Operation Sindoor: With battlefield edge, India cornered Pakistan to seek peace & that's new normal

First Post

13-05-2025

Under Operation Sindoor, India maintained escalation dominance and never allowed Pakistan to respond, forcing it on the backfoot and making it seek peace. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has signalled that such an offensive will now be India's defence against terrorism. read more
The medium-range Akash air defence system is in service with the Indian Army and Air Force. Image courtesy BEL
US President Donald Trump might claim that he leveraged trade to bring India and Pakistan to a ceasefire, but the reality is that it was the Indian military campaign that forced Pakistan to seek a ceasefire — as Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said.
Under Operation Sindoor, India maintained escalation dominance from the beginning, did not allow Pakistan to retaliate, and imposed costs so substantial while remaining beneath the nuclear threshold that even a leader as rabid as General Asim Munir sought a ceasefire.
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After the first round of Indian strikes on nine terrorist sites in the early hours of May 7, Pakistan rebuffed Indian outreach in false confidence. Three days later, after taking a beating across the spectrum, Pakistan reached out with a request for ceasefire.
India hammered at least eight Pakistani airbases in addition to several air defence units and radar sites. The airbases struck included some of Pakistan's crown jewels, such as the Chaklala and Sargodha airbases. The Chaklala airbase is next door to the Pakistan Army headquarters in Rawalpindi — the true seat of power in the country. India also struck Lahore and took out the city's air defence system.
India neither called Pakistan for a ceasefire nor gave it an off-ramp and maintained an upper hand throughout the conflict, says Yusuf Unjhawala, a scholar of geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution.
Unjhawala tells Firstpost, 'India initially gave Pakistan a chance to de-escalate. As soon as Pakistan indicated its intention to not de-escalate, India struck Pakistan and kept striking until Pakistan reached out to seek a ceasefire. Pakistan could never respond to the first round of Indian strikes and was left confused with Indian strikes left, right, and centre and was reduced to playing catch-up. That was by design as India kept the heat on so much that Pakistan simply did not have any room to attack. India threw the final punches and came out on the top in the conflict.'
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As Firstpost had previously reported, the Modi government had decided that there would not be any de-escalation from India's side and the ball of de-escalation lay in Pakistan's court. The government was firm that there would neither be any off-ramp to Pakistan nor any face-saving for Munir — and the government stayed true to these commitments until the end.
India's calculated and continuous escalation achieved the desired outcome, says Unjhawala.
India calls out Pakistan's nuclear bluff, forces Pakistan
For more than two decades, the Kargil War was thought to be the last conventional conflict between India and Pakistan.
Once Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons, its leaders started invoking them at every chance. Pakistan's development of lower-yield tactical weapons and the dominance of a jihadist military convinced many leaders and strategists that Pakistan had acquired the ultimate deterrent against conventional attacks from India. But that was until last week.
As India struck every corner of Punjab, including the prized airbases housing top fighter planes, and reached as far as Karachi with precision strikes, India called out Pakistan's nuclear bluff. To be sure, Pakistan's cry for help to the international community included nuclear blackmail — the so-called 'alarming' intelligence received by the Donald Trump administration that made Vice President reach out to PM Modi is understood to be Pakistan's false claim about India going for its nuclear sites or nuclear chain of command.
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When Vance asked Modi to exercise restraint, Modi listened to him but told him that India would respond to Pakistan with more force and strength come what may — and it did. India kept hitting Pakistan and forced it into a corner.
In an address to the nation, Modi called out Pakistan's nuclear bluff.
'India will not tolerate any nuclear blackmail. India will strike precisely and decisively at the terrorist hideouts developing under the cover of the nuclear blackmail,' said Modi in Hindi.
Modi further referred to Pakistan playing foreign powers, like Vance, and how India did not allow such games to deter its response.
'Pakistan was pleading to the world to ease tensions. And after suffering heavy losses, Pakistan's army contacted our DGMO on the afternoon of 10th May. By then, we had destroyed the infrastructure of terrorism on a large scale,' said Modi.
India proves combat capabilities — and draws lessons
Under Operation Sindoor, India struck a host of targets across Pakistan with precision.
India cratered runways, hit aircraft hangars, terrorist infrastructure, radar sites, air defence units, and established combat superiority.
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Unjhawala, the geopolitics specialist at Takshashila, says that India gained immense insights into Chinese military systems in the conflict with Pakistan, which will help the country in confrontation with China.
'Around 80 per cent of the Pakistani military's equipment is of Chinese origin, ranging from missiles and fighter planes to air defence systems. Pakistan used all of them against India and India successfully dealt with all of them. The greatest successes are the destruction of the Chinese HQ-9 air defence system and missiles mounted on JF-17s,' says Unjhawala.
Learnings from the conflict would undeniably be put to use soon.
As Pakistan's perpetual war on India is driven by a self-consuming jihadist national ideology, it is not possible to impose permanent restraint. What is possible is to impose costs so high that the frequency of misadventures is minimised — and that is what India has done.
'The Balakot airstrike brought India six years of deterrence. Operation Sindoor should also bring many years of restraint. But Pakistan will attack again and India should be prepared. The preparation has to start now. The first step should be to raise the defence budget, hopefully to 4 per cent. Then, India should smoothen the procurement process and go heavy on indigenisation,' says Unjhawala.
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As India denies him face-saving, Munir stands weaker than ever
Munir, otherwise the strongest man in Pakistan, stands weaker than ever.
With the Pahalgam attack and the response to Indian strikes on May 7, he overplayed his hand and now finds himself in a corner.
'While Munir's position was already untenable, it is now weaker than ever. We are not used to seeing the Pakistani Army this week,' says Unjhawala.
One of the reasons behind Munir greenlighting the Pahalgam attack was to enter into a conflict with India and restore the military's primacy inside Pakistan. Now that Pakistan stands as a loser in the conflict, Munir has neither received a victory nor a face-saving exit.
It remains to be seen how long Munir would be able to rely on a pliant media and rally-around-the-flag effect. As Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif declared victory over India, victory parades have been reported in the country. But, when stories of continued bombardment and images of devastated airbases, trickle to the public, would the propaganda still hold?
As Pakistani generals attended funerals of terrorists, the entire world saw what India had been saying for years — there is no difference between the Pakistani military and terrorists.
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With Operation Sindoor and the speech laying down the 'Modi Doctrine', the prime minister has promised a new normal regarding terrorism and Pakistan — one and the same thing for most Indians.
Under the Modi Doctrine, Operation Sindoor will serve as a benchmark for response to a terrorist attack, terrorists and governments sponsoring them will not be differentiated, and nuclear blackwill will not be tolerated.
Unjhawala says, 'Now that the government has set a new normal, it has to live up to it. It is yet to be seen whether attacks on soldiers would also have a response like Operation Sindoor.'