'Both sides were rational': CDS General Anil Chauhan praises militaries of India, Pakistan

The Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan had good words for both the militaries of India and Pakistan over the recent four-day long short and intense conflict from May 7-11.

 

Replying to a query whether there was fear of the nuclear threshold being crossed, Gen Chauhan said: “So it is my personal view again that the most rational people are people in uniform when conflict takes place. That is because they understand the conflict can swing either way. They understand the consequences of this kind of conflict.”

 

“And in every step which happened during Operation Sindoor, I found both sides displaying a lot of rationality in their thoughts as well as actions. So why should we assume that in the nuclear domain, there will be irrationality on someone else’s part?”

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“There is a lot of space before the nuclear threshold is crossed, lots of signaling before that. I think nothing like that happened over a period of time… There is a lot of space for conventional operations which has been created, and this will be the new norm,” he added.

 

The CDS was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the three-day-long Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday.

 

Skirting pointed questions on whether Indian fighter aircraft were downed by the Pakistanis, Gen Chauhan admitted that while there were losses, the numbers are not important. “What was important is why did these losses occur and what did we do after that. So we rectified tactics and then went back in large numbers to hit air bases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defenses with impunity, carried out precision strikes.”

 

“The IAF flew all types of aircraft with all types of ordinances on the 10th (May). Now that satellite images for all the strikes are available, not only through Indian media, but from global sources, and you would have seen that most of the strikes selected were hit with pinpoint accuracy. We were quite certain that none of them (missiles, drones) will go astray and they landed at places where we desired them.”

Defence