The first was a land offensive – a cross-border military operation, termed as 'surgical strike' – which was concentrated on identified targets, limited in intensity and force movement and had restrained firepower with the only defining character, and the riskiest aspect of it, being the cross-border intrusion to meet the military objective. With the surprise factor being its advantage, Indian special forces completed the mission without allowing Pakistani forces time and space for an effective reprisal.

The second was air strikes targeting terror assets or training camps in enemy territory. The result was Pakistan scrambling its jets, leading to aerial dogfights, an Indian aircraft being shot down and pilot captured and India threatening retaliation and escalation if the pilot was harmed and not returned safely. The IAF pilot returned after 58 hours in Pakistan custody. While imminent military hostilities were averted, an IAF helicopter was also downed in friendly fire, from an Indian air defence system, leading to the death of all the crew on board.   

As India now prepares for a third offensive against Pakistan, speculation is rife on what will be military means that the Narendra Modi government will now bring into play in order to penalize India’s western neighbour for its support to terror groups, responsible for the carnage in Pahalgam.

Having exercised the limited land offensive option in 2016 and air power in 2019, it is natural to assume that the next step could be the usage of a missile inventory, particularly since the window for surprise has long closed and Pakistan has already activated its ground forces and air defence.

Will it be a missile or an artillery/rocket barrage?

A report in the Times of India quoting defence officials, meanwhile, suggests that India is considering using “long-range weapons for limited punitive strikes against Pakistan,” without having to cross the Line of Control (LoC). However, the report desists from explicitly pointing to potential use of missile systems in the Indian plans.   

The report quotes an officer talking about the use of “other long-range vectors” without crossing the LoC in order to “impose serious costs on the Pakistan Army and their infrastructure along the frontier.” However, the 'long range vectors’ suggested in the report include the use of long-range artillery guns including 155 mm, 120 mm mortars and anti-tank guns.

There is also considerable discussion about using Beyond Visual Range (BVR) precision weapons like Scalp air-to-ground cruise missiles, Israeli Crystal Maze and Spice 2000, which are mounted on Indian fighter jets including the Rafales, Sukhoi-MKIs and the Mirage 2000s. However, there is no reference to the Pinaka Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher System (MRLS), which has now an extended range of over 90 kilometres, well above the weapon systems mentioned in this report. While Pinaka-I with a 40 km range had made a decisive impact in the Kargil conflict, the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) has subsequently developed an advanced variant – Pinaka-II – with a 60 km range.  

In the current scenario, the usage of these tactical, conventionally-armed and inherently short-range or theatre systems could be most suitable in launching strikes at terror camps identified by the Techint (technical intelligence) teams of the Indian Army and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), without physically crossing the border. Even the deployment of BVR missiles of the fighter aircraft, if fired from within territory, could enable airpower complementing the rockets and heavy artillery.  

Notwithstanding these options, it is surprising that the Times of India report talked about ‘long-range’ vectors. In a strategic environment involving two nuclear-armed states ‘long-range’ systems largely refer to the nuclear-armed missile platforms which could include the interim-range ballistic missile (IRBM), medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), the long-range ballistic missile (LRBM) or the inter-continental range ballistic missile (ICBM).

As contiguous nations with Pakistan being of smaller size, an Indian usage of strategic missile platforms may ideally require only the deployment of IRBMs or MRBMs besides the option of using the Prithvi-I short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) for a conventional missile face-off, which could also include the venerable BrahMos land-based cruise missile systems.

Pakistan, on the other hand, could deploy its shorter or interim-range ones to hit India’s strategic assets and theatres in Northern India, including Delhi, besides its MRBMs like Shaheen-III having the range to India’s strategic deployments in Andaman and Nicobar or the numerous countervalue (non-military) assets across central and southern India.

Even if a missile barrage is planned, starting with conventional platforms like Prithvi-I before a Pakistan response triggers movement up the escalatory ladder, there is also scope to deploy the BrahMos air-launched cruise missiles onboard the Sukhois even in the context of an air assault beyond visual range. However, the mere deployment of cruise missiles could imply the involvement of a higher grade of missile systems beyond the spectrum of tactical rockets, artillery, BVR and MRLS platforms.

As a matter of fact, the usage of missile systems – be it short-range or longer ones – not only implies an advancement of military technological choices in terms of capabilities, in comparison to land and air operations, but also moving to the next step in the escalation ladder.

Clearly, the Indian government do not seem inclined towards operationalizing its advanced or strategic missile platforms despite the pressure to execute a response that deviates from the previous. The fact that the surprise element is lost and that Pakistan has also activated its defences and kicked off its rhetorical postures confirms the certitude of retaliation and escalation.

As in 2019, following the IAF strikes on Balakot, Pakistan has initiated ‘Operation Swift Retort’ which led to an aerial combat scenario that could have easily escalated to higher levels.

At the time of preparing this report, an Indian strike was anticipated at any time with preparations reported to be in full swing. However, the delay in launching the retaliatory operations also points to the dilemma in the security establishment regarding the apt military options, its desired intensity and range and what scenarios of retaliation and escalation have been conceived.

The Indian security and political establishment, currently, do not seem to prefer a cross-border endeavour – be it through special forces or air operations – as the scenarios of retaliation point to escalation towards full-fledged military hostilities with the endgame difficult to be conceived or managed at this point of time. The breakout of a full-fledged war, many in the government feel, could affect the Indian economy more than the rival’s, which is already in shambles.

Prime Minister Modi’s conversation with many leaders and briefings by top Indian cabinet ministers to their foreign counterparts also indicated that India does not wish escalation which could lead to military hostilities, even akin to limited war as witnessed in Kargil. That explains the plethora of non-military measures that have been imposed in the last two weeks – from freezing the Indus Water Treaty, ordering Pakistani citizens to leave India, closing the border in Attari, closing Indian air space to Pakistani aircraft and lately entry into Indian ports, and so on.

It is evident that India now needs a new strategy to deal with Pakistan-origin terror groups and their backers in what is seen as a new chapter in this decades-old low-intensity conflict (LIC).  

Pakistan’s return to low-intensity conflict

Behind the grand posturing and threat of punitive actions, there is considerable disquiet in the security establishment on being rudely woken up by the revival of ‘terrorism as an instrument of state policy’ by the Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

For many in the establishment and Delhi’s strategic community were of the impression that the Pakistan military's ability to run its terror campaign against India has been severely constrained in recent years.

Many developments and factors backed this perception:

-        Pakistan’s identity as a global hub of terror, which got validated after Osama bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad in 2011, a stone throw away from Pakistan’s military academy;

-        domestic political turmoil in Pakistan for over a decade which saw Nawaz Shariff sent to exile, Imran Khan propped up by the Pakistan Army, Khan turning against the Army and the American strategic depth in Pakistan, Khan’s ouster and return of the Shariff family in charge with Army’s help, and the Army losing its credibility in considerable terms before the Pakistan polity with open protests against the pseudo-rulers;

-        Pakistan placed on the ‘grey list’ of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF);

-        India’s decision to abrogate Article 370 and bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories;

-        the psychological impact of India’s surgical strikes and air strikes in Balakot which showed India’s resolve not just to retaliate but also call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff, which for decades deterred any form of Indian military action;

-        the Taliban return in Afghanistan, this time as bête noire of their one-time mentors with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) unleashing attacks against the Pakistan Army and, on the other hand, India opening dialogue with the Taliban regime, which even condemned the Pahalgam attack, among others.  

Much of the current turn of events is attributed to the current Pakistan Army chief, General Asim Munir’s desperate attempt to regain control over Pakistan’s politico-military machinery, which is reportedly facing dissensions over the treatment meted out to Imran Khan and protests against Shehbaz Sharif’s lame duck government.

The attempt to get into the good books of Americans, dealing with multiple security challenges posed by TTP and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and diverting the nation’s attention from the crippling economic situation all needed returning to propping up the India bogey.

Furthermore, Munir is known to be a ‘Jihadi’ or ‘Mullah’ general – a glaring product of General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation campaign of the late 1970s and 1980s, which led to not just the theological indoctrination of the Army but also the society at large. Munir also had the rare distinction of heading both the ISI and the Pakistan Military Intelligence, both of which are attuned to the anti-India doctrine.

Days before the Pahalgam massacre, Munir had given a speech in Islamabad on April 17th in which he referred to Kashmir as Pakistan’s ‘jugular vein’ and promised “never to abandon Kashmiris in their heroic struggle against Indian occupation.” The profound statement on Kashmir, which came after a while from Pakistani leadership ('peace with India' being a recurring theme in recent years), was seen as a cue for the massacre in Pahalgam.  

These factors could have been instrumental in General Munir’s green signal for deeper terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir, notwithstanding the heightened instances of infiltration from across the border in recent months. However, three other factors also could have influenced Munir’s decision to turn the terror tap on, despite being aware of its military and international implications.

First is the normalcy that is increasingly being restored in Kashmir, which has seen a record footfall of tourists, mainly from within India, in recent years. That the terrorists attacked a popular tourist destination without any foreigners (other than the Nepal citizens who figured among the victims) and singled out potential targets by identifying their religion was also a clear effort to wade into the polarized political scene in India and use it as an alibi.

However, Munir could not have sensed the reaction of the Kashmiris who came out in large numbers to protest the attack and mindless killings, which, in one stroke, destroyed the tourism industry they had painstakingly revived over the last few years. Allowing India to restore normalcy in Kashmir will be antithetical to Pakistan’s long-held plan of depicting the region as a flashpoint and sustainedly drawing international attention through propaganda.

Second, the increasing interactions between India and the Taliban regime amount to a huge strategic setback for Pakistan. For decades, the Pakistan Army used the Taliban as a proxy against India and other adversaries. The IC-814 hijack of December 1999 and the Taliban giving safe passage to the hijackers from the Jaish-e-Muhammed in Kandahar, which inhibited an Indian rescue operation, remained a dark spot in India’s approach to the Taliban in its first term at Afghanistan’s helm.  

Whereas the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021 has been marked by marked attempts to gain greater international legitimacy which also enabled its dialogue, mostly from Doha, with global powers, including erstwhile detractors like India. In Delhi Diary-I (India finds its ‘good’ Taliban), The Polity had analysed the meetings between Indian officials and Taliban leaders, which, in fact, has increased in recent months.  

With the TTP mounting attacks against Pakistan forces in recent months, the newfound India-Taliban bonhomie comes not just as a deep embarrassment but also as a strategic failure for Pakistan.

Third, the other area where the Pakistan Army was affected by the ‘Indian influence’ is in the Balochistan front where the BLA, allegedly supported by India, has increased the intensity of its operations against the Pakistan Army. However, the defining point could be the BLA’s highjack of a Peshawar-bound train in mid-March killing at least 20 military personnel travelling on the train and taking over 450 passengers as hostages.

Shortly after the train hijack, Pakistan blamed the Indian government for its support to the Baluch rebels, an allegation which has been echoing for many years but without any concrete evidence. At least some commentators on Indian television attributed the Pahalgam attack as Munir’s avenging of the Jaffar Express hijack – the first of its event in South Asia – which brought considerable disrepute to the Pakistan Army within the nation as well.

Limits of the ‘Doval doctrine’

An interesting development in the aftermath of the Pahalgam carnage was former defence minister and Congress veteran, A.K. Antony calling upon the government to give the armed forces “full freedom to retaliate.” For a former defence minister known for his slow-paced decision-making and deep restraint, Antony’s statement indicates the change even within the Congress which had questioned the ‘surgical strikes’ of 2019 and had been knee-jerk in its actions against Pakistan while in office.

In fact, Sashi Tharoor, another senior Congress leader, argued for both overt and covert means against Pakistan in a recent op-ed. This is a far cry from the days when the Narasimha Rao-led Congress government of the 1990s was at pains to convince Washington that it had no role in internal strife in Pakistan.

From those days to now, when even Congress leaders are supporting overt, covert and all military means against Pakistan, it could be seen as a vindication of the Modi government’s proactive approach towards the adversarial western neighbour. Modi’s security establishment, being led by National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, a legendary figure in covert and intelligence operations, was expected to undertake deep campaigns against Pakistan’s terror infrastructure, along with Doval’s own historic mission of capturing Dawood Ibrahim, the former don who is supposed to be holed up in Pakistan under the Army’s protection.

Doval’s doctrine of offensive defence – which entails eliminating adversaries of the nation at source – could have been instrumental in numerous terrorist leaders being killed inside Pakistan in recent years. However, the Pahalgam massacre could raise questions on the efficacy and limits of this doctrine especially when terrorists manage to sneak into Indian territory, attack innocent Indian civilians and manage to return to their safe havens.

While there is greater support among Indian political parties for such covert operations, as evident in the responses of the Congress leaders, it is vital that eliminating adversaries on foreign soil could only be effective if the resultant avenues of vengeful actions against Indian citizens or within Indian territory are precluded through failsafe border security and credible intelligence operations – involving both Humint and Techint. In other words, the vulnerability of Indian citizens, both within the country and abroad, to vengeance against covert operations should be invariably accounted for when planning these campaigns.  

An endgame strategy against Pakistan’s LIC

Unlike the initial reactions of US President Donald Trump, who ‘gave’ India a ‘free hand’ to “sort out things with Pakistan,” which showed his expected ignorance about the South Asian security dynamics, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio finally spoke about de-escalation by India and Pakistan a few days earlier.

Rubio’s call was followed by similar appeals from the United Kingdom, United Nations, UAE and other nations.

It could have caused a sigh of relief in both Islamabad and New Delhi that international intervention is finally happening in a conflict where traditionally the intervention came along with crises but not with the leverage or initiative to propose or push for lasting solutions.

Encouraged by the international calls, Pakistan’s posturing has since graduated from the initial “nuclear response only if existence is threatened” by its defence minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif on April 28th to “use of the full spectrum of power” including nuclear weapons as expressed by the Pakistan Ambassador to Russia on April 4th.

Pakistan has since the 1990 India-Pakistan crises, which led to American intervention, used nuclear sabre rattling to not just seek international intervention but also project Kashmir as a nuclear flashpoint. This has continued in all subsequent crises including the Kargil conflict, the events following the Parliament attack of 2001 including Operation Parakram, the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai of 2008 and so on.  

Things had considerably changed with Narendra Modi coming to power and deciding to test the nuclear bluff by crossing the border on two occasions – the surgical strike of 2016 and air strikes of 2019 – and setting up assured retaliation as a standard posture following any major terror attack in Indian territory originating from Pakistan.

That conditioning seems to have now changed as is evident from India’s disinclination to repeat those two same models or escalate to a higher level of military response. While Pakistan’s nuclear sabre rattling might cause a sense of déjà vu over the return to pre-2016 conditions, it is now inevitable that India executes a military response, even if in limited terms as discussed earlier in this analysis, in order to maintain the credibility of its posturing.

The moot question, however, is: will it make any decisive impact on Pakistan’s behaviour?

The delay in undertaking the military response, the window given for international intervention and the space allowed for Pakistan to raise its preparedness as also indulge in sabre rattling has returned the equation to that of previous decades when Pakistan used multiple and deliberately confusing signalling to indulge in nuclear brinkmanship.

The visible predicament in the Indian security establishment now seems to be on deciding the apt strategy: will a symbolic military response make any difference, particularly since merely retaliating to terror strikes has hardly forced any change in Pakistan’s rogue behaviour? It continues to maintain full support to terror groups with the Pakistan Army now reviving faith in the Kashmir cause to restore its political legitimacy.

The Pahalgam massacre, thereby, comes as a wake-up call for the Indian security establishment and the otherwise intrepid Indian political leadership that confining to playbook responses without escalating to higher levels of military response has limited traction. Furthermore, India’s leadership conception about the fragile sacrosanctity of the border threshold (be it the LoC or International Border) seems to have considerably changed with the current signalling being about a military response without “crossing the border.”  

The options for New Delhi, hence, could be to: (a) maintain status quo – by exercising the ongoing strategy of pressuring Pakistan through limited military responses, intensifying the covert operations, use diplomatic means to isolate Pakistan on the global stage and strangle Pakistan’s economy through use non-military means; or (b) devise a new strategy that relies on full spectrum projection/intent to use of military power – as Pakistan itself now threatens – to not just call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff, but also test and pressure its ability to engage in prolonged conventional conflict with India holding the key to escalation.

Taking control over the military escalation and India-Pak theatre: An Indian resolve for military escalation, even to nuclear levels, is thus the key to a new strategy that inherently postures the intent to seek endgame vis-à-vis Pakistan, including signalling the determination to pursue full-fledged military hostilities or an all-out war.

Calling the nuclear bluff, in fact, does not merely require testing the lowest and low-risk nuclear thresholds articulated by Pakistan on different occasions. It requires the ability for a controlled escalation from the higher levels of the conventional space to the nuclear space.

It also inevitably necessitates the rapid deployment of a robust nationwide missile defence system, including the acquisition of new systems for strategic interception capability, which innately complicates Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence by signalling the ability to intercept Pakistan’s missiles that are fired at Indian counter-value (non-military and population) and counterforce (military and strategic) assets.  

A new and comprehensive strategy, thus, necessitates not just tit-for-tit responses to Pakistan’s full-spectrum deterrence – which includes sub-conventional, conventional and nuclear levels – but also signalling the ability and determination to set the terms of escalation at all these levels. That includes not just integrating template responses to terror attacks, but also establishing protocols to respond to Pakistan’s escalatory games.

For instance, the Indian security establishment had signalled in the early half of the previous decade its refusal to accept a space for a tactical nuclear confrontation, with then Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB), Shyam Saran, clearly indicating in 2013 that even a tactical nuclear strike will be seen as a nuclear first use which will lead to second strike or massive nuclear retaliation as enshrined in India’s nuclear doctrine.

This was in response to Pakistan’s development of the Nasr tactical nuclear delivery system in response to India’s missile defence deployment.

Thereby, the core of India’s new strategy and posturing should be about setting the terms of military action and resultant escalation. The action, for that matter, should not be restricted to merely retaliation or response to terror events, but also the option of deciding to hit terror camps and other related or inimical assets at a time of India’s choosing, as has been repeatedly declared by the leadership. Such action could also be a spontaneous response to satellite imagery finding new terror camps emerging on Pakistan soil as well as PoK.

The current delay in a military response could be the first step towards pursuing this strategy by executing a military response only at a time of its own choosing and following it up with repeated military operations, including using naval assets for military intimidation and targeting Pakistan’s maritime trade.

Notwithstanding the centrality of military responses, a comprehensive strategy also needs potent diplomatic and economic campaigns. 

From publishing satellite pictures of terror camps on Pakistani soil as well as PoK, a comprehensive strategy should also include efforts to get Pakistan back on the ‘grey list’ of FATF, seeking economic sanctions for its support of terrorism, strategic encirclement through economic initiatives with Afghanistan and Iran, besides evening posturing the plans to raise structures on the Indus River to test Pakistan’s threat of ‘act of war’.

The aim is to not just apply economic and diplomatic pressure on Pakistan but continuously raise Pakistan’s cost of not just supporting terrorism but also indulging in belligerent behaviour and brinkmanship.

Needless to say, a comprehensive security strategy, vis-à-vis Pakistan, needs to be complemented with an economic strategy that should firewall the Indian economy from the implications of the military campaigns. The need to open up the economy to the US, the European Union as well as Pakistan’s all-weather friend, China, is vital to not just raising their stakes in the well-being of the Indian economy but also to ensure that their leverage with Pakistan is used to India’s advantage.

Considering that a breakout of military hostilities is more detrimental to the Indian economy than the crippled Pakistani economy, these countries must have a greater stake in seeing their economic interests being protected than allowing strategic space for Pakistan’s belligerent policies.

Overall, the objective of a new comprehensive strategy should be to seek absolute and complete domination over the India-Pakistan theatre and eliminate the strategic or tactical advantage Pakistan had held hitherto. However, such a strategy could be effectively pursued and implemented only if the Indian government decides on a holistic upgrade of the armed forces – both technological and personnel.

While technology makes a decisive impact in battle zones, the leadership be reminded that India’s wars with its nuclear-armed neighbours will need formidable men on the ground – be it for infantry surges or special forces operations – which entails reversing ill-conceived policies like Agnipath, as well as increasing the defence budget to a higher share of the GDP.

As the current predicament in the security establishment shows, any shortcut to defence preparedness will only make the nation vulnerable, to all forms of threats.