Calibrated Force: Operation Sindoor and the Future of Indian Deterrence

In response to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India launched Operation Sindoor on 7 May. Initially limited to strikes on terrorist-linked targets, the operation expanded over several days, with subsequent phases coinciding with Pakistani retaliation. Within hours of the first sorties, international media had seized on Pakistani allegations that their Chinese-built J-10s shot down up to five Indian aircraft, including three French-made Rafaels. In the absence of official clarification from India, the episode was swiftly recast in popular outlets as a technology shootout between Chinese and French fighters. Lost in the noise were the questions that mattered: What were India’s objectives? Were they achieved? And what does this operation reveal about the future trajectory of South Asian deterrence?

Losing the Narrative

In any military campaign, shaping the strategic narrative is nearly as important as shaping the battlespace. Unfortunately, India ceded that narrative space. The initial silence from Indian military spokespeople created an information vacuum. Into that vacuum poured commentary that was often technically uninformed and strategically misleading.

What emerged was a distorted framing of the conflict. Rather than serious analysis of India’s targeting methodology, command intent, or escalation thresholds, coverage focused instead on the air-to-air engagement that led to the loss of Indian aircraft.Undue prominence was given to the performance of specific platforms, with little regard for the broader operational context or the rules of engagement that shaped the encounter. As a result, Chinese arms manufacturers enjoyed a perceived PR win – one arguably disproportionate to the tactical or strategic context of the engagement.

A Quiet Operational Success

That misleading narrative obscures a more consequential truth: despite Pakistani tactical successes, India appears to have largely achieved its stated objectives. On the opening day of strikes, the Indian Air Force (IAF) demonstrated a credible capacity to identify and destroy what New Delhi characterised as terrorist-linked infrastructure in Pakistani territory, employing stand-off weapons to deliver precision strikes at speed. In the following days, operations expanded in scope, penetrating Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied air defence network to target select forward airbases for the first time since the 1971 war.

While losses were incurred, these must be evaluated against the scale and complexity of the mission – not simply tallied in isolation. The mere fact that the Indian Air Force could strike targets under defended conditions and undertake follow-on attacks demonstrates its capacity for coercive precision operations.

Restraint Under Fire

Arguably more impressive than the operation’s reach was its restraint on the first day. According to Indian officials, pilots operated under strict rules of engagement that prohibited initiating attacks on Pakistani aircraft or pre-emptively suppressing air defence systems. This decision – to accept heightened operational risk in order to confine the conflict strictly to terrorist-linked infrastructure – is telling.

It suggests a political leadership determined to signal its intent with clarity: India was not interested in initiating a conflict with the Pakistani state, but rather in degrading a specific ecosystem of terrorist violence that exists in the country. That some Indian aircraft were lost on the opening day of the operation was a direct consequence of a consciously limited rules of engagement. In effect, India accepted heightened operational risk in pursuit of clear strategic messaging.

Such discipline in the face of a capable adversary is neither automatic nor easy. Yet it may well have prevented a broader escalation spiral. That alone deserves more analytical attention than it has received.

Escalation, Managed

Some reporting suggested that the region stood on the brink of nuclear war during Operation Sindoor. US President Donald Trump alleged that if the conflict had not ended when it did ‘…it could have been a bad nuclear war. Millions of people could have been killed.’ These characterisations appear overstated in light of the facts on the ground. Unlike prior crises in South Asia, there were no public nuclear threats issued by either side, nor were there discernible moves toward strategic mobilisation. Rather than the brinkmanship so often invoked in academic literature on the subcontinent, what we saw instead was calibrated force.

Both New Delhi and Islamabad appeared to make deliberate choices about what not to do: India refrained from targeting Pakistani air defences or forward-deployed fighter aircraft in the early phases, while Pakistan retaliated against military targets but did not initiate large-scale mobilisation of its forces. The thresholds of escalation were tested, but not crossed.

This conflict illustrates that limited military engagement under the shadow of nuclear weapons can be contained – provided escalation thresholds are mutually understood, signalling remains disciplined, and objectives are narrowly defined.

While some analysts have questioned how carefully escalation was managed during the conflict, the absence of nuclear signalling and the evident restraint by both sides suggests that this particular crisis was more contained than it first appeared.

The New Normal?

Perhaps the most significant legacy of Operation Sindoor is the precedent it sets. In the eyes of the Indian government, the use of cross-border force against terrorist-linked targets in Pakistan proper has now moved from exception to expectation. Whereas past crises often relied on signalling and symbolic action, future attacks on Indian soil – especially those traced to infrastructure across the border – are likely to draw a response of equal or greater magnitude to degrade the assets enabling terrorist action.

Instead of attempting to concretely link the terrorist incident to agents of the Pakistani state, the Indian government has taken the view that a failure to control or deny space to terrorist groups on Pakistani soil is sufficient to legitimate military action. Thus, India appears to have signalled a revised threshold for response, one that regional actors will have to factor into future risk assessments.

International Stakes

The temptation among some external observers will be to treat Operation Sindoor as a contained South Asian episode with little wider relevance. This is a mistake. With India’s new posture, so long as Pakistan’s territory continues to serve as permissive environments for transnational terrorist infrastructure, the risk of periodic crises will persist.

Few examples better illustrate Pakistan’s long-standing role as a sanctuary for terrorist leadership than the discovery of Osama bin Laden in a compound just miles from the country’s premier military academy. Preventing the next Sindoor – or the next 26/11 – requires sustained international pressure to dismantle the networks that make these attacks possible in the first place.

Sustaining Calibrated Deterrence

If Operation Sindoor demonstrated India’s ability to apply military power with restraint and precision, the durability of that approach will depend on how future crises are managed. India’s signal of intent to retaliate against cross-border terrorism marks a clear shift in posture. Yet deterrence by punishment carries inherent risks – chief among them the possibility that fringe actors may attempt to provoke confrontation in order to manipulate state responses. The continued viability of this approach may depend, in part, on the creation of complementary mechanisms for crisis management. Expanding communication channels – beyond existing National Security Advisor (NSA) and Director General of Military Operations (DGMO)–level contacts – could offer decision-makers greater flexibility to evaluate and contain emerging incidents. In a strategic environment shaped by tempo, perception, and public pressure, preserving space for discretion may be as vital as projecting resolve – particularly when domestic audiences may expect increasingly forceful responses in the wake of future provocations.

Equally salient is the operational challenge of maintaining the effectiveness of coercive military action over time. As targeted groups adapt – dispersing their assets, improving their concealment techniques, and altering their operational rhythms – the demands placed on India’s intelligence and targeting apparatus will intensify. The strategic interaction may increasingly resemble an iterative contest of adaptation, in which each side seeks to outpace the other’s capacity for detection and response. In that sense, the long-term viability of calibrated retaliation may rest not only on its political logic, but on the practical capacity to identify and neutralize meaningful targets in an increasingly evasive operating environment.

Conclusion

Operation Sindoor should be remembered not as a dogfight between airframes, nor as a stumble toward strategic instability. It was a calibrated use of force, intended to signal resolve, degrade terrorist infrastructure, and demonstrate capability – without crossing the line into broader war.

In doing so, it has redefined the contours of India’s response toolkit. What comes next will depend not only on India and Pakistan, but on whether the international community chooses to engage with the structures that give rise to such operations – or simply wait for the next one.

© Walter Ladwig, 2025, published by RUSI with permission of the author.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author's, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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