Pakistan’s targeting of 15 military installations across Indian cities, including Amritsar, Jammu, and Bhuj, following India’s Operation Sindoor, shows a clear intent to escalate tensions rather than de-escalate, according to security experts.Alex Plitsas, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the initial Indian strikes were “a limited counterterrorism operation” that avoided collateral damage and were carefully calibrated. “The jets didn’t cross the border; missiles came across, struck the targets,” he said. “So, it’s surprising to see such a scale of potential retaliatory strikes from Pakistan.”
Christine Fair, a political analyst, noted that while the rhetoric around Kashmir isn’t new — “every single army chief… has called Kashmir Pakistan’s jugular vein” — the current military posture under Army Chief General Asim Munir is different. “This is Munir’s war,” she said. She argued that the Pakistan Army is behaving like an insurgent institution, launching attacks to show India hasn’t deterred it. “It can’t defeat India militarily. So, how does it win? By showing episodically that it hasn’t been deterred.”
India’s precision targeting of Pakistan’s air defence systems, including in Lahore, was seen not just as retaliation but also as a strategic message. “It was a calibrated counter-response… also a deterrent signal,” said Plitsas. “The key now is whether Pakistan received the message from the Indian military saying, ‘We can reach you… Do you want to keep going back and forth?’”Despite efforts to contain the fallout, the risk of miscalculation remains high. Richard Rossow, Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said, “A single miscalculation could cause significant casualties, putting pressure on both governments to escalate.”Unlike in 2019, when both sides were able to quickly find an off-ramp, no such option seems to exist this time. “The strikes in Pakistan are not going to go unanswered,” Fair said, adding that Munir is “particularly offensive-oriented” and unlikely to back down after the Lahore strike. She warned that significant retaliation was inevitable unless there was international pressure, which currently seems weak.Rossow pointed to the limited capacity of the United States to mediate. “We lack the experienced personnel necessary to engage effectively,” he said, noting that many key diplomatic roles in the Trump administration remain unfilled. While US-India ties remain strong and could encourage restraint, direct American intervention seems unlikely.Watch the accompanying video for the entire discussion.
