A year after Operation Sindoor, the Modi government still brandishes it as a signal that terrorism traced to Pakistan will be punished. It would have us believe that this is India’s new military doctrine. The claim has political force.

Yet wars are not judged by intent alone, but the balance of power they create in the aftermath. By that measure, Operation Sindoor looks less like a strategic success than a costly misadventure that exposed the limits of India’s military and diplomatic power. For Operation Sindoor revived Pakistan’s relevance and gave China an unexpected advertisement for its weapons.

The operation began after the Pahalgam massacre of 22 April 2025, in which twenty-six civilians were killed in Kashmir. India immediately blamed Pakistan-linked militants and struck targets across Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in the early hours of 7 May.

New Delhi intended to hit terror infrastructure, keep escalation below the nuclear threshold, and demonstrate that the old restraint after major terror attacks had ended. In that narrow sense, the strike achieved visibility. It showed that India was willing to use force in the heartland of Pakistan despite nuclear risks. But the battlefield quickly slipped beyond the neat script of calibrated punishment.

Pakistan responded militarily and, more importantly, survived and succeeded politically, diplomatically and psychologically. Before the conflict, India enjoyed not just a larger economy and a larger military, but also a deeply entrenched perception of conventional superiority.

That perception mattered. It shaped diplomacy, deterrence, media narratives, and Pakistan’s own sense of vulnerability. Operation Sindoor punctured it.

Whether Pakistan shot down two, five or more Indian aircraft remains contested. But even limited confirmation from India’s senior military officials and several outside officials that Chinese-made Pakistani aircraft brought down Indian jets — including at least one Rafale — was enough to alter the strategic conversation. A country presumed to be outmatched had shown it could impose........

© National Herald