Pak wants to bleed India by thousand cuts, we drew new redlines against terror: Gen. Chauhan

Professional militaries are not affected by temporary losses as the overall outcomes are much more important than such setbacks, chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday, 3 May.

Gen. Chauhan said Pakistan has been following an approach of "bleeding India by a thousand cuts", but New Delhi drew a completely new redline against cross-border terrorism through Operation Sindoor.

Delivering a talk on Future Wars and Modern Warfare at the Savitribai Phule Pune University, his first since his recent comments in Singapore over Indian Air Force losses in the four-day India-Pakistan clash, Gen. Chauhan appeared to reject criticism against him and said, "When I was asked about losses on our side, I said these are not important as results and how you act are important."

In war, even if there are setbacks, you need to maintain your morale, he said, adding that losses are not important but outcomes are. He highlighted various elements of war including politics and violence and said that in Operation Sindoor, too, war and politics were happening as a parallel phenomenon.

The thinking behind Operation Sindoor was that state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan has to stop and that no country should be able to hold India hostage to terrorism or nuclear blackmail, Gen. Chauhan added.

With agency inputs