Once more unto the breach, India struck inside Pakistan in response to a terrorist attack. Once more, the two sides escalated — again to unprecedented levels — before agreeing to a ceasefire. It is tempting to consider this latest crisis as a somewhat larger replay of the last Indo-Pakistani crisis in 2019, but in fact it signifies a notable shift in India’s military strategy towards Pakistan, which has potentially grave implications for future crises.

The latest crisis was triggered by a terrorist attack at Pahalgam on April 22, which was especially provocative — and likely calculated to be so — by targeting specifically Hindu men for point-blank execution. Tensions rose immediately, with consistent exchanges of small-arms fire across the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir. Then, soon after midnight on May 7, India launched its military response, dubbed Operation Sindoor. It used a mix of long-range stand-off weapons, including air-launched missiles and loitering munitions, to target nine sites belonging to terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, groups that have frequently attacked India, including at Pahalgam.

Pakistan made still-debated claims to have shot down Indian aircraft, and launched reprisal drone and missile attacks. The two sides traded tit-for-tat rounds of stand-off weapon attacks against each other’s military installations. The violence intensified on May 9 and 10, with effective Indian strikes against key Pakistan Air Force bases and Pakistan launching its own counter-offensive, Operation Bunyan Marsoos, which was largely thwarted. That uptick drew the concerned diplomatic intervention of the United States before the two belligerents agreed to ceasefire on the afternoon of May 10. Despite some minor violations, the ceasefire seems to be holding, and the crisis seems now to have concluded. For India, this crisis represents an important evolution in its military strategy against Pakistan — shifting from the issuance of threats to change Pakistani behavior, to the direct imposition of costs to degrade terrorists’ capacity. This new cost-imposition strategy has a compelling logic, but will be difficult and risky to execute in future crises.

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