Pakistan is almost entirely absent from India’s strategic discourse in the contemporary moment. Indian interlocutors mention this absence occasionally—either with modest lament or more often with some pride, depending on their strategic worldview. Virtually no Indian strategic analyst believes Pakistan is on “India’s level” in world politics. Some say with confidence that India has already expanded its strategic aperture beyond the subcontinental box and now has to exclusively consider China as its main threat. A smaller number argue that India, much like Israel, cannot ignore weaker neighbors that still have asymmetric and symmetric means to cause harm and complicate Indian grand strategy.  

The fifth anniversary of the Pulwama attack and India’s reprisal airstrikes on February 26 have been an occasion for senior Indian officials and analysts to reflect—albeit briefly—on the troubled relationship with Pakistan. These reflections are no doubt tinged by the upcoming national elections in India scheduled for later this spring or early summer.  

A smaller number argue that India, much like Israel, cannot ignore weaker neighbors that still have asymmetric and symmetric means to cause harm and complicate Indian grand strategy.  

At a speech in New Delhi earlier this February, India’s External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, reflected on “Bharat and the World,” referring to the BJP government’s decision to use the Hindi word for India with greater frequency in public and international forums. “Bharat has pushed back with determination and fortitude” when confronting national security threats, Jaishankar emphasized. In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first term, this was seen in his government’s response to a terror group attack on an Army base in

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