Op Sindoor succeeded, but Pakistan won’t be deterred from pursuing proxy war

India will have to find a way to neutralise a complex challenge.

India launched Operation Sindoor in the early hours of Wednesday (May 7) in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack by using its trans-border military capability. Nine targets in Pakistan were identified for their role in supporting the brutal murder of 26 people, almost all tourists. Four of these targets were in the Punjab province of Pakistan, including Muridke (HQ of the notorious Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group), and the others in POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).

The brief press note issued by Delhi highlighted the fact that the Indian military actions “have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution.”

Will Pakistan escalate further?

This is moot at this stage and much will depend on the domestic compulsions which will shape the reactions of the Pakistani army chief General Asif Munir and the corps commanders in Rawalpindi (GHQ of the army) who represent the de-facto seat of power in Pakistan.

For Pakistan establishment, foot soldiers are dispensable

A question that arises in the Indian context is: Will Op Sindoor serve as a long-term deterrent to Pakistan and if that is not the case, why not? The short answer is Op Sindoor is unlikely to serve as a long-term deterrent to the Pakistan deep state that nurtures terror against India. This operation has been executed in a tactical manner to demonstrate PM Modi’s resolve and to convey that the Pahalgam massacre will not go unpunished, thereby assuaging pent-up domestic anger and anguish.

Just as Balakot in 2019 was a tactical display of India’s ability to carry out a cross-border strike successfully – but did not serve a deterrent purpose – Op Sindoor will be limited in the same manner. Those targeted by India in the current operation are at best foot soldiers in the terror war against India, while the brains behind the proxy war are embedded in the deep state of Pakistan.

India embarked upon a retaliatory path that could have imposed severe costs on the Pakistan army and the Deep State in the aftermath of the December 2001 parliament attack when the Indian military was mobilised in Op Parakram. However, this turned out to be a case of trying to cross a chasm in two leaps, and a series of other developments, including the enormity of 9/11 and the US-led global war on terror (GWOT), constrained PM Vajpayee in making good the threat that was held out to Rawalpindi.

Haunted by the defeat of 1971

What accounts for Pakistan’s intransigence, wherein it continues to support jihadi terror groups despite the international opprobrium it elicits against Islamabad?

One part of the reason is that after the 1971 war that led to the birth of Bangladesh and Pakistan had to face the ignominy of losing half its territory and being humiliated on the battlefield (93,000 POWs captured by India) – the Pakistan fauj vowed to avenge this defeat. Militant Islamic religious fervour combined with developments in Afghanistan led to the holy warrior concept – the mujahid – who soon took the terror route, and by the late 1980s, Pakistan had fine-tuned the war by a thousand cuts to bleed India.

Kashmir, with its tangled past going back to October 1947 and the first India-Pakistan war, became the contested site and jihadi terror was unleashed against the local Hindus. This proxy war against India has been waged since then, and major spikes include the December 2001 parliament attack, Mumbai 2008 (26/11), and Pulwama in 2019.

Pioneer of nuclear weapon enabled terror

It merits recall that Pakistan's use of asymmetric warfare in Kashmir coincides with its acquisition of nuclear capabilities in a covert manner with the help of China in May 1990. Beijing, for its own strategic reasons of seeking to contain India, made a tectonic decision in the mid-1980s to enable Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons. Experts concur that China conducted a secret nuclear test for Pakistan on 26 May 1990, and the US turned a blind eye given its own investment in Islamabad. The secret nuclear test was conducted on May 26, 1990, at China's Lop Nor test site.

The devious manner in which China enabled Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons has been detailed in the book The Nuclear Express (2009) by Thomas Reed and Danny Stillman – the former a US Secretary of the Air Force; and the latter a former Director of Intelligence at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

With this capability, Pakistan became the first nation to pursue NWET – nuclear weapon enabled terror – also referred to as TBNS – terrorism behind a nuclear shield. This was the much-feared exigency that prompted the USA, with President George Bush (43) at the helm, to launch the 2003 war against Iraq and its President Saddam Hussein. The irony was that Washington had helped to create the Frankenstein that Rawalpindi-Muridke had become.

India will have to find a way to neutralise this complex challenge (NWET), but will also have to factor in the geo-political reality that Pakistan continues to receive uncritical support from both China and its well-wishers in the Washington Beltway.