India strikes, Trump blinks: Tale of two powers

TWO developments in the last 10 days — first, the swift punishment to Pakistan in Operation Sindoor and India’s diplomatic measures earlier; second, the recall of high tariffs by the US on China — will affect global realignments.

India met the strategic objectives of the operation, which included the destruction of Pakistan’s terrorist infrastructure; setting up a new deterrence against terror attacks; inflicting considerable damage to Pakistan’s key airbases and establishing military superiority and ability to strike wherever it wanted.

Without crossing the LoC or the International Border, India launched missiles and drones on May 7 at Pakistan’s nine terror bases, some deep inside the country, in a calibrated, measured and responsible manner, hitting its targets with few civilian casualties.

Pakistan’s Air Defence (AD) system failed to intercept the missiles. More than 100 terrorists, including some top leaders of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen such as Abu Jundal, Hafiz Muhammed Jameel, Khalid and Mohammed Hassan Khan, were killed in the strikes. Their close links with the Pakistan army were visible as senior army officials attended their funeral.

When Pakistan tried to launch missile and drone attacks against Indian airbases on the night of May 7-8, the multi-layered Indian AD system comprising the indigenous Akashteer, Akash missiles, air defence guns, Russian S-400 and Israeli Barak 8 easily neutralised Pakistan’s Chinese, Turkish and indigenous missiles and drones.

As a result, the Indian airfields, logistic installations and military infrastructure remain largely unaffected by the enemy’s retaliation.

The ISRO’s 10 satellites working round the clock played a stellar role in informing the Indian armed forces about the enemy’s positions, military infrastructure and bombing attempts.

India’s Brahmos missiles were able to bomb the Sargodha airport near Rawalpindi by confusing its radars with pilotless aircraft. It sent shockwaves in the neighbouring Kirana hills that house Pakistan’s nukes and the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

The Indian satellites could see the blind spots in the Chinese and American AD systems, including radars, and Indian missiles struck those positions with pinpoint accuracy. That is when Pakistan got alarmed and contacted its American friends and the Chinese ‘iron brother’.

The Brahmos caused massive damage to a number of other Pakistani airbases, too, including those at Chaklala, Bholari and Jacobabad (near another nuke site in Chagai Hills), destroying a Pakistani AWACS parked at Bholari. Indian military officials have shown satellite images of these damages in public briefings.

Pakistan, China and American lobbies have made considerable efforts to portray the success of the Pakistani bombing efforts by alleging that Pakistan had hit five Indian fighter aircraft, including three Rafales, one Mirage and one Sukhoi, in its initial raids, but they have not been able to present any corroborating evidence.

India dominated the air space and maritime theatre, with aircraft carrier Vikrant and other accompanying ships positioned at a comfortable distance from the Karachi port.

After the ceasefire, PM Narendra Modi told Pakistan that Operation Sindoor had only been paused. Any further terror attack by Pakistan would be considered an act of war by India and India would retaliate at a time and place of its choosing. He added that India would not accept Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail and the Indus Waters Treaty would remain in abeyance till Pakistan ceased cross-border terrorism against India.

India can draw multiple lessons from this operation. First, that future wars will be more technology driven and India must stay ahead of its adversaries in the adoption of new technologies, training and networking of different platforms. Second, Pakistan’s nukes are no barrier to a conventional war. Three, India must send more satellites for full scanning of the military infrastructure of its adversaries and establish a robust GPS.

China plans to send 300 satellites by 2030 in low orbits for high-resolution images. India must become more atmanirbhar in every field by pursuing research, innovation and new technologies.

The West and China do not want Pakistan to go under. They will continue to play Pakistan against India and India against China to weaken both India and China. The Quad has limited relevance. Initially, the USA extended some support to India. But later, it became neutral, treating both India and Pakistan equally, notwithstanding that India was a victim of Pakistan’s terror attack.

Regarding the other important development that happened during this period — the US recalled the high tariff of 145 per cent on Chinese imports and reduced the tariff to 30 per cent and China reduced the 125 per cent tariff on imports of American goods to 10 per cent.

The Trump administration reduced the tariff as the American GDP declined by 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2025. Plus, Goldman Sachs predicted last week that the US inflation could double to 4 per cent by the year-end. China was also concerned as it witnessed a steep drop in its exports of goods to the US. Also, its manufacturing sector started contracting at its fastest pace in April 2025.

But the US blinked first, without getting any concessions from China on its “unfair economic practices", making many wonder about what Trump had achieved from imposing high tariffs except global ridicule.

The US’ global leadership has considerably weakened with a transactional, isolationist and mercantile President. Russia has rebuffed Trump’s attempts at mediation, except on its own terms.

Israel is going ahead with the elimination of security threat from Hamas. The experiences of China, Canada and others indicate that a tougher approach works better with the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, India’s hi-tech military operation against Pakistan will boost its military preparedness against China as most of the equipment used by Pakistan in the recent standoff was of Chinese origin.

India will be hedging more by establishing closer ties with its traditional partners rather than any special relationship with the US.

Many countries of Asia, Europe and the Global South will now partner with India for joint research and innovation, learning from its military experiences and buying more defence equipment.

Yogesh Gupta is former Ambassador to Denmark and ex-High Commissioner to Zambia.

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