After Operation Sindoor Don't Delay The Stocktaking
Admiral Arun Prakash (Ret’d) PVSM, AVSM, VrC, VSM Jul 03, 2025
While Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir’s oration at
the Pakistan Naval Academy on June 28 has drawn considerable media focus, there
is a need to assess how much attention India should pay to his utterances. The
rabble-rousing tone and toxic India-baiting content of his speech, ill befitting
the occasion — a Navy passing-out parade — was a clear sign of insecurity in
the face of widespread public criticism of the Pakistan army in general and his
promotion in particular.
His banality notwithstanding, we must recognise that
since Field Marshals do not retire, Munir, if he so chooses, will be around for
a long time — either as Army Chief or as political puppet master. By harping on
Hindu-Muslim schisms and framing India as an ‘existential threat’ to its perpetual
‘victim’, Pakistan, Munir seeks to gain favour with the public and cement a
political niche for himself, sidelining the civilian regime.
Given Munir’s continued malevolent presence, India must
steel itself to face escalating tensions. In all likelihood, it was his
inflammatory rhetoric that triggered Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and
its terror proxies to plan and launch the Pahalgam strike.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech on May 12,
unequivocally spelt out four core principles that would govern India's future
policy against terrorism. Optimists amongst us are hopeful that this
declaration of India’s ‘red lines’ by the PM will cause the Pakistan ‘deep
state’ to pause and perhaps mend its ways. Sceptics, however, believe that it is
only a matter of time before the ISI initiates yet another terror strike on
India.
In these circumstances, no time must be lost in
analysing threadbare Operation Sindoor and disseminating the lessons learnt —
at the strategic, operational and tactical levels — before we are faced with a
similar crisis once again. In this context, we have the admirable precedent of
the Vajpayee government, which constituted the Kargil Review Committee on July
29, 1999 — a mere three days after the cessation of hostilities.
The urgency here is even more marked since this ‘90-hour
war’ saw an unimaginable leap in the level of technologies employed in combat
and the dizzying pace of kinetic action. While India asserted its success in
achieving its objectives of targeting terrorist infrastructure and
demonstrating a markedly bolder and more resolute deterrence strategy, there
are several aspects that require urgent review and analysis.
First, we were found wanting in strategic communication
and narrative-building. While the conflict generated unprecedented levels of
hyperbolic distortion and disinformation from media on both sides, India’s lag
in official narrative-building allowed Pakistan to steal a significant march.
Compared to Pakistan’s proactive media outreach and timely official briefings,
Indian briefings were often reactive, and failed to put across our notable
military successes.
Second, the issue of aircraft losses suffered by India
was ineptly handled across the board. Since aircraft attrition is an inevitable
consequence in combat, there was little to be gained by concealing or acting
coy about Indian Air Force (IAF) losses. The exaggerated Pakistani claims could
not be logically countered by the dribbles of information coming first from the
Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore and then from a seminar in Indonesia. A
forthright admission, followed by an account of the next day’s devastating
Indian response, which claimed six Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighters and two
other aircraft, would have boosted the credibility of our narrative.
Third, the extensive employment of “beyond visual
range” or BVR air-to-air missiles and advanced airborne radars in this conflict
has proved a major game-changer in air combat. This demands urgent in-depth
study and analysis. The aerial engagements on the night of May 7/8 between the
two South Asian air forces, involving over 100 aircraft, were unprecedented and
have captured the attention of air power analysts worldwide.
Rising above the minutiae of physical conflict, we need
to remind our decision makers that wars, if inevitable, must be waged only to
eliminate the casus belli and achieve a stable and enduring peace. This places
three responsibilities on the country’s political leadership: (a) to lay down,
clear aims for which armed action is being initiated; (b) to specify, to the
military, the desired “end-state” to be achieved, before termination of
hostilities; and (c) to ensure that adequate resources are provided — in time —
for the action contemplated.
There is scant authentic information on these aspects
in the public domain. The waters have been further muddied by US President
Donald Trump’s insistent claims of brokering peace. In the face of incessant
commentary by Western observers about the risks of nuclear first use in South
Asia, it was reassuring to hear from India’s CDS about the “rationality and
maturity”, displayed by both sides in avoiding escalation to the nuclear
threshold.
The extensive utilisation of cyber warfare and missiles
as well as unmanned vehicles enabled both sides to wage “non-contact warfare”.
This calls for a comprehensive doctrinal re-think about the future of manned
combat platforms. Moreover, the sheer intensity of this brief eruption and
rapid expenditure of (expensive) munitions should lead to reflection about the status
of our “war wastage reserves”, and their replenishment.
A comprehensive review of what is being termed, ‘the
largest BVR air combat in history’ during Op Sindoor is best undertaken by the
IAF’S esteemed Tactics and Combat Development Establishment, particularly
against the backdrop of our past experience of ‘aerial ambushes’ in Kargil and
in the post-Balakot encounters. The lacunae in equipment and intelligence as
well as lessons learned and changes required in training, tactics and
strategies must be addressed post-haste.
In essence, the May 2025 conflict served as a stark
reminder of the volatile nature of the India-pakistan relationship and the
critical need for robust crisis management mechanisms as well as military
preparedness. The intent of Operation Sindoor was “deterrence by punishment”
but as we await its long-term impact, India’s national security establishment
needs to think long and hard about alternate strategies to address the casus
belli.
This article has been taken from the Indian
Express newspaper of 03 July 2025. It can be found at this source: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/after-operation-sindoor-dont-delay-the-stocktaking-10102906/
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