Cost of terrorism has risen as India ushers in a new normal

Operation Sindoor marked a decisive shift in India's counter-terrorism doctrine — not merely as a retaliatory action, but as a calculated strategy of cost escalation designed to deal with cross-border terrorism.

- JAYANTH JACOB @New Delhi

By striking terror infrastructure deep within Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), India signaled that cross-border terrorism would no longer be tolerated without a tangible and rising price.

Indian officials termed the strikes measured, proportionate, and non-escalatory, and the intent was anything but it being business as usual with Pakistan. The goal was to establish a new normal — one in which India responds decisively and with strategic clarity to every provocation, raising the cost for Pakistan's use of terror proxies and re-setting expectations for international actors accustomed to Indian restraint.

But the question remains, what would be the threshold for a retaliatory military action?

As explained by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on May 7, Operation Sindoor was guided by three core objectives: to prevent further terrorist activity, to deter the use of cross-border proxies by Pakistan-based terror groups, and to pre-empt specific threats identified through intelligence.

This framework aligns with a growing strategic shift in New Delhi's security thinking — limited, intelligence-led, and politically integrated operations that send a long-term message to Pakistan and the international community alike.

The trigger for Operation Sindoor came on April 22, when terrorists trained and armed in Pakistan — operating under the cover name The Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot — carried out a brutal attack in Pahalgam, killing 26 civilians.