The masque of Red death
This is not the end.
War is a checkerboard with layers upon layers. The games we play with brain and brawn, are unlike any that can be gamed in real time. So, when the ceasefire was announced, there were mixed reactions all over, and an silent understanding that this is not over.
India and Pakistan have just witnessed a skirmish, possibly the largest since 1971 (sic) over India's punitive actions against terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan. The skirmish saw:
- Heavy damage to Eleven (11) of Pakistan Air Force's Airfields and Forward-Operating Bases and air & ground assets.
- Complete denial of Aerial raids by PAF aimed at Military installations and civilian infrastructure.
- Complete domination over Pakistan's Aerial surveillance and defense grid. This is something that's utterly unprecedented.
- Zero loose ends - diplomatically.
- Pakistan raising the Nuclear bogey yet again, in usual fashion, to threaten the world into brokering a ceasefire - to no effect.
- Dismantling of the illusion of superiority of Chinese & Turkish weapon systems.
- Validation of India's robust multi-layered Aerial Defense Grid and phenomenal performance of Indian AAD systems.
But how then, is this not a victory for India? That's where we shall need to understand the Pakistani mindset first.
Pakistani military thrives on bogeys. Their entire facade of battle-hardened systems is based on a carefully woven tapestry of lies and fluff, supported by Western institutions only to prop it up as a wall against Communists. Evidently, the wall knows how fragile it really is. A cursory glance at their campaigns in Waziristan, KPK, Balochistan and POK will reveal the extent of operational gaps in training and execution. For instance, their "Zarb-e-Azb" reeks of sub-conventional warfare and asymmetric techniques drawn from their experiences in Afghanistan. These same tricks and the same playbook as been applied to KPK and Baluchistan, and any decent neutral analysis will reveal their dependence on ISI's misinformation machine. From enforced disappearances to outright denials, Pak Military has a rich history of denying it's own soldiers to outright denial of any role in the recent drone attacks on Indian soil.
This annoying technique has been perfected by the Pak establishment from military to civil spheres to such a degree, that they have deluded themselves into a permanent state of victory, of course in the psychological domain. After the thorough thrashing in Op Sindoor, their Army chief, Politicians and Civilians are jubilant of a "Victory for the history books". Their top airbases were targeted in broad daylight, they failed to achieve any hit on Indian assets, they failed to defend their airspace from Indian drones, and they literally begged for a ceasefire after the thorough pummeling. And yet, they've won, apparently.
This is a pattern, and something of a lifeline for them now. Pakistan initially needed this sort of mass propaganda to justify its Military's power apparatus, conspicuously after spectacular blunders in 1965, 1971 and 1999, now in 2025, they need this propaganda to save face. Not for the political establishment obviously. Lt. Gen. Asim Munir is the de facto PM of the country, with the ISI and Military effectively running the country under the garb of a faux political leadership. This is how the country has run itself since its birth in 1947, and each successive Army chief has perfected this art of subterfuge until the late 1970s and Zia-ul-Haque's takeover. When Zia got Zulfikar Ali Bhutto executed, he was already well on his way towards pushing Pakistan permanently into a jihadist state of existence. Pak Army already was a subscriber to hardline doctrines, following their repeated ineptitudes in conventional war against India and the successes of the West's Islamic state projects in middle east against the Soviets at the height of the Cold war. Their existence was centered around India as a permanent adversary, and their vision of a Ghazwa-e-Hind was deep rooted into their psyche throughout the larger part of the last century. Each war hardened this mindset, because when power asymmetries are stark, religious fanaticism is a potent backdoor into the wargames, especially for an Islamist country like Pakistan. Zia understood this very well and implemented it with impunity in tandem with the Arab spring. As such, by the 1990s, Pakistan Military had successfully implemented the Jihadist playbook into their conventional warfare and notably in Kashmir. The 1989 elections merely validated what Zia had been religiously following for the past decades - demography is destiny.
A slow trickle of Pak-trained terrorists shifted the demographics of Kashmir, and utilizing the poor political backbone coupled with large support from the residents, Kashmir became a gift for the Pak establishment finally after decades of wars. Pakistan had miscalculated their capabilities in the conventional domain, and the lessons they'd accumulated over three wars and numerous skirmishes only emboldened them to commit to this "asymmetric war" against the Indian state. The ISI's extensive terror networks in Afghanistan gave it enough fertile ground to raise terrorist groups like JeM and LeT that would outsource the Pak army's warfare to the common Kashmiri. This strategy was excellent, until it wasn't anymore.
The Indian military had already lost thousands of personnel to militancy in the valley and had been unable to respond to the 1993 Mumbai Blasts, 2001 Parliament Attacks and numerous terrorist attacks orchestrated by the ISI and its extensive third estate in the country and beyond. This confounding problem was dealt with poorly by the political establishments of the day, and we lost numerous lives and crucial opportunities to draw red lines. By the time we found moderate successes politically as well as militarily, we had already lost a number of years. These lost decades were enough for the ISI's machinery to cozy up to the Chinese and build Pak Army's military strength through a combination of IMF Bailouts, strategic partnerships and backchannel support from the West. All this happened while they rattled their sabres at India and frequently invoked the Nuclear bogey to draw deterrence against Indian actions in the conventional domain, and stepped up their terrorism flywheel. Then the 2016 Surgical Strikes happened, and the calculus was changed. Pulwama happened in 2019, and for the first time Pak establishment realized that the stakes had changed. India struck back at targets deep inside Pakistan, clashed aerially over Kashmir and drew red lines with surgical strikes now being the norm. Pak army and ISI understood this very well, and war-gamed this explicitly. And then we are here.
The ceasefire, in case any gullible folks actually believed them, is an eyewash. It's a tactical retreat, only on paper. Right now, as I write this, Pakistan is attacking Srinagar, Udhampur, Jaisalmer and numerous sites with waves of drones, exactly like yesterday and the day before. There IS NO ceasefire. This is only a play to show the world their clean hands, and buy time for their next wave. The long-term goal is to create a Palestine-Israel type situation, where drones and saturation attacks accompany artillery and mortars in daily CFVs. Pakistan cannot and will not stop until it has achieved its objectives, both short and long term. The ball is now in our courts, to play along with the Status Quo, or to break their spine once and for all.