India has embraced an assertive strategy of escalation dominance to impose steep costs on future Pakistan-backed terrorism.
On the night of May 7, India initiated Operation Sindoor, conducting precision strikes against terrorist camps in Pakistan. India was responding to the brutal massacre of twenty-six tourists by terrorists affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organization with sanctuaries in and support from Pakistan. It sparked the most serious escalation of military force between the two South Asian nuclear powers. For the first time in history, two nuclear powers have attacked one another with drones and air strikes as well as cruise and ballistic missiles.
The ceasefire brokered by the United States last week remains fragile, and both sides have claimed victory. Pakistan claims that it has defended its sovereignty against India’s aggression and retaliated effectively, forcing India to sue for peace. The ceasefire agreement has once again drawn international attention to Kashmir, with President Trump offering to mediate a resolution to the longstanding territorial dispute.
New Delhi’s perceptions of gains are different. India believes it has finally avenged not only the recent terror attack but also past attacks. India struck Pakistan “harder, bigger, deeper,” demonstrating military superiority and technological precision. India has pursued escalation, strengthening its position for future crises. No diplomatic concessions have been made; India will neither talk to Pakistan nor countenance third-party mediation efforts. The Indus Water Treaty remains suspended.
The latest crisis has forced South Asia into uncharted territories. For nearly forty years, New Delhi absorbed the costs of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism as the Pakistani military trained, equipped, and funded proxies who carried out attacks across India with little consequence. Pakistan, as well as the world, thought India would fume but practice restraint due to fears of nuclear escalation. Indian behavior did not help either. India threatened military responses but rarely executed them.
Operation Sindoor has redefined India’s approach. Henceforth, India will treat Pakistan-sponsored terror as an act of war. And it will respond. Instead of mere threats, New Delhi has embraced a strategy of military escalation to impose consequences on Pakistan while maintaining dominance over the conflict. India believed that precision strikes and calculated escalation provided exit strategies for Pakistan’s military, allowing it to step back without losing face.
However, as a safeguard against prolonged resistance, India’s escalate-to-deescalate approach aims to pressure the international community, particularly the United States, into persuading Pakistan that continued retaliation is futile. If the international community fears nuclear escalation, New Delhi will use the strategic risk to its advantage.
The Path to Operation Sindoor
“India has come to terms with the Chinese nuclear capability in the belief that China will not use nuclear weapons against India. But India has no such confidence about Pakistani restraint and believes that India’s superior size and capabilities offer an incentive for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development and use,” argued the Indian defense minister Arun Singh in a meeting with Congressman Stephen Solarz in December 1986.
Singh’s words were prophetic. For more than three decades since then, Pakistan has used nuclear weapons to challenge India, once conventionally in Kargil, but mostly by directly aiding and abetting terrorism.
India and Pakistan have gone through multiple crises because of Pakistan-sponsored terror since then. They also fought a limited war in Kargil. But India could not bring to bear its threat of military punishment on Pakistan, even after the horrific terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008. Due to economic worries, concerns about maintaining an image as a responsible power, or sheer lack of political will, Indian decision-makers demurred from military action. Instead, they practiced strategic restraint, exposing Pakistan’s nuclear risk-taking, to convince the US and the international community to intervene. It also suited Pakistan, as it could continue its support for terrorism without any direct costs.
In 2016 and 2019, India did respond to terror threats. The special forces led strikes against terror launchpads across the line of control in September 2016, followed by air strikes against terror camps in Pakistan in 2019, revealing India’s willingness to engage the terrorists on Pakistani territory. However, these were highly limited strikes. India was also unwilling to climb the escalation ladder. Pakistan retaliated with air strikes in 2019, but India did not retaliate further.
However, Operation Sindoor was planned as a severe escalatory move to punish terrorist infrastructure across Pakistan and for escalation dominance across land, air, and sea domains in case Pakistan retaliated.
Escalation Dominance and Manipulating Strategic Risk
India’s strategy was three-fold. First, it demonstrated its capability and resolve to target terrorist training camps and infrastructure in Pakistan. Second, it maintained its resolve and capability to retaliate to Pakistan’s response in equal or greater measures while allowing Pakistan an off-ramp. Third, it escalated the crisis to the level where Pakistan asked for external intervention. In earlier crises, Pakistan used strategic risk to force outside powers to intervene; India’s intention was to take a leaf from the Pakistani playbook.
With every single exchange of fire after May 7, India dominated the escalation ladder. Its most intrusive and hard-hitting penetration occurred on the night of May 9, when it struck major airbases across Pakistan with BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles. It was a response to Pakistan’s incessant drone warfare against Indian military and civilian installations. These drone swarms were also considered as a probing tactic against Indian air defenses, which could then be eliminated through missile and air strikes. In response, Pakistan launched Operation Bunyan al Marsoos (“unbreakable wall”), conducting air and missile strikes and drone swarms against Indian air bases, logistical hubs, and armament depots. India, in response, struck more airbases in Pakistan.
India’s escalation dominance did create significant pressure on Pakistan. The cruise missile barrage threatened not only the sustainability of Pakistani air operations but also exposed the vulnerability of its nuclear assets and command and control apparatus. If India could attack the Nur Khan air base with impunity, it could also target the Strategic Plans Division, which manages Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
It is this vulnerability that forced Pakistan to seek U.S. mediation. Pakistan sought mediation with a gun held to its head. Without U.S. mediation, Pakistan would be forced to climb up the escalation ladder, possibly to the nuclear level. Vice President JD Vance, who had just a day before, asserted that the crisis was “none of our business,” called Prime Minister Modi and sought a ceasefire. On Saturday evening, the two sides agreed to cease hostilities.
At this stage, India enjoyed a significant military advantage, even when it lost an unclear number of aircraft in the beginning. The Indian missile barrage on airbases put a hard break on the Pakistani Air Force’s operational tempo and endangered the country’s air defenses. Even Pakistan’s ballistic missiles were getting intercepted by India’s air and missile defense systems. The Indian Navy was ready to choke Pakistan’s economic lifeline with a forward-threatening posture in the Northern Arabian Sea. The longer the crisis, the more India would bear down on Pakistan with the mass of its military and the resolve of its people.
Operation Sindoor’s Gains
If the objective was avenging Pahalgam, India was successful. If the objective of Operation Sindoor was deterrence against future terrorist attacks, it’s simply impossible to ensure. Deterrence is difficult even in the best of times, as it hinges on the adversary’s cost-benefit calculations. Despite asymmetries in power, a determined opponent can still choose force. Pakistan’s revisionist goals, ideological mindset, high risk tolerance, and the dominant role of its military make it especially hard to deter. This is especially the case when it possesses multiple means of attack, whether conventional, proxy, or nuclear. Pakistan is not a normal state—it does not perceive the consequences of using force the way others do.
First, India has carved out a wide space beneath the Pakistani nuclear red lines to initiate and execute punitive military action. Without such costs, Pakistan can perpetrate terrorism at a discount. The costs of terrorism for Pakistan will keep on increasing in terms of India’s military retaliation. India can absorb the loss of more men and materiel than Pakistan, given its economy and population size. New technologies such as loitering munitions and cruise missiles provide significant stand-off capabilities to target deep inside Pakistani territory. Additionally, India’s increasing air and space surveillance provides an excellent picture of the battle space.
Second, capabilities notwithstanding, Modi has drawn new political and military red lines against Pakistani terrorism. India will consider the next instance of terror an “act of war,” initiating direct strikes against Pakistan’s military rather than just terrorist infrastructure. The burden of future expectations is such that other political parties and leaders will find it very difficult to act otherwise. But more importantly, New Delhi has, for the first time, manipulated strategic risk to its advantage. It wanted Pakistan to stop hostilities either by its own volition or international pressure. It achieved the same.
Operation Sindoor’s Losses
Even when seen as a hardliner, Modi was rational enough to keep India’s escalation measured, providing continuous off-ramps and agreeing to cease hostilities when Pakistan implored. Otherwise, Pakistan would either have to fight a losing war or escalate to the nuclear level. If Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Asim Munir, had been a professional soldier rather than a religious zealot, Pakistan could have avoided the war altogether.
The nature and structure of the Pakistani state will not allow it to abdicate terror entirely. In fact, the crisis may have further cemented General Munir’s precarious position within Pakistani politics, at least for the time being. The Army has been able to build a narrative of victory. An attentive Pakistani audience, primed by decades of ideological indoctrination, latched on to its military’s disinformation.
The burden of expectations engendered by India’s punitive strikes will create more pressure and audience costs in the future. Already, nationalists and hardliners in India have declared the ceasefire a surrender of India’s tactical advantage on the verge of a decisive win against Pakistan. Even the left-of-center political parties, such as the Indian National Congress, have mocked the prime minister for not rebuffing the Americans as Indira Gandhi did in 1971.
The military campaign will create its own dynamics. The precision with which the terror camps and military complexes were hit indicates that India may be able to threaten Pakistan’s nuclear capability—at least command and control—without using a counterforce nuclear strike. It also means a significant boost in India’s surveillance capabilities, both in air and space.
The robust performance of India’s air and missile defense—demonstrated by the reported interception of the Fatah-2 ballistic missile—will further aggravate Pakistan’s fears of a splendid first strike. South Asia should brace for a significant Pakistani nuclear build-up in response. Pakistan’s inability to hit India substantively will also force a major effort to build more potent and longer-range missiles, including cruise missiles.
Lastly, U.S. isolationism and the emerging multipolarity will make the next crisis more difficult to negotiate. India may want a more multipolar world, but that would also mean a relative decline in U.S. interest and influence. Manipulation of strategic risk requires an attentive and interested international audience, particularly a benign and allied hegemon. Multipolarity without suitable capability and friends will be a very difficult space to negotiate, especially as a hostile great power like China rises in India’s neighborhood.
About the Authors: Harsh V. Pant and Yogesh Joshi
Professor Harsh V. Pant is Vice President – Studies and Foreign Policy at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He is a Professor of International Relations with King’s India Institute at King’s College London. He is also Director (Honorary) of Delhi School of Transnational Affairs at Delhi University. Professor Pant’s current research is focused on Asian security issues.
Dr. Yogesh Joshi is Indian Community Endowed Assistant Professor and Director, India Center. His research focuses on military technological diffusion among rising powers, conventional military and nuclear strategy, and alliance politics, with an empirical focus on India, South Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Before joining UCF, Dr. Joshi led the National Security and Foreign Policy program at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Follow him on X: @the_nucleryogi.
Image: Shutterstock / Srinivasan.Clicks.
