Opinion | Operation Sindoor: Modi Rewrites The Rules Of Deterrence
Operation Sindoor shows retaliation need not always be static; that it can be agile, pre-emptive, assertive yet contained
In the dead of the night, when silence speaks, a cocktail of lethal Indian precision munitions hovered ominously over Pakistan skies. Like a mosquito that’s spotted a rich vein of blood, each of the SCALP and HAMMER weapons locked in on their unsuspecting quarry. Within seconds of the strike, pictures of the resultant destruction were relayed back to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was awaiting word in a command centre.
Modi was hoping to inflict “unimaginable punishment" upon Pakistan-sponsored plotters of the Pahalgam attack. And the real-time video feed of the operation he was scrutinising did not disappoint him. Perhaps, the military action was divined to succeed. For Sindoor is the vermilion red powder that many traditional Indian women wear in their hair parting, only to remove it if they become widowed. And since in Pahalgam, several women were widowed, Operation Sindoor’s name was powerfully prescient.
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In a span of 30 minutes, nine terror havens, some in Pakistan’s beating heart of Punjab, were reduced to rubble. Several top terrorist masterminds lay dead or critically injured. Pakistan army’s pride was mashed into the ground; its image was in tatters and its cadre were shocked and awed.
Nine hours later, two women officers of the Indian armed forces briefed the world. They took turns in laying out how Operation Sindoor targeted major terror strongholds linked to groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Hizbul Mujahideen. Key sites included Bahawalpur (JeM HQ), Muridke (LeT HQ), Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Sialkot, Gulpur, Bhimber, Bagh, and Chak Amru. Each was chosen for a reason. Too many to list here. But what can be said is that this was the first time since 1971 that India had struck this deep in Pakistan.
In the annals of modern military history, India’s Operation Sindoor arguably marks a watershed moment. Its audacity rewrites the rules of retaliation between nuclear-armed states. In a nuclear dyad like India and Pakistan, conventional wisdom has long held that direct military responses to provocations risk uncontrollable escalation. Convinced of this Cold War era dictum, many Indian regimes of the past would simply turn the other cheek after being mauled by Pakistan-based terror proxies. But not Narendra Modi. He has become adept at turning terror launch pads into tombstones.
The post-Uri cross-LoC surgical strikes in PoK, first undertaken by the Modi government in 2016, might have been a shallow kinetic retaliation but they showed that conventional options do exist even in a nuclearised environment. Or put simply, it was possible to call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff.
Modi has never looked back since 2016. In 2019, his government climbed a notch higher on the escalation ladder by executing the Balakot airstrike upon Pakistani soil. The daredevilry displayed by India’s ace fighter pilots won Modi widespread goodwill; some say even a second term in office.
But now, nine years on, what distinguishes Op Sindoor from past retaliatory action is how it blends kinetic strikes with cyber disruption, drone surveillance, and psychological warfare. The latter is an important addendum as India has struck the holy of holies—Muridke, the citadel of Pakistan military’s prized asymmetric weapon Lashkar-e-Toiba. Moreover, Muridke is 30 kilometres from the iconic city of Lahore, the stomping ground of Pakistan’s elite. This city’s denizens have not been nipped by cross-border insecurity in two generations. Now, the people who rule Pakistan know they aren’t safe in their plush patrician mansions.
Op Sindoor shows retaliation need not always be static; that it can be agile, pre-emptive, assertive yet contained—which is also where deterrence gets rewritten.
Perhaps that’s why the international community has taken a more understanding view of India’s action. There appears to be a tacit acknowledgment of India’s right to self-defence. The lack of international condemnation will also create room for reflection and perhaps realisation in world capitals: that the days nuclear status can be exploited as a shield for waging asymmetric warfare are over.
India’s Operation Sindoor has therefore added a new chapter to strategic literature: one where the balance of terror is no longer held hostage by the fear of escalation, but recalibrated through confident, intelligent force projection.
Don’t be surprised if other nuclear dyads—from North and South Korea to Israel and Iran—borrow a leaf from India’s playbook.
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