Operation Sindoor: India’s Strategic Strike Against Terrorism in the 2025 India-Pakistan Crisis

In early May 2025, India and Pakistan engaged in their fiercest military clash in decades. The crisis was triggered by a brutal terrorist massacre in Indian Kashmir, after which India launched Operation Sindoor (May 7–10), striking nine militant camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir with air-launched cruise missiles and loitering munitions. Pakistan promptly vowed retaliation, claiming it shot down Indian jets and launching its own drone and missile strikes. Over the next four days both sides exchanged precision stand-off attacks on military installations. U.S.-brokered diplomacy led to a ceasefire on May 10, ending the exchange. The crisis marks a doctrinal shift in Indo-Pak deterrence: India has moved from threat-based warning to direct cost-imposition against terrorist networks, deploying advanced missile and drone technology (see Table 1) to degrade Pakistan’s militant infrastructure. The events underscore a volatile new paradigm in South Asia, with a dangerously lowered threshold for escalation.

Introduction

The 2025 India–Pakistan confrontation represents a watershed in the region’s strategic dynamics. For decades, India has generally restrained cross-border military action despite Pakistan-linked terrorism; even large attacks like 2008’s Mumbai assault saw political rather than kinetic responses. Since 2016 India has incrementally pushed new boundaries (for example, the 2019 Balakot strike), but the Sindoor episode saw an unprecedented scale and posture. According to analysts, India “tested and pushed the boundaries” of retaliation without triggering all-out war. Prime Minister Modi openly framed the strikes as a new default policy: “by default respond militarily to terrorism… Pakistan’s nuclear threats would not deter India,” and both militants and their state sponsors “are equivalent”. This marks a sharp departure from past policy. In sum, the crisis has revealed India’s willingness to employ advanced weaponry and aggressive doctrine to impose costs on Pakistan’s militant networks, changing South Asian deterrence calculus.

Background: The Pahalgam Attack and Escalation

On 22 April 2025, Islamist gunmen ambushed a tourist party at Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir, executing 26 Hindu pilgrims at point blank range. Indian investigators identified the attackers as affiliates of Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaat-ur-Dawa; Islamabad immediately denied involvement and called for an independent probe. The atrocity provoked outrage in India, prompting demands for action against Pakistan. New Delhi responded with punitive diplomatic and technical measures (suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, diplomatic downgrades) and heightened military readiness. Small-arms exchanges erupted across the Line of Control in Kashmir as Indian and Pakistani posts traded fire, raising fears of wider conflict. Beijing and Washington publicly urged restraint, but tensions remained high. In this fraught atmosphere, India resolved to retaliate militarily, believing Pakistan’s militant infrastructure must be “punished” for its role in the attack.

Strategic Objectives of Operation Sindoor

India’s publicly stated objective was to degrade the Pakistani “terrorist infrastructure” that enabled the Pahalgam massacre. Indian briefings made clear that the targets were camps linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, not Pakistan’s conventional forces. The aim was dual: punish the militants and signal to Pakistan that further attacks would trigger immediate cost. This reflects a new “cost-imposition” doctrine. Analysts note that whereas past crises saw India issue threats or symbolic strikes, Sindoor was intended as a material strike to “inflict real material damage” on the militant networks. Prime Minister Modi later hailed Sindoor as a “new benchmark” in India’s counterterrorism strategy. In practice, India prepared to respond forcefully to any Pakistani reprisal – effectively equating militants and their state backers. In short, Sindoor’s strategic goal was deterrence through punishment: to show Pakistan that sponsoring cross-border terror would trigger calibrated military retribution, while Pakistan’s own nuclear rhetoric would no longer constrain Indian action.

Execution and Tactics

India initiated Operation Sindoor in the early hours of 7 May 2025. A flight of Rafale fighters (along with upgraded Sukhoi jets) armed with long-range stand-off munitions struck nine identified militant facilities across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The missiles employed included French SCALP/HAMMER cruise missiles and the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, delivered via aircraft. In parallel, Indian forces used Israeli-made Harop loitering munitions (suicide drones) and guided Spice bombs against several targets. The strikes reportedly achieved “exact” impact on the preplanned targets with no reported Indian ground incursions. To bolster its case, India declassified drone-video of the attacks, confirming that only militant compounds were hit. This transparency left Pakistan little doubt of casualties.

Critically, India relied on modern networked systems and layered defenses. It has, over recent years, procured systems such as the Russian S-400 air-defense battery, a domestic suite of anti-aircraft missiles, and integrated sensors. While the strikes were offensive in nature, those defense networks provided confidence to operate in Pakistan’s airspace. These capabilities enabled successive calibrated waves of attacks without mobilizing large ground forces. Analysts note that stand-off strikes by missiles and drones—quicker to launch and easier to calibrate than ground invasions—have become India’s weapon of choice for punishing terrorist enclaves. All told, Operation Sindoor demonstrated India’s new toolkit: precision air-launched and ground-launched missiles, combined with armed UAVs, to strike deeply with limited collateral damage.

Table 1: Comparison of key Indian and Pakistani military systems employed in the May 2025 crisis. The table highlights the major drones/loitering munitions, missile types, and air-defense assets each side used or possessed.

Pakistan’s Response and Escalatory Dynamics

Pakistan’s military vowed swift retaliation. Islamabad’s Prime Minister and military sources claimed on May 7–8 that five Indian jets and attack drones had been shot down (a claim India denied as disinformation). Under the title Operation Bunyanun Marsoos, Pakistan launched its own strikes on Indian military targets. Notably, in the early hours of May 10 Indian reports indicated that missiles targeted Pakistan’s Nur Khan Air Base (near Rawalpindi), the headquarters of the Pakistani military’s Strategic Plans Division, marking a direct threat to a facility linked with Pakistan’s nuclear command. These exchanges rapidly intensified into an unprecedented “drone war”. Pakistan claimed to have downed over two dozen Indian drones (including Israeli-made Harops) over cities like Karachi and Lahore, while India reported disabling multiple Pakistani air-defense radars (claims Islamabad denied). Both sides used armed UAVs in new ways: India, for example, struck on-site power and radar nodes, whereas Pakistan deployed Chinese and Turkish UCAVs (CH-4, Bayraktar Akinci) and its own Shahpar drones for reconnaissance and attacks. By May 9–10 the conflict had escalated beyond symbolic strikes: analysts note it involved “orders of magnitude more weapons and targets on both sides” than any previous crisis.

Throughout the clash, each side accumulated casualties. Pakistan reported at least 31 civilian deaths and 46 wounded from the Indian strikes and subsequent artillery fire. India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh asserted the planned targets were struck with “exactness” and no civilian areas were affected. Pakistani officials countered that none of the hit locations were genuine militant camps, and warned India would “pay the price”. Meanwhile, Pakistan announced about 36 total fatalities (including military personnel and others) from the exchange. Islamabad publicly vowed to respond at “a time, place and manner of its choosing”, setting the stage for further retaliation. The rapid cycle of strikes and counterstrikes marked a dangerous erosion of longstanding red lines: even the prospect of civilian airliners in Pakistani airspace became a concern (57 commercial flights were reportedly airborne during the May 7 attack).

International Mediation and Ceasefire Outcomes

As the conflict intensified, international actors pressed for de-escalation. The United States took the lead in brokering a truce: from May 6–9 U.S. Secretary of State Rubio conducted back-channel calls with both New Delhi and Islamabad, and Vice President J.D. Vance made a direct call to Prime Minister Modi to underscore the risk of further escalation. In the early hours of May 10, Rubio spearheaded an “around-the-clock” diplomatic push that brought both sides back to the table. Under U.S. pressure – and with public posts by President Trump – India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire effective 17:00 IST (16:30 PKT) on May 10. Both countries’ foreign ministers confirmed the cessation of hostilities at that time.

After the truce, reported violations tapered off: by May 11 firing had largely ceased along the Line of Control. International reactions were mixed. Washington voiced strong support for India’s right to retaliate against terrorism while calling for calm, whereas Beijing and Moscow urged restraint from both sides. Regionally, Pakistan framed the outcome as a victory: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif hailed Bunyan Marsoos as a “golden chapter” and declared May 10 a national “Day of Righteous Battle”. In New Delhi, officials claimed vindication that India had effectively struck terror camps. Ultimately, the ceasefire was upheld, but each country claimed diplomatic success: India pointed to having “focused” its strikes on militants, while Pakistan emphasized having blunted the aggression and restored deterrence to South Asia.

Strategic Implications for South Asia

The 2025 crisis underscores several far-reaching implications for regional security. First is the new era of technological warfare. For the first time, both India and Pakistan fired unmanned drones in combat against each other, integrating UAVs alongside missiles and artillery. Both sides downed each other’s drones and missiles in a high-stakes contest, indicating that future conflicts will increasingly hinge on precision-guided and remotely-piloted systems. Pakistan already boasts a large, diverse drone fleet (Chinese CH-4, Turkish Bayraktar, indigenous Burraq/Shahpar), while India relies heavily on Israeli UAVs (Searcher, Heron) and loitering munitions. This arms-race dynamic will spur rapid development of air-defense networks, electronic warfare, and counter-UAV tactics across South Asia.

Second, the threshold for escalation has been lowered. Sindoor saw strikes in the heart of Pakistani Punjab (hitting sites as far from the border as Lahore and Muridke) with little pretence of limiting to Kashmir. Indian missiles even targeted Nur Khan AFB near Pakistan’s nuclear command center. Simultaneously, cross-border shelling endangered civilians on both sides (reports of children among the casualties) and even overflew civilian aircraft corridors. That neither side resorted to nuclear weapons reflects restraint, but the crisis shows how quickly conventional conflict can spiral to the nuclear brink. In future standoffs, leaders may find it harder to dial back once precision strikes commence.

Third, India’s strategic posture has shifted. New Delhi now appears to accept that a permanent peace free of terrorism is unattainable; instead it has embraced a doctrine of continual retaliation and attrition. As analysts note, traditional deterrence logic (“threaten big war to deter small attacks”) has failed in the India-Pakistan context, so India is moving to “keep [Pakistan] on the defensive” by degrading terrorist groups and their enablers over time. Modi’s public statements encapsulate this: terrorism will be met immediately and forcefully, and Pakistan’s nuclear “gunpoint” policy will not deter India. This new normal means each militant incident is now likely to trigger a swift military riposte.

Finally, bilateral norms have deteriorated. Pre-crisis trust was already low (e.g. 2024 saw both countries abrogate dispute-resolution treaties), but Sindoor concretely upended longstanding agreements. India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty and Pakistan’s threats to re-open the Shimla Accords indicate that even non-military ties can break down under strain. South Asia’s nuclear-armed dyad thus faces a more brittle status quo: with “no guardrails” between covert terrorism and open warfare, stability now depends on each side’s tolerance for perpetual confrontation. In aggregate, the crisis suggests the regional balance of deterrence is shifting from an emphasis on mutual annihilation to one of grinding attrition – a dangerous evolution for security in South Asia.

Conclusion: Shifting Paradigms in Deterrence

Operation Sindoor represents a paradigm shift in India–Pakistan deterrence dynamics. India’s new approach treats terrorism not as an unpredictable nuisance but as a casus belli: each attack will be met with calibrated military punishment, regardless of Pakistani protestations. In practice, Modi’s doctrine signals that the “threat-and-not-its-fulfillment” model of deterrence no longer applies; once an attack occurs, India assumes deterrence has failed and is now in an attrition campaign to erode the adversary’s capacity. For Pakistan, the crisis has reinforced a militarized narrative of deterrence (Senior officers hailed the outcome as proof of resolve), but Islamabad also faces the sobering reality that its state-sponsored proxies can now be struck inside Pakistan with high-tech precision.

Looking ahead, no simple policy will restore the old status quo. South Asia’s security is entering an era of protracted contestation, where conventional warfare and terrorist conflict blur. Both capitals must now factor in the acceptance of perpetual low-intensity conflict: India will assume cross-border raids are inevitable and prepare to counter them militarily, while Pakistan will bolster air defenses and its own strike capabilities to deter or retaliate. In the nuclear context, both sides must grapple with the risk that any major miscalculation could rapidly escalate. Sindoor has thus demonstrated that deterrence in South Asia is evolving – from a balance held by the threat of mutual destruction to one held by sustained enforcement actions. In the absence of clear “guardrails”, the burden lies on each side’s willingness to impose and bear costs; the real question for stability is who can endure that grinding competition.