ONE year ago, on the night of May 6-7, 2025, India carried out precision strikes on nine terrorist targets in Pakistan, including the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Taiba at Muridke and of Jaish-e-Mohammed at Bahawalpur. This came in response to the horrific massacre of Indian tourists in Pahalgam by terrorists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Code-named Operation Sindoor, it marked a new phase in India’s resolve to enforce its counterterrorism red lines.
The crisis escalated as Pakistan launched hundreds of drones into Indian airspace. As the fighting continued, the Indian Air Force carried out damaging strikes on Pakistani airbases at Chaklala, Rafiqui, Rahim Yar Khan, Sargodha, Bholari and Jacobabad on the night of May 9-10. On May 10, Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations called up his Indian counterpart with a request for a ceasefire, which was accepted.
Operation Sindoor lasted only 88 hours, but its brevity should not be confused with limited significance. It offers important lessons for how the Indian military should prepare for the next crisis with Pakistan. Four imperatives stand out.
The first is an intense and compressed battle cycle. Operation Sindoor demonstrated how quickly a crisis can escalate, both vertically through the expanding use of force and horizontally across a wider geography. While the operation was largely confined to the land and air domains, the next crisis could extend to the maritime domain, with naval forces playing a more active role. The geography of conflict will also expand into the digital realm, with cyber operations targeting critical infrastructure.
In such a conflict, war will no longer unfold in a neat sequence. Intelligence, targeting, precision strike, air defence, drone warfare, escalation management, diplomatic outreach and information operations will occur almost simultaneously. This demands a high state of military readiness as the side that enters the crisis with prepared options will enjoy a decisive advantage over the side that improvises under pressure.
This is also where jointness will be tested. In a short, high-intensity conflict, delays caused by service silos can become strategic vulnerabilities. What is essential is integrated planning, common target folders, interoperable communications, shared situational awareness and pre-agreed escalation options. Jointness, therefore, must not be treated as a fashionable slogan but the fundamental operational grammar of the compressed battle cycle.
Second, new technologies are no longer lessons to be drawn from distant wars but are already present on our battlefields. Operation Sindoor was described as South Asia’s first drone war. In the year since, we are seeing a much greater induction of drones in the inventories of both militaries. Drone warfare will be central in the next conflict.
Future crises are also likely to see greater use of long-range standoff weapons and precision missiles, allowing air forces to strike without crossing borders. Because such attacks are launched from a distance and viewed on screens far from the battlefield, they can appear controlled, clinical and almost risk-free. That makes them politically attractive. But this perception is dangerous. When both sides believe they can strike from afar without paying an immediate price, the threshold for using force may lower, and escalation can become faster.
Third, information warfare is no longer a sideshow, but a central theatre of conflict. In Operation Sindoor, even as kinetic strikes were being carried out, a fierce parallel battle of perceptions unfolded across television screens, media outlets and social networks. The information space was flooded with fake news, exaggerated claims, misinformation and disinformation. Even though Pakistan suffered extensive damage, its narrative claimed victory over India.
Pakistan has attempted to frame India’s counterterrorism response as an unprovoked attack, and its own response as measured and aimed at protecting its territorial integrity. India must not allow that framing to take hold. The information campaign must, therefore, begin before the first strike, with credible evidence, prepared diplomatic briefs, rapid public communication and a clear explanation of the threshold that has been crossed.
There is also a domestic lesson. Some sections of the Indian television media became amplifiers of misinformation during Operation Sindoor. Such behaviour undermines national credibility and must be checked by the government. When media institutions distort reality, they inhibit India’s ability to project a legitimate picture to the global audience.
The fourth and perhaps the most important lesson concerns the China-Pakistan nexus. India was not dealing with Pakistan in isolation. It was dealing with a Pakistani military system increasingly equipped, enabled and diplomatically cushioned by China. The clearest warning came from India’s Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Rahul R Singh, who said after the operation that India had “one border” but was facing more than one adversary, with Pakistan in front and China providing support.
The old distinction between the western and northern fronts is becoming less clear. China need not open a front in Ladakh to influence an India-Pakistan crisis. It can do so through platforms, sensors, intelligence feeds and diplomatic signalling. Operation Sindoor was not only an India-Pakistan clash, but a preview of collusive pressure below the threshold of a formal two-front war.
The implication for India is clear. A future crisis with Pakistan must be treated as part of a wider collusive challenge. Operational planning must account for Chinese-origin platforms in Pakistan’s inventory, real-time data support and the likelihood that every engagement will be studied by Beijing as a live test of Indian tactics and strategy. Operation Sindoor showed that Pakistan may be the immediate adversary, but the system behind it is increasingly Chinese-enabled. India’s preparedness must reflect that reality.
A final caution is necessary. Operation Sindoor offers important lessons for the next India-Pakistan crisis, but it should not be taken as a template for all future wars. It was largely an air and missile campaign, with the Army and the Navy playing peripheral roles. A longer war, especially one involving major ground operations and sustained maritime conflict, would impose very different demands in terms of logistics, reserves, industrial capacity and national endurance. India must be prepared for both a compressed crisis that unfolds in hours and the larger war that may follow if escalation is not contained.
