Disinformation dominated the recent India–Pakistan conflict. India won the physical fight; we have not yet won the information war. Until it does, New Delhi will struggle to de-hyphenate India and Pakistan globally — an essential strand of our foreign policy.

Once the printing press transformed knowledge distribution, propaganda became a core component of war. Both World Wars saw the use of newspapers, posters, radio and film for mass persuasion. Our challenge now is to craft an information war strategy that accounts for the media landscape, from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and social media to the still powerful legacy medium of broadcast television.

India’s private sector already excels in natural language processing (NLP), which is a dual-use capability in the context of information warfare. Indian AI models can easily train on a spectrum of languages, dialects and socio-cultural cues — Urdu and Punjabi variants across the border, regimental slang within the Pakistan army, even the memes that circulate in closed loop apps. Put simply, NLP could be used to speak inside the adversary’s head, fracturing morale and redirecting attention long before any kinetic move is made.

Synthetic video is just as dual-use. A well-known 2022 deepfake of President Volodymyr Zelensky urging Ukrainian troops to surrender went viral........

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