Pakistan will remain significant security concern for times to come: Former CDS Gen Anil Chauhan (retd)

Pakistan will remain significant security concern for times to come: Former CDS Gen Anil Chauhan (retd) Relations with China can't be held hostage to boundary problems, states Gen Anil Chauhan.

Key points

• On August 25, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
• 4 min read New Delhi Sep 6, 2026 04: 29 AM IST.
• PAKISTAN WILL remain a significant security concern and a potential threat in the foreseeable future, former Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan (retd) remarked on Saturday.
• And that's what we demonstrated in three cross-border operations – Uri, then Balakot, and then Operation Sindoor.
• India and China are two major Asian powers, sizeable economies and civilisational states which cooperate in some areas and compete in others.

4 min read New Delhi Sep 6, 2026 04: 29 AM IST. Former CDS Gen Anil Chauhan (retd).

PAKISTAN WILL remain a significant security concern and a potential threat in the foreseeable future, former Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan (retd) remarked on Saturday. He remarked Pakistan's defence pacts with other countries could foster overconfidence and prompt Islamabad to produce miscalculations again.

He additionally emphasised that India's relationship with China cannot be held hostage to only boundary matters, without referring to any specific matter.

Delivering the GB Pant memorial lecture on 'Threats and Challenges to India's Security', he remarked Operation Sindoor, holding the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and some practical measures may hopefully change or induce behavioural change in Pakistan.

Gen Chauhan was referring to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye signing the 'Makkah Joint Defence Agreement' under which an attack against one of them will be treated as an attack against all of them.

"India's external threat environment is shared by plenty of factors: unresolved borders. Cross-border terrorism, non-state actors, contested spaces which are known as global commons, then expanding cooperation and competition in space, cyber and the maritime domain. These factors interact, " he remarked, adding that they cannot be examined separately.

"Let me talk regarding our western neighbour. Pakistan will remain, I think, a major security concern and a threat for times to come, " he remarked.

Meanwhile, the former CDS additionally stated the existence of nuclear weapons has created a degree of static stability at the apex level. "And this is what has induced instability at the lowest level. It's classically known as a stability-instability paradox."

He remarked Pakistan has been trying to reduce space for conventional operations and expand the space for sub-conventional operations, that is, terrorism and cross-border activities, adding that terrorism and proxy war have been central to this approach and strategy.

"Non-state actors provide deniability, reduce apparent cost and seek to provoke political and communal consequences. Even when a particular terrorist network is degraded, the enabling ecosystem that's the ideology, the recruitment system, the finance, training, propaganda and state backing can recreate it, reorganise it, " Gen Chauhan stated.

So, India must go by this premise that terrorism and proxy war will remain a "major challenge" for it, he remarked, adding that the only way you can defeat it is by creating credible deterrence. "And that's what we demonstrated in three cross-border operations – Uri, then Balakot, and then Operation Sindoor. So, deterrence must operate throughout the spectrum. India must be able to raise the cost of proxy war and terrorism for Pakistan, so that it stops using this as an instrument of state policy, " Gen Chauhan remarked.

Referring to The Indian Express report on Saturday on the scheduled Corps Commander-level discussions in the Northeast and the establishment of further hotlines, Gen Chauhan noted it is a welcome development, but India-China relations cannot be held hostage to boundary matters only.

On August 25, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. This person are the special representatives for the boundary discussions, met in Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping is projected to attend the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12-13.

"That's what we're doing as part of SCO and now as part of BRICS, " he remarked, adding that the future of Asia will depend substantially on how India and China manage this simultaneous rise.

He remarked the boundary problem (LAC) remains unsettled, and differing perceptions of the boundary, infrastructure construction and force multipliers create "the possibility of friction and escalation".

He remarked this requires vigilance, credible capabilities, clear agreements and consistent adherence to them.

Taken together, the developments around pakistan will remain significant security concern for times to come: Former CDS point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.