Operation Sindoor - Post Conflict Analysis

[AdityaVM]

Thank you to everybody for their kind response.

I have been busy with work this whole week, so was unable to respond immediately.

I was thinking about how Operation Sindoor went down during those 4 days, and now that the excitement has died down, I wanted to review the entire thing. I could not help but notice along with some others in other fora about two puzzling things.

The seemingly dramatic escalation by the Indian Military starting from the early mornings of May 9th to May 10th evening

The inexplicable and sudden involvement of USA in the middle of this, especially of the extent of their involvement.

I have been thinking of the plausible explanations for this and organized my thoughts as follows. I hope it contributes to our understanding and analysis of Operation Sindoor and its significance.

How many of you are familiar with Vipin Narang's work here? He is a west based (Primarily American) Political Science Professor with a specialization in Nuclear Policy. He has authored a consistent series of papers, serially for over a decade about how India's nuclear policy is not as innocuous as it looked and that all of that seemingly inconsistent and haphazard development of technology and testing of missiles, ABM systems etc is not from Strategic Confusion but a well planned and thought out Conventional Counterforce strategy against Pakistan while retaining a Counter Value targeting strategy against China.

Most recently, he authored a paper jointly with Christopher Clary ( Yes of the ISI Begum fame) titled
" India's Counterforce temptations " which I recommend everyone to read.

The crux of the paper is as I stated above. That India's strategic planners have made a conscious strategy to target Pakistan's nukes with conventional counterforce elements while simultaneously developing ABM systems in order to intercept the stray nuke missile thrown our way. India’s way of dealing with the Pakistani nuclear threat is to de nuclearize Pakistan while using only conventional counterforce elements. That this is causing instability in South Asian Strategic balance as Pakistan cannot keep up with Indian military spending, hence its paranoia about India’s new counterforce strategy will cause it to launch its nukes at every provocation and put their nuke arsenal at ever more hair trigger alerts.

That this is not just one academic being paranoid but a well thought out deliberately underplayed strategy by India is borne out by some more examples. In one of his very early talks at an Israeli forum Abhijit Iyer-mitra has mentioned that Indian Air Force has a very clear cut policy to deal with Pakistani nuclear weapons. That they would destroy any TEL they can see and track via Satellite based ISR, Aerial reconnaissance and HUMINT. If their were to be a sympathetic detonation, it would not be considered a first strike by India. Add to this the “accidental “ slips of tongue by Indian strategic planners on the level of NSA Menon in the UPA govt and DM Parrikar in the NDA govt, this appears more and more to be a credible hypothesis especially considering the military technologies India was developing indigenously and acquiring from Israel and France. Israel especially, considering the Israeli strike element arsenal has the targeting of Iran’s nuclear facilities or finished nuclear delivery and deployment mechanisms as one of its primary taskings. I mean missiles Like Rocks ALBM, LORA etc. here.

So far this was just a strategy, but an untested one. But all the elements required for this strategy have been carefully designed, developed, acquired and tested. Like ABM systems, Air launched Precision strike munitions with very low intercept probability, Integrated Air Defense Grid consisting of multiple options for missile interceptions with layered defense, IACCS for continuous and Realtime monitoring of launches and etc. They have also consistently and iteratively improved procedures, planning and execution with exercises like Vayu Shakti to replicate a high tempo of operations and constant bombardment that would be necessary to denuclearise Pakistan.

So, with this in mind, my reading of what has happened during Operation Sindoor is as follows.

We could not start Operation Sindoor with SEAD/DEAD against the Pakistan Armed Forces while saying that we are responding to terror. Why? Because believe it or not we have a lot of baggage that acts as a precedent that prevents us from directly striking Pakistani military first. Like it or not, everybody and I mean absolutely EVERYBODY would love to have an excuse to blame us for being aggressive and rogue if we break that precedent. We needed to demonstrate that we are only targeting terrorists and that we will only respond against the Pakistani military when forced to. It was for this reason that we were working under such restrictive RoEs on May 6-7 during the opening hours of Operation Sindoor.

But Pakis being Pakis made it easier for us by having Uniformed Generals taking part in the Funerals of dead terrorists, and under the lead of a wanted terrorist no less, especially in front of Cameras. Hence, Modis declaration that we will no longer differentiate between terrorists and the Pakistani state and military is important.

It means when Operation Sindoor resumes again, Pakistani military assets/ AD would be targeted and neutralized first before any anti terrorist action and we don’t need to provide any justification for targeting another country’s armed forces. I think this is also the reason why MP delegations with diverse selection of MPs have been sent to various countries in order to drive home this point, especially emphasizing that “India has the right to Defend itself against Pakistani terrorist attacks”

It is to shift the narrative from, “ India is needlessly escalating by targeting another Sovereign country’s Armed forces “ to “ India is defending itself against Pakistani military strategy of terrorism and it is Self defense” and coming from a democratically elected MP representing the will of millions of Indian Voters, it becomes very difficult for either the Foreign Press or Bad faith actors to counter them.

About why India started targeting Pakistani nuclear storage sites and launch sites along with SPD Command and Control, I have the following explanation based on what I postulated before.

Till the time Pakistanis kept themselves in the domain of drones against military installations and Firing in Border areas, we would, as mentioned in the statement on May 8th “respond in the same domain”.

Hence, in response to Pakistani night time drone attacks, we responded with Drone attacks targeting Pakistani military assets. No escalation.

However, the moment the Pakistanis launched a Ballistic Missile towards NCR with ambiguity of whether it was a nuclear payload or conventional the situation graduated from Conventional sallies across the border with drones to “Possible nuclear first strike”

The Pakistanis I suspect wanted to demonstrate the following.

They are willing to escalate rapidly into the grey domain of nuclear ambiguity. Meaning, India could never be sure if the next attack with another BM or Cruise missile would not be equipped with a nuclear warhead, which they thought would terrify the Hindu banias and paralyse our command chain with sheer panic.

What actually happened was that India’s Politico-military planners had just upgraded this situation from “Anti Terror Operation and its consequent military duels “ to “ Its very possible that the Pakistanis would launch a nuclear first strike next”

This was what I suspect has actually caused the entire effort to shift gears. Because immediately post the interception of a Ballistic Missile over Sirsa, The IAF’s counterforce targeting campaign was in full force. If you notice, the Indian posture and military attacks shifted dramatically in intensity and range of targets during May 9-10th , but still well within the domain of how Pakistan responded. Meaning we wanted demonstrate our counterforce intent, and remove any ambiguity from Pakistani minds that escalating this would result in anything other than their denuclearization. (Please read Modiji’s statement that India would no longer bend to Pakistani nuclear Blackmail in this light.)

Another thing this explains is why did US get involved and what was the “ Alarming intelligence” that they had received?

Some say that it was the targeting of Nur Khan air base, but just targeting an airbase doesn’t explain the “alarming“ part. I think what possibly happened was this. As soon as India shifted gears to Counterforce targeting, any reasonably well read nuclear strategist or policy maker would immediately recognize it for what it means and sound the alarm, but because Trump fired everybody of consequence who could recognize it, it took the Americans the better part of a day to realize what was happening.

That was the “alarming intelligence “ that the US received and why it was involved immediately. Because the situation just graduated from “Just browns killing each other, none of my business” the day before, to “ NUCLEAR WAR !!! MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WOULD HAVE DIED !! “

The difference can be gauged from just the difference in the kind of statements made by Vance the DAY BEFORE, to what Trump has constantly crowed since about saving millions of people. Because, the end game of a counterforce conventional targeting of Pakistani nuclear arsenal is that some WOULD be launched against us, and despite us being confident of being able to intercept these stray shots, the Burgericans have no way of knowing that we are just signalling our change of strategy and that this was a demonstration of our intent. As far as they knew, we were going to denuclearize their munna and roll it over like a bitch.

(As an aside, holy shit this American administration is dumb as shit. )

This is my understanding of what happened during May 6-10th and I hope this helps put some possible context on the inexplicable happenings during those 4 days.

[Y I Patel]

Articulated with incredible clarity, AdityaVM. Kudos and thank you

[sanjaykumar]

Hmmm… didn’t Vipin Narang coauthor something with Perez Hood-boy? That makes him less than credible.


It might be better to look at it as: India acquired contemporary war fighting technologies and a preponderance of assets.

This gave them options that hitherto were in the domain of nuclear strike escalation.

They used realtime intelligence and total SEAD with remarkably accurate delivery of munitions to encroach upon nuclear assets, previously inaccessible to conventional methodologies.

[bala]

I was wondering if there is an analysis on China which is the main player behind Pak in terms of conducting counter warfare and shoddy equipment. The Chinese ignored the question when presented to their EAM and instead came up with some dumb stmts. Is the US not in synch with China's role in Sindoor. Tis amazing US would concentrate on nuke threat which they know that Pak is effectively nuke nanga. Pak at most has dirty bombs. There is a deep state faction in the US seeped into its intelligence which keeps bringing up the nuclear flashpoint, etc. It was used against India in Kargil and tied Vajpayee's hand to give a thorough thrashing to Pak land. After Sindoor India has shown how to deal with terror and also nuclear bluff of Pak. Anymore such nonsense and a sound thrashing will be meted out to Pak. BTW failed mara saala is now talking about water red line and also India is aiding BLA/Balochistan. BTW here is a time pass YT by a PA General with the usual rhetoric and of course the nuclear powers at war nonsense.

This is a very dangerous trend, Senior Pakistani General’s first interview after Operation Sindoor

[Vayutuvan]

Hmmm… didn’t Vipin Narang coauthor something with Perez Hood-boy? That makes him less than credible.


It might be better to look at it as: India acquired contemporary war fighting technologies and a preponderance of assets.

This gave them options that hitherto were in the domain of nuclear strike escalation.

They used realtime intelligence and total SEAD with remarkably accurate delivery of munitions to encroach upon nuclear assets, previously inaccessible to conventional methodologies.

That doesn't explain why the change from Vance statement to "we made India and Shittistan to ceasefire". There may be other explanations than assuming that "american admin is dumb as shiite". I don't buy that for a minute.

[Vayutuvan]

Kanwal Sibal on X{itter} on Cleary's article.

https://x.com/KanwalSibal/status/1928153409682604539

Objective?
Have carefully read Clary’s piece. Stimson Centre has long been negative on India. Was fiercely opposed to India’s nuclear programme. I dealt with the think tank when I was posted in Washington.

The list of persons Clary has consulted is at the end of his piece. Most have a negative mindset towards India.

In this article Clary has perforce to recognise Indian successes which commercial satellite imagery confirms but tries to balance it by claims of Pakistani successes even if unverified so that Pakistan is not seen as being worsted. This is in line with saving Pakistan’s military amour propre and maintain some parity with India as part of a strategic balance in the subcontinent to which American strategists have been long committed.

Clary says at one place : “Yet there is substantiating evidence that Pakistan indeed brought down up to four planes”, without stating what that evidence is.

At another place he contradicts this and says: “The Government of Pakistan has made many claims that cannot be substantiated. Some are plausible (albeit largely unsupported), such as claims of successful attacks against Indian bases or radar systems”.Can some be plausible if unsupported?

As no imagery is provided by Pakistan or is available commercially it is the anti- Indian Washington Post that handily provides the evidence. Clary says: “Washington Post visual investigation found compelling evidence of three crash sites in India” of downed Indian planes.

Clary has to recognise reality to maintain some credibility. He writes :”India claimed that these attacks largely failed with minimal damage on the Indian side. The bulk of the evidence, including satellite imagery, supports that claim.”

He accepts : “India’s complex, innovative attack on May 10 appears largely to have overcome Pakistani air defenses.”

He also accepts: “Despite Pakistan’s claims of “major damages” at the 15 airbases it targeted, there is no visual evidence—either from social media photos or commercial satellite imagery—currently available to indicate meaningful damage on Indian facilities.”

As regards a Pakistani claim he says : “It is possible that a building at an Indian air base at Udhampur shows visible damage, though the available commercial satellite imagery is ambiguous.” Note the hedging.

He also writes: “it seems more likely than not that many or perhaps all Pakistani ballistic missiles employed on May 10 were intercepted or they missed. Indeed, some Indian officials have claimed that all Pakistani missiles were intercepted prior to reaching their targets.”

“Indian strikes created damage at a scale difficult for the Government of Pakistan to suppress.”

“Despite Pakistani military briefers saying there are “loads of pictures” of Indian military targets, none have emerged showing a disabled S-400 component.”

Since some Indian successes are irrefutable he acknowledges them but projects Pakistani claims also to suggest the clash was not one- sided.

What he says about US intervention and the ceasefire is speculative. He tries to create confusion over whether Pakistan sought a ceasefire or India sent signals to that effect.

The entire effort is to dent the Indian narrative and bolster the alternative pro- Pakistan narrative that the clash ended in some kind of a semi-draw.

[vinod]

BTW here is a time pass YT by a PA General with the usual rhetoric and of course the nuclear powers at war nonsense.
This is a very dangerous trend, Senior Pakistani General’s first interview after Operation Sindoor

This is the new narrative being set. That is the threshold is lower and Pakistan will reach for nukes before the world can arrange a ceasefire.

I wonder whether these so called experts think that Pakistan has a suicide wish.

[LakshmanPST]

The sudden change in US stance is what surprised everyone in India who was closely following the events...
----
The matter of the fact is, US Deepstate is simply allowing Trump to do his stuff as long as their long term assets & programs are left untouched...
Pakistan is a huge asset for US Deepstate and any chance of Pak losing is a huge loss for them...
-
My guess is, India hitting 9 air bases, doing SEAD stuff by destroying radars and "officially not-hitting" Kairana hills is something US didn't expect... They were probably assuming that India would simply retaliate "proportionately" by lauching a couple of missles or drones & be done with it...

It is the Deep-state that forced Pakis to push for ceasefire... Trump is just a joker who simply took the credit for it...

[vera_k]

This is the new narrative being set. That is the threshold is lower and Pakistan will reach for nukes before the world can arrange a ceasefire.

Far as official statements from India go, terrorists have control of Pakistan nukes, since there is no differentiation between attacks carried out by any variety of Pakistan based parties.

Rest of the world is in the gray zone that existed prior to 9/11 until a former Pakistani nuke is suddenly found in their territory.

[bala]

Let me take the China analysis: I think right now, China is under overwhelming pressure on all sides. Emperor himself could be replaced soon. China did not expect its maal in Pak land will perform so badly, they were hoping it would stall India but that did not happen. Sindoor has shown to the entire world the inefficacy of China military equipment. This is a PR disaster. The main reason why their maal does not perform is because they don't have experience in actual warfare. The PLA and Emperor are at odds and the feeling within PLA is that they have no loyalty towards Emperor or the CCP. Their recruits are 1 child per family and they are a pampered lot used to ipads, games and other distraction. For China, taking on India is a huge headache as they found galwan was a stalemate with more losses to PLA. The other thing is the nuclear threat of Pak land was vaporized by India at Kirana hills & rawalpindi base. This nuclear trump card disappears and terrorism the favorite trick by Pak land will not work anymore. The Chinese can't let go of Pak nor do they want to confront India. Tis a catch 22 for them.

Globally China is being left out. The US is at odds economically with China and that is a huge gloomy cloud on them. Real estate has tanked in China and their other gamble to flood EVs upon the world is failing. India is also blocking EVs and other china trinkets. Russia has imposed a $7500 recycling fee on chinese car imports. Recently Putin welcomed Emperor and rolled out the red carpet for a Russian function. After the bonhomie Putin told emperor he wants China to invest in factories in Russia, including car companies, in return they get gas and oil. However Emperor did not like the idea, he wants to dump his excess that is piling up in containers/warehouses/ships to be offloaded. BTW North Korea has warmed upto Russia and Kim is now sending this troops for Russia and using Glonass for communication, aah, what happened to China's munna. Euro land is one dumping ground for chinese rotten EVs. However Euro is wisening up and are trying to block China from swallowing them. The US has effectively blocked secondary access links of China products via nations like Mexico, Canada, Euro, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and more.

China's influence in the world is waning. In the middle east, except for Iran they are being kicked out. Iran is being read the riot act - no nukes otherwise you disappear by US/Israel. The Russian Ukraine war is being stopped by DJT and that implies China no more has influence on Russia. The US is trying to ease them away from Pak and BD. Global south is becoming wary of China maal. BRI is a huge sink hole for China and they will not recoup their investments. Wall street and major MNCs are gungho in creating their factories within India. Blackrock and other big money bags are quietly investing into India. Euro land Germany suddently wants to make miliary stuff within India. France already has a huge stake in rafales, helos in India and they recently in Paris want to exit the Euro! India has FTA with the Britshits. The transition from China to India for manufacturing and other things is inevitable. India currently has the largest number of GCCs in the world. Its defence exports are going to climb rapidly considering the success of Sindoor.

[AdityaM]

As per the army man, India expended 10% of army air defence ammunition. This was not a full fledged conflict, but it gives an idea about how long our war stocks last.

[Aditya_V]

Our 155 artillery, Pinaka etc were not used, what we used was probably 10% of stocks in forward areas

[Roop]

India hitting 9 air bases, doing SEAD stuff by destroying radars and "officially not-hitting" Kairana hills is something US didn't expect.

Destroying radars is not SEAD, it is DEAD. SEAD is just blinding / jamming radars. IAF didn't just jam Paki radars (both Chinese and American), it destroyed them.

It is the Deep-state that forced Pakis to push for ceasefire... Trump is just a joker who simply took the credit for it.

Trump's bombastic and buffoonish personal style is a confusing factor here. He is not as stupid as he sometimes appears to be -- in fact I don't think he is stupid at all. He is just a chest-thumping bullshit artist, because that style has served him well in his life so far -- he is, basically, a New York real-estate developer. Some of the stuff he says on international relations (Russia / Ukraine, for example) is not his personal opinion but what the Deep State feeds him. In fact, not just feeds him but compels him to say. No American president has carte-blanche to defy the dictates of the Deep State and get away with it. JFK found that out, and so did Trump 1. Now Trump 2's latest pronouncements on Russia/Ukraine (so gob-smackingly contrary to what he himself was saying two or three months ago) are simply the words of the Deep State. Likewise here, Trump pre-May 10 was Trump speaking, Trump on and post-May 10 was the Deep State speaking. Ditto with Vance.

[Roop]

India currently has the largest number of GCCs in the world.

Sorry, what is GCC?

[Cyrano]

Global Competency Center - a captive IT + BPO office in India of a large foreign MNC.

[chetak]

which country's pm and president are you going to believe ........

[Mukesh.Kumar]

CDS Gen. Anil Chauhan at Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore hints at India losing jets during interview with Haslinda Amin of Bloomberg.

Bloomberg TV

India Confirms It Lost Fighter Jets in Recent Pakistan Conflict
May 31st, 2025, 11:29 AM GMT+0400

Anil Chauhan, chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, spoke to Bloomberg's Haslinda Amin on Saturday while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. He called Pakistan’s claims that it shot down six Indian warplanes "absolutely incorrect,” though declined to say how many jets India lost. It's the first time the Indian military confirmed that it lost an unspecified number of fighter jets in clashes with Pakistan in May. (Source: Bloomberg)

P.S. Understandable that we will have losses and we will drip feed the information out. But teh General's body language left a lot to be desired.

[chetak]

Spot The Difference....? ..........

The Print India. Dawn Pakistan.

[LakshmanPST]

CDS Gen. Anil Chauhan at Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore hints at India losing jets during interview with Haslinda Amin of Bloomberg.


P.S. Understandable that we will have losses and we will drip feed the information out. But teh General's body language left a lot to be desired.

While I didn't think all IAF jets were safe, I was expecting IAF to officially announce Indian and Pak losses at a later date as a side note...
-
CDS's statement made it look like only IAF lost the jets and it was totally unnecessary to say that we did some tactical mistakes on May 7th...
-
A K Bharti gave a much better reply during the press conference...

[chetak]

India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan has revealed unprecedented details of Operation Sindoor, calling it a glimpse into the “future of warfare.”

The mission, which followed the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, featured a non-contact, multi-domain strategy—blending cyber warfare, misinformation countermeasures, indigenous missile systems like Akash, and seamless radar integration. Chauhan emphasized the importance of tech-driven, network-centric conflict models and warned about the risks of unchecked automation in warfare. Watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq8f9y1SOTQ

India's Top-Most General Reveals Unheard Details Of Operation Sindoor Against Pak

[Aditya_V]

Pakis will milk this statement, OT is now better the Indian armed forces put out the truth, and the CDS might be good at his job but does not seem to be media trained. What is this Shangri-LA dialogue and why is the CDS attending it.

Russia, USA, Israel are much better at Media management, this seems a very silly way to disclose things.

CDS has done a lot of damage with this interview.

[eklavya]

India achieved all its political and military objectives. Pakistan can milk a bull for all I care.

[eklavya]

This is what India did to Pakistan. Can you imagine if it was the other way round? Some people would have gone totally loco. Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes. How does this feel to him? It’s really good to be patriotic and militarily ambitious, but also to be emotionally cool and resilient. This is war.

[gakakkad]

Unkil lost jets against the Houthis recently and Houthis almost had an f35 kill . They aren't even a real military .they are armed militia .

Except for Grenada i can't think of any conflict unkil hasn't lost a jet .

[Deans]

Pakis will milk this statement, OT is now better the Indian armed forces put out the truth, and the CDS might be good at his job but does not seem to be media trained. What is this Shangri-LA dialogue and why is the CDS attending it.

Russia, USA, Israel are much better at Media management, this seems a very silly way to disclose things.

CDS has done a lot of damage with this interview.

What Pak tells its people should be irrelevant to us, as is any hardware losses.
The mission comes first, then men. Hardware is the means to achieve your mission, You tend to lose hardware in wars.
If we have lost hardware, it sends a signal to Pak that we are willing to take those losses to strike terror targets wherever they may be.
(and PAF bases).
We can buy 30 more aircraft to replace losses, which Pak can't when its defence budget for capital expenditure is a tenth of ours.
Op Sindhoor may actually boost defence expenditure.

[Deans]

Unkil lost jets against the Houthis recently and Houthis almost had an f35 kill . They aren't even a real military .they are armed militia .

Except for Grenada i can't think of any conflict unkil hasn't lost a jet .

3 F-18s and 7 Reaper drones lost, against a lightly armed militia. It was the US that had to call off the operation.

[LakshmanPST]

Congis are setting up a new narrative...
They're saying something like this--->"Modi did a scam and bought 'sub standard' Rafales, which were easily downed by Pakis..."
It is what Telangana CM Revanth Reddy said yesterday...
These buggers are just waiting for a Rafale loss to start their propaganda...

[Zynda]

I was thinking how will Unkil ensure its munna does not get humiliated in the next conflict. Just read that IMF is providing loans up to $40 Billion to TSP...knowingly well that TSP will use much of the funds to buy new military hardware. Expect Unkil to look the other way as TSP will ask Turkey to upgrade F-16s, buy Turkish EWRs, SAMs & probably more sophisticated drones. If possible, TSP would want to get rid of their Mirages and go for more used heavily upgraded F-16s.

One of the gems that stood out in the recent conflict is the stellar performance & utility of our IACCS. I think TSP has some form of a central control system...probably not as advanced & capable as ours. TSP will want to improve on this capability...not sure if TSP has domestic capability and will look for external help. Turkey is the usual suspect although Unkil would be the preferred vendor.

I'm not sure if there is much if TSP can do about improving the efficacy of Chinese weapon systems...probably want to invest more in to Western hardware. I reckon TSP can ask Chinese to give near domestic capability weapons rather than export versions (Not sure if lizard trusts TSP enough to expose thier full capabilities).

Now that the current POTUS has a personal stake in ensuring the TSPA is able to maintain stability in TSP...to what extent Unkil is willing to go is the question.

[Zynda]

Congis are setting up a new narrative...
They're saying something like this--->"Modi did a scam and bought 'sub standard' Rafales, which were easily downed by Pakis..."
It is what Telangana CM Revanth Reddy said yesterday...
These buggers are just waiting for a Rafale loss to start their propaganda...

Idiot Su Swamy has already started saying that we lost 5 Rafales on the 1st night of operations. Honestly, it is surprising that we didn't learn much since Balakot...managing the information or narrative is as important as kinetic side of the operations. Yes, our DGMO presentations were improved with satellite images and stuff...but we have to understand that Foreign media will not be kind to India...they will always try to equate TSP with us...bet most of foreign media will focus on Indian losses rather than TSP's humiliation. Gora media will default to the side which USGOV is aligned with...all these means that GoI has to come up with a robust mechanisms & strategies to manage narrative. I believe a lot of effort went in to combating fake narrative but not for setting our own narrative.

[drnayar]

Spot The Difference....? ..........

The Print India. Dawn Pakistan.

Same article same author

[gakakkad]

I am 90% sure it was an IFF error . We have too much equipment from too many places.

[chetak]

Spot The Difference....? ..........

The Print India. Dawn Pakistan.

Same article same author

drnayar ji,

that is self evident.

but, why write such an article at all for the dawn, what was the purpose.

this is the aman ka tamasha bottom feeding scum dancing to the tune of the jihadi piper.

[Cain Marko]

CDS Gen. Anil Chauhan at Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore hints at India losing jets during interview with Haslinda Amin of Bloomberg.


P.S. Understandable that we will have losses and we will drip feed the information out. But teh General's body language left a lot to be desired.

While I didn't think all IAF jets were safe, I was expecting IAF to officially announce Indian and Pak losses at a later date as a side note...
-
CDS's statement made it look like only IAF lost the jets and it was totally unnecessary to say that we did some tactical mistakes on May 7th...
-
A K Bharti gave a much better reply during the press conference...

This plays well with the iaf case for high end mrfa. If it is confirmed as rafale, expect a beeline for a 5th Gen purchase. As it is there were some noises about the need for 5gen fighters considering the plaaf advantage in this regard.

[Aditya_V]

No Paki is asked about Paki losses which are soo many, or the US, Israel, Russia, quite frankly from his speech without talking PAF losses in the air, S 400 Awacs kill was a self goal.

[A_Gupta]

Here is the full transcript of the interview:

Q: General, there's still one unanswered question since the incident between Pakistan and India, and that is whether or not Pakistan downed an Indian jet or, in fact, more than that, can you confirm?

A: I think what is important is that not the jet being downed, but why they were being downed.

Q: At least one jet was downed?

A: The good part is that we are able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remediate, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days, and flew all our jets, again targeting at long range, which i just said.

Q: Pakistan claims six Indian jets were downed. Is it correct in that estimate?

A: Absolutely incorrect and that is not information which I said is important. What is important is why they went down. That is more important for us. And what did we do after that? That's more important.

From:
https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/cds-anil ... 613580.htm

[Prem Kumar]

I don't think the average Indian is bothered about losses in war. We have been in wars for millennia and the concept of "Balidan" comes from the understanding that War = Sacrifice

But what's grating about the CDS interview are these:

1) He went off-script. AM Bharti made it clear that India wouldn't reveal much information because Op Sindoor was still on. The CDS should have stuck to that line and asked the interviewer to move onto the next question

2) *If* he was authorized to reveal new/more information, it should have happened in an interview with an Indian News Channel. Not a hostile, pro-Paki one. Its backstabbing your supporters - all Indian news channels, across the political spectrum, rallied behind our Forces & this is how the CDS repays them?

It looks like our Chiefs treat our own media with contempt, while fawning over the attention they get from the Western media. They are so grateful for the latter that they reveal things that they shouldn't

[SSridhar]

The Bloomberg interview shows another flaw, namely poor coordination between Indian embassy in S'pore and the delegation visiting SLD. The two should have discussed and denied an interview to a blatantly anti-India Bloomberg.

[Aditya_V]

Well INC handles on Twitter are rejoicing claim of Indian jets are down accepting Paki propaganda, hmm

[vinod]

I think everyone knew there were losses after Air chief marshal's press conference. The confirmation in this, is that it is atleast a jet and it happened on 7th. So, I dont think any particular new information has come out. Yet another higher official has spoken about loss. This angst will happen each time this topic is brought up.

Everyone knows the first night attack was the riskiest since India was only attacking the terrorist camps and not military targets. Once Pakistanis responded, it was open field to play. What has been made clear now is that there will be no such restraint from India's side anymore.

What I'm now interested is in the actual engagement details and I'm sure India would have brought down few Pak jets as well during that engagement.

[skumar]

Op Sindoor demonstrated the conclusive superiority of our integrated layered defense systems with AD systems integrating desi and foreign components. We used the S400s more effectively than Russia relying on low cost systems for dealing with smaller threats, exactly as it should be to ensure scalability.

There were many reports about 10k drones being used everyday in the Ukraine-Russia conflict - it may be true that 10k drones were used on some days in the initial period but it is unlikely they are being used today with reports from both sides of 50-100 drone interceptions which would not make the news otherwise. From what transpired, our systems should be able to scale effectively with higher volume lower threshold threats, especially what Pakistan can field.

After the fantastic performance by our defense forces it is also time to take stock.

1. It was a mistake for Modi to speak to JD Vance regarding the ceasefire.
   It gives an impression to Trump that he can get his VP to speak to the Indian PM, something Trump would be very clear would not be possible with either Xi or Putin. Probably it was in the context of JD's recent visit and bonhomie and there was pressure on / expectation from JD to deliver a win for Trump; but it gives the wrong message. We have to stop seeking validation at the highest levels. What next, SecState will speak to PM??
2. The idea of having 2 lady officers giving the debrief on Op Sindoor was good but it was the DGMO/DGNO/DGAO briefings that provided strategic clarity. It was unfair to expect junior officers to put this across as effectively.
3. IWT in "abeyance" is neither here or there. Why not just declare that Bharat is withdrawing from IWT unilaterally in view of the repeated Pakistani violations of the goodwill that was the preamble for IWT and that Bharat cannot continue to reward Pakistan with the most favourable water sharing agreement in world history in terms of concessions made by an upper riparian state. It also puts the ball squarely in Pakistan's court about this being construed as an act of war and a dare to them to escalate and an opportunity to expose their own confidence in their "victory".
4. What are the conditions defined by Bharat for ending Op Sindoor - it seems open ended. At this stage, we are just waiting for Pakistan to take the next step as it inevitably will in some shape or form.
5. Post the fiasco with Trump claiming credit, while MEA has publicly asserted that the decision to halt hostilities followed Indian military action followed a call from Pak DGMO and that there will no mediation, MEA should at least also clarify that trade will never be a factor in Bharat's world view while dealing with terrorism - they may have better luck with Pakistan.