Reg 2nd part of your quoted post, this ORF discussion - which was a waste of time IMO and made me think journos esp affiliated to think tanks are dumb hacks fit only for uttering banalities - Raj Shukla points out that this abusing of 'restraint' as part of our general lexicon for all security related matters has a lot to do with Jaswant Singh's statements during Op parakram and post-parliament attack. There are a lot of variables and moving parts to it ofc but what do you think? Are we still seeing it's effects 25 yrs on where despite the actions we seem very willing to take compared to the past, we want to retain a certain image for the world and even the armed forces have succumbed to that?
View: https://youtu.be/nk0FMrAUuVM?si=BeJBBnpSrqx5IZuJ
a few of my posts during course of the month.
just to add a bit.
this predates and much bigger than modi, doval etc. modi, doval etc are a public face to thousands of nameless faceless bureaucrats, military and intelligence officers working for GoI.
Indian security establishment has been trying to solve this dilemma for a long time, the problem statement is how to defend India from sub-conventional threat protected by nuclear umbrella using conventional means available to GoI.
op parakram, diplomacy after 26/11, olive branch to paki land after modi swearing in, 2016 reponse, 2019 response and now op sindoor. all of them are part of the same thinking, trying to solve a dilemma of countering a sub-conventional threat using conventional means.
this means the thousands of nameless faceless bureaucrats, military and intelligence officers working for GoI will continue to try to solve this problem in the future too, based on the options available at that point in time in the future.
nooclear is not a non-issue, it continues to be a major issue. nooclear bums are obviously a factor, since they have prevented an all out war between nooclear armed powers ever since they came into the picture, not just in the sub-continent but in the entire world.
nuclear bums had set a upper limit on the "escalation ladder" beyond which a conflict cannot escalate, paki were exploiting this for attacking India using terrorism, what happened in op sindoor and previous ops is exploring the scope and scale available below the upper limit to deal with terrorism.
a deterrence using conventional means to a sub-conventional threat.
had mentioned earlier in this thread some thing along the lines of when gormint executes plans they are not based on fleeting opinions , it flows from written down doctrines, SOP, etc.
below is the excerpt from IAF doctrine recently updated. read the section below and notice how it matches with ops executed under op sindoor.
In a revised doctrine, the IAF notes that airpower should be seen as aerospace power and underlines that modern conflicts can be influenced by each component of the military operating in synergy.
theprint.in
once the new nooclear variables got established in 98, there was bound to be a rethink. 99 kargil too was happening under the backdrop of nooclear tests, which explains self imposed constraint of not crossing the LOC.
2001 parliament attack, same thing, this time tried conventional response of amassing 5 lakh troop at border, realised the logistical complexities of such a measure.
in the middle of op parakram, in jan 2002 pakis elaborated their red lines.
India comes out with formal red lines in jan 2003.
but still the original problem remains, so Goi starts talking about cold start doctrine in 2004.
pakis start saying, we will nuke our own land with tactical nukes to prevent ebil eendians from advancing forward.
next opportunity comes in 2008, apparently what happened in 2025 to bahawalpur was offered as an option by IAF in response to 26/11, which UPA gormint didn't take.
next opportunity taken by GoI was in 2016, then later in 2019 and now in 2025.
so yes, strategic restraint had seeped into the thinking of political class reinforced later by lutyens with their "log kya kahenge" rhetoric.
but then again, if India and pakistan were to think alike in a responsible manner, there wouldn't have been a pakistan in the first place. in effect, we have to assume GoI will continue to play the role of mature power in future escalations as well, and pakis get to play their games while at the same time blackmailing the world by holding a gun to their own head.
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