C Uday Bhaskar
India-Pakistan relations are in a state of suspended hostility with the pause in Operation Sindoor, a military operation New Delhi had launched against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan on May 7, in response to the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22 that killed 26 people, mostly tourists.
The cessation of hostilities was announced on May 10 and has held since – albeit in an uneasy manner. The Indian military was able to effectively demonstrate that it could strike terror infrastructure deep in Pakistan with precision, notwithstanding some tactical mistakes in the early phase of Operation Sindoor.
Consequent to the May 10 agreement that both nations would desist from further military action, New Delhi has indicated that a new normal has been set as far as state-sponsored terrorism is concerned. Refusing to be intimidated by ‘nuclear blackmail’, the Modi government has announced that it intends to treat any future Pakistan-sponsored terrorism as an act of war, with India adopting a strategy of escalation dominance to deter future attacks.
The nature of defence and security-related challenges that will shape India-Pakistan relations shortly will be mediated by three interlinked domains, and New Delhi’s ability to manage them with the requisite degree of astuteness and strategic nimbleness.
The most critical determinant is the nuclear domain. After the pause of Operation Sindoor, India has asserted that it will not be ‘blackmailed’ by Pakistan’s nuclear weapon capability. Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined it in his address to the nation on May 12, when he said, “India will not tolerate any nuclear blackmail. Terror camps growing under the shelter of nuclear blackmail will not be tolerated”.
During Operation Sindoor, India repeatedly conveyed to Pakistan that it was not targeting any nuclear facility or assets of that country to ensure that there was no panicky WMD (weapons of mass destruction) escalation. India’s objective was limited to degrading the terrorist infrastructure that the Pakistani army has nurtured for decades, and it is now evident that there was no tangible nuclear element in Operation Sindoor. The CDS General Anil Chauhan confirmed this in his Singapore remarks.
There is a grey area in that US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that he enabled the ceasefire, since there was imminent danger of a “bad nuclear war” – a claim that neither India nor Pakistan has accepted.
Hence, India must ensure that its bilateral nuclear deterrence posture remains stable and crisis-proof. This would enable New Delhi to consider responding in the conventional military space if there is another Pakistan-related terrorist attack.
The related domain is the quality of India’s conventional military capability, and this came into sharp focus during Operation Sindoor. Air power proved to be a critical component in the success of this operation, and the inadequacies in this sector were spelt out unambiguously by the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, in his recent address at the CII summit.
It is worth recalling that a parliamentary committee headed by Major General (Retd) B C Khanduri had highlighted both quantitative and qualitative gaps in India’s military inventory nearly a decade ago during the first term of the Modi government. However, necessary funding support to redress the gaps has not been forthcoming.
India’s conventional military preparedness will have to be of a higher order and improved texture (jointness and integration of capabilities) than what it had been before Operation Sindoor, if the credibility of the ‘new normal’ is to be acknowledged by the adversary.
The other strand that will have to be factored in is that in the next engagement or war, Pakistan will fight with Chinese armaments and be guided by the PLA operational awareness and related command and control template. This will make it a two-front war, a reality that Indian planners will have to contend with.
The third domain is India’s intelligence capability related to terrorism. It merits recall that Operation Sindoor was initiated in response to a terror attack in Pahalgam. The scourge of terrorism degrading India’s internal security has been an abiding challenge since the Indira Gandhi years. The more recent instances of cross-border supported terror attacks include Indian Parliament attack in 2001, Mumbai in 2008, Pulwama in 2019, and Pahalgam in 2025. Each of them is a tragic punctuation, and regrettably, in each case, it was an intelligence lapse.
India’s abiding internal security challenge is to ensure that no further acts of major terrorism dent the internal security fabric of the country and endanger the lives of innocents, be they Indian citizens or tourists.
To preempt any such exigency, the existing inadequacies in the national intelligence grid and region-specific intelligence gathering capabilities must be reviewed objectively, and necessary policy corrections must be applied.
This is an area that has been languishing since the Kargil War of 1999, and the various recommendations made by the KRC (Kargil Review Committee) have been relegated to the backburner by successive governments.
In announcing the new normal, India has set a demanding benchmark for itself – that it will act decisively in the event of another terror attack. Whether to preempt such an attack or apprehend the perpetrators when this happens, the composite national security capability will have to be honed. The contours and tenor of India-Pakistan relations will be shaped by the outcome, or the lack thereof.
(The author is a security and strategic affairs expert; also Director, Society for Policy Studies)
