"Op Sindoor India's new baseline for countering terrorism linked to Pakistan": Security expert Walter Ladwig

London [UK], May 17 : Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer in International Relations at King's College London and a leading London-based security expert, on Friday said that Operation Sindoor represents a significant shift in India's counter-terrorism strategy and emphasised that the operation sets a new baseline for how India is likely to respond to future terror attacks, particularly those with credible links to Pakistan.

He further noted that India is no longer relying on diplomacy.

"I think it's shown that it is willing to be and can be successfully assertive in its immediate neighbourhood," said Ladwig, referring to India's approach following Operation Sindoor.

"I think we should assume that Operation Sindoor is the new baseline in terms of how India will respond in the future to terrorist attacks that are reasonably credibly linked to Pakistan or perhaps any of its neighbours," he said.

"This is not a country that is going to turn the other cheek or simply rely on diplomatic measures," he added.

Ladwig further said that the most striking aspect of the current India-Pakistan crisis is the clear shift in India's policy on terrorism. He said that, unlike in the past, when India focused on collecting evidence, is now taking military action.

"I think what stood out for me the most was, first, the shift in Indian government policy in terms of responding to terrorist attacks within India that it believes are linked to groups that operate in Pakistan. And whereas in the past we saw governments feel the need to sort of seek to assemble a dossier or provide evidence of linkages... Now, there's a move to a policy stance of saying that a failure to prevent groups from having a safe haven in your territory is enough to bring about a military response when it comes to terrorist activities," Ladwig said.

He further said that the Indian Air Force's ability to carry out strikes in line with standard military procedures and doctrines was impressive.

"And then once the Indian Air Force operated according to standard military procedures and doctrines, the evidence that their ability to really precisely strike a range of targets more or less precisely, I think it was quite impressive," Walter Ladwig said.

When asked about the difference in the kind of evidence shared by both sides, India presenting high-resolution evidence to support its claims, while Pakistan's evidence appears more limited, Ladwig said, "I think India was successful in striking a much wider range of targets and executing more successful missions than the Pakistan side was, which sort of explains why there's so much more information, images and so forth in the open domain that would appear to corroborate the majority of the Indians claims versus Pakistanis."

India launched precise strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan early on May 7 through Operation Sindoor in response to the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed. India also effectively repelled the subsequent Pakistani aggression and pounded its airports.

The two countries have agreed to stop military action and firing following a call made by Pakistan's DGMO to his Indian counterpart.

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