INDIA EMERGED AS A DECISIVE & RESPONSIBLE POWER AFTER OP SINDOOR
Air Vice Marshal (Dr) Arjun Subramaniam (Retd.)
Raipur chhattisgarh VISHESH The Author is a military historian and strategic analyst. He is former President’s Chair of Excellence in National Security Affairs at National Defence College, New Delhi. He is currently an Adjunct Faculty at the Kautilya School of Public Policy and a Visiting Faculty at all of India’s war colleges.
Even as the war in Ukraine shows no signs of ending and the Middle East remains stuck in a No-War-No-Peace quagmire, it is important to benchmark Operation Sindoor against other conflicts in recent times. The stand-out features of Op Sindoor were the decisive application of sharp and controlled military force along a manageable escalatory ladder to achieve calibrated strategic outcomes with a clear exit strategy that were in synch with the Modi Government’s political objectives. Initiating the conflict to strike at the heart of Pakistan’s anti-India terrorist networks and inflict pain on Pakistan’s Armed Forces should they militarily respond to India’s initial counter-terrorist strike were not maximalist objectives that required the widespread and expansive application of military force. It was a precise, proactive and restrained coercive operation by a responsible power to punish repetitive acts of state-sponsored terrorism.
Though India had experimented in 2019 with the use of offensive air power in counter-terrorist operations at Balakot, its willingness this time to hit the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba headquarters at Bahawalpur and Muridke respectively revealed a fresh risk-taking propensity and willingness to climb the escalation ladder in pursuit of national interests. There was, however, a clarity of thought at the political level that an expanded conflict was not in India’s interest even though the military temptation of inflicting more damage on Pakistan’s military assets existed.
Wisdom and restraint are two concurrent themes of responsible statecraft and military operations that India played well during Op Sindoor, particularly in terms of not causing any collateral damage during its strikes, and then of accepting Pakistan’s offer for a ceasefire even while on the military ascendancy. In retrospect, the pay-offs of an extended and expanded conflict now seem insignificant as compared to the potential economic and human costs – the hundreds of crores saved in terminating the conflict after four days has added to India’s demonstrated economic resilience during the ongoing conflict in the Middle East where the US is believed to have so spent over USD 27 Billion with no end in sight to the conflict.
India’s existing higher defence organisation functioned well during the conflict. There was a clear model of Centralised and Directive Control during the Planning and Preparation phase of the operation by the troika of the PM, National Security Advisor and the Raksha Mantri as the first tier, backed by the second tier of the CDS and the three service chiefs. It is quite apparent that clear and cogent strategic outcomes were conveyed to the service chiefs and the intelligence agencies, leaving them thereafter to create a doable operational mosaic.
Even though the character of war has undergone several changes over millennia, most of the cardinal principles of war as elucidated by ancient and modern strategists such as Kautilya, Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and Liddell Hart have stood the test of time. In the final analysis, while India’s success in Op Sindoor pushed the boundaries of escalation and deterrence, it could do so because it also adhered to some of the time-tested principles of war and decision-making in times of crisis. Among these, Selection and Maintenance of Aim, Concentration of Force, Offensive Action, Surprise, Unity of Command, Security, Simplicity, Morale and Adaptability are the ones that merit further examination.
At the operational level, the choice to use the IAF as the sword-arm of India’s emerging multi-domain military strategy was a bold one that reflects the changing face of contemporary conflict that must be carefully tracked and analysed. After bypassing and jamming Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied air defence systems, India struck deep into the Pakistani heartland on 07 May destroying 9 high-value terrorist launchpads across Pakistan and PoJK, dismantling key hubs of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen. On May 10, within hours, India expanded the scope, targeting 11 key military installations, including Noor Khan Airbase, Rafiqui Airbase, Murid Airbase, Sukkur Airbase, Sialkot Airbase, Pasrur Airbase, Chunian Airbase, Sargodha Airbase, Skardu Airbase, Bholari Airbase, and Jacobabad Airbase; degrading critical air and operational capabilities. The ferocity of the IAF’s airstrikes has revealed that the damage inflicted on these airfields and aircraft and weapon systems based there far surpasses the cumulative damage inflicted by the IAF on PAF airfields in the 1971 War on the Western front. Op Sindoor also validated the coming-of-age of India’s integrated air defence system to counter the adversary’s missile and drone-heavy strategy. The IAF, however, will have to continue to remain on a fast track learning curve to harness its platforms, weapons and systems in any future limited conflict scenarios with more powerful adversaries.
Future battlefields will demand greater integration and synergy to cope with conflicts of longer duration. Many ongoing reforms and structural initiatives may have to go back to the drawing board to come with an organisational mosaic that is ‘India specific’ based on what has been learnt during Op Sindoor. While there are several strategic and operational lessons from ongoing global conflicts, India must guard against lifting war-fighting templates from elsewhere and superimposing them on its own strategic and operational environment. As an example, proponents of a missile and drone-centric focus in aerial operations must have a rethink. In a peer-to-peer contested aerial environment such as the one that exists on India’s western and northern fronts, what will succeed are multi-domain operations.
India’s armed forces have proved themselves in a complex battlefield environment, albeit on a limited scale, that afforded them an opportunity to prosecute a wide range of operations and disengage at an opportune moment in the best interests of the nation as decided by the government. India’s strategic and national DNA comprises different strands that have manifested themselves thus far in the 21st Century as a combination of political orientations and strategic manifestations. Built around a foundation of responsibility and restraint coupled with proactive deterrence, there has now been a palpable shift towards a whole-of-nation approach. Operation Sindoor was a manifestation of this gradually emerging DNA.
