The very character of warfare is undergoing a profound shift. Simultaneity has emerged as the defining feature
NEW DELHI: Operation Sindoor, launched by India on May 7, 2025, following the brutal terror attack in Pahalgam, marked more than just a forceful military response. It was a watershed moment in our evolving counter-terror doctrine. What set it apart was not just the scale or precision of the strikes, but a fundamental shift in strategic thinking. By combining calibrated kinetic operations against terrorist hideouts and Pakistani military infrastructure with non-kinetic actions like the suspension of Indus Waters Treaty provisions, India redefined its response threshold.
For the first time, we set aside the convenient fiction separating state and non-state actors. The old hesitation rooted in nuclear blackmail no longer held sway. What emerged was the architecture of a new doctrine—one built around dynamic responsiveness, technological edge, political resolve, and narrative control. This evolution was not occurring in isolation. Just weeks later, on June 13, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion. This audacious strike eliminated senior Iranian generals and nuclear scientists, and disabled critical air defences and enrichment facilities at Natanz and Isfahan. It didn’t involve boots on the ground; instead, it relied on stealth, deception, and precision—a lethal combination of pre-positioned drones, deep intelligence gathered through Mossad agents, and autonomous technology.
The lesson was clear: in today’s battlespace, the most decisive blows often come from the shadows. Barely a week after that, in a joint U.S.-Israel offensive named Midnight Hammer, B2 stealth bombers laced with bunker-busting bombs and cruise missiles struck Iran’s hardened nuclear sites, including the deeply buried Fordow facility. The Iranian response was swift—over 200 missiles were launched toward Israeli cities, energy assets, and, most alarmingly, the Dimona nuclear facility. A few even targeted the U.S. base at Al-Udeid in Qatar. This was no longer a proxy standoff. For the first time since the Osirak strike of 1981 and the Deir ez-Zor reactor attack in 2007, combatants openly targeted nuclear facilities with an intent that bordered on catastrophic.
The message is that the threshold for escalation in this new era is far more fragile than we might assume. Far away in the Eurasian theatre, Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb—launched on June 1—redefined what hybrid warfare could look like in practice. After months of quiet preparation, Ukraine activated a swarm of AIenabled drones that struck five Russian airbases, some located thousands of kilometres deep into Russian territory, including Irkutsk. These weren’t conventional military launches. The drones had been smuggled in pieces through civilian cargo routes and quietly reassembled within Russia. Activated by local mobile networks and flying below radar cover, they reportedly destroyed 41 aircraft, including strategic bombers, all for a fraction of the cost of traditional systems. The strategic impact? Immense. Russia’s belief in its strategic depth and rear-area invulnerability was shattered.
Each of these operations reveals something critical: the very character of warfare is undergoing a profound shift. Simultaneity has emerged as the defining feature. In the wars of the near future, a drone swarm, a cyber blackout, a market shock, and a deepfake-fuelled riot could erupt together, not as separate phases but as synchronised shocks. For India, this means relinquishing sequential planning. The idea that we can anticipate, prepare, and respond in stages is now outdated. The military lexicon of warning periods, mobilisation days, D-day, and stages of operations, as well as Hhour, looks obsolete. Our doctrines and preparedness must be recalibrated for a world where everything happens—everywhere—all at once. Nowhere is this more pressing than in the civilian domain.
The cognitive space—encompassing digital, emotional, and informational resilience—has become a battlefield in its own right. And here, a societally diverse India remains worryingly underprepared. While we have made strides in conventional deterrence, our civilian systems remain vulnerable to espionage, subversion, and sabotage. Deepfakes, viral misinformation, and simulated failures can erode morale more quickly than enemy fire. This is precisely where adversaries like Pakistan and China are likely to strike—employing asymmetric tools that are cheap, deniable, and deeply disruptive part of their demoralising and destabilising campaign strategy.
Unless India builds a robust strategic communications ecosystem—one that operates in real-time and commands the digital space—we risk winning battles on the ground but losing the narrative online. Trust, after all, is a strategic resource. We must not underestimate the toolkit available to our adversaries. Pakistan can draw on Turkish Bayraktar drones and Chinese swarming platforms, enabling them to carry out covert attacks that bypass traditional defences. China is developing insectsized drones. Infiltrated drone systems, as seen in Ukraine, could just as easily be deployed in India’s urban centres or coastal regions.
A key economic hub—be it a port, airport, VIP complex, refinery, or IT cluster—could be targeted not by fighter jets but by underwater drones or even modified civilian platforms. These are not science fiction scenarios; they are credible threats that demand urgent investment in drone countermeasures, AI-integrated surveillance, electromagnetic shielding, and robust cyber capabilities. Equally critical is the question of nuclear infrastructure security.
As Pakistan disperses and hardens its nuclear facilities, India must reassess not only the survivability of its assets but also its readiness for worst-case scenarios. Do we have the capability to respond to radiological contamination triggered by nuclear terrorists? Can we reliably pre-empt the source of a strike and respond promptly to it? Can we refine our nuclear doctrine to be more nuanced and assertive? To navigate this new battlefield, India must institutionalise an indigenous doctrine of multi-domain warfare, one that is flexible enough to operate effectively with international partners. The creation of theatre commands must be fast-tracked, not merely as a structural reform, but guided by a kill-chain philosophy that is geared toward effect-based operations in an AI-enabled, net-centric environment.
Our National Security Council Secretariat must evolve into a continuous command hub, conducting war-gaming, red teaming, and escalation simulations around the clock. Above all, India needs to build a National Civil Defence Grid—a low-cost, high-impact structure that spans cyber, information, and social resilience. It should integrate AI threat detection, drone jamming, encrypted communications, and communitybased alert mechanisms. And it must involve both the public and private sectors. This is what, in essence, the whole of the nation approach entails. On the international front, strategic agreements such as COMCASA, BECA, and LEMOA must now move beyond tokenism. They should translate into joint operational frameworks, real-time intelligence sharing, and interoperability in cyber and logistics with our trusted partners. These are not just diplomatic wins—they are vital enablers of India’s deterrence posture. As we look ahead, it’s critical to align actions at strategic, operational and tactical levels.
There is a need to conduct a de novo review of the intent, capabilities, and strategic behaviour of our adversaries and strategic partners. We should address our blind spots, revisit our mental maps, re-examine legacy assumptions, and discourage groupthink. What should be our end state in each component of the spectrum of conflict and at each step in the escalation ladder? What are decision dilemmas? How far are we willing to go, and what should our exit strategy be? India’s next war may unfold in fragments, across invisible fronts, catching us unprepared if we’re not already looking. In such a future, military combat power alone will not secure victory. Our real arsenal must include resilience, agility, integration, and, above all, clarity of purpose.
Maj Gen BK Sharma (Retd), Director General, United Service Institution of India.
