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.