 "On May 7, under Operation Sindoor, the armed forces carried out precision strikes on nine terrorist bases in Pakistan and PoJK. One of them was the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Muridke (FILE PHOTO: AP/PTI)")
“Policymakers told us last year that South Asia — historically defined by conflict — had become more stable than Europe, where the long post-Second World War peace was broken by the war in Ukraine. I wonder how they view that assessment now,” a European think-tank analyst said days after the intense India-Pakistan hostilities of May 2025, codenamed Operation Sindoor by New Delhi.
The analyst’s remark underscored that the operation, which began in the pre-dawn hours of May 7 and was paused by India on the evening of May 10, had, in unprecedented ways, upended long-held assumptions about the India-Pakistan relationship, shaped by four wars — including one fought after both attained nuclear weapons capability.
Fuzzy borders
“Pakistan has called into question the sanctity of the international border itself,” a defence source said on the second day of the conflict, after a large-scale Pakistani drone infiltration was thwarted.
On May 7, India’s armed forces carried out precision strikes on nine terrorist bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack, in which 26 civilians were killed. Despite New Delhi’s assertion that the initial strikes were “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible”, Pakistan responded with multiple attacks on Indian civilian and military infrastructure, simultaneously targeting the entire stretch of the western border — from Kutch in Gujarat to Srinagar and Awantipur in Jammu and Kashmir.
The attacks — carried out by Pakistan’s armed forces rather than proxies, and extending beyond Kashmir — were unprecedented within the established understanding of India-Pakistan escalation dynamics.
The strikes also marked the first Indian military operation in Pakistan’s Punjab province since the 1971 war.
New doctrine
After the operation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi articulated a new national security doctrine, under which any future terrorist attack will be treated as an act of war. The doctrine’s stated aim is to eliminate “the false distinction between terrorists and their state sponsors”.
This was also reflected in New Delhi’s retaliation to the Pakistani drone and missile attacks on Indian cities and military bases on May 7, 8, and 9, with the Indian armed forces targeting Pakistan’s air defence infrastructure, culminating in air strikes on 11 Pakistani airbases on the intervening night of May 9 and 10.
New Delhi also described the operation as marking a shift in its response to terrorism being used as state policy — direct action instead of deterrence.
Noting that since 2014, the government has sought to renegotiate the terms of engagement with Pakistan, defined by terrorism despite nuclear stability at the border, Harsh V Pant, vice president of Studies and Foreign Policy at the Observer Research Foundation, describes the 2016 surgical strike and 2019 Balakot airstrike as calibrated uses of force. He views the new doctrine as part of this continuum, adding that while it is not a sharp departure, it nonetheless reflects an evolution in the government’s thinking.
“Some success has been achieved in raising the costs of terrorism for Pakistan,” he says. “The new doctrine will require significantly enhanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities for rapid detection and deterrence. And if deterrence fails, India must be prepared to climb the escalation ladder on its own terms.”
New warfare
Operation Sindoor marked the arrival of large-scale kinetic, non-contact warfare in the subcontinent, defined by fighting through long-range projectiles rather than troops in close-range combat.
What set the latest conflict apart from the clashes of 2016 and 2019 was that it witnessed at least three military firsts: India’s use of cruise missiles such as the Indo-Russian BrahMos and the European SCALP against Pakistan; Pakistan’s use of conventionally armed Fatah-I and Fatah-II short-range ballistic missiles against India; and the employment of drone warfare by both sides.
The character of the conflict — and the weapons used in it — has already begun influencing decision making.
Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials, for instance, have indicated that the conflict pointed to the need for India to become a drone superpower — both in quality and quantity — representing a substantial leap from the current situation, in which only a handful of companies are capable of producing military-grade drones.
Three months after the pause, Prime Minister Modi, in his Independence Day address, announced the launch of India’s planned defence shield system under Mission Sudarshan Chakra. Defence experts broadly expect this system to function as an air and missile defence umbrella. Modi vowed that, by 2035, the country’s national security shield would be expanded, strengthened, and modernised, ensuring that all important sites — both strategic and civilian — are fully protected through new technological platforms. He also emphasised that, alongside the mission, a mechanism will be established to assess future warfare scenarios and devise a “plus-one” strategic response.
Highlighting that Operation Sindoor marked the first instance in which the chiefs of the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force jointly planned operations — enabled by political resolve — Anil Golani, retired air vice marshal and director general of the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies, says the model employed during the operation points to a new pathway for enhanced integration and jointness.
Distinct from the earlier theatre-commands-centric approach, he notes that this model has now been validated under real-world conditions. “Contrary to popular belief, establishing theatre commands is not the government’s express mandate,” he says. “The priority is fostering integration and jointness through joint planning at the apex level to deliver a syncretic punch and reduce replication across the three services.” The model used during Sindoor, he adds, proved effective at the apex level. “The imperative now is to ensure that this percolates to frontline units.”
Mandatory self-reliance
The new doctrine and the changing character of warfare appear to have reinforced among decision-makers the need for a renewed emphasis on the ongoing push for self-reliance in defence.
This was reflected in Modi’s I-Day address, where he underlined that Operation Sindoor demonstrated how strategic autonomy and indigenous capabilities — including Made-in-India weapons — are essential for decisively addressing threats. Stressing that national security cannot rest on foreign dependence, he made a pointed call for Indian innovators and youth to develop jet engines, a long-standing gap that has constrained the country’s indigenous defence programmes.
There has also been a growing recognition that self-reliance will, in part, depend on reversing the declining trend in defence budgetary allocations as a proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP), alongside the MoD continuing to provide order visibility and industry — both domestic and foreign — ensuring timely execution of contracts.
Towards the end of November, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said that the outlay for procuring new equipment and weapon platforms in next year’s Budget is likely to increase, with the MoD seeking a 20 per cent rise in the defence modernisation component for the coming financial year — double the usual 10 per cent increase seen in previous years.
The MoD will seek the enhanced allocation after having exhausted the military modernisation Budget in FY25 for the first time in five years. For FY26, around Rs 1.49 trillion has been allocated under this head, while the overall defence Budget allocation stands at Rs 6.81 trillion.
The MoD signed contracts worth about Rs 2 trillion in FY25, and is on track to match that pace in FY26, having already concluded around Rs 1.5 trillion worth of contracts so far this year.
Pointing out that about Rs 1.33 trillion — almost 88 per cent — of contracts signed in FY25 were placed with domestic suppliers, the secretary said the trend would continue and that this proportion would not fall below the normative target of 75 per cent. “Big global buys will be exceptions rather than the norm,” he added.
He also emphasised that increased contracts would have to be accompanied by greater accountability by the industry to meet promised milestones. He added that under the Rs 40,000 crore sixth tranche of emergency procurement for the armed forces, the MoD had already decided that any contract not executed on time would be foreclosed.
“Beyond the challenge posed by our northern neighbour, we still lack a clear understanding of how to establish escalation dominance against Pakistan across the rungs of the ladder,” says Pant. “Certain capabilities will be critical, and we need to be meticulous in identifying them, while avoiding the temptation to invest in everything, considering resource constraints.” Given the speed at which the nature of warfare is changing, he adds, India must recognise that long-term, static modernisation models may have to give way to more flexible ones.
