In the quiet yet rugged terrains of Pahalgam, a gruesome terrorist attack on April 22, 2025, has once again forced India to confront the long-standing threat emanating from across its western border. The strike, clearly orchestrated by Pakistan-based terrorists under the patronage of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus, has not only claimed innocent Indian lives but also shaken the nation’s strategic patience. What followed was not chaos, but clarity.
India’s response, shaped in the shadows of past provocations, is neither impulsive nor rhetorical. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s posturing suggests a calculated shift — one aimed at imposing direct, lasting costs on Pakistan’s military establishment without crossing the threshold into all-out war. This is strategic deterrence in action.
Predictably, Pakistani officials have responded with theatrical alarm. Islamabad’s civilian leaders — long seen as marionettes in the military’s theatre — have begun projecting the possibility of an Indian retaliatory strike as a deliberate march toward war. In truth, this alarmist narrative is a nuclear-tinged scare tactic. It’s not aimed at dissuading Indian policymakers — who understand both the stakes and the adversary — but rather targeted at Western capitals.
Pakistan’s aim is transparent: trigger diplomatic panic in Washington, Brussels, London, and Beijing. The idea is to mobilize global pressure on India, forcing it to pull back from a retaliatory course. But India has seen this movie before. And so has the world — especially after Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has been a brutal education in modern geopolitics. One painful lesson is that many world leaders are woefully uninformed about the nuanced and layered security threats other countries face — sometimes even their own. India can no longer afford to allow the international community’s ignorance, or Pakistan’s propaganda, to dictate the limits of its response.
The notion that retaliatory military strikes risk all-out war is fast becoming obsolete. Across the globe, calibrated military responses have become a de facto norm — executed by the U.S., NATO, Israel, Iran, and non-state actors like the Houthis. Such strikes don’t necessarily invite war; they create space for accountability. Whether it escalates or not depends on the targeted nation.
In India’s case, that nation is Pakistan — a country whose power structure is grotesquely skewed. Ministers speak loudly but with little authority. The real levers of power rest in Rawalpindi, within the fortified compounds of the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters. That is where the decisions are made. That is where responsibility for cross-border terrorism lies. Yet that is also where fear of escalation — and of losing everything — is most acute.
The Pakistani Army’s PR machine is operating at full throttle. Echoing the same talking points used after past Indian military operations — Uri in 2016, Balakot in 2019 — Islamabad’s leadership claims there is “no evidence” of Pakistan’s involvement in the Pahalgam attack. This denial is strategic, not sincere. It’s designed to muddy the waters, create plausible deniability, and invite international mediation.
But make no mistake — Pakistan’s generals know exactly what India knows. Through a network of human and signals intelligence, India has accumulated substantial, even if classified, evidence of Pakistan’s direct complicity in the attack. The call for India to “prove” Pakistan’s involvement is disingenuous at best. No sovereign state shares intelligence details — especially those involving sources and methods — in the court of public opinion.
In reality, India doesn’t need to prove anything to the world to justify defending its own citizens. The responsibility to act lies solely with India’s elected government, and Modi is now asserting that responsibility with firmness.
India has, for decades, allowed Pakistan to incrementally escalate the threshold of acceptable aggression. Terror strikes in Delhi, Mumbai, Pathankot, and Pulwama have each tested India’s resolve. But India’s military responses have also become incrementally firmer — a shift from verbal condemnation to cross-border raids and air strikes.
The Pahalgam strike is not just another attack. It is a strategic inflection point. India now seems poised to climb another rung on the escalation ladder — not toward war, but toward deterrence. This move is not optional; it’s imperative.
A weak or symbolic response would only reinforce Pakistan’s military establishment’s sense of impunity. A measured yet unmistakable strike would serve to erode that dangerous confidence.
Modi’s signaling is deliberate. India is not preparing for an invasion. It is not seeking to redraw borders through bloodshed. What it is preparing for is a targeted military strike — one that is punitive, precise, and painfully symbolic.
What shape might this strike take? There are several possible options:
Surgical Airstrikes or Special Ops: These could be aimed at high-value terror infrastructure inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), sending a clear message without widening the scope of conflict.
Territorial Reclamation: India could target small but strategically significant areas that were seized in 1947 and are currently used as launchpads for infiltration. This move, while limited in scale, could redefine the Line of Control (LoC) and create lasting pressure on Pakistan’s army.
Military Disruption Campaigns: A series of strikes that degrade Pakistan’s military infrastructure or its proxy networks in Kashmir could deliver sustained psychological and operational blows.
Each of these options imposes pain — not for its own sake, but as a deterrent. Importantly, none of these constitute an outright act of war.
Military power alone cannot dictate terms in the modern world. Economic, legal, and symbolic moves matter just as much. India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty — a foundational agreement that regulates water sharing between the two nations — marks a significant escalation of non-military pressure.
This action will have enduring effects. It disrupts the social fabric of Pakistan’s agrarian economy, strains its infrastructure, and signals to the world that India is done being a passive partner in asymmetric diplomacy.
India’s leadership also appears to be exploring legal routes to reclaim long-contested territories, or at the very least, reinforce India’s position in international forums. With Pakistan having effectively shelved the Simla Agreement — the only real diplomatic anchor holding both sides to a rules-based framework — India has a stronger legal and moral basis to take assertive action.
A limited territorial push, if executed with discipline and restraint, could produce a strategic payoff far greater than its geographic scale. Redefining the LoC would serve two core objectives:
Internal Deterrence in Pakistan: Humiliating the military — the only real power center in Pakistan — weakens its grip on national politics and destabilizes its internal credibility.
External Signaling: It would show the world that India is not merely defending its territory, but correcting historical injustices while staying within the framework of limited conflict.
Critics may argue that such a move risks widening the conflict. But the alternative — a continued tolerance of terror — is no longer tenable for a nation that sees itself as a global power.
Modi’s leadership is not playing to the gallery. Nor is it indulging in machismo. What is unfolding is a geopolitical recalibration. India is signaling that it will no longer be boxed in by the fear of international opinion, especially when that opinion is shaped by ignorance or hypocrisy.
The West, too, must reassess its posture. If retaliatory strikes are deemed legitimate when Israel or NATO is attacked, why should India be held to a different standard? This moral inconsistency is both strategic and cultural — and India’s response will help correct it.
Within India, there is rare alignment. Civilian leadership, military planners, and bureaucratic advisors all understand the stakes. There is no appetite for reckless escalation. But there is a resolute consensus: India cannot afford to absorb terror strikes as mere events. Each one must carry a consequence.
This unity gives Modi the strategic bandwidth to act. Unlike in past decades, Indian public opinion now supports assertive foreign policy. More importantly, the nation’s institutional capacity to deliver calibrated responses — in military, diplomatic, and economic domains — has matured.
The coming days may bring confirmation of Indian military action. If and when that happens, it will not be a declaration of war — it will be a declaration of resolve. India is not seeking conflict; it is seeking consequence.
Modi’s challenge is not just to retaliate, but to retaliate with meaning. To signal, not just punish. To create deterrence, not destruction. This is a moment that demands strategic clarity and political courage — both of which seem to be in ample supply in New Delhi.
