The Prime Minister’s announcement of a new warfighting doctrine for India after the launch of Operation Sindoor, marks a significant shift from reactive counterterrorism to a proactive deterrence strategy. It rejects the coexistence of terror and talks, treats terrorism as an act of war, and refuses to give in to nuclear blackmail.
For the armed forces, this translates to achieving a very high level of capability to deter Pakistan from launching a terrorist attack with a high capability for punishment, and thereby prevent escalation to the nuclear level. That in turn demands significant reforms in the military and policy sphere to deal with a threat matrix that includes the pre-existing collusive threat from Pakistan, China, the full spectrum of hybrid warfare, which encompasses conventional and unconventional threats including information warfare, space and internal subversion.
The challenge therefore is immense, and requires a continuous readiness posture. India is now required to significantly increase its conventional deterrence to implement the doctrine, which promises punishment for terror attacks, thereby refusing nuclear blackmail. This paper argues for fundamental structural changes, rapidly replacing legacy systems, accelerated modernisation in specific areas, and increased defence spending to a minimum of three per cent of GDP to ensure India’s readiness for multi-domain, protracted engagements and position the country as a credible global power in a volatile security landscape.
The background: A deliberate call to conflict
In response to a cruel and targeted terror attack at Pahalgam on 22 April 2025 in which 26 civilians were killed, India launched Operation Sindoor on 7 May 2025 with precision strikes on nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). Pakistan retaliated along the Line of Control using heavy-calibre weapons, primarily targeting civilians. It also launched drone and missile strikes across Northern and Western India, including locations such as Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Pathankot, Amritsar, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Adampur, Bhatinda, Chandigarh, Nal, Phalodi, Uttarlai, and Bhuj.
Following Pakistan’s attacks, India launched its second wave of strikes against Pakistan’s military bases and radar sites. The operation marked a paradigm shift in retaliation, striking some 11 airfields including the heartland of Punjab in Sargodha for the first time since 1971. The whole operation followed the basic doctrine of war in selection and maintenance of aims—to hit terrorism and send a message to the military—and was tightly controlled at every step. Most notably and quite unusual to modern warfare, there was a quick disengagement once limited objectives were achieved.
India’s New Doctrine
Following this, the new doctrine has a few key elements: that any terror attack would be viewed as an act of war; that India would not submit to nuclear blackmail, and that it would not differentiate between terrorists and their backers. Translating these political assertions into military strategy suggests a profound doctrinal shift toward continuous readiness and proactive deterrence. The Indian armed forces must now be prepared for a 24×7 response across the entire warfighting spectrum—conventional and nonconventional to fulfil the doctrine based on the reality that nuclear weapons have not been able to deter terrorism. As the late K. Subrahmanyam would say, nuclear weapons deter other nuclear weapons not terrorism.
