Op Sindoor 1.0 was launched as India’s response to impose consequences on Pakistan’s long-running proxy war. The operation achieved operational impact and exposed Pakistan’s vulnerabilities across launchpads, terror institutions and military capabilities. But Pakistan’s conflict ecosystem barely flinched. Within months, Pakistan’s handlers revived their networks, shuffled cadres, opened new corridors, and pumped fresh energy into information and radicalisation pipelines. A new dimension of Proxy War 2.0 surfaced by way of the Delhi 10/11 terror attack.
The reason Sindoor 1.0 didn’t bend the curve wasn’t a lack of military competence. It was a lack of an integrated strategy. India fought the Pakistan dimension, but it didn’t fight the internal dimension with equal vigour. The two fronts, external abetment and internal subversion, were treated like separate worlds when they are actually two sides of the same coin. As long as Pakistan exports intent and India hosts vulnerabilities that absorb that intent, a standalone operation cannot achieve strategic compression.
If India wants a lasting impact, the approach must shift from tactical to strategic level, from reaction to pre-emptive denial, from episodic blows to persistent pressure, and from defensive postures to offensive disruption. And it must fuse the external and internal fronts into one campaign.
The Twin Fronts: Pakistan Outside, Faultlines Inside
1. The Pakistani Apparatus Is A State Project, Not A Rogue Ecosystem.
Rawalpindi’s reliance on proxies is built into its national-security DNA. It is a tool to offset conventional inferiority, maintain strategic depth, the military’s relevance, and keep Kashmir unstable enough to remain a political card. Even under economic collapse, the Pakistan Army prioritises terror infrastructure because it is cheap and effective.
Op Sindoor 1.0 targeted the outer shell, not the inner logic. That’s why Pakistan bounced back so quickly, with Indian internal faultlines remaining vulnerable.
2. India’s Internal Vulnerabilities Make Pakistan’s Job Easier.
This is the second front. Radicalisation pockets, ideological faultlines, overlooked subversion, narco routes, economic inequality, and local grievances offer ready-made oxygen to Pakistan’s handlers. Separatist propaganda, sectarian mobilisation, and targeted disinformation campaigns constantly seek openings in India’s internal fabric.
When India treats terrorism only as “Pakistan’s export,” it misses the domestic terrain on which that export finds space. The internal faultlines bloom in an environment where vote banks count above national security.
3. The Two Fronts Form One Battlespace.
Pakistan pushes infiltration, arms, money, and ideology. Its networks mould local over-ground workers, radical recruiters, digital propagandists, and criminal intermediaries. It treats proxy war as an integrated strategy to weaken India. Ironically, two Indian cultural vulnerabilities get exploited. One, a defensive and reactive culture and two, the joy of working in tight compartments of silos. Thus, the external proxy war survives only because internal seams absorb it. Any counter-strategy that separates the two is doomed to be half-blind.
Why Sindoor 1.0 Didn’t Shift the Strategic Balance
- It focused on symptoms, not the ecosystem. Hitting launchpads without destroying financial pipelines, ideological inflows, and digital recruitment fountains meant Pakistan simply rebooted the system.
- It remained a kinetic-heavy but coherence-light response. India’s internal security agencies, state police, intelligence services, and military formations worked with purpose but not full synchronisation. Pakistan’s hybrid warfare is fused; India’s response was layered but not merged.
- It lacked sustained offensive pressure. One operation cannot substitute for a posture. Pakistan absorbs tactical setbacks because it knows India will eventually return to a defensive baseline. Pakistan gets hurt only when its injury is not episodic but persistent.
- Deterrence stayed reactive instead of denial-based. Deterrence by punishment is episodic. Deterrence by denial is structural. India did too little of the latter.
India cannot Win This War Without a Denial and Dominance Strategy
Deterrence by denial means Pakistan’s proxies fail before they start. Dominance means they remain on the back foot always. This requires India to build a security architecture where infiltration attempts hit dead ends, radicalisation fails to ignite, digital propaganda gets neutralised early, and internal subversion networks get broken before they mobilise. The larger construct is to shift the Proxy War into Pakistan’s territory.
This shift demands four pillars:
- A fused intelligence grid that sees external and internal signals as one continuum, not two compartments.
- A LoC denial system that kills infiltration cycles, not just infiltrators.
- A counter-radicalisation architecture that suffocates ideological recruitment before it hardens into operational cells.
- A covert doctrine that degrades Pakistan’s deep-state capabilities so consistently that rebuilding becomes costly.
- Military Posture that keeps Pakistan on the edge and reacting to Indian forays.
Denial is not defensive; it is systematic offensive dominance in the shadows.
The Covert Domain Needs Far Sharper Teeth
India’s covert arm has delivered selective results, but the threat spectrum now demands a more ruthless, sustained, and technologically empowered shadow approach. Rawalpindi’s entire proxy enterprise depends on the perception that its networks are survivable. If that perception cracks, proxies crumble.
India needs:
- Deeper penetration of Pakistan’s militant leadership circles.
- Targeted disruption of training camps, financial conduits, and logistics nodes.
- Sustained attrition of mid-tier commanders, who are harder to regenerate than foot soldiers.
- Cyber sabotage targeting radicalisation platforms, handler comms, and terror-funding servers.
- Deception and disinformation ops that turn Pakistan’s own networks inward.
Covert pressure must be constant enough to make Pakistan defend, not dictate.
Should India Consider the Israeli “Mowing the Lawn” Model?
Israel’s model accepts a hard truth: terrorism cannot be eliminated in one stroke. The ecosystem regrows, so periodic trimming keeps it manageable. Would this work for India?
Yes, but with Indian calibration. It requires adaptability to the Indian operational environment, be it terrain, geopolitics of the subcontinent and escalation thresholds. The protagonist of nuclear war theory must be put in place, as it is a self-inflicted injury to Pakistan’s favourite playbook. But the underlying logic, viz, periodic, intense, integrated, predictable attrition of hostile networks, has clear utility.
A tailored Indian model would mean:
- Persistent strikes on launchpads and logistic camps.
- Regular disruption of overground networks in J&K.
- Pre-emptive neutralisation of buildup indicators.
- Cycles of covert hits on handlers, financiers, and mid-tier planners.
- Routine cyber takedowns of propaganda and recruitment channels
This normalises offensive action and prevents Pakistan from rebuilding its terror infrastructure to full strength.
However, “mowing the lawn” must not become mechanical. It should be tied to intelligence patterns, escalation assessments, and broader strategic goals. Periodic attrition must sit alongside internal hardening; otherwise, Pakistan simply switches targets from LoC infiltration to domestic radicalisation.
The Land Factor Still Decides the Shape of Proxy War
Terrain determines tempo.
- Every ridge Pakistan strengthens becomes an infiltration aid.
- Every valley India leaves under-patrolled becomes a corridor.
- Every village influenced by overground workers becomes a logistics node.
Land is not symbolic; it is operational. Land, unlike terror camps, remains a physical entity and a loss of credibility to the loser. It has an impact on the national psyche and morale. The Chinese playbook of ‘Salami Slicing’ has some lessons for India to learn on the LoC. India must ensure:
- Relentless denial of new Pakistani posts along difficult stretches.
- Dominance of infiltration-prone gorges and nullahs.
- Man-Machine technology border deployments that choke Pakistan’s infiltration cycles.
- Land grabs/ incursions in disputed territories put them on the back foot while being prepared for a response. A cost-benefit analysis is merited here.
Proxy war collapses when terrain becomes unpassable physically, digitally, and socially. Proxy war loses focus when land is lost as a consequence. Culturally India and Pakistan are land sensitive.
A Unified Strategy: One War, Not Two
India’s counter proxy war strategy has been to think ruthlessly and dispassionately review its shortcomings: compartments- external terror vs. internal subversion; silos – egos of individual comfort zones. Pakistan thrives precisely because India pats its back but does not identify its shortcomings and enjoys the comfort zone of response.
The next phase must be an integrated and de-novo fresh counter proxy war strategy with more teeth than just the growl. A strategy which is pre-emptive, proactive and lasting. ‘HIT HARD- HIT WHERE IT HURTS- HURT WHERE IT LASTS: NEED A PARADIGM SHIFT IN PROXY WAR RESPONSE STRATEGY’, published on February 22, 2019, was a strategy I had suggested post Pulwama attack. Op Sindoor hit hard, but not enough to hurt and last. Some suggestions:
- Enhance military pressure on the LoC. Territory is India-Pak sensitive.
- Covert attrition inside Pakistan. Create fissures.
- Digital and ideological counter-radicalisation and subversion inside India through Islamist forces. We need fists, not fingers.
- Financial and legal crackdowns on domestic over-ground workers and hawala networks.
- Cyber dominance across the entire threat chain.
- Narrative control that denies Pakistan a single propaganda win.
- An empowered citizenry with a security awareness culture that becomes the eyes and ears of the nation.
This is one war fought across multiple terrains. Treating the pieces separately only benefits Rawalpindi.
Conclusion
Op Sindoor 1.0 revealed India’s strengths and its blind spots. It hit hard but didn’t shift the foundations of Pakistan’s proxy apparatus. Op Sindoor 2.0 must be rooted in denial and domination, not retaliation; in integration, not segmentation; in proactivity, not reaction; and in offensive covert action that forces Pakistan to rethink the survivability of its proxy networks.
The Pakistan dimension and the internal dimension form a single battlespace. Only a fused national strategy: military, covert, cyber, financial, ideological, and narrative can achieve real deterrence.
India doesn’t need another operation. It needs a permanent posture, one that denies Pakistan the terrain, the networks, the narratives, and the opportunity to wage proxy war at all. It must put Pakistan on the back foot today and every day. That’s when Rawalpindi will feel the cost.
That’s when deterrence becomes real. India needs to build a year-round hybrid deterrence grid, not episodic operations. The means to deter, deny and dominate Pakistan’s proxy war is to give it a taste of its own medicine.
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.
