A miscalculated strike and a resurrection

The terrorist attack on 22 April at Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam which killed 25 tourists and a local triggered a forceful Indian response. India quickly attributed responsibility to Pakistan-based militant groups, suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, expelled Pakistani diplomats and revoked travel visas.

The Modi government positioned these measures as part of a bold counterterrorism doctrine and claimed they signalled a new threshold of strategic resolve. But what was meant to be a show of strength has instead evolved into a strategic and diplomatic debacle of considerable magnitude.

India’s airstrikes on 7 May across the Line of Control were designed to project deterrent capability and demonstrate that Pakistan’s continued use of asymmetric warfare through its terror networks would no longer be tolerated. However, what was intended as a calibrated message quickly invited a forceful and sophisticated Pakistani military retaliation. Within the first hour of the conflict, India reportedly lost multiple fighter jets, possibly including Rafale. The alleged wreckage was not only televised on Pakistani media but also disseminated widely across digital platforms.

What made matters worse was the source of the most damaging admission by the Indian Army. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, India’s Chief of Defence Staff acknowledged that the Indian Air Force was effectively grounded for nearly two days following Pakistan’s retaliatory strikes. This extraordinary concession of airpower incapacitation severely undercut India’s narrative of strength and control.

Then came the ceasefire, brokered not through established bilateral crisis management channels, but by direct US intervention. On 10 May, President Donald Trump unilaterally announced that India and Pakistan had agreed to a full cessation of hostilities, crediting American diplomacy for preventing a full-scale nuclear confrontation. The Trump administration’s public framing of the ceasefire reinforced the notion that both India and Pakistan are destabilising nuclear-armed powers requiring external supervision.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s failure to challenge or even qualify Trump’s repeated assertions that his mediation had averted a nuclear war sounded like music to Pakistani ears. In the absence of any Indian rebuttal, a perception quickly took hold that the Modi government had ceded strategic autonomy to a superpower intermediary, a perception that has not only rankled Indian strategic thinkers but also emboldened Islamabad’s civil-military elite.

This rapid reversal in narrative could not have come at a worse time for India. Far from deterring Pakistan or establishing escalatory dominance, Modi’s poorly conceived military gambit inadvertently provided Pakistan’s military establishment with an unexpected political windfall. The individual who benefitted most from this reversal was none other than General Asim Munir, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff.

Until the events of May, Munir had been perhaps the most reviled Pakistani army chief since the 1971 war. He was viewed as the architect of the crackdown on Imran Khan — Pakistan’s most popular political leader — and the mastermind of a political architecture designed to keep Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) out of power by hook or by crook. From the Pakistani youth to the overseas diaspora, Munir was vilified for his role in dismantling civilian space, jailing political opponents and overseeing what many called a post-democratic order.

However, India’s botched military action gave Munir a political resurrection. He presided over a swift and effective military response, and through the machinery of state media and digital platforms, was lionised as a fearless guardian of national sovereignty.

Not content with public accolades alone, Munir awarded himself the rare five-star rank of Field Marshal, symbolically asserting his supreme military authority. In doing so, he sought not only institutional dominance but also symbolic elevation to the pantheon of Pakistan’s national saviours.

The Pakistani public, especially in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, embraced this transformation with striking fervour. In cities where Munir’s posters had once been defaced, he is now celebrated in rallies, patriotic music and even prayer sermons. From the lowest ranks of the military to the drawing rooms of Rawalpindi, Munir has repositioned himself as a strategic bulwark against Indian aggression, a redeemer who did not flinch in the face of Modi’s threats.

At the same time, India has suffered a catastrophic narrative collapse. While the international community initially expressed sympathy for the victims of the Pahalgam attack, the focus rapidly shifted from counterterrorism to conflict management and nuclear stability. Modi’s aggressive signalling minus sustained strategic diplomacy only heightened fears of escalation. Once Trump publicly announced the ceasefire, India was no longer perceived as a victim of terrorism but as an equal participant in a destabilising regional cycle of provocation and retaliation.

Sensing a strategic opening, Pakistan has swiftly capitalised on India’s diplomatic paralysis. With strong backing from China already secured, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launched a high-profile diplomatic offensive across the region, linking the Kashmir issue to broader concerns such as environmental degradation, water rights and regional equity. Speaking at the International Conference on Glaciers’ Preservation in Dushanbe, he argued that India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty amounted to the dangerous weaponisation of a vital trans-boundary resource.

Sharif’s visits to Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan underscored this diplomatic momentum. At the Lachin trilateral summit, the Kashmir issue was explicitly linked to other frozen conflicts such as Nagorno-Karabakh and Northern Cyprus. Turkey and Azerbaijan offered public endorsements of Pakistan’s “measured” response and committed to enhanced defence cooperation. Iran, in turn, offered rhetorical support and condemned India’s aggression.

India’s diplomatic counteroffensive, by contrast, has been muddled and ineffectual. The ministry of external affairs hastily dispatched 59 politicians in parliamentary delegations to over 30 countries. These delegations have been branded as symbols of bipartisan unity, but were selected without consultation with opposition parties and have often failed to secure meetings with senior officials.

In several cases, these delegations have found themselves limited to interactions with junior diplomats, diaspora groups or policy think tanks. The much-publicised US delegation led by Shashi Tharoor failed to secure access to a single senior senator or member of the executive branch, underscoring India’s diminished leverage in Washington.

Back home, Modi resorted to optics: public addresses, roadshows and an aggressive social media campaign. Yet these symbolic gestures could not conceal the absence of any tangible diplomatic success or meaningful military deterrence. The gap between theatrical nationalism and strategic coherence has never been more visible.

Perhaps the most lasting damage lies in the long-term implications of the crisis. Modi’s actions did not deter Pakistan from continuing to use its proxy networks. If anything, they helped Islamabad showcase its military prowess and political resolve. What is more troubling, they rehabilitated and lionised a deeply unpopular army chief, giving him unprecedented control over Pakistan’s political and military institutions.

Modi’s reliance on spectacle over substance, force over foresight, and unilateralism over strategic coalition-building has repeatedly undermined India’s long-term interests. If New Delhi wishes to regain strategic credibility, Modi must jettison the theatrics of muscular nationalism and develop a robust diplomatic framework anchored in strategic foresight.

Counterterrorism cannot succeed without narrative control, and narrative control cannot be achieved without smart diplomacy. Until India learns this lesson, each cross-border attack will risk triggering not deterrence but another cycle of strategic embarrassment and international marginalisation.

Views are personal

Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden. More of his writing may be found here