Operation Sindoor - Bharat Strikes Back: Jai Hind!

[Y I Patel]

I’m inclined to not jump to conclusions just yet. What was the tactical mistake that he had to admit on record to an international media outlet that would be expected to hype up the loss?

I beg to differ on media management. The communications so far have been very disciplined. No reason to believe that the top military commander would stray from the overall trend. Expect the next big news to be about that tactical error if my hunch is right

[Aditya_V]

I have never a US, Russian, Ukranian, Israel, French, Paki, Chinese talk only about own losses like this, as far the world is concerned by not talking of S400 , Paki air to air losses, Terrorists, most gullible people even in India will think operation Sindoor is a failure.

He choose what he choose to do, Pakis and Terrorists within Kashmir will be more emboldened. Did the Isralis show what are the losses from Iranian strike?

[AdityaM]

The lasting sound bite from this conflict will be that India made Tactical mistakes.

All else will be swept under the carpet and suppressed.
Choice of words, utterances, body language have consequences.

Not seen this CDS much, unlike his predecessor. Not impressive at all.

[Aditya_V]

Exactly

[williams]

But the CDS has fed the false narrative, every one s now going to focus on IAF losses, not on Pak Fauj with Terrorists, hitting Paki targets, doing Saab 2000 with S 400.

There are no 2 ways about it that interview and answer were a self goal.

Aditya sir WADR, what did Pakistan achieve in real terms because of this narrative?

1. Their terrorist bases got hit exactly as we planned. We have video evidence of the strike and the funerals.
2. Their escalation fizzled.
3. Our counter strike was so effective they need to run to the US for de-escalation.
4. We agreed because we never had any intend to escalate further.
5. in spite of DJTs tweets about mediation etc, India has not budged in giving any concession to either the Pakis or to the US in terms of trade, military sale etc. In fact, US is going to lose this so called natural relationship in the long term because of this Social Media drama of their President. When India becomes a pole (which BTW is more and more inevitable), we are never going to forget this insincerity that we suffered from the west.

Now the powers in the world are seeing us as a rival. And they did not care about terrorists attack in India for a long time. They cared about it only after they got hit. Until then they were intentionally blind of Paki behavior. Even after 9/11 they made Paki as a munna and never punished them for sponsoring terrorists who hurt them. Think about how much they were scared about India's raise.

Now let us come to Indian population. A lot of them were seeking western approval and agreement of the truth. Our PM, DM, EAM, DGMOs and media words with satellite evidence have no meaning unless some blue eyed western expert agrees with that. This BTW is very specific to our Indian crowd. No other country people who I have met across world has this much interest for self flagellation of their country. This includes qualified arm chair generals like Bharat Karnad. Why? I think it is a combination of colonial hangover, .5 front's propaganda and general lack of nationalistic fervor.

Our enemies and rivals are exploiting this situation. The people who are supposed to defend their own country's narrative are actually so much focused on our enemies narrative and they are the ones who are keeping it alive. Even a plausible acceptance of equipment losses are amplified so much that we act as though we lost the narrative war. CDS and DGMO don't have such hangover and they are not scared to admit the truth. They are trained to not disclose operational details. But they are not going to mislead the public unless there is a genuine operational need. They also don't have a need to do empty chest thumping (like the Pakis and Chinese) when the satellite evidence speaks for itself. In our democratic setup there is no DNA for misleading the public.

[Aditya_V]

Who is asking to mislead

Just put the truth out
1. What and where when we hit PAF jets, CDS complete silence means the world accepts it's 0
2. Did S400 hit awacs
3 what did we destroy in Paki bases

Very little discussion on achievements but only losses. You have to the lower level cannon fodder what we achieved will mean nothing. We should not have agreed to ceasefire until agreement on public disclosure of military losses

[Aditya_V]

And why disclose to enemy agenda driven media first, there could be PIB summary of action day by day first, this Gandhigiri does not work in real life. The CDS messed up that's it.

Now CDS claims 15% of time went into countering false narrative but by his statement 95% of the focus will be only IAF losses, Air Marshal Bharti statement on PAF kills in the air on the ground will all be ignored, I feel this interview has done a lot of harm.

[williams]

Who is asking to mislead

Just put the truth out
1. What and where when we hit PAF jets, CDS complete silence means the world accepts it's 0
2. Did S400 hit awacs
3 what did we destroy in Paki bases

Very little discussion on achievements but only losses. You have to the lower level cannon fodder what we achieved will mean nothing. We should not have agreed to ceasefire until agreement on public disclosure of military losses

How do you know he did not talk about the above? We are only seeing a small clip of CDS answering one question and not the whole interview.

[Aditya_V]

Well while giving his sound byte he should have talked about it , as CDS of India he should not have given a soundbyte which now clearly created a false narrative.

[gakakkad]

Is there complete interview anywhere? I only found bits and pieces.

[krithivas]

This is the 21st century and victory must be in all dimensions (real, narrative, perception etc.) especially when we decisively won the real war. 11 of 13 airbases Paki taken out by India in 23 minutes. As pointed out by others - CDS's language and body language did not reflect the gravitas/preparedness especially for the victor of the real war. To repeat, CDS missed a great opportunity to reframe/pivot the dominant narrative to the real Paki losses, and he missed the boat.

Like the Indian cricket team finding ways to finally salvage a win from a super-commanding lead, here the real winner has to salvage victory of the real war from the narrative war.

This would be lesson for the next 26/11, Uri, Pulwama, Pahalgam etc.

But the CDS has fed the false narrative, every one s now going to focus on IAF losses, not on Pak Fauj with Terrorists, hitting Paki targets, doing Saab 2000 with S 400.

There are no 2 ways about it that interview and answer were a self goal.

Aditya sir WADR, what did Pakistan achieve in real terms because of this narrative?

....... .....................

Our enemies and rivals are exploiting this situation. The people who are supposed to defend their own country's narrative are actually so much focused on our enemies narrative and they are the ones who are keeping it alive. Even a plausible acceptance of equipment losses are amplified so much that we act as though we lost the narrative war. CDS and DGMO don't have such hangover and they are not scared to admit the truth. They are trained to not disclose operational details. But they are not going to mislead the public unless there is a genuine operational need. They also don't have a need to do empty chest thumping (like the Pakis and Chinese) when the satellite evidence speaks for itself. In our democratic setup there is no DNA for misleading the public.

[krithivas]

The full interview is now moot. Nobody has the time to read thru the transcript and make sense out of it. This was the first one-on-one interview especially to an adversarial international news agency. CDS had the opportunity to pivot/reframe/refocus the narrative to Pakistani losses and ONLY hammer on real Chinese (and Pakistani) losses. You did not see that question coming?

CDS response as someone pointed out was Rahul Gandhi like - "Why there were losses?" ... huh? Then add "tactical mistakes" ... great! Very casual poor choice of words - no gravitas of the situation. They were thoughtless answers meaning he was not prepared or chose to go off-script. You just won the real war! You gave a resounding punishment to China/Pakistan.

Haven't you seen the likes of "Norman Schwarzkopf" walk around like John Wayne! You must don that role when you talk to foreign press. Your role requires more than just being technically correct. Your role requires you to have an acumen to silently inject venom. Indian FM is the greatest of our communicators.

CDS missed a great opportunity to make China/Pakistan disclose their losses, instead we the victor are scrambling to answer their questions.

Who is asking to mislead

Just put the truth out
1. What and where when we hit PAF jets, CDS complete silence means the world accepts it's 0
2. Did S400 hit awacs
3 what did we destroy in Paki bases

Very little discussion on achievements but only losses. You have to the lower level cannon fodder what we achieved will mean nothing. We should not have agreed to ceasefire until agreement on public disclosure of military losses

How do you know he did not talk about the above? We are only seeing a small clip of CDS answering one question and not the whole interview.

[Aditya_V]

That's exactly my point

[Amber G.]

^^^

>>>Agree with

Uncomfortable Questions for the people managing Strategic Communications in Indian National Security Apparatus:

1) Why was CDS asked to give interviews to Bloomberg and Reuters that too in Singapore instead of Indian Media in New Delhi?

2) Why admit to Jet losses in International Media when you are not willing to give a number from beginning of Op Sindoor briefing?

3) Why not talk and focus the narrative about the losses of Jets, Command Control Centres and Airbases on the Pakistan side as success of #OperationSindoor?

4) Who took the call for these interviews and why? What was the motive and urgency?

5) Was CDS not briefed and prepared on what the International Media would obviously ask him?

Pakistan faced heavy losses and defeat in India’s #OperationSindoor, yet their propaganda, backed by China, overshadows India’s narrative. Why hasn’t India’s security establishment grasped the strategic importance of messaging? This is embarrassing and causes irreparable damage.

- X from Aditya Raj Kaul

[Y I Patel]

Folks you don’t know a fraction of what he does

You don’t have the faintest clue of where he and India are headed with this

You are trying to put yourselves in his shoes. Sorry, not a wise thing to do.

Hold your horses, let it play out

[gakakkad]

^Bingo!

[VinodTK]

If India lost one or two or three or four aircraft where did they fall?
- Cant be in Pakistan; by now the pictures and captured pilots would be on display
- If they were destroyed in India some one should have spotted the debris
because during any IAF accident the pictures are out in an hour regardless of the accident location
- Something is not adding-up

As for the CDS ststement at an international conference is shocking
- Why is he out of the country if operation Sindoor is still on
- If it is over then PM is miss stating the status of the operation (still on)
- Why did CDS point out the tactical mistake made by IAF? Its a team effort not any one branch's issue

[Aditya_V]

True, I don't know what the CDS does, but shouldn't PIB inform, look at the Paki khaki there nobody is questioning the loss of PAF Aircraft, loss of assets, loss of artillery, known Terrorists with thier leaders, why this interview when the other guy is being pampered there in Singapore.

The amount of glee I see on social media handles on IAF handles by INC and support system makes me question whether and thier supporters want the complete destruction and break up of India?

[Cain Marko]

If India lost one or two or three or four aircraft where did they fall

Best guess is that those were the crashed fighters that the media was buzzing about during the operation. It's hard to get local coverage when there's sirens buzzing and you're told to stay put for your own safety and to get out of the armys way.

[RCase]

Could it be possible that the CDS statement could be a distraction/ dis-information that has all the Pakis, presstitutes and anti-nationals going bonkers. Keep them occupied on needless discussions and whataboutery, while some other action is put into play? So far, GOI has played it pretty well in controlling information leaks and executed actions quite remarkably. One can already see the rage and fury of IWT 'abeyance' is out of the discussion circuit, even in Pakistan and is now centered around the number of IAF jets being downed. Similarly during the air operations, everyone was fixated to the destruction of airbases and Kirana Hills, while quietly the army flattened their posts along the LoC.

For the Rafale aircraft downing theory, will someone with knowledge comment on:
- Aren't Rafale ejection seats made by Martin Baker? Whenever an ejection is performed, Martin Baker knows about it. That is how an earlier Pakistani JF-17 jet crash though initially denied by Pakistan, was reported by Martin Baker.
- If the pilot did not eject, IAF would have declared the pilot casualty or it would have by now made its way through social media.
- The debris of crashed plane(s) has never been found, either on the Pakistani side or the Indian side. Highly unlikely for any Indian not to have captured it on his/her cell phone.

[Jayram]

All he had to say was media speculation on Indian Jet losses were overblown (because 'overblown' is in the eye of the beholder). Can be interpreted many ways. And if he was feeling generous he could say we made tactical adjustments through out the conflict and the proof is there for all to see - PAF restricted and asking for ceasefire. None of this other self goals and not making any admissions he would be held to later. For a CDS really really poor communicator keeping the strategic goals in mind!!

[RCase]

If India lost one or two or three or four aircraft where did they fall

Best guess is that those were the crashed fighters that the media was buzzing about during the operation. It's hard to get local coverage when there's sirens buzzing and you're told to stay put for your own safety and to get out of the armys way.

Even if the forces were able to quickly mop up the place, there are enough inquisitive busy bodies (heck, Congress might even have paid these guys to get videos) in India to take selfies/ videos of the place where the supposed crash happened. There would be enough burn marks/ debris etc. at the spot that would have surfaced by now.

There were guys taking selfie videos with drone kills by the Indian AD system. To think of even a single guy not trying to seek his 5 min of fame by outing a video is quite a stretch of the imagination. There were videos of guys bewildered with shot down drones, intact missiles etc. Most of the folks were fairly clueless of what the stuff was. I was horrified at how guys, including the cops were touching the PL-15 missile without realizing that it was unexploded.

[Aditya_V]

Yup I still can't think the CDS praising Pakistani military leadership as rational after attending funerals with Terrorists

Plus no talk on Paki artillery targeting civilians in Jammu sector, No talk on IA response, no talk of our air defences thwarting Turkish Drones, destroying multiple Chinese Mq9, ly 80 , Mq 16 radars, destroying Paki jets in the air confirmed by Air Marshal Bharti etc

[gakakkad]

What scenarios can a damaged airframe be soft landed without ejection ?

[RCase]

What scenarios can a damaged airframe be soft landed without ejection ?

It is possible for a plane with bullet holes or damaged exterior to be soft landed without ejection. I think in 1971 war, a Su-7/ Hunter survived serious damage to its rudder/ tail and still made it back to base.

[Kakkaji]

In India, even if the police cordon off an area, the crowds will hang around the periphery transmitting videos of what the police are doing. Pretty soon the local journalists will show up and set up their video vans.
No way you can hide a plane crash in or near any village in India.

[krithivas]

If India spent 15% of the time managing false narratives it means narratives have an impact by taking away your time, attention and energy from task at hand. Logically make the adversary (China/Pakistan) spend 50% of the time on managing the narratives against them.

Why India hamstrung itself by this "Satayavaan-syndrome"? That somehow someone keeps account of your reputation and credibility, and that you have to be a "good-boy" and must always be truthful else God will poke your eye (Tamil people will understand the poking part). Pakistan's dismal credibility did not stop international press echo their narratives. Despite the ludicrous Paki defense minister citing social media accounts as proof of Indian losses, the international media still echoes Paki narratives.

The world is looking for sound bites feed it to them fast and furious. What stops India even now from detailing the assets lost by Pakistan devastated by Brahmos and Scalps? Let Pakis defend the blowback.

India must be celebrating the real devastation we inflicted on the terrorist state, not arguing about some assets it may have or may not have lost!

PS - GDP of City of Mumbai is almost that of the GDP of Country of Pakistan.

And why disclose to enemy agenda driven media first, there could be PIB summary of action day by day first, this Gandhigiri does not work in real life. The CDS messed up that's it.

Now CDS claims 15% of time went into countering false narrative but by his statement 95% of the focus will be only IAF losses, Air Marshal Bharti statement on PAF kills in the air on the ground will all be ignored, I feel this interview has done a lot of harm.

[Agasthi]

Went to sleep when everything was smooth and woke up to find the world in fury.

Folks you don’t know a fraction of what he does

You don’t have the faintest clue of where he and India are headed with this

You are trying to put yourselves in his shoes. Sorry, not a wise thing to do.

Hold your horses, let it play out

Patelji, totally agree with you on his knowledge part but you can't seriously take his comms. part as having done no damage. The fact that there is furore over his remarks is PR gone wrong.

The interview is in bits and pieces and let me paraphrase a few keywords.

• '...important why they were down
  
  '...tactical error'
  
  ' ...we cam back flew all our jets...hit inside 300 km deep inside'
  
  'the enemy was rational...''

I strongly suspect his understanding of 'down' is different from the interviewer's 'down'. It can very well mean, they were grounded. English is not our first language and when a VIP like the CDS speaks, words need to be chosen carefully.

Mind you, we all knew from the May 11 conference that there were losses; no hell was raised then but this one did. Attributing that to our public need for western validation or that he knows better is not helping. Nobody is disputing his knowledge or command on the subject. It is the context in which this was done to reuters and bloomberg, primarily;

1. A hastily arranged interview in a hotel lobby knowing fully well you are heading to a snake pit. The good general was given no media training. He spoke like a true engineer in an exec. meeting.
2. CDS chosen to address the foreign media. We didn't get to hear this from our media from a military person of this gravitas. We had to hear from a hostile. Why engage western media?
3.It seemed that GoI was looking for western validation than the public. We are no longer beholden to western media like it used to be 10 years ago. Why is the GoI giving them space, when we know that Pakis and Chinese have a death grip on these media outlets?

If the GoI or military people line of thinking is that this is an acceptable communication style, I would be concerned. Things then haven't changed much since the letter that Vajpayee ji wrote to Clinton post the nuclear tests. The letter was leaked to the press by the US inviting China's fury. Also more concerning, western agencies knowing our psyche better than our own government. It knows what will trigger us, manipulate us. If the Government/military is ignorant about what triggers its own people, that is again concerning. It is not the message but how it was conveyed is the problem.

I work in comms and 'Body Language' and 'Know your audience' is drilled into you day in and day out. The CDS interview had none of that, his words were sufficiently specific to give validation to the enemy's main argument and insufficiently vague to give our far greater achievements the air of inconsequence.

[Luxtor]

Where did blooomberg get the noton from the CDS saying that the puki claim of shooting down 6 IAF aircraft is absolutely incorrect, that India lost any aircraft at all? We all know the western press have an agenda. They will twist, modify, exaggerate, omit and commit any of the information we utter into serving their agenda. Why is the CDS even talking to the western press? The exerpt of the report above reads, that since the CDS said the puki claims are incorrect, that somehow comes to be that India confirms the loss of their aircraft. How did they come to that conclusion? That's like if I say the reports of me being Jesus Christ are incorrect, then they'll twist that into he said the REPORTS are incorrect therefore he really must be Jesus Christ.

[A_Gupta]

> He spoke like a true engineer in an exec. meeting.

Rings the most true to me.

[Cain Marko]

Best guess is that those were the crashed fighters that the media was buzzing about during the operation. It's hard to get local coverage when there's sirens buzzing and you're told to stay put for your own safety and to get out of the armys way.

Even if the forces were able to quickly mop up the place, there are enough inquisitive busy bodies (heck, Congress might even have paid these guys to get videos) in India to take selfies/ videos of the place where the supposed crash happened. There would be enough burn marks/ debris etc. at the spot that would have surfaced by now.

There were guys taking selfie videos with drone kills by the Indian AD system. To think of even a single guy not trying to seek his 5 min of fame by outing a video is quite a stretch of the imagination. There were videos of guys bewildered with shot down drones, intact missiles etc. Most of the folks were fairly clueless of what the stuff was. I was horrified at how guys, including the cops were touching the PL-15 missile without realizing that it was unexploded.

Yes, it is a mystery within an enigma. Fanneji has posted an interesting theory to which I replied in the other thread - you might want to read that.

[chanakya_neeti]

I am quite surprised by the remarks regarding what the Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) did and didn't say. It merely suggests that we still have a long way to go as a nation. We remain insecure and concerned about how the world perceives us, yet we struggle to develop confidence in ourselves. The world will always find ways to mock us—remember the New York Times cartoon about our space mission? This recent event should be seen as a decisive victory. We struck deep into Pakistan and significantly challenged their nuclear doctrine! It's a win, regardless of how one looks at it, unless you're still waiting for validation from the Western media. The tangible outcomes are always more important than the intangible perceptions!

On another note, the briefings from the Pakistani press have been a joke. Their army chief even presented a fake photo to the Prime Minister! If the global media fails to recognize this, it's likely because they have their own agenda, not due to our actions or statements.

[bala]

Saars, I have a feeling Bloombergah doctored the tape of the interview to make the CDS look bad. He may have said the part on tactics much later and they simply joined the two together to make him look like he agrees with the interviewer on the 6 BS shooting of Indian aircraft. The whole thing is staged managed by these cretins in western media.

[williams]

Saars, I have a feeling Bloombergah doctored the tape of the interview to make the CDS look bad. He may have said the part on tactics much later and they simply joined the two together to make him look like he agrees with the interviewer on the 6 BS shooting of Indian aircraft. The whole thing is staged managed by these cretins in western media.

I have the same feeling. I do agree we need a whole lot of rethink of our narrative management as everyone is pointing it out. But we are in a very hostile western media environment and need to up our game in a different way.

[prashantsharma]

My issues with the CDS interview
1. Giving this 1-1 to a foreign agency, like an exclusive scoop.
2. He doesnt offer any new +ve insight, sharpening the focus on the bit about we lost jet(s)
3. Unclear and contradicting himself. He says both that ac went down and pak didnt down any (or was he denying just the figure of 6 jets?)
4. Not clear why now was the moment to change the stance

[prashantsharma]

Saars, I have a feeling Bloombergah doctored the tape of the interview to

Quite possible

[ashthor]

There is no media training and PR by the Govt, MOD or the Defense forces....its a must in
todays age.

[pravula]

I had posted this before all this drama @ viewtopic.php?p=2650187#p2650187

Quoting myself here, so please under the stand.

No true Indian gives a flying frack about how many IAF or PAF birds went down. We care about how many missions were a success within their predicted loss ratio. As far as I can see, GOI, IAF and IA seem to be happy about it.

[Luxtor]

Saars, I have a feeling Bloombergah doctored the tape of the interview to

Quite possible

That is why our officials should not give ANY interview or answer questions from the western media. There's no need for it. We'll never get anything out of it when their reporting of the facts will be one sided, against our interest. So why bother giving them interviews? We need to be careful also in what we say to the Indian media. Only the MEA Jaishankar should deal with the foreign media, even that in a limited way, as he seems to be very good at handeling their nonsense and bias against India.

Also if we're still in a war situation, just in a pause, what is the CDS doing outside of the country? Chauhan saying the pukis met their objective and we met ours is playing in to the traditional western tactics of equal equal treatment of India with pukis. As Chauhan said, what objective did the pukis meet, massacring unarmed Hindu civilians, attacking civilian and religious sights such as Hindu temples and the Golden Temple? Is the CDS a real commander with day to day and war time operational responsibilities or is he just a figure head? If he flubs a simple interview with the foreign media, how can we have any confidence in his leadership?

[RajeevK]

Yup I still can't think the CDS praising Pakistani military leadership as rational after attending funerals with Terrorists

This is an incorrect interpretation. This answer was mainly to a question about the use of nuclear option or that the conflict would have turn unclear.
His reply started with the statement that all persons in uniform are rational. Towards the end he said that both the military are rational.
Would be interesting to see the whole transcript.