May 19, 2025 ☼ The Intersection ☼ geopolitics ☼ foreign policy
But India needs a surge in defence expenditure to ensure a favourable military balance with the China-Pakistan alliance.
This is from The Intersection column that appears every other Monday in Mint.
In his book on strategy in the information age, Everett Carl Dolman presents a startling argument: “The first notion the military strategist must discard is victory, for strategy is not about winning. The pure strategist understands that war is but one aspect of social and political competition, an ongoing interaction that has no finality.” Contending that the concept of victory is a tactical concern, he goes on to define strategy as “a plan for attaining continuing advantage.” The following lines are pertinent in the context of the conflict between India and Pakistan. “The goal of strategy is not to culminate events, to establish finality in the discourse between states, but to influence states’ discourse in such a way that it will go forward on favourable terms. For continue it will.”
So, a week into the ceasefire after India launched Operation Sindoor to punish Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism, which of the two sides is better placed for the next round?
Pakistan demonstrated a capability to put up a strong fight in the air, with the Pakistan Air Force showing that it is well ahead of its army in terms of professional competence. Nothing in the Pakistani performance will deter India, but it signals that the military option comes with serious costs. Pakistani political analysts assess that the conflict has fortified General Asim Munir’s image and weakened former prime minister Imran Khan’s. Unstinted support from China and Turkey and Donald Trump’s declarations that the US might again be interested in Pakistan’s disputes have buoyed public opinion. The Pakistani public mood might have recovered, even if temporarily, from the funk it has been in for the past several years.
India achieved its political and military objectives, as I explained in last week’s column. New Delhi has the willingness, capability and determination to engage in conventional warfare under the nuclear threshold, despite the well-advertised risks and significant military costs. The precise but limited damage to Pakistan Air Force bases, over and above the strikes on terrorist facilities in Muridke, Bahawalpur and elsewhere, will remain in the consciousness of the Pakistani establishment for a long time. The Indus Waters Treaty is set for a renegotiation. Also, even if the US decides to invest resources in getting India and Pakistan to talk, New Delhi can politely demur. It is 2025, not 1995.
For Pakistan, warm fuzzy feelings apart, it is hard to see how the strengthening of military rule, failure to protect important air bases and a reminder that the country remains a base for terrorism helps place it in a better position for the future. It cannot use cross-border terrorism as inexpensively as it once did. As more money is diverted to military expenditure, Pakistan will find its economic challenges worsen and increase its dependence on China.
Therefore, in relative terms, India finds itself in a better place for the future. While this might disappoint fantasists on television and social media who had raised wild expectations of military triumph, realists will see the outcome in a favourable light.
The past month has demonstrated that a crisis in India’s public sphere can become a risk to its national security. Setting extravagant expectations undermines real battlefield successes by making them appear underwhelming. Belittling the adversary creates a false sense of the other side’s capabilities. Filling the information space with junk renders it useless to one’s own side. That we had to witness a vicious campaign against our own foreign secretary is a sign that things have been allowed to go too far. Our civilian hotheads could end up handing Pakistan the satisfaction that our military personnel fight so hard to deny.
India has now declared that it will respond to cross-border terrorism with military force. The principal risk of such a strong commitment is that it gives terrorists a big say in matters of war and peace.
It is right to presume that the Pakistani military establishment controls cross-border terror. Even so, it might hand the more adventurous, aggressive and fanatical elements of the military-jihadi complex more power relative to their other counterparts. Of course, New Delhi will evaluate each incident on its own merits, but will face the weight of precedent, policy and public opinion pushing toward the military option.
That is why the commitment to retaliate with military force should be accompanied by a greater number of channels of communication. In addition to national security advisors and director generals of military operations, New Delhi should connect a working-level diplomatic wire between the two capitals for crisis management.
Tailpiece: Last October, I called for “a surge in defence expenditure, starting with an immediate doubling of the defence budget and holding it at the 4% level for five years, before dialling it back down… a massive increase in the availability of new equipment could galvanise the absorption processes across the services. More importantly, India will have the military strength at a time when it is necessary.”
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