Our senior defence generals have been authorised by our in any other case silent authorities to admit to 2 points arising from occasions within the 23 minutes that it took (in line with Nationwide Safety Adviser Ajit Doval) to take out 9 terrorist camps in Pakistan simply after midnight on Could 7: first, admitting to “losses”, with the coda that these are inevitable in fight; and second, noting “tactical errors” within the first spherical, made good within the second. What has not but been revealed is the dimensions and kind of Indian fighter plane downed. It’s argued that this can’t be avowed whereas hostilities are on. One can solely construe this to imply that with Operation Sindoor declared open-ended, hostilities proceed.

In the meantime, it will appear the “tactical error” lay in flying our fighter plane too near the border to flee being hit by the Pakistan Air Drive utilizing Chinese language weaponry. And the correction on this “tactical error” lay in flying our plane some 100 km away from the border. The query, subsequently, arises: why was the risk from flying on the fringe of our airspace not accounted for when planning the bombing of Pakistani terrorist infrastructure? Particularly because the “tactical correction” merely required our flying additional inland. Was it as a result of we underestimated the extent of Pak-China army collaboration? And was this underestimation primarily as a result of we thought we had been taking up puny Pakistan, not realising that the Pakistani David had merged into the Chinese language Goliath?

If there was, in actual fact, “underestimation” of Pak-China air and missile energy, was this associated to our not having had any significant contact with both Pakistan or China for years—with Pakistan for the reason that Modi authorities entered workplace in 2014, 11 years in the past, and with out even a full complement of diplomatic mission employees (together with Excessive Commissioners and defence attachés) since 2019?

And, with regard to China, little or no contact after their incursion into the Galwan Valley till very lately. Did we all know the complete extent of Chinese language weight within the Pakistani punch and nonetheless make the “tactical error” of flying too near Pakistan? Or was it the shortage of persistent dialog with these adversaries that accounted for the hole in our data of Pak-China’s army capabilities that led to our dropping an undisclosed variety of plane, together with a number of of Modi’s star acquisitions, the Rafale?

And what’s one to make of reports experiences of the French authorities having circulated directions to its envoys, particularly these in international locations contemplating buying Rafale plane themselves, to counter Chinese language “propaganda” in regards to the efficiency of Chinese language plane and missile platforms vis-à-vis Rafale and Indian missile platforms within the first ever use in precise fight of Chinese language JC10 plane and Chinese language 15 BVR missile platforms?

Why would the Chinese language boast to one and all of the prevalence of their weapons and armaments, together with fashionable digital and cyberwarfare, in the event that they haven’t any proof of their efficiency within the four-day India-Pakistan struggle, and why would the French must activate their diplomatic energy to stay within the race and never give in to Chinese language competitors until they should brush away the miasma over what transpired to the Rafale?

Patton Nagar syndrome

Maybe too we had been caught within the Patton Nagar syndrome. Readers of my technology will vividly recall that within the 1965 battle, our tanks had been reputed to be as nothing in comparison with the squadrons of Patton tanks the Individuals had liberally supplied to Pakistan. However whereas, technically, the Patton tanks ought to have out-performed our tanks, poor coaching and poorer battlefield deployment led to India disabling and even capturing so many Patton tanks that they had been later grouped into one location and named “Patton Nagar” for the delectation of Indian guests. Did we predict the identical destiny would befall the Pakistani airmen piloting the Chinese language plane and manning their refined missile platforms?

In fact, there was nothing so secretive in regards to the Chinese language Aeronautics Company based mostly in Chengdu and Chinese language army manufacturing capability, as additionally the hands-on coaching of Pakistani pilots and joint workouts, that our Air Drive wouldn’t have examine and absorbed. The essential lacking component was face-to-face contact with Pakistan and China within the essential years of the run-up to Operation Sindoor.

Such dialogue, and full diplomatic relations, would have alerted us to Pak-China army capabilities. That is how the US and the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) realized about one another by means of probably the most freezing moments of their Chilly Conflict—persistent contact with the enemy. We again off.

We appear to be readying for a two-front struggle. In actuality, our army problem is principally on one entrance: the Pak-China entrance throughout our western border. In earlier wars—similar to in 1965, 1971, and 1999—we saved a cautious eye on the China entrance to reply any pincer motion by the Chinese language to help Pakistan militarily. Now, the Chinese language presence has shifted to the territory of Pakistan. Chinese language consultants had been truly sitting with their Pakistani counterparts in guiding Chinese language-made plane and missiles and conducting digital and cyberwarfare, not simply supplying refined army {hardware}, nor simply sitting again, as previously, to ponder opening a second entrance throughout the excessive Himalaya.

We have to perceive Chinese language compulsions to safeguard their single largest and single most dangerous worldwide funding: the China Pakistan Financial Hall. India predicted it will bankrupt Pakistan. In fact, it has—and the Chinese language knew it will. However for the Chinese language, the funding is nicely well worth the threat due to the opening that it provides them to bypass the slender Strait of Malacca (the place they might be bottled up) to safe straight, straightforward, and fast entry to the Indian Ocean.

To guard this invaluable funding, China has to militarily help Pakistan in any army confrontation with India. Did we adequately issue this in when figuring out that the suitable response to Pahalgam was to bomb terrorist buildings and communications within the perception that this could restrain Pakistan from pursuing its decades-old coverage of bleeding India with “a thousand cuts”—a coverage that has not solely failed Pakistan repeatedly over 35 years however given the BJP an immensely efficient software to win elections?

So, whereas it’s, in fact, acceptable, and even vital, to fortify ourselves to militarily tackle the Pakistanis and the Chinese language individually or collectively, it’s much more essential that we open a diplomatic blitzkrieg to make South Asia not tomorrow’s battlefield however tomorrow’s zone of peace. “Uninterrupted and uninterruptible dialogue” is required with each Pakistan and China, particularly in view of the whole lack of worldwide help for our narrative that hinges on figuring out and punishing Pakistan because the fountainhead of terrorism aimed toward India and its residents.

So, even because the fall-out of Operation Sindoor requires army readability, so too ought to we not be fooling ourselves over the result of our diplomatic offensive. Lengthy earlier than Shashi Tharoor and his cohort departed on their missions overseas, the UN Safety Council (UNSC) met two days after the terrorist outrage within the meadow outdoors Pahalgam. The everlasting members with veto powers, who embody China, unanimously denounced the ghastly terrorist acts of April 22, 2025. The non-permanent members, who embody Pakistan, not solely unanimously joined the everlasting members in condemning terrorism, they demanded additionally that the “perpetrators, sponsors, financiers” and others concerned in arming and supporting the terrorists be dropped at justice.

Pakistan had no hesitation in whole-heartedly endorsing the press launch—as a result of the UNSC didn’t even try to call who was behind the horrific killings. Removed from indicting Pakistan, the UNSC, in impact, exonerated Pakistan by not naming it and even hinting at it. Efforts by the Indian Everlasting Mission to the UN to change the UNSC stand got here to nought. And have remained at nought however the heroic endeavours of Tharoor & co, in addition to the Prime Minister and his Sancho Panza.

In whichever discussion board—UNSC, BRICS, SCO, et al.—the place India has sought to get Pakistan named in order to transcend the language of the UNSC press launch, no discussion board has obliged. They’ve caught to the language of the UNSC press launch that intentionally eschewed naming Pakistan because the perpetrator, sponsor, financier, and supporter of cross-border terrorism in India. Not even Bhutan or Maldives, nor even Mauritius whose Indian-origin Hindu majority has usually supported us, has spoken up for us this time. It has been a convincing diplomatic catastrophe. Our solely overt help has come from Benjamin Netanyahu, an individual the Worldwide Felony Courtroom has charged with struggle crimes and issued an arrest warrant for.

And the winner is…

Certainly, the largest gainer post-Pahalgam is Pakistan. For not solely has Pakistan been protected against inclusion within the Monetary Motion Process Drive’s blacklist, it has additionally obtained beneficiant monetary lodging to rescue its flailing economic system from each the World Financial institution and the Worldwide Financial Fund, and, bilaterally, huge monetary help from each China and america. Apart from, the self-promoted Area Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army dictator in an allegedly civil authorities, has had the unprecedented privilege of being invited to luncheon with the US President within the White Home regardless of not being both a head of state or head of presidency. The world clearly regards Pakistan as far too essential strategically to permit it to fail.

The one strategic method ahead is to open diplomatic channels in all seriousness to pre-empt a one-front struggle in opposition to Pakistan and China collectively on the plains of the Indus by two-front “de-escalation, dialogue, and diplomacy” with Pakistan and China respectively, as our Prime Minister urges on everybody however himself. If, certainly, this isn’t an “Period of Conflict”, as Modiji has proclaimed, it’s time he began speaking with our western and northern neighbours, to not confront however to reconcile. Is our non-biological chief on a divine mission able to sheathing his sword and rising as a peacemaker in our a part of the world? That would actually qualify him to get forward of his buddy, Donald Trump, within the queue lining up for the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Mani Shankar Aiyar served 26 years in the Indian Foreign Service, is a four-time MP with over two decades in Parliament, and was a Cabinet Minister from 2004 to 2009. Courtesy: Frontline magazine, a fortnightly English language magazine published by The Hindu Group of publications headquartered in Chennai, India.]