As Pakistan marks one year since Marka-e-Haq, New Delhi is rushing in S-400 batteries and $1.2 billion on Russian beyond visual range (BVR) Astra missiles. That is a message. But it is also an admission.

There is a particular kind of announcement that arrives dressed as confidence but reveals something closer to its opposite. India’s procurement of a fourth S-400 air defence battery is expected in Rajasthan by mid-May, timed precisely to the first anniversary of Marka-e-Haq. So do reports of Indian interest in ultra-long-range air-to-air capabilities such as the R-37M, a weapon designed to hunt the AWACS, the tankers, and the flying command centers that make an air campaign possible. The Indian defence establishment would describe these as upgrades. They may also be interpreted as an acknowledgment that last year’s crisis exposed operational gaps that New Delhi is now seeking to address.

Let us be precise about what happened in May 2025, because precision matters here in ways that triumphalist accounts on both sides prefer to avoid. India launched Operation Sindoor, a set of missile strikes it described as counter-terrorism into Pakistani territory. What followed was not the punitive demonstration of Indian power that its political leadership had promised. Pakistan responded with Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos, which Pakistan reported striking multiple Indian military targets in a single operational day. The S-400 batteries at Adampur and Bhuj, the crown jewels of India’s air defence, were among the targets. The ceasefire that followed was brokered not by India’s diplomatic network, not by its BRICS chairship, not by its relationship with Washington, but by US President........

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