President) Bill Clinton in the 2000s.
With the latest ceasefire in Gaza, how do you assess India's role? Should it take more of a role in the peace talks?
India has had no role, so whether or not it should have more is kind of off the table. India has basically refrained from any kind of morally informed position on Gaza. So I don't think you're going to expect India to do anything more than it's already done, which is pretty
much nothing.
Do you think the US is ceding strategic ground to China, particularly in South Asia?
I think it has. It's really difficult to tell what's going on with Trump's policy towards India because it is so opaque. And the issues that seem to be driving it are India's continued
petrol-laundering of Russian oil, which was something that the Americans had actually wanted India to do. This is something that Trump has made quite a bit of hay about.
He also erroneously claimed that India had agreed not to do that. There's absolute silence about that tweet on the Indian side. And of course, this tariff issue. So, if you look at what Trump is doing everywhere, he's ceding ground to China not just in South Asia, but everywhere.
How do you assess the situation along the India-China border, where both sides are ramping up infrastructure?
My understanding is that, talking to Indians who follow this closely, is that the Chinese are really outpacing the Indians in infrastructure development.
By everyone's assessment, China appears to be winning that race.
Given the tensions with China and uncertainty with the US, could India move towards a limited rapprochement with China?
So India and China are very integrated economically. Just like everyone is dependent upon Chinese supply lines, so are the Indians. And I don't see that changing.
I don't see how you have a complete rapprochement with China. China offered India two opportunities to resolve the border dispute, and the Indians under prime ministers (Jawaharlal) Nehru and Indira Gandhi told them no. And
the Chinese have subsequently retrenched from those offers and have even said that those offers were never made in the first place.
So, there is going to be a natural limit to how far India can engage China, given their huge border disputes and given that the Chinese are occupying significant parts of Indian territory that India claims.
Finally, what can regional powers do to prevent another crisis from spiralling into war?
The most obvious solution is for Pakistan to stop using terrorism as state policy. But that won’t happen without a military defeat, which India cannot deliver without risking nuclear escalation. Jihad is part of Pakistan's grand strategy. That isn't going to change.
India has its own challenges. It has to maintain a large, aggressive counter-insurgency grid in Kashmir because of the constant threat of terrorism from Pakistan. Unfortunately, many of those troops are not well-trained.
There are suspensions of civil liberties, which are also well-documented by Indian organisations. And this creates an environment that is conducive for local Kashmiris to support these militant organisations.
The bottom line is there's going to be another crisis. It's not if, it's a question of when.
Transcript
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October 24, 2025
2 min