New Perspectives on Nuclear Verification

When Prestige Overrides Proof: How Mistrust Undermines Nuclear Verification in South Asia

by Kashaf Sohail

When we talk about “verification” in nuclear politics, most people picture inspectors counting warheads, satellites tracking fissile materials, or monitoring treaty compliance. But verification is more than a technical checklist. At its core, it builds the shared knowledge required for stability, allowing adversaries to avoid miscalculation (IPNDV 2024: 4).

This broader meaning of verification is something I came to see personally. As a woman from South Asia in the nuclear policy space, I have noticed how the language of deterrence often echoes masculinity: resolve, retaliation, rank. That mindset prizes control and prestige, not accountability. Thus, it leaves little room for transparency or openness because secrecy itself is seen as strength. When that is the starting point, verification looks less like a safeguard and more like a foreign intrusion.

The April 2025 crisis illustrates the risks inherent in such a culture, when India and Pakistan faced their gravest nuclear confrontation since Kargil. In just four days, both sides exchanged missiles, engaged in air combat, and used cyber and drone attacks. But the most powerful tool was not hardware, rather it was secrecy-driven by underlying mistrust. Mistrust explains why neither side opened its actions to scrutiny, but secrecy was the practice that turned that mistrust into danger. By rejecting independent observers, both sealed their own narratives. In that climate, secrecy became a weapon which concealed facts, deepened suspicion, and blocked de-escalation.

This was not a failure of technology but of trust. Verification in a crisis is not about proving causes; it is about agreeing on what happened and what effects followed. Facts can slow escalation; without them, assumptions take over. I say this not only as a researcher, but as a nuclear disarmament activist from a country that proudly holds nuclear weapons outside global treaties. Unlike several South Asian states that have joined global treaties, India and Pakistan have remained outside the bounds of NPT, CTBT, or TPNW, so prestige and justice narratives fill the vacuum, making escalation easier than restraint.

Over four days, the conflict caused dozens of casualties and sharply increased the risk of nuclear escalation. Analysts warned that another exchange could be “uncontrolled” and even “inevitable” (Niaz 2025). When verification systems, formal or informal, do not exist, misperception fuels confrontation. This is not only a South Asian story; globally, hypersonic weapons, autonomous systems, and shrinking decision timelines give leaders ever less time to separate truth from rumour (Horowitz, Scharre & Velez-Green 2019). Without trusted knowledge, deterrence itself becomes brittle (IPNDV 2024).

So how do we enable verification in an environment shaped by mistrust? The challenge is not a lack of tools but of political and cultural will. Hotlines, joint inquiries, and shared monitoring already exist in some contexts (Erästö, Komžaitė & Topychkanov 2019). Enabling verification means making these mechanisms credible and central to crisis management while also treating verification as cultural as much as technical with an effort to change the mindset that equates openness with weakness (UNIDIR 2008).

It also means questioning the idea that nuclear prestige comes from secrecy when in fact secrecy is what makes states most vulnerable as it raises the risk of miscalculation, hinders trust-building, and reflects a narrow, gendered view of power equating opacity with strength (Ehrenberg-Peters 2024). Far from protecting states, secrecy undermines stability.

I became an activist because I could not reconcile the pride the two regional countries take in nuclear weapons with the risks we live under. For me, verification is not a dry technical procedure; it is the difference between myth and fact, war and peace. If South Asia is to survive its next crisis, verification must matter before missiles fly.

Kashaf Sohail hails from Islamabad, Pakistan, and is a recipient of the prestigious Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. She pursued a Master’s in Global Studies through a joint program at the University of Vienna, Austria, the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, and Leipzig University, Germany, with research examining the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear testing in Pakistan. She works as Legal and International Affairs Manager at Star Entertainment GmbH in Berlin and has previously held roles with the Cinema for Peace Foundation, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), UNESCO, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan. She is actively involved in international advocacy and activism networks including the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Youth for TPNW, the CTBTO Youth Group, YOUNGO, and Women in Nuclear. She has delivered several addresses at the United Nations headquarters in Vienna, Geneva, and New York, and is a regular participant in international conferences and policy forums. Her research focuses on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, nuclear weapons policy in South Asia, climate change, refugees, and migration.

 

References:

Abstract Representation of Verification in Nuclear Politics. AI-generated image (using NightCafe’s HiDream I1 Fast)
Abstract Representation of Verification in Nuclear Politics. AI-generated image (using NightCafe’s HiDream I1 Fast)