Prelude to a Shockwave
On the night of 21/22 June 2025, six B-2 Spirit bombers skimmed Iran’s desert ridges and released the first combat-loaded GBU-57A/B bunker-busters. Simultaneously, two U.S. submarines disgorged thirty Tomahawk cruise missiles toward Natanz and Isfahan. By breakfast time in Delhi, the centrifuge plant beneath Fordow’s mountain was claimed to be demolished —and global markets were on fire. Oil futures spiked $11 in a single session; gold brushed $2,500; and India’s rupee shuddered as traders began to price in an existential question: are we drifting from contested peace toward systemic war?
Yet there were many a slip between the cup and the lip with no satellite or clear post-damage assessment of the bombs having penetrated 90m at Fordow or any report of radioactive emissions. There are also reports of the facility storage having been shifted elsewhere before the attack.
From Diplomacy to Detonation: How We Got Here
The road to Fordow began seven years earlier when Washington quit the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Iran replied with what one IAEA inspector called a “slow-motion sprint”: re-installing cascades, enriching hexafluoride to 60 per cent, and hardening the Fordow chambers ninety metres under limestone. Each step on that ladder—documented in confidential IAEA quarterly reports, Israeli drone leaks, and U.S. National Intelligence Estimates—nudged the standoff closer to the cliff. By May 2025, analysts in Langley were warning that Tehran’s breakout timeline had collapsed to “under three weeks.”
That warning hit two combustible backdrops. First, Israel’s shadow campaign against Iranian proxies had boiled into overt skirmishes from Gaza to the Golan. Second, Washington—fresh off a bruising electoral cycle—was desperate to re-establish deterrent credibility without tumbling into a ground war. The result was kinetic pre-emption: one midnight of shock and presidential televised awe.
Inside the Raid: Tactics, Targets, Technology
Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan form the connective tissue of Iran’s fissile pipeline. Fordow’s 2,700 advanced centrifuges, safe under eighty to ninety metres of rock, were designed to outlast conventional gravity bombs. Then came the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), but it was built to penetrate sixty metres depth. Cyber-operations blinded two Iranian radar sectors seventeen minutes before weapons release; a decoy swarm of Miniature Air-Launched Decoys drew mid-tier batteries south toward Bandar Abbas; and the Spirits exited Iranian airspace in less than twenty-five minutes, recovering to al-Udeid before dawn.
Presidents often speak of “surgical” strikes, but this claimed to have removed the thorax of Iran’s enrichment architecture while leaving command-and-control nodes intact—an invitation to retaliate without forcing immediate regime collapse. Tehran’s first press conference insisted “no irreversible damage,” and a transfer had taken place earlier. Satellite imagery showed fresh sinkholes above Fordow’s access tunnels but were inconclusive to prove the depth of penetration and the destruction of the facility. The world witnessed a textbook demonstration of modern coercive air power, but also a textbook erosion of strategic ambiguity and inconclusive notion of victory.
Escalation in Slow Motion: A Graphic Story
To grasp how the crisis graduated from sanctions to bunker-busters, consider Figure 1 below—an escalation index calibrated from expert surveys and open-source incident counts. Diplomatic breaches, proxy rocket storms, tanker sabotage, and finally direct kinetic blows map a near-linear climb from zero (JCPOA compliance) to ten (nuclear-site strike). The flat years of 2019–2020, dominated by COVID-19, now look like the eye of a gathering cyclone.
The Dominoes Begin to Tilt
Within hours of the strike, Tehran activated what IRGC planners call the “ring-of-fire”: Hezbollah units near Marjayoun redeployed short-range Fateh missiles; Houthi coastal batteries in Yemen elevated their Noor anti-ship launchers; and Kata’ib Hezbollah cells in Iraq issued audio communiqués declaring that “all American positions are legitimate.” Israeli towns from Metula to Ashkelon opened public bomb shelters.
Moscow and Beijing demanded an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, condemning the raid as “lawless adventurism.” Europe, energy-poor and diplomatically fragmented, confined itself to gnomic statements about “restraint.” But the real tremor was felt in world commodity pits: Brent crude vaulted past $115; insurance premia for tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz doubled overnight.
Why India Can’t Look Away
- Energy Lifeline at Gunpoint: More than four-fifths of India’s crude basket and sixty per cent of its LNG stream either originate in or sail through, the Strait of Hormuz. Every $10 jump in oil prices inflates New Delhi’s import bill by roughly $13–14 billion, widening the current account deficit by 0.3 per cent of GDP. At $120 crude, economists at ICRA warn of a ₹1.2 lakh-crore hole in the exchequer and a structurally weaker rupee.
- Security of Sea Lanes and Maritime Overstretch: The security of sea lanes and protecting merchant ships through the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden will become both complex and hazardous. The Hormuz Strait could become a boiling point across this vital 21-mile-wide maritime bottleneck. Further, the threat is structured for sporadic patrols, not an extended conflict involving rapid assault boats and swarms of drones. Thus a decision will have to be taken.
- Diaspora at Risk: Nine million Indian nationals live across the Gulf Cooperation Council states. Even a limited IRGC missile burst on Al-Dhafra or Camp Arifjan would trigger evacuation nightmares last seen during the Kuwait crisis of 1990. India’s Operation Sindhu, the Airlift of Indians overseas in distress presumes a permissive air corridor which does not exist.
- Strategic Balancing and Diplomatic Latitude: New Delhi’s foreign policy rests on bilateral and multilateral partnerships: Russian hydrocarbons, U.S. high technology, Israeli drones, and Iranian port access at Chabahar. A U.S.–Iran war chokes that diplomatic space with a Catch-22 situation. Supporting American action alienates Tehran and jeopardises Chabahar’s trade corridor value; backing Iran risks secondary sanctions and chips-export curbs from Washington. Strategic autonomy becomes a strategic tightrope.
Iran’s Response Matrix
As of 23 Jun, Iran has once again targeted Israel with missiles and is considering blocking of Strait of Hormuz. Some possible options are below:
Table 1 – Tehran’s Playbooks and Indian Exposure
| Iranian Response Option | Likelihood | First-Order Shock | Direct Risk to India |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proxy rocket fire on U.S. bases in Iraq/Syria/ proxy attacks on homeland security | High | Short, localised | Limited—minor oil price blip |
| 72-hour Hormuz disruption (mines or swarm boats) | Medium-High | Oil $120+, insurance spike | Severe import-cost inflation |
| 200-missile barrage on Gulf bases | Medium | Coalition casualties, U.S. retaliation | Risk to 9 million Indian expatriates |
| Cyberstrike on U.S. financial grid | Medium-Low | U.S. market wobble | Ripple effects on Indian exports |
| Precision saturation attack on Israeli cities | High | Israeli full-spectrum retaliation | Diplomatic dilemma; arms-import delays |
India’s Options: Passivity and Status Quo will not Work
- Fortify Energy Resilience: India’s total oil reserves stand at around 74 days; where Indian Oil inventory is for 40-42 days, the government’s special purpose vehicle Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) has reserves for over 9 days and rest is maintained by BPCL and HPCL. Expanding caverns at Padur and Chandikhol, and negotiating swap arrangements with Rosneft to pipe Urals crude eastward, are urgent.
- Diplomatic Triangulation: India’s foreign minister has proposed a “Maritime Safety Corridor” under UNSC aegis, co-patrolled by the U.S., EU, India, and—with deliberate design—Chinese observers. This places India as a convenor, not a bystander, ensuring it is inside the room where de-escalatory rules are written.
- Evacuation Contingency Planning: The Ministry of External Affairs is revising the Garg Committee guidelines, mapping charter airlines, and pre-positioning naval landing platforms at Salalah and Duqm. Delhi cannot wait for crisis day minus one to rehearse the airlift of half a million workers.
- Narrative Management at Home: Oil-price-driven inflation will test the government’s political capital in an election year. Transparent communication—explaining why petrol prices are rising and how policy buffers households—will be as strategic as frigates in Hormuz.
- Selective Alignment, Not Alliance: If Washington requests Indian naval logistics beyond refuelling, New Delhi must calibrate tangible aid (like sharing piracy intel) without crossing into co-belligerency. The template is the 2003 Iraq episode when India supported U.N. reconstruction but avoided combat entanglement.
Reading the Road Ahead
Three near-term signposts will reveal whether the spiral tightens or loosens. First, Tehran’s choice of retaliation vector: proxies signal calibrated rage; closing Hormuz signals existential defiance. Second, Washington’s domestic politics: a bipartisan revolt over War Powers could clip further strikes and open a diplomatic lane. Third, Russian and Chinese behaviour: if they funnel air-defence systems or financial lines to Iran, the conflict globalises by default. A fourth, silent variable is the resilience of undersea fibre cables connecting Europe to Asia via the Red Sea. A forgotten anchor drag could cut 18 per cent of global data, freezing financial flows just as oil futures lurch—darkening screens at both NSE and Wall Street.
Diplomacy in the Ruins of Fordow
Deterrence by surprise strike is a paradox: you stop a threat, but you also trespass the adversary’s psychological red line, making his counter-move almost compulsory. The Fordow bombing showcased breathtaking precision but also shrank the diplomatic margin for error to single digits. In that narrowing space, India finds itself thrust from comfortable non-alignment into unavoidable relevance.
The question for New Delhi is no longer whether to act, but how to shape outcomes: by cushioning its economy against oil shocks, by staffing the negotiation tables nobody else can convene, and—if the worst arrives—by rescuing its diaspora from a Gulf aflame. The next fortnight will tell whether Operation Midnight Hammer becomes a footnote in deterrence lore or the opening paragraph of a war no one wins. India’s role may prove decisive in bending that arc toward restraint rather than ruin.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lieutenant General A B Shivane, is the former Strike Corps Commander and Director General of Mechanised Forces. As a scholar warrior, he has authored over 200 publications on national security and matters defence, besides four books and is an internationally renowned keynote speaker. The General was a Consultant to the Ministry of Defence (Ordnance Factory Board) post-superannuation. He was the Distinguished Fellow and held COAS Chair of Excellence at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies 2021 2022. He is also the Senior Advisor Board Member to several organisations and Think Tanks.
