Operation Sindoor, launched by India in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack and subsequently paused but not called off, has completed a year. It is, therefore, time to appraise its impact on the ground, the lessons learnt by India and the current state of play.
Impact on the ground and lessons learnt
Pakistan had for far too long sought to shelter cross border terror against India behind the shield of a nuclear overhang. That shield is breached. Operation Sindoor has demonstrated yet again what was evident at the time of the Kargil conflict and Balakot strike – that calibrated use of conventional military force to impose costs on Pakistan is possible under the nuclear overhang. It has also appreciably expanded the space for such action through escalation to an unprecedented level in a long time. It followed a template of a rapid, technology intensive, short duration conflict with focused strikes and controlled escalation. This could be adapted to the needs of a future situation.
Militarily, India’s action in hitting only the terror targets initially without attacking Pakistan’s military infrastructure, notably air defences, has been the subject of a debate. We could see some adaptation in this area. In this context, PM Modi’s directive not to differentiate between the government sponsoring terrorism and its masterminds is significant.
We may also see some adaptation in India’s narrative management. This would primarily focus on countering robustly the disinformation spread by the adversary, while projecting India’s perspective. Further, since the global focus has shifted from the War on Terror phase, a more energetic effort may be needed from India to register its concerns on terrorism internationally.
The China-Pakistan collusion was amply evident during Operation Sindoor, not only in terms of the Chinese weapon systems used by Pakistan, but also assistance in space-based resources, intelligence sharing and cyber systems. There are also reports of involvement of Chinese personnel in the maintenance of Pakistan’s air force assets. India will have to factor the wide range of this collaboration in its future military assessments and strategy.
There has been no egregious terror attack in J&K since the Pahalgam incident. However, infiltration bids across the LoC and encounters involving terrorists of Pakistani nationality have taken place. Reports of presence of terrorists and their launch pads on the Pakistani side have also persisted. Terrorists from J&K were involved in the terror attack near Lal Qila in November 2025. In the chargesheet filed in a court, the National Investigation Agency has stated that the accused were linked to Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind (AGuH), an offshoot of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which was designated a terrorist organisation by India in 2018.
However, it is clear that Pakistan has not abnegated terror as an instrument of state policy and India’s larger problem of an implacably hostile Pakistan also remains intact.
Current state of the bilateral relationship
The India-Pakistan relationship remains in a state of complete freeze and persistent tensions. Rhetoric has remained high pitched from both sides. There is no diplomatic engagement barring the existence of highly truncated missions in the two capitals. Both countries are dependent on deterrence and coercion to manage the relationship. Trade and travel remain suspended and air space on both sides remains barred to the aircraft of the other side. The Indus Waters Treaty that had survived numerous bilateral crises in the past remains in abeyance. Even sports contacts have suffered.
On the plus side, Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) put in place in the past seem to be largely intact. Thus, the hotline between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) remains functional. The two sides also exchanged the coordinates of their nuclear installations on January 1 this year in terms of their 1988 agreement on prohibition of attack against nuclear installations and facilities. Recently, the Pakistan navy came to the rescue of the crew of an Indian offshore tug and supply vessel, stranded in the Arabian Sea, following a request from the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Mumbai.
There have been media reports of some India-Pakistan track II meetings in foreign countries with the participation of retired military officers and diplomats and some serving officials, who are said to have participated in their personal capacity. Two of these meetings were facilitated by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The last such meeting is reported to have taken place as recently as in February 2026. Little is known about what transpired in these meetings, but they seem to have made no visible impact on the dynamics of the relationship.
Probability of another crisis
The conclusions drawn by Pakistan from the May 2025 conflict are the exact opposite of those drawn by India. Thus, DG (ISPR) has claimed that Pakistan controlled and dominated the escalation and clearly established deterrence. He added that there is no space for war between two nuclear neighbours. Pakistan seems to have drawn a gratuitous conclusion of dominance and victory based on its having shot down an unspecified number of Indian air force aircraft in the initial stages of the May 2025 conflict. This is reminiscent of a similar misleading conclusion drawn by Pakistan regarding the superiority of its military machine from the Rann of Kutch conflict in the summer of 1965. It was a contributory factor to Pakistan’s unsuccessful attempt later that year to grab Kashmir through Operations Gibraltar and Grand Slam. The Pakistani establishment is also emboldened by its being in the good books of President Trump. A cosy relationship with the US in the past has encouraged the Pakistanis to indulge in adventurism against India to advance their agenda.
As stated earlier, in the Indian reckoning, Operation Sindoor has shown yet again that punitive military action against Pakistan is possible under the nuclear overhang, and it has appreciably expanded the space for such action. In any future conflict, India may be tempted to extend this boundary further. Since India’s larger Pakistan problem remains intact, India seems to see the May 2025 action as a task partly done. It maintains that Operation Sindoor is not over and the May 2025 action was just the beginning. The Indian strategic planners would also be conscious of the fact that notwithstanding its geopolitical recovery over the last one year or so, Pakistan remains beset with its structural problems of a precarious economy, sectarian and ethnic fault lines, religious extremism and terrorism. Though temporarily pushed to the background in the ‘hybrid’ system under Asim Munir, civil-military discord could rear its head again sometime in future.
Both sides have expressed the resolve to hit harder and deeper in future. They are plugging the gaps in their military capabilities identified in May 2025.
In the absence of diplomacy, coercion, overt and covert, remains the currency of this relationship.
Pakistan continues with its brazen stance on cross border terrorism. Thus, speaking on the first anniversary of Operation Sindoor, Field Marshal Asim Munir accused India of false flag operations in 2001, 2008, 2016 and 2019. Such statements outrage the conscience of the Indian public as deeply as the Pakistan sponsored terror attacks that Munir referred to. Pakistan, on its part, accuses India of being behind the widespread terror in Balochistan and its tribal belt.
In view of the foregoing, the current no war, no peace situation between the two countries is anything but stable. Therefore, the probability of occurrence of another crisis remains high. Another Pakistan-linked terror attack in India could prove to be the spark that lights the fuse of a bigger conflagration.
What is needed?
Aside from the hotline between the DGMOs, what is needed immediately is a channel of communication at a higher level between the two governments, perhaps a backchannel, with the twin objectives of, first, stabilising the relationship and, second, to manage crisis situations. Stabilising the relationship would first and foremost require a discussion on terrorism on which concerns have been expressed from both sides.
However, the above cannot come about without some shift in the current calculus on both sides, of which there is no sign for the moment.
The previous issue of Pakistan’s Geopolitical Recovery: An Appraisal are available here: LINK
