The new normal after Pahalgam, India’s response

India launched Operation Sindoor in response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack (April 22, 2025), targeting multiple terror-linked sites across Pakistan. The operation marks a significant escalation in India’s counter-terrorism doctrine by expanding the ‘new normal’ of kinetic response under the nuclear threshold.

Strategic and Diplomatic Build-Up Before Operation Sindoor

• Diplomatic and Military Preparations: After the Pahalgam attack, India suspended diplomatic ties (e.g., visa cancellation, border closure, Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance), and finalised 9 targets for precision kinetic retaliation, indicating a pre-planned escalation protocol shaped post-2019.
• Coordinated International Outreach: India launched intense diplomatic engagement with major powers, including pre-strike briefings to ensure acceptance of its anti-terror strikes, aimed at establishing global legitimacy while preserving strategic autonomy.
• Objective of Escalation Management: India carefully calibrated its actions to restore red lines against cross-border terrorism while keeping de-escalation channels open through backchannel diplomacy and DGMO-level communication.

Execution and Military Dynamics of Operation Sindoor

• Precision Strikes and Communication: India executed Operation Sindoor, targeting 9 terror-linked sites linked to LeT, JeM, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen; it promptly informed Pakistan's DGMO to clarify that military and civilian targets were excluded.
• Pakistan’s Escalatory Intrusions: In response, Pakistan attempted drone intrusions and missile probes over 36 locations along the border, to which India retaliated using its ‘quid pro quo plus’ doctrine, attacking Pakistani air defence and airfields.
• Ceasefire and International Pressure: Following intense military exchanges and diplomatic interventions, including S. high-level contacts, a ceasefire came into effect on May 10, showing external pressure’s role in limiting conflict spiral.

Implications of the ‘New Normal’ in Counter-Terrorism

• Expanded Deterrence Doctrine: The new doctrine post-Pahalgam discards Pakistan’s “nuclear blackmail” and asserts India’s right to pre-emptively strike terrorist masterminds and sponsors, directly implicating Pakistan’s military-intelligence ecosystem.
• Need for Conventional Superiority: To sustain the new threshold, India requires investment in SEAD capabilities, integration of manned-unmanned systems, and satellite-based ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) networks for precise real-time targeting.
• Security Reforms and Prevention: India must urgently address the intelligence and security lapses that enabled the Pahalgam attack, highlighting the need for institutionalised counter-terror readiness and predictive threat modelling.

Practice Question