Keywords: Air Power, Proof, Operation Sindoor, Narrative, Strategic Communication

Introduction

It is said in Judiciary circles that Justice must not only be done, but also seem to be done. This article aims to draw a similar analogy to the employment of Air Power, especially in the backdrop of Operation Sindoor. The highest echelons of the Indian Air Force (IAF) repeatedly acknowledged that during the 2019 Balakot air strike, there was insufficient visual proof to demonstrate its success.[1][2] In stark contrast, an ample number of videos/photographs have been provided to the electronic/digital media to validate the likely extent of damage caused by the successful strikes by the Indian Armed Forces during Operation Sindoor.[3] This suggests fundamental implications for doctrines prescribing the employment of Air Power moving forward.

Analysis

Traditionally, the analysis of strike damage formed part of the broader sequence of battle damage assessment (BDA) that feeds into subsequent mission planning.[4] It has been a vital mission-planning tool for decision-makers, especially in the military, revealing the extent of damage to the target and the need for additional waves of attack to neutralise its operational capabilities. However, it had never attained the stature of a prerequisite for proving the success of an operation. The times have changed drastically from when acknowledging damage was considered part of the military ethos.

This phenomenon has become even more acute, given the lengths to which nations and civilisations go to control the strategic narrative. While the latest technologies have brought greater visibility through satellite and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) inputs, they have also enabled digital media to spread like wildfire. The case of “Doosra banda”[5] reeks of motivated social media campaigns to engineer a narrative directed at a domestic media and fallible international audience that is keener on what comes first than on what is correct.[6] In this environment, how is the employment of Air Power affected? It gets affected in a multitude of  ways: –

(a)       Operational Choices:        It is beginning to fundamentally influence target selection. The Vice Chief of Air Staff (VCAS), Air Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari, reflected on how the armed forces narrowed down to selecting nine targets out of many identified during strike preparation.[7] This suggests that some evidential priorities were factored into target selection, leading to the selection of targets on whom damage could be unambiguously documented. Traditionally, targets have been chosen solely on operational considerations, such as the concentration of terrorist training infrastructure and their headquarters. Parallel arrangements were made to plan BDA missions to obtain the requisite assessment. Increasingly, these missions are likely to provide documentary evidence of the damage to the international and national media. As far as Operation Sindoor is concerned, the targets specifically for IAF were the terror headquarters at Muridke and Bahawalpur, a good 30 km and 100 km inside Pakistan territory, respectively.[8] Targeting these sites offered the dual advantage of military strategic value and demonstrable visual proof of damage against legitimate targets, satisfying military requirements for both strategic value and proof generation. The contrast with Balakot is instructive for all to see.

Choice of Weapon has evolved beyond the traditional criteria of lethality, precision and cost-effectiveness. The VCAS, while displaying live strike footage, demonstrated how the use of weapons with integrated sensor packages enabled real-time documentation.[9] Another manifestation of this aspect is the inclusion of unmanned systems specifically for strike documentation, beyond those mandated by BDA considerations. Moving forward, this is likely to affect the entire procurement process, force structuring, mission planning, and execution.

(b)       Phase and Timing of Campaign:           The proof-driven employment structure must be considered in the context of the campaign’s phase. Since it had to be a surprise strike with a limited window for targeting, every weapon had to deliver what it meant to. More than that, every weapon hit should be comprehensively proved to have made an impact. The same cannot be said of campaigns elsewhere, such as in Ukraine and Gaza. However, for such short and swift conflicts with limited objectives on the part of at least one of the belligerents, the need to factor in provability, especially in Air Power employment, needs to be considered.

(c)       Strategic Communication Architecture:          Despite the efforts of the Indian armed forces, this aspect still requires further institutional refinement. As observed during engagements spanning the last two decades[10], the Indian follow-up to a military action has been nuanced, relying on accurate data collection and formal public communication through media briefings. This reflects how a civilised nation behaves; however, what has changed recently is the promulgation and consumption of social media outlets. The IAF, on its part, has made considerable efforts to release strike videos, pre- and post-satellite images, and detailed damage assessments for public consumption.[11] This is not to say that the Indian system is ineffective, but there is room for improvement, especially regarding institutionalised mechanisms for narrative management. Cognitive warfare demands systemic integration of communication into operational design.[12] The enemy, meanwhile, is openly demonstrating how it managed the narrative in its favour during the conflict.[13]

To manage a coordinated, effective, and timely follow-up, it is imperative to institutionalise communication procedures and systems.[14] Training and simulations can only thrive in a system mandated and designed to support them. It would require a flow of aural, visual, and digital information to vantage points that can further decide and regulate its flow to the requisite avenues. This would improve the efficiency and viability of communication; otherwise, it is likely to grow stale and appear to be a manufactured response to enemy propaganda.

(d)       Operational Viability:         The most significant factor affecting a military planner is the operational viability of undertaking such an operation. While it does affect the employment of Air Power in ways it never has till now, provability must not come at the cost of operational effectiveness. The damage caused by long-range surface-to-air weapons has been unprecedented.[15] As noted earlier, this would require subtle changes and inclusions at the procurement stage, while balancing economic considerations. Training would need to align with these weapons and their respective procedures. The most crucial aspect planners need to understand clearly is that this is another factor to be managed and must in no way offset operational effectiveness. Especially as AI-enabled and autonomous weapons rise, it is prudent to maintain positive visual feedback to address legal and ethical concerns. A calculated percentage of weapons with such capabilities would need to be factored in, especially given the likelihood of short, swift conflicts in the neighbourhood. This remains true for India, considering the nuclear dimension unlikely to yield a protracted contest.

Conclusion

The burden of proof has now transcended the realm of BDA and is now an essential consideration for Air Power employment. Operation Sindoor thus highlights a larger paradigm shift in military doctrine, suggesting provability as a crucial operational parameter in the modern information environment. Thomas Schelling describes communication as an essential aspect of deterrence along with capability and intent.[16] The same is true of military actions today, as communications come out into full public glare. For this to remain relevant, it would need timely, authentic visual proof to support the narrative.

In this regard, Operation Sindoor demonstrated the systematic integration of proof generation into operational structures, including target prioritisation, weapon choices, campaign phasing, visible escalation control, optimal communication mechanisms, and limited social media engineering. Moving forward, it would require a revisit to institutionalise this aspect into military planning, which would demand modifications to procurement procedures, training curricula, and operational procedures. Procurement would require a deeper analysis to arrive at the optimal percentage of such weapons and equipment. Communication systems for a ready flow of information with inbuilt regulatory provisions need to be conceived and operationalised at the earliest. A broader introspection would be required to integrate communication mechanisms into operational structures. Training and Simulation would need to follow up.

It has been repeatedly stated that Sindoor has laid to rest the ghost of Balakot, but what remains a concern is perception management, especially in the age of social media. The enduring lesson remains that in contemporary conflict, perception shapes reality and damage as an operational objective must not only be done but also seem to be done.

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Notes:

[1] “Ghost of Balakot’ laid to rest: Air Force chief on why videos of Operation Sindoor mattered” Times of India, August 9, 2025, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/ghost-of-balakot-laid-to-rest-air-force-chief-on-why-videos-of-operation-sindoor-matter-watch/articleshow/123204862.cms. Accessed on November 21 2025.

[2] Lt. Gen. Deependra Singh Hooda (Retd.), “Three Years After Balakot: Reckoning with Two Claims of Victory”, Stimson, February 28, 2022, https://www.stimson.org/2022/three-years-after-balakot-reckoning-with-two-claims-of-victory/, Accessed on November 21 2025.

[3] “Op Sindoor | Very Easy to Start a War…,”, NDTV Defence Summit video footage, August 29, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yeh1UR-jJ4w, Accessed on November 21 2025.

[4] “Joint Publication 3-60: Joint Targeting,” US Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States of America, January 31, 2013, https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Joint_Chiefs-Joint_Targeting_20130131.pdf. Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[5] “3 Years of Balakot Airstrike: Exclusive Eyewitness Account”, Indian Defense News, February 23, 2022; https://www.indiandefensenews.in/2022/02/3-years-of-balakot-airstrike-exclusive.html, Accessed on November 21, 2025, Pakistan initially acknowledged capturing two pilots via a DG ISPR briefing, but quickly retracted.

[6] Ibid

[7] “Less than 50 weapons to end conflict’: IAF on Op Sindoor”, Times of India, August 30, 2025, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/less-than-50-weapons-to-end-conflict-iaf-on-op-sindoor-details-why-pak-asked-for-ceasefire/articleshow/123600869.cms, Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[8] “Vice Air Chief Reveals Details Of Op Sindoor, Shows New Footage”, ABP Live, August 30, 2025, http://news.abplive.com/news/india/within-48-hours-vice-air-chief-reveals-details-of-op-sindoor-shows-new-footage-1797466, Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[9] NDTV, n. 3.

[10] For historical context on India’s evolving military response patterns, see Ministry of Defence press releases “2016 Uri surgical strikes”, Press Information Bureau, https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=151242, “2019 Balakot airstrike”, Ministry of External Affairs, https://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings.htm?dtl%2F31090%2FStatement+by+Foreign+Secretary+on+26+February+2019+on+the+Strike+on+JeM+training+camp+at+Balakot, and “2025 Operation Sindoor,” Press Information Bureau https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2149356, Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[11] ABP Live, n. 8.

[12] Christoph Deppe, Gary S. Schaal, NATO Allied Command Transformation, “Cognitive warfare: a conceptual analysis,” Frontiers, https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/big-data/articles/10.3389/fdata.2024.1452129/full, Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[13] “The Current Life with Information Minister Attaullah Tarar”, The Current, YouTube, June 7, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcFvH9GPSkY . Minister Tarar describes the room as “where we won the narrative war from.”, Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[14] “Commander’s Handbook – Strategic Communication,” US Joint Forces Command, United States of America, DTIC, October 27, 2009, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA544861.pdf;
“Allied Joint Doctrine for Joint Targeting, AJP-3.9,” 2021, NATO, November, 2021 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/618e7da28fa8f5037ffaa03f/AJP-3.9_EDB_V1_E.pdf, Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[15] “‘Could look deep inside’: IAF chief reveals ‘longest kill’ during Op Sindoor; shares losses suffered by Pak” Times of India, October 3, 2025, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/4-5-f-16s-destroyed-iaf-chief-on-what-turned-tables-in-op-sindoor-calls-pak-narrative-manohar-kahaniya/articleshow/124285354.cms, Accessed on November 21, 2025.

[16] Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 34-47. Schelling argues that deterrence requires three elements: capability, intent, and credible communication.

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Keywords: Theatre Commands, Force Reconfiguration, Warfighting, Joint War Fighting

Introduction

Operation Sindoor was the first significant armed conflict after the establishment of the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) and the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) in August 2019. Since the establishment of CDS, there has been a consistent focus on jointness and shedding of single-service interests. Thus, over time, it has become almost sacrilegious to speak of individual service interests. Jointness is now the accepted convention. While the actions of the Indian Air Force (IAF) during Op Sindoor resulted in spectacular outcomes, many of which were caught on camera, there have been no attempts by the IAF to boast about their achievements. Likewise, considering the damage observed on the Indian border villages inflicted by Pakistan, it would be safe to assume that the Indian Army’s response would have been far more devastating on Pakistan. Similarly, no attempts were made to showcase them either. The tri-service press briefs have been well-coordinated and included the actions of the Navy, which were out of public sight. Another key aspect is the visible synergistic action of the Ministries of External Affairs (MEA) and Defence (MoD). In 2019, the initial press brief, following the Balakot strikes, was delivered by the Foreign Secretary with no MoD representation. Whereas in Op Sindoor, both MEA and MoD representatives participated in all press briefings. Thus, this operation could be studied in future as a textbook case of synergy in national security.

The concept of ‘theaterisation’ has been popularised as a solution to a perceived lack of jointness in the Indian Armed Forces. Various authors have proposed several models. However, in the absence of theatre commands, what explains the synergy during Op Sindoor? I attempt an explanation.

The results for this synergy can be traced back to 1944, when the original seeds of jointness were planted in India. The Government of Sudan, recognising the valour and sacrifice of Indians in the Second World War in the defence of Sudan, gifted an amount of £ 1,00,000 for the construction of an Indian national war memorial. The Indian National War Memorial Committee of Council was constituted.

This committee, after a thorough debate, recommended the construction of a tri-services military academy as the most suitable form of a war memorial.

Following this decision, another subcommittee was formed to study and make recommendations for the Indian Military Academy. The Subcommittee thus recommended the creation of what is now known as the National Defence Academy (NDA) with the iconic Sudan Block as its central structure.

The Subcommittee included Vice-Chancellors from universities, the principal of a school, and members of all three services, including then-Wing Commander Subroto Mukerjee, who later became the Air Chief. They toured eleven military academies across the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and Canada, studying in detail the training, syllabus, moral code of conduct, general orientation, and other aspects

Indian Armed Forces officers, fresh from the experience of the Second World War, understood the significance of integration. None of the countries across the world then had a joint military academy. Thus, their proposal for a joint academy was novel.

In terms of integration, considerable thought and discussion went into the design of the training. To date, NDA follows this model of common training for all three services in the first two years, followed by the introduction of service-specific training in the third year.

The training was also designed to foster a deeper appreciation of each other’s perspectives. All cadets were supposed to have sufficient exposure to aviation to make them ‘air-minded’. A lack of air-mindedness is often cited as the key cause by proponents of air power when issues of jointness are argued. Unfortunately, paragraph 148(d) is no longer part of the NDA training.  It is perhaps worth revisiting this recommendation from 1945. The formation of the National Defence Academy (NDA) laid the groundwork for jointness among the Indian Armed Forces (the first seed of jointness).

Admission into NDA was to be purely based on merit and devoid of any form of reservation, including that for the wards of ex-servicemen.

This gave rise to a new problem: How could independent India generate a pool of suitable candidates to meet the annual requirement of an intake of 700 officer cadets from across the country’s diverse locations and varying income statuses when the educational setup in India was inferior? This led to the creation of Feeder institutes. Thus, the second seed for jointness — the feeder institutes was planted. These institutes offer joint military training right from class six onwards. The students go on to occupy leadership positions across various fields beyond the military as well.

Returning to the key question of this article, what explains the synergy during Op Sindoor? The answer lies in the bonhomie between the service chiefs. Army and Navy chiefs are classmates from Sainik School Rewa, and the Air Chief and the Army Chief are course mates from NDA.[2] These are lifelong relationships with the equivalent of a family-level bond characterised by depth and strength. People go to great lengths for each other. Both feeder institutes (schools) and NDA are Indian investments in jointness, even before independence and were pathbreaking in the world at the time of their inception. To put it differently, India has been a pioneer of jointness in the world. Therefore, if any shortcomings in jointness are perceived, it would be prudent to examine the training, staffing and culture at NDA and similar institutes as the source. Deviations from the core founding principles of any institution are possible as it evolves over time.

Finally, Colin Gray wrote, “Joint, which is to say multi-service, doctrine should express a judicious melding of beliefs among culturally distinct institutions, but often it comprises more of a brute force stapling together of unlike elements than a coherent whole. So-called joint military plans and performance similarly can have the character of a shotgun marriage than of anything resembling harmony.”[3] Neglecting one’s own history and pursuing solutions from foreign models can lead to a stapled model of jointness or a ‘shotgun marriage’. It is worthwhile to revisit the history of jointness in India, in depth, to avoid such a situation.

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Notes

[1] Press Information Bureau, Government of India, “Feeder Schools for the National War Academy,” January 27, 1947, https://archive.pib.gov.in/archive/ArchiveSecondPhase/DEFENCE/1947-JULY-DEC-MIN-OF-DEFENCE/PDF/DEF-1947-01-27_030.pdf . Accessed on September 24, 2025.

[2] “Two Coursemates, Two Classmates, Will Now Head Three Armed Force Services,” The Economic Times, September 21, 2024,https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/two-coursemates-two-classmates-will-now-head-three-armed-force-services/articleshow/113552033.cms. Accessed on September 24, 2025.

[3] Colin S. Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) p. 77.

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