The Role of Drone Technology in The May 2025 India-Pakistan War: Strategic Implications for South Asian Security and International Relations

Abstract

It qualitatively analyzes the key role of drone technology in the May 2025 India-Pakistan War as a strategic, political, and security implication on South Asia and on the international system generally. The first significant inter-state war in the region was also the first to utilize autonomous and semi-autonomous drones as intelligence, surveillance and precision strike platforms to decide the result. The paper will use the ideas of realist and technological determinism and explain how the introduction of unmanned aerial system (UAS) changed the working paradigm and position of deterrence and diplomatic response of the two countries. The information was gathered by using expert interviewing, by taking into account the defense policies, and by analyzing media documents and explained by the thematic factor. The results show that in addition to the fact that the usage of drone warfare increased the boundaries of military asymmetry, it also caused arms rivalry in the region, cyberspace insecurity and revolution of war morality. The delicate balance of deterrence could be broken in South Asia unless non-cooperative arms are employed to control the proliferation of combat drones and it would be difficult to impose international norms of legitimacy in warfare, discovering the paper.