The dastardly terror attack in Pahalgam last month triggered an Indian response in the form of Operation Sindoor. An intense engagement, in which the Indian armed forces scored hits in the most secure coordinates of Pakistan’s airspace, followed. Three days later, on the request of the DGMO of the Pakistan army, an understanding was reached between both countries to stop operations.

One way of making sense of this sequence is to use the Game Theory framework. A concept called deterrence can be particularly illuminating. Deterrence is a strategy where one player (e.g., a country) prevents another’s undesirable action (e.g., a terrorist attack) by threatening a costly response.

The fundamental property of deterrence is that it always lies in the future. One can only deter future acts of terrorism by the threat of a future punishment. In order to be effective, such threats should involve substantial costs. This is obvious. What is usually non-obvious is that threats should be credible, in the sense that it should be rational for the player making them to carry out if the situation demands. Otherwise, the threat is just a bluff that will be ignored by the adversary.

So, the real question in the present context is whether Operation Sindoor and the following public declarations have enhanced the expected magnitude and credibility of........

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