Despite having been battered in Operation Sindoor, Pakistan’s military‑jihadist complex flaunts a more emboldened stance than before, and this new reality is guiding India’s counterterrorism strategy.

Over the past year, a realisation has set in that India needs to go beyond Operation Sindoor‑like kinetic actions to tackle a newly empowered Pakistan.

In March,
Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi told Firstpost that he did not find “a lot of changes which were expected after Operation Sindoor” in Pakistan’s behaviour. Instead of being weakened, he said, the 27th Amendment has given the Pakistani military complete control of the country.

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Externally, Pakistan is no longer a pariah in Washington DC, having emerged as US President Donald Trump’s principal ally in South Asia. It has entered into security agreements with West Asian energy giants and deepened its relationship with Turkey. This means Pakistan now eyes more diplomatic leverage, access to weapons, and revenue streams than it had a year ago.

Operation Sindoor achieved its objectives, but the world moved on so quickly that India now faces a completely different national security landscape, according to terrorism analyst Abhinav Pandya.

“With Operation Sindoor, India lowered the threshold for a large‑scale military action. The aim was to impose a cost on Pakistan severe enough to deter future acts of terror. India also called out Pakistan’s nuclear bluff and kept climbing the escalation ladder to maintain pressure while stopping short of a full‑scale war. India won that round, but it now needs a different approach because the past year has dramatically altered the national security landscape,” said Pandya.

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The altered national security landscape revealed itself within months, with the Red Fort blast in November. And India did not mount a response similar to Operation Sindoor after the Red Fort blast because it was part of a new post‑Pahalgam terrorism playbook.

Investigations into the
Red Fort blast and the ‘white collar module’ suspected to be behind it have revealed a homegrown network aided from abroad.
As Firstpost reported previously, the bombing was not simply a return to the urban attacks mounted by Indian Mujahideen (IM) two decades ago but a new campaign involving domestic radicalisation, domestic training, and remote guidance from abroad, leveraging technological advances of the past decade.

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“You cannot launch a war‑like response for every attack. That means India faces a two‑faced challenge. Firstly, you definitely need to impose costs, but you need to know that you can at best reduce the frequency of attacks as Pakistan would keep attempting attacks irrespective of costs because a perpetual religious war with India is its foundational ideology. Secondly, you need to have different approaches for different types of attacks. Operation Sindoor‑like actions cannot be a response to every threat or attack,” said Pandya.

India learns from Operation Sindoor to tackle new challenges

Over the past year, India has revised its military posturing, doctrines, and counterterrorism strategy, drawing on lessons learnt during Operation Sindoor.

India has doubled down on indigenous military systems after these systems performed better than expected. Contrary to popular perception, Indian systems such as Akash —and not the S‑400— tackled the vast majority of Pakistani missiles and drones during Operation Sindoor.

India has also
realised the tactical and strategic importance of space, treating it as the first frontier of warfare instead of the final frontier. The government has joined hands with private players to improve not just navigation and communication but also critical areas such as missile interception.

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During Operation Sindoor, India intercepted a Pakistani missile near Delhi in Sirsa, Haryana. The missile was headed towards the capital. While India intercepted it in the third and final phase of its trajectory, efforts are underway to detect and intercept missiles in the first or second phase through space‑based capabilities. This rethink in national security strategy aims to move from situational awareness to anticipatory awareness.

The interceptions conducted during Operation Sindoor were radar‑based and executed at the re‑entry phase, but efforts are now underway to detect missiles in the boost phase using space‑based infrared sensors to pick up thermal signatures at the moment of launch and map trajectories before re‑entry systems are engaged, according to Anirudh Sharma, Founder and CEO of Digantara, a company working on space‑based missile‑detection capabilities.

“Boost and mid‑course phases are primarily trackable from space. Re‑entry is conventionally handled by ground‑based systems, which carry inherent limitations, including the constraints imposed by the Earth’s curvature on radar range. Space‑based missile detection enables decisions about where and what to intercept to be made far earlier in the threat timeline,” said Sharma.

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Similarly, India has moved towards incorporating drones at all levels — equipping every battalion with drones and attaching drone personnel to tanks to serve as their eyes and ears beyond visual range. India has also created new formations such as Rudra all‑arms brigades, based on the integrated battle groups conceptualised by the late General Bipin Rawat, and quick‑response Bhairava battalions to bridge the gap between infantry and elite forces.

Despite these promising moves, challenges have persisted — and worsened in some cases. The procurement process continues to be ad hoc.

Over the past year, India has bought drone and counter‑drone assets on an emergency basis, but observers say the emergency‑purchase model is neither sustainable for the military nor the industry — particularly at a time when analysts argue that the government should shift from state‑run, sluggish ordnance factories to public‑private partnerships.

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The problem is more severe for start‑ups engaged in some of the most cutting‑edge defence research. Industry executives broadly agree that it is difficult for start‑ups to develop purely military‑centric products or services without consistent orders. At best, companies can work on dual‑use products and services that could be repurposed for military applications.

A person aware of the discussions said senior government officials gathered top executives of private defence companies even as Operation Sindoor was ongoing and asked about their stocks and ability to produce munitions, drones, and other systems at an emergency level. As per the person, executives told officials that production of armed drones or artillery shells cannot be ramped up in a day and stressed that consistent orders are needed to maintain adequate stocks.

But even as structural procurement problems remain unaddressed, Operation Sindoor and other developments over the past two years have clarified what the national security establishment wants.

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A chief functionary of a private defence company told Firstpost that there have been instances of India‑made drones being hacked in border areas and that the focus had been misplaced.

“The public discourse was on foreign components that allowed foreign powers a backdoor. But the bigger problem was that the procurement policy never stated that hacking‑proof or spoofing‑proof features should be part of a drone. If you want certain features in a product, you need to state it. Now, after Operation Sindoor, we see that the military knows what it wants. That is a great move,” the chief functionary said on the condition of anonymity.

But, according to the person familiar with discussions between industry and government, this awareness means little until orders are placed systematically.

But new terror wave poses challenges — and tough questions

Following the Pahalgam attack, India appears to be facing a new age of terrorism.

As seen in the Red Fort blast, these terrorists may not be foreigners or trained abroad. Instead, they may be guided remotely from abroad. They could also be self‑radicalised or radicalised by peers in professional or social settings.

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Terrorism analyst Pandya said radicalisation in the digital age is a major and worsening challenge.

“Radicalisation is not just limited to an area anymore. With encrypted apps and internet penetration, radicalisation can happen privately. You do not need to hold physical gatherings or ‘camps’ anymore like the previous generation of terrorists needed,” said Pandya.

The evolving geopolitics is not working in India’s favour either. Trump’s alliance with Pakistan, Pakistan’s alliance with West Asian energy giants, and Iran’s perceived victory over the United States are bound to embolden jihadists.

“Every jihadist from West Asia to Central Asia has only two permanent targets: Israel and India. The Islamic Revolution has served as inspiration for jihadists—even Sunni groups. Pakistan‑based terrorist organisations have long learnt from Iran‑backed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The facilitation of a few ships’ passage through the Strait of Hormuz does not mean Iran has changed its policy of supporting terrorists who have long attacked India. A stronger Iran means more potential for jihadist misadventures,” said Pandya.

Analysts have warned that India’s room to manoeuvre around Pakistan has also reduced. With Pakistan’s international profile rising, India may find it harder to isolate it internationally. But Aishwaria Sonavane, who heads the Pakistan programme at the Takshashila Institution, said India found it difficult to corner Pakistan internationally even before the US‑Pakistan bonhomie because insufficient evidence was produced against the military‑jihadist complex for the Pahalgam attack.

Unlike the Mumbai attacks of 2008, the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack were not tried and convicted, and the international community did not receive irrefutable testimonies and evidence like that of Ajmal Kasab or David Headley. Sonavane also suggested that there must be a rethink of the Indian approach to Pakistan because an emboldened Pakistan may not be deterred as envisioned.

“India’s approach of strategic neglect toward Pakistan has done little to mitigate terror threats. Indian military responses between 2016 and 2025 have been escalatory in nature and were intended to raise the cost of cross‑border terrorism. However, they have fallen short in producing sustainable deterrence. Pakistan is far from being internationally isolated, and the Pakistani military, after its performance in the May 2025 conflict, has little to no incentive to restrain its proxy groups like Lashkar‑e‑Taiba and Jaish‑e‑Mohammed. I would recommend India revisit this strategy,” said Sonavane.

First Published:
May 07, 2026, 15:29 IST

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