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Over the years, India has continued its aggressive counterterrorism strategy, such as the effective deployment of Operation Sindoor.
The ‘surgical’ label in the 2016 strikes by India on terror camps in Pakistan indicated attention to accuracy, intelligence-led targeting, and restraint in operations. (Image: PTI File)
On September 18, 2016, a predawn attack on the Uri army base, some distance from the Line of Control (LoC), martyred seventeen Indian soldiers and four assailants were also killed. Multiple soldiers were martyred due to fires in tents during the initial rounds of assault. Evidence gathered at the scene indicated Pakistani markings on the gear and weapons, thereby corroborating the role of factions based in Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had denounced the attack as a “cowardly act of terrorism,” promising the perpetrators will face retribution. Besides, then Home Minister Rajnath Singh asserted categorically that “Pakistan is a terrorist nation and has to be named and isolated accordingly.”
Despite Pakistan’s officially expressed denial of any involvement, the attack attracted global condemnation and further raised eyebrows on Islamabad’s support for cross-border terrorism. It marked a watershed for India, putting an end to the era of strategic patience.
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India’s Military Response: Surgical Strikes and Strategic Significance
The 2016 airstrikes were unprecedented in their public characterisation as “surgical.” This particular label indicated attention to accuracy, intelligence-led targeting, and restraint in operations, thereby guaranteeing domestic and international constituencies of India’s wise policy. The strategic requirements were neatly articulated:
- Demonstrate India’s resolve against terrorism.
- Boost national morale and public confidence.
- Send a signal for legitimacy at international law as anticipatory self-defence.
India formally declared on 29 September 2016, that its Army had carried out surgical strikes along the LoC on the night before targeting launch pads’ positioning spots used by terrorists. Unlike customary cross-border forays, these actions were characterised by precision and preemption after credible information that terrorists were poised to enter Indian borders. DGMO Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh said that “considerable casualties have been inflicted upon the terrorists and their sponsors.”
Over the following years, India continued its aggressive counterterrorism strategy, such as the effective deployment of Operation Sindoor that effectively disrupted unconnected terrorist groups and impacted their logistic networks along the Line of Control (LoC) and in Pakistan-occupied areas.
These operations were reflective of India’s ability to execute focused, intelligence-driven operations that neutralize possible threats before they come into existence. The action made the Pakistani Army look shameful, as it had for years claimed that India would never intrude over the LoC.
Conversely, for India, the surgical strikes and thereafter the operations did quite a few things: enhancing the prices of terrorism and showing resolve and strategic capability to the outside world.
Pakistan’s Strategy for India
The Uri attack and Indian surgical strikes put the vulnerabilities inherent in Pakistan’s overall strategic framework in the spotlight. Pakistan has attempted to attain a level of parity with India since its beginning, but this desire has been undermined by its comparatively weaker economic establishment, political instability, and excessive dependence on military machinery. The pervading sense of insecurity in the state has compelled a three-pronged strategy:
- Retailing conventional military parity.
- The deployment of nuclear capability as a deterrence against sub-conventional activity.
- Empowering terrorism as an asymmetrical tool.
The perpetual demonisation of India as a hegemonist enemy serves to justify vast defence expenditure by Pakistan’s military establishment and uphold its dominance over civilian executive machinery. This universal militarisation of society has been added to by the ascendancy of jihadi extremism, in which there is a culture where terrorism is mainstreamed as statecraft.
Pakistan’s historical role in four various wars; 1947-48, 1965, 1971, and Kargil in 1999, and its covert operations in Kashmir since the late 1980s, is an expression of this enduring strategic convergence. The surgical strikes were an actual test of this model of operations, demonstrating that India would no longer remain constrained endlessly with anxieties regarding escalation.
India and Pakistan only have minimal diplomatic relations at present, with drastically cut-down embassy personnel and no substantial bilateral affairs, since India has explicitly stated that terrorism and negotiations cannot go hand in hand. In the wake of Operation Sindoor, in which key terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was attacked in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen, reliable intelligence reports indicate that Pakistan is secretly reconstructing several of the destroyed terror facilities, including Lashkar-e-Taiba’s headquarters at Muridke and several terror launchpads in PoK and along the Line of Control. Sources confirmed that these reconstruction activities are being managed by Pakistan’s army and ISI, with financial backing by the Pakistani government and fundraising operating under humanitarian facades. The reconstructed camps now have sophisticated concealment technologies to avoid detection. These events have fuelled further existing worries about Pakistan’s ongoing tolerance and accommodation of outfits involved in anti-India activities, further compromising any room for dialogue or normalisation.
September 18, 2025, 16:05 IST
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