The Evolution of Beyond Visual Range Air Combat in South Asia: A Multidimensional Analysis of Operation Sindoor (2025) and Its Global Strategic Implications

Executive Summary

Operation Sindoor, conducted between 7 and 10 May 2025, represents a decisive moment in the history of contemporary air combat. This four-day confrontation between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers with a long history of military confrontations, transformed into the largest beyond visual range combat engagement ever documented in modern military history. The conflict involved more than one hundred and fourteen aircraft, seventy-two belonging to the Indian Air Force and between forty-two and fifty from the Pakistani Air Force, operating in a scenario where no terrestrial border crossings were recorded. This air battle validated emerging doctrines of surgical strikes below the nuclear threshold, whilst simultaneously exposing critical vulnerabilities in Chinese, Russian, and Western weapons systems. The present monograph develops an exhaustive academic analysis that balances the perspectives of India, Pakistan, China, France, the United States, and Russia, employing primary sources from reports produced by think tanks such as the Stimson Center, the Observer Research Foundation, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as secondary sources from specialised journals and open-source intelligence analyses conducted by MAXAR Technologies. Simultaneously, this study identifies and refutes disinformation narratives disseminated by state and non-state actors in the context of this conflict.

Chapter I: Theoretical Framework and Historical Contextualisation of BVR Combat

1.1 The Historical Evolution of Beyond Visual Range Combat: From the Cold War to Sindoor

The interested reader should recall that a complete analysis of this section, with doctrinal, historical, and further aspects, is available in this document published in Hermes Kalamos.

Beyond visual range combat constitutes a specific modality of air engagement in which pilots execute missile launches against targets without establishing direct visual contact with them. This form of combat depends fundamentally on advanced radars, sophisticated electronic warfare systems, and complex networks of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. The operational doctrine underpinning this type of combat emerged during the Cold War period, subsequently consolidating in conflicts such as the 1991 Gulf War, where American AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles demonstrated their fire-and-forget capability at distances exceeding fifty kilometres (Lambeth, 2000). However, until 2019, no engagement of this type had directly involved nuclear powers, which transformed both the Balakot incident of 26 and 27 February 2019 and, especially, Operation Sindoor of 2025, into unique laboratories for the study of controlled escalation under the umbrella of nuclear deterrence.

Thomas Schelling theorised extensively on tactical escalation in his seminal work Arms and Influence, arguing that rational adversaries constantly seek to emit costly signals that demonstrate their resolve without crossing thresholds that might be considered existential (Schelling, 1966). For his part, Herman Kahn introduced in his work On Escalation the concept of the escalation ladder, composed of forty-four rungs ranging from minor diplomatic crises to total thermonuclear war (Kahn, 1965). Within this conceptual framework, Operation Sindoor can be positioned between rungs fifteen and twenty of Kahn's classification, corresponding to conventional surgical strikes accompanied by implicit nuclear signalling. This signalling manifested itself through movements of Pakistani Fatah-II short-range ballistic missiles near Indian strategic sites, although without any atomic detonations being executed. Christopher Clary, in his exhaustive analysis for the Stimson Center, describes this situation as a precarious equilibrium where India achieved coercive objectives that included the destruction of terrorist infrastructure and the degradation of twenty per cent of Pakistani air capacity valued at an estimated one billion US dollars, whilst Pakistan salvaged its national prestige through tactical shoot-downs in beyond visual range combat that, according to Pakistani claims partially verified through open-source intelligence, reached between four and seven Indian aircraft (Clary, 2025a, p. 67).

1.2 The Conceptualisation of Multidimensionality in Contemporary Combat

The multidimensionality of contemporary combat transcends widely beyond the traditional air domain, integrating five fundamental operational dimensions that include land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. To these five dimensions a sixth is added, corresponding to the cognitive or informational domain, where battles are waged for the control of narratives and public perceptions (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2018). During Operation Sindoor, this multidimensionality manifested itself in a particularly evident manner across various operational aspects. In the air domain proper, beyond visual range combat duels were conducted using Meteor missiles manufactured by MBDA in France against Chinese-manufactured PL-15E missiles, operating at distances ranging between seventy and two hundred kilometres. These duels were mediated by sophisticated electronic jamming systems executed from AWACS platforms, specifically the Swedish-Pakistani Erieye and the Israeli-Indian Phalcon.

In the space domain, satellite intelligence provided by companies such as MAXAR and Planet Labs proved fundamental for target cueing. China provided Pakistan with high-resolution imagery from its Gaofen satellites in near real-time, with latencies of less than seven-tenths of a second according to signals intelligence intercepts conducted by the Atlantic Council in 2025. The cyber domain manifested itself primarily through the jamming of GPS and GNSS frequencies executed by Chinese systems such as the ZDK-03, although these efforts were partially countered by the GNSS interference immunity of Israeli Harop drones operated by India (IAI, 2025). Finally, the cognitive domain acquired critical relevance through massive disinformation campaigns deployed on platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, and Telegram. On these platforms, bots controlled by Chinese actors amplified hashtags such as #IndianFalseFlag, generating ten million impressions over a seventy-two-hour period as documented by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in 2025.

The Chinese doctrine known as system of systems, described extensively by Mulvaney in his studies for the China Aerospace Studies Institute, seeks to integrate J-10C and J-20 fighters, advanced space sensors, and electronic warfare capabilities into a resilient network designed specifically for anti-access and area denial operations (Mulvaney, 2020). However, Operation Sindoor exposed critical gaps in this doctrinal approach. The PL-15E missile experienced a terminal failure rate of sixty per cent due fundamentally to electronic countermeasures executed by the French SPECTRA system installed on Indian Rafale fighters (Clary, 2025a, p. 52; DRDO, 2025). This technical revelation, confirmed through the analysis of recovered debris, represented a significant finding that altered perceptions about the actual effectiveness of Chinese weapons systems in high-intensity combat scenarios.

Chapter II: Exhaustive Technical Analysis of Weapons Systems Employed in Sindoor

2.1 The Technological Duel between BVR Missiles: Meteor versus PL-15E

The confrontation between the Meteor missile manufactured by MBDA and the PL-15E produced by AVIC in China encapsulates in a paradigmatic manner the technological rivalries between Europe and China in the twenty-first century. Both systems represent the pinnacle of available technology in beyond visual range combat missiles, although they differ radically in fundamental aspects such as propulsion, guidance systems, and actual operational performance under combat conditions. The Meteor missile employs a variable-flow ramjet propulsion system with solid fuel, technically known as a ducted rocket, which enables it to maintain speeds exceeding Mach four throughout the entire terminal flight phase. This characteristic provides the Meteor with a no-escape zone extending between sixty and eighty kilometres, significantly superior to that of its competitors. The missile can accelerate during the terminal phase specifically to counter evasive manoeuvres executed by the target, maintaining a sustained speed that optimises its impact probabilities.

Conversely, the PL-15E utilises a dual-pulse solid-fuel rocket motor which, whilst achieving peak speeds exceeding Mach five in its initial phase, experiences a significant energy loss after the initial fuel burn. The second pulse in the terminal phase proves considerably less efficient than the Meteor's ramjet system, which reduces the PL-15E's no-escape zone to a range of between forty and sixty kilometres in actual operational scenarios. The Meteor's guidance system incorporates an active AESA radar complemented with NATO-standard-compatible Link 16 data-link, providing elevated resistance to electronic countermeasures. The PL-15E, for its part, also incorporates an active AESA radar and Chinese-manufactured data-link, although it has proven vulnerable to advanced jamming systems such as the SPECTRA installed on French Rafale fighters.

In terms of physical dimensions and weight, the Meteor presents specifications of one hundred and eighty-five kilogrammes total weight, with a length of three metres and sixty-five centimetres and a diameter of nought point one seven eight metres, making it compatible with internal stations of fifth-generation fighters such as the F-35. The PL-15E is more voluminous, with two hundred kilogrammes weight, three metres and ninety-six centimetres length and nought point two zero three metres diameter. The Meteor's unit cost is situated between two and three million US dollars, reflecting limited European production and research and development costs. The PL-15E, benefiting from Chinese mass production, has an estimated unit cost of between one and one point five million dollars, making it significantly more economical although with compromises in capabilities, especially in export versions.

During Operation Sindoor, the Meteor's performance demonstrated an initial effectiveness of forty per cent, experiencing failures in sixty per cent of cases due primarily to jamming executed by Pakistani Erieye and ZDK-03 AWACS systems. However, the Meteor's superior no-escape zone enabled Indian Rafale fighters to avoid locks in eighty-five per cent of cases during the terminal phase of combat (Clary, 2025a, p. 48; IFRI, 2025). The PL-15E, launched from Pakistani J-10C fighters, achieved between four and seven confirmed shoot-downs according to Pakistani claims, including between three and four Rafales, one Su-30MKI, and possibly one Heron drone. This initial success was attributed fundamentally to the missile's initial sprint and the cueing provided by Erieye AWACS systems. Nevertheless, a PL-15E missile recovered intact in the locality of Hoshiarpur, in the Indian state of Punjab, revealed significant failures both in the self-destruct system and in the degraded seeker of the export version (DRDO, 2025). Christopher Clary summarised this situation by noting that the PL-15E does not represent the invincible lightning bolt proclaimed by Chinese assertions, but rather its combat debut clearly exposed the compromises inherent to export versions, specifically in terms of reduced range and search capabilities less resistant to electronic countermeasures (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 45).

The multilateral perspectives on the performance of both missiles reflect the different strategic priorities of the actors involved. France, through the Institut Français des Relations Internationales, emphasised that the Meteor proved to be a watershed in terms of no-escape zone, although it recognised that the vulnerabilities detected to Chinese jamming require significant upgrades in the F5 version of the Rafale, incorporating artificial intelligence to improve cueing (IFRI, 2025). China, through the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, argued that the PL-15E validated the superiority of the initial sprint of Chinese systems, although it admitted that the missile's recovery by India will inevitably accelerate the development of countermeasures. The institute emphasised that the domestic version of the PL-15 remains classified and significantly surpasses Western systems (CICIR, 2025). India, through the Observer Research Foundation, characterised the Meteor's failures as tactical rather than structural, arguing that integration with S-400 and SPECTRA systems saved complete formations, whilst projecting that the indigenous Astra Mk2 missile will achieve parity with foreign systems by 2027 (ORF, 2025a). Pakistan, represented by the Strategic Vision Institute, defended that the PL-15E effectively levelled the playing field against a Rafale it considers overrated, arguing that the first day's shoot-downs demonstrate clear tactical superiority (SVI, 2025).

Comparative Specifications

The duel between the Meteor (MBDA) and the PL-15E (AVIC, China) encapsulates, as we can appreciate, European-Chinese technological rivalries in the twenty-first century. Both represent the pinnacle of BVR technology, but differ radically in propulsion, guidance, and operational performance.

2.2 Combat Air Platforms: Rafale EH versus J-10C

The Dassault Rafale EH operated by India represents the pinnacle of French aerospace engineering in fourth-generation-plus multirole fighter-bombers. India acquired thirty-six units of this sophisticated system in 2016 through a contract valued at eight thousand seven hundred million US dollars, which included not only the aircraft but also associated armament and training programmes for pilots and maintenance personnel. These units are operated by Number Seventeen Squadron, known as Golden Arrows, deployed at Ambala air base in the state of Haryana. The RBE2 AESA radar manufactured by Thales provides target detection capabilities with a radar cross-section of one square metre at approximate distances of two hundred kilometres, with simultaneous tracking capacity of up to forty different targets. The SPECTRA electronic warfare system, also manufactured by Thales, integrates active jamming capabilities, electronic decoys, electronic intelligence countermeasures, and missile approach warning systems, providing three-hundred-and-sixty-degree protection against electronic and kinetic threats.

The Rafale's payload capacity reaches nine and a half tonnes, enabling it to carry Meteor missiles for beyond visual range combat, SCALP-EG cruise missiles with a range of five hundred and fifty kilometres, HAMMER guided bombs with a range of seventy kilometres, and Exocet anti-ship missiles. Flight performance includes a maximum speed of Mach one point eight, an operational ceiling of fifteen thousand two hundred and forty metres, and a combat radius of one thousand eight hundred and fifty kilometres when operating with an external fuel tank. During Operation Sindoor, approximately between ten and fifteen Rafale fighters actively participated in strikes against nine terrorist camps located in localities such as Bahawalpur and Muridke, as well as against eleven Pakistani Air Force bases situated in Sargodha, Bholari, and Jacobabad. These strikes achieved a success rate of ninety-five per cent employing SCALP-EG cruise missiles against enemy command and control centres, specifically at Nur Khan and Rafiqui bases, whilst simultaneously maintaining minimal collateral damage (Clary, 2025a, p. 48).

However, the first day of operations, corresponding to 7 May, recorded the loss of between two and three Rafale fighters shot down by PL-15E missiles at approximately seventy kilometres from the border, within Indian airspace. These shoot-downs were attributed fundamentally to jamming executed by Erieye AWACS systems, which caused delays of between three and four seconds in the sensor fusion of the IACCS system, known as the Integrated Air Command and Control System. The SPECTRA system demonstrated capacity to avoid forty per cent of locks executed by PL-15E missiles through directional jamming and employment of electronic decoys, although it was overcome by the multivectorial coordination between J-10C fighters and Erieye AWACS platforms (IFRI, 2025). As a result of these operational losses, France announced the development of anti-jamming upgrades based on artificial intelligence that will be incorporated in the F5 standard of the Rafale (Ministère des Armées, 2025).

The Chengdu J-10C operated by Pakistan represents the Chinese response to Western fighters such as the American F-16 and the French Rafale, with particular emphasis on cost reduction and optimisation of integration with Chinese-manufactured C4ISR networks. This fourth-generation-plus multirole fighter-bomber was developed by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group and currently constitutes the backbone of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force. Pakistan acquired twenty-five units in 2022 through a contract valued at approximately one thousand five hundred million US dollars. The KLJ-10A AESA radar manufactured by NRIET provides target detection capabilities with a radar cross-section of five square metres at approximate distances of one hundred and fifty kilometres, with simultaneous tracking capacity of fifteen targets. The payload capacity reaches six tonnes, enabling it to carry PL-15E missiles for beyond visual range combat with a range of one hundred and forty-five kilometres, PL-10E missiles for within visual range combat, and CM-400AKG anti-radiation missiles with a range of two hundred and forty kilometres.

The J-10C's flight performance includes a maximum speed of Mach one point eight, an operational ceiling of eighteen thousand metres, and a combat radius of one thousand two hundred kilometres. During Operation Sindoor, approximately between ten and fifteen J-10C fighters executed air ambush tactics guided by Erieye AWACS platforms, achieving between four and seven confirmed shoot-downs using PL-15E missiles at distances between seventy and one hundred and sixty kilometres. Coordination with Chinese-manufactured ZDK-03 AWACS platforms enabled the establishment of encrypted data-links with latencies of less than seven-tenths of a second, temporarily surpassing the fusion capabilities of Indian IACCS-Phalcon systems (Clary, 2025a, p. 52). Nevertheless, the J-10C proved detectable by Indian S-400 radars at approximate distances of two hundred and fifty kilometres, and no losses were confirmed by Indian sources, although Pakistani claims maintain having shot down between six and seven enemy aircraft without these assertions having been verified through MAXAR satellite imagery.

The multilateral perspectives on these platforms reflect differentiated strategic positions. China, through the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, argued that the J-10C validated its military exports, demonstrating that Chinese systems equal or surpass Western ones at a fraction of the operational and acquisition cost (CICIR, 2025). India, through the Observer Research Foundation, counter-argued that the J-10C proves vulnerable to the S-400 system and that its KLJ-10A radar is clearly inferior to the Rafale's RBE2 AESA, characterising the shoot-downs as tactical rather than structural (ORF, 2025a). Pakistan, represented by the Strategic Vision Institute, defended the J-10C as the definitive equaliser against the Rafale, arguing that the absence of confirmed losses demonstrates unquestionable tactical superiority (SVI, 2025).

2.3 Air Defence Systems: S-400 Triumf versus HQ-9

The S-400 Triumf system, designated by NATO as SA-21 Growler and developed by the Russian corporation Almaz-Antey, represents one of the most advanced long-range air defence systems currently available on the international armaments market. India acquired five complete regiments in 2018 through a contract valued at five thousand five hundred million US dollars, of which three regiments were operational during Operation Sindoor in 2025. The system incorporates multiple specialised radars, including the 91N6E which provides three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panoramic surveillance with a range of six hundred kilometres, the 92N6E which functions as a multifunction guidance radar with a range of four hundred kilometres, the Protivnik-GE which operates in UHF band specifically designed to detect stealth aircraft with a range of four hundred kilometres, and the Moscow-1 which functions as a passive sensor with a range of four hundred kilometres and efficiency two point five times superior to the Protivnik-GE.

The interceptor missiles include the 40N6E with a range of four hundred kilometres designed specifically to neutralise AWACS platforms and ballistic missiles, the 48N6DM with a range of two hundred and fifty kilometres, and the 9M96E2 with a range of one hundred and twenty kilometres which employs hit-to-kill technology especially effective against highly manoeuvrable targets. The system provides simultaneous tracking capabilities of thirty-six different targets with kill probabilities between eighty and ninety-five per cent, intercept speeds up to Mach fourteen, and operational mobility enabling complete deployment or withdrawal in five minutes. During Operation Sindoor, the Indian S-400, operationally known as Sudarshan Chakra, proved pivotal for Indian defensive operations, neutralising between ninety and ninety-five per cent of all Pakistani threats. The system shot down between six and seven Pakistani Air Force fighters, specifically F-16 and JF-17 according to Indian assertions not confirmed by Pakistani sources, one Erieye AWACS platform through cueing provided by BrahMos supersonic missiles, approximately two hundred drones in swarms out of a total of approximately six hundred launched including Wing Loong and CH-4, and Fatah-II ballistic missiles operating at Mach six speed near the Indian bases of Sirsa and Adampur (Clary, 2025a, p. 55).

The 92N6E radar and 40N6E missiles ensured kill probabilities of ninety per cent against both ballistic and aerodynamic targets. However, the system experienced operational overload during the first day of operations, allowing approximately twenty per cent of Pakistani drones to penetrate the defences. This vulnerability was subsequently mitigated through integration with the Indian-manufactured Akash system via the Akashteer network (ORF, 2025b). The identified limitations include gaps against hypersonic missiles operating at speeds exceeding Mach ten, a category in which China is developing systems such as the DF-17, as well as critical dependence on highly trained personnel. The training of Indian operators required two years of instruction with Russian technicians, representing a significant investment in specialised human capital.

The HQ-9 system, developed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, represents a long-range air defence system analogous to the Russian S-300, exported to Pakistan in its HQ-9P/BE variant. Pakistan operated approximately three batteries during Operation Sindoor in 2025. The HT-233 radar provides detection capabilities up to two hundred kilometres with simultaneous tracking capacity of six different targets. DK-10A interceptor missiles operate at a maximum range of two hundred kilometres with Mach four speed and fragmentation warheads of one hundred and eighty kilogrammes. The system integrates into a layered defence architecture complemented with FM-90 systems of thirty kilometres range and HQ-16 of seventy kilometres range.

During Operation Sindoor, the HQ-9 experienced failure rates of fifty per cent in intercepts against BrahMos supersonic missiles operating at speeds between Mach two point eight and three, as well as against SCALP-EG subsonic missiles operating at Mach nought point ninety-five. These failures were attributed primarily to low-altitude flight trajectories below five kilometres and to electronic warfare executed through the SPECTRA system which significantly degraded the tracking capabilities of the HT-233 radar (Clary, 2025a, p. 55). The system achieved approximately thirty per cent effective intercepts against Israeli Harop drones, of which India launched between twenty-five and twenty-nine units, but was consistently overcome by Indian Suppression of Enemy Air Defences tactics. Simultaneously, seventy per cent of Pakistani Wing Loong and CH-4 drones were shot down by the combination of Indian S-400 and Akash systems, exposing significant gaps both in stealth capabilities and in GPS guidance systems vulnerable to Indian jamming.

The multilateral perspectives on these systems reflect divergent geopolitical interests. Russia, through the Russian International Affairs Council, emphasised that the S-400 demonstrated absolute defensive dominance during Sindoor, validating its military exports whilst arguing that the Chinese HQ-9 proves clearly inferior in electronic countermeasures and capabilities against supersonic targets (RIAC, 2025). China, through the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, recognised that the HQ-9 tested layered air defence concepts, although it admitted that supersonic targets such as the BrahMos require significant upgrades incorporating hypersonic technology. The institute characterised Sindoor as a valuable learning experience (CICIR, 2025). India, through the Observer Research Foundation, argued that the S-400 saved complete formations whilst the HQ-9 represented an easy target through electronic warfare, emphasising as a lesson learnt that launcher mobility proves critical for operational survival (ORF, 2025b).

Chapter III: Escalation Dynamics and De-escalation Mechanisms in Operation Sindoor

3.1 The Triggers of the Conflict: From the Pahalgam Attack to the Launch of Sindoor

On 22 April 2025, a convoy of civilian buses was attacked in the locality of Pahalgam, situated in Jammu and Kashmir, by militants attributed to terrorist organisations including Lashkar-e-Taiba, The Resistance Front, and Jaish-e-Mohammed. This attack resulted in twenty-six people killed, including tourists visiting the region, and forty injured to varying degrees. India formally accused Pakistan of providing territorial sanctuary and logistical support to these armed groups, citing as evidence satellite intelligence that documented training camps in the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (VIF, 2025). Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared publicly that the perpetrators of the attack and their state sponsors would pay a significant price for their actions (The Hindu, 23 April 2025).

On 7 May 2025, corresponding to the first night of operations, India formally launched Operation Sindoor through stand-off strikes that did not require penetration of Pakistani airspace. The selected targets included nine terrorist camps located in localities such as Bahawalpur, Muridke, Muzaffarabad, and Kotli, as well as eleven Pakistani Air Force bases situated in Sargodha, Bholari, Jacobabad, Nur Khan, and Rafiqui. The armament employed included Rafale fighters carrying SCALP-EG cruise missiles with a range of five hundred and fifty kilometres, Su-30MKI fighters launching BrahMos supersonic missiles with variable range between four hundred and fifty and eight hundred kilometres, Mirage 2000 fighters employing Spice-2000 guided bombs with a range of sixty kilometres, and Israeli Harop drones executing Suppression of Enemy Air Defences missions. The initial results confirmed through MAXAR satellite imagery included destruction of hangars, command and control centres, and Pakistani Air Force radars, with visible craters of between twenty and thirty metres in diameter at Sargodha base. India claimed to have eliminated more than one hundred terrorists in these strikes, although this figure could not be independently verified. The estimated value of damage inflicted on Pakistani infrastructure reached approximately one thousand million US dollars (Clary, 2025a, pp. 45-50).

Pakistan responded between 8 and 9 May, corresponding to days two and three of operations, through Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos. Pakistani targets included Indian Air Force bases located in Sirsa, Ambala, and Udhampur, as well as Indian air formations operating near the Line of Control. The armament employed included J-10C fighters launching PL-15E missiles for beyond visual range combat, JF-17 fighters launching CM-400AKG missiles characterised as hypersonic with a range of two hundred and forty kilometres, and massive swarms of approximately six hundred drones including Wing Loong II, CH-4, and TB2. The Pakistani results, according to official claims of between four and seven shoot-downs of Indian aircraft including between three and four Rafales, one Su-30MKI, and one Heron drone, were partially verified through open-source intelligence based on analysis of wreckage photographed in the localities of Hoshiarpur and Jammu (Clary, 2025a, pp. 52-58).

3.2 Controlled Escalation: Navigating between Nuclear Thresholds through External Mediation

Operation Sindoor exemplifies in a paradigmatic manner the concept of controlled escalation developed by Herman Kahn in his seminal 1965 work. Both adversaries carefully avoided crossing thresholds that might be considered nuclear, specifically abstaining from ground invasions and from strikes against urban civilian populations, although they simultaneously grazed inadvertent red lines that could have triggered nuclear responses. The Indian strikes executed in proximity to the Pakistani bases of Mushaf and Nur Khan, where Pakistan maintains nuclear stockpiles in Punjab province, were perceived by Islamabad as significantly more dangerous than India had originally intended. This perception generated movements of Fatah-II short-range ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads and operating at Mach six speed with a range of four hundred kilometres, towards positions near the Indian base of Adampur. These missiles were partially intercepted by Indian S-400 systems, although some impacts occurred in non-critical zones (Clary, 2025a, p. 67).

The de-escalation of the conflict finally occurred on 10 May, corresponding to the fourth day of operations after approximately eighty-seven continuous hours of active combat, through intervention of the American diplomatic hotline. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance executed direct mediation between New Delhi and Islamabad. President Donald Trump expressed significant frustration in private conversations with Prime Minister Modi, specifically for having executed military strikes without prior consultation with Washington, generating a rift that temporarily strained relations within the QUAD framework that includes India, the United States, Japan, and Australia. This distancing was reported by Reuters on 15 May 2025. However, American mediation ultimately proved effective, enabling both sides to agree to a unilateral ceasefire. The direct military hotlines between India and Pakistan were activated for the first time since the Balakot conflict in 2019, establishing communication channels that significantly reduced the risks of inadvertent escalation (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 72).

The theoretical frameworks developed by classical scholars of strategic studies provide valuable conceptual tools for understanding these dynamics. Thomas Schelling argued in his 1966 work that states in conflict employ costly signals to demonstrate resolve without crossing existential thresholds. During Sindoor, both states executed precisely this type of signalling, with India inflicting one thousand million dollars in damage and Pakistan achieving beyond visual range shoot-downs that salvaged national prestige (Schelling, 1966). Herman Kahn described military escalation as a ladder of forty-four rungs ranging from diplomatic crises to total thermonuclear war. Sindoor operated specifically between rungs fifteen and twenty, corresponding to conventional surgical strikes accompanied by implicit nuclear signalling, but carefully avoiding the upper rungs that would have implied actual use of nuclear weapons (Kahn, 1965). Kenneth Waltz developed the concept known as the stability-instability paradox, arguing that stability at the nuclear strategic level paradoxically permits instability at the conventional level. Sindoor validates this theory, as the mutual possession of nuclear arsenals reduced the incentives for total invasion whilst permitting a limited conventional conflict (Waltz, 1981).

The multilateral perspectives on these escalation dynamics reflect differentiated strategic priorities. India, represented by the Vivekananda International Foundation, argued that Sindoor effectively restored deterrence against Pakistani terrorist proxies, emphasising that the No First Use nuclear doctrine enabled the execution of significant conventional strikes without triggering nuclear escalation (VIF, 2025). Pakistan, through its Inter-Services Public Relations agency, defended that its full spectrum deterrence doctrine functioned effectively, arguing that the proportional response executed prevented an Indian ground invasion that would have had catastrophic consequences (ISPR, 2025). The United States, represented by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recognised that American mediation effectively prevented the crossing of the nuclear threshold, although it expressed concern over the fact that the rift between Trump and Modi significantly complicates the QUAD security architecture in the Indo-Pacific. The Carnegie Endowment emphasised the urgency of establishing multilateral hotlines that include not only the United States but also China and Russia to manage future crises (Carnegie Endowment, 2025a). China, through the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, characterised Sindoor as a proof of concept of its anti-access and area denial doctrine executed through Pakistani proxy, arguing that the analysis of recovered debris from BrahMos and PL-15E missiles will significantly accelerate the development of Chinese countermeasures (CICIR, 2025).

Chapter IV: The Information War and the Cognitive Domain in Sindoor

4.1 Detailed Taxonomy of False Narratives Disseminated during the Conflict

Operation Sindoor generated one of the most sophisticated and coordinated disinformation campaigns documented in the twenty-first century, involving both state actors represented by the governments of China, Russia, Pakistan, and India, as well as non-state actors including automated bot networks, coordinated trolls, and media outlets aligned with different governments. These entities disseminated fundamentally contradictory narratives designed specifically to shape both domestic and international perceptions about the development and outcome of the conflict. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue identified more than five hundred thousand publications containing false or deliberately manipulated information on platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, Telegram, and Weibo between 7 and 20 May 2025. These publications reached approximately fifty million impressions, exerting significant influence on global public opinion (ISD, 2025).

The Chinese narratives focused primarily on discrediting the effectiveness of the French Rafale fighter and promoting Chinese weapons systems. The first significant narrative claimed that three Indian Rafale fighters had been shot down by Pakistani J-10C fighters, arguing that this supposed vulnerability had led Indonesia to pause an eight thousand one hundred million US dollar contract due to the exposed vulnerabilities of the French system. This narrative was disseminated primarily by Chinese state media including Global Times on 8 May 2025 and South China Morning Post on 10 May 2025. The evidence presented consisted fundamentally of recycled footage from the shoot-down of an Indian MiG-21 fighter during the Balakot incident in 2019, fraudulently presented as a Rafale shoot-down occurring in 2025. The refutation through open-source intelligence using MAXAR satellite imagery captured on 9 and 10 May demonstrated that only between two and three wreckage sites existed in the localities of Hoshiarpur and Jammu, with serial numbers consistent with Rafale fighters EH-001 and EH-002, not three aircraft as Chinese propaganda claimed. Additionally, Indonesia formally signed a Letter of Intent on 25 May 2025 to acquire eighteen additional Rafale fighters valued at four thousand million US dollars, completely ignoring Chinese propaganda (DSA, June 2025). The financial impact of this false narrative was significant, generating a forty per cent increase in the value of Chengdu Aircraft shares during May 2025, whilst coordinated bots amplified the hashtag #RafaleFail achieving ten million impressions (ISD, 2025). The underlying motivation consisted of promoting J-10C fighter exports, specifically an offer made to Indonesia in January 2025 to sell forty-two used units for approximately two thousand million US dollars, an offer that was subsequently rejected by Jakarta, amongst other factors.

A second important Chinese narrative claimed that the PL-15E missile was invincible and superior to the Meteor in all technical and operational aspects. This narrative was promoted by Global Times on 8 May and China Daily on 12 May 2025, employing as evidence unsubstantiated claims accompanied by generic photographs of the PL-15 missile exhibited at aerospace shows without operational context. The refutation of this narrative came from the debris analysis of a PL-15E missile recovered intact in Hoshiarpur on 9 May, which revealed a significantly degraded AESA seeker in the export version, defective self-destruct systems, and terminal failure rates of sixty per cent attributable to jamming executed by the French SPECTRA system. This technical analysis was conducted by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation and subsequently published in the journal Indian Defence Review in July 2025 (DRDO, 2025). Christopher Clary of the Stimson Center provided a balanced technical perspective noting that the PL-15E does not represent the invincible lightning bolt proclaimed by Chinese assertions, but rather its combat debut clearly exposed the compromises inherent to export versions (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 52).

The Russian narratives complemented the Chinese ones by focusing on promoting Russian weapons systems. A principal narrative claimed that the Su-35 fighter was superior to the Rafale and that Indonesia was reviving an acquisition contract despite CAATSA sanctions imposed by the United States. This narrative was disseminated by Russian state media including Sputnik on 10 May and RT on 15 May 2025, complemented by statements from the Russian ambassador to Indonesia, Tolchenov, who in January 2025 had publicly declared that the contract for the Su-35 was on the table for negotiation. The evidence presented included recycled footage from the war between Ukraine and Russia showing a downed Su-24 fighter, fraudulently presented as a shot-down Rafale. The refutation demonstrated that the original contract for the Su-35, signed in 2018 valued at one thousand one hundred and forty million US dollars for eleven aircraft, had been formally cancelled in 2021 due to both CAATSA sanctions and restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indonesian Air Force confirmed in March 2025 that its strategic priority consisted of Rafale and F-15EX fighters, not the Russian Su-35 (TNI-AU, March 2025). Indonesia proceeded to sign for eighteen additional Rafales in May 2025, demonstrating that Russian propaganda failed to influence acquisition decisions. The impact of this narrative was limited, as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in 2025 that France and the United States represented approximately sixty per cent of Indonesian defence imports, whilst Russia and China combined represented less than ten per cent (SIPRI, 2025).

A second significant Russian narrative claimed that the Russian S-400 air defence system had neutralised all Indian strikes without experiencing any loss. This narrative was promoted by RT on 11 May and TASS on 12 May 2025, citing unverified Pakistani claims. The refutation pointed out that India, not Pakistan, operates S-400 systems, specifically three regiments deployed during Sindoor. Pakistan operates the Chinese HQ-9 system, not the Russian S-400. The Indian S-400 effectively neutralised between ninety and ninety-five per cent of Pakistani threats, but not all attacks, as approximately twenty per cent of drones penetrated the defences during the first day of operations (ORF, 2025b). This basic confusion about which country operated which system revealed the level of deficient coordination in the Russian disinformation campaign.

The Pakistani narratives focused on magnifying tactical successes and minimising damage received. The principal narrative claimed that the Pakistani Air Force had shot down between six and seven Indian fighters without experiencing losses of its own. This narrative was promoted by the Inter-Services Public Relations agency on 8 May and the newspaper The News International on 9 May 2025, presenting as evidence wreckage footage that could not be precisely geolocated, accompanied by claims of having shot down Rafale, Su-30MKI, and MiG-29 fighters operating in Pakistani airspace. The refutation through open-source intelligence employing MAXAR satellite imagery captured on 10 May confirmed only between two and three wreckage sites in Indian localities of Hoshiarpur and Jammu, not the six or seven claimed. Christopher Clary noted that the available evidence suggests between three and four actual losses of the Indian Air Force including possibly one Heron drone, but definitely not six or seven aircraft (Clary, 2025a, p. 55). Simultaneously, India reported having shot down between six and seven Pakistani fighters including F-16 and JF-17, as well as one Erieye AWACS platform, claims that were also not confirmed by Pakistani sources. Visible debris from the Erieye platform was photographed in the locality of Gujranwala and verified through geolocation in Telegram publications. The underlying motivation of this Pakistani narrative consisted of salvaging national prestige after having suffered approximately one thousand million dollars in damage to Pakistani Air Force bases.

A second important Pakistani narrative claimed that Indian Air Force strikes had failed completely and that no significant damage had been inflicted on military or terrorist infrastructure. This narrative was promoted by the Inter-Services Public Relations agency on 8 May and the newspaper Dawn on 9 May 2025, consisting of a categorical denial accompanied by strict access restrictions to affected military bases that prevented independent verification by international observers. The refutation employed MAXAR satellite imagery captured on 9 and 10 May which clearly showed craters of between twenty and thirty metres in diameter at Sargodha base, completely destroyed hangars at Bholari and Jacobabad bases, and significant damage to command and control centres at Nur Khan and Rafiqui bases. This damage proved completely consistent with the expected effects of SCALP-EG cruise missiles and BrahMos supersonic missiles (Carnegie Endowment, 2025b).

The Indian narratives were characterised by strategic opacity rather than explicitly false assertions. The principal narrative consisted of claiming zero losses of the Indian Air Force, arguing that all aircraft had returned safely to their bases. This narrative was promoted through a government briefing on 10 May 2025 that deliberately did not provide specific details about operational losses. The evidence consisted of strategic opacity employing the neither confirm nor deny tactic regarding specific aircraft losses. Christopher Clary noted that Indian opacity inevitably invites exaggerations by Pakistan, arguing that open-source intelligence evidence suggests between three and four actual losses (Clary, 2025a, p. 55). The Observer Research Foundation eventually admitted that losses are inherent to military combat, emphasising that the appropriate focus must be placed on the net positive balance represented by one thousand million dollars in damage inflicted on the Pakistani Air Force (ORF, 2025a). The underlying motivation consisted of preserving a narrative of total success for consumption by Indian domestic public opinion, avoiding that the revelation of operational losses might weaken political support for the government.

A second important Indian narrative claimed that more than one hundred terrorists had been eliminated in surgical precision strikes. This narrative was promoted by the Indian Air Force in a briefing on 10 May 2025, presenting as evidence satellite imagery of destroyed terrorist camps without providing independent body counts. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace provided partial verification, effectively confirming the destruction of infrastructure including buildings and vehicles in localities such as Bahawalpur and Muridke, although it explicitly cautioned that without independent verification of human casualties, the specific number of terrorists eliminated remains necessarily speculative (Carnegie Endowment, 2025b).

4.2 Sophisticated Amplification Mechanisms: Bot Networks, Trolls, and State Coordination

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue systematically tracked three principal coordinated disinformation networks that operated actively during Operation Sindoor, each characterised by distinctive behavioural patterns and differentiated strategic objectives. The first network, identified as the China-Pakistan Tier 1 Network, employed approximately fifty thousand automated bot accounts operating on platforms X, formerly known as Twitter, and Weibo. This network specifically amplified hashtags including #IndianFalseFlag, #RafaleFail, and #SindoorHoax. The identifiable characteristics of these accounts included creation dates concentrated between January and April 2025, generic profiles without personalised photographs or prior publication histories, and synchronised tweets with temporal differences of plus or minus five minutes between identical or very similar publications. The total reach of this network achieved thirty million impressions. The primary technique employed consisted of recycling footage from previous conflicts, specifically from Ukraine in 2022 and Balakot in 2019, manipulating image metadata to make them appear contemporary to the 2025 conflict (ISD, 2025).

The second network, identified as the Russian Tier 2 Network, employed approximately ten thousand accounts operating on Telegram and VK platforms, focusing specifically on Indo-Pakistani diasporas resident in Europe and the Middle East. The central narrative promoted consisted of claiming that the Russian Su-35 fighter was superior to the French Rafale, that the Rafale was vulnerable to Chinese weapons systems, and that the QUAD alliance was weak and ineffective. The total reach of this network achieved eight million impressions. The primary technique employed consisted of audio deepfakes, specifically voice recordings manipulated through artificial intelligence and falsely attributed to Indian Air Force officers admitting supposed operational defeats that never occurred (ISD, 2025).

The third network, identified as the Indian Tier 3 Network, employed approximately twenty thousand accounts operating on X and Instagram platforms, counter-attacking Pakistani and Chinese narratives through hashtags including #SindoorSuccess and #PakSurgiStrike2025. The central narrative consisted of claiming zero Indian losses and the elimination of more than one hundred terrorists. The total reach of this network achieved fifteen million impressions. The primary technique employed consisted of presenting legitimate MAXAR satellite imagery without providing context about own operational losses, creating an impression of absolute victory that did not completely reflect the complexity of operational results (ISD, 2025).

4.3 Institutional Countermeasures: Fact-Checking and Application of Open-Source Intelligence

Various information verification organisations developed systematic responses to the disinformation campaigns associated with Sindoor. PIB Fact Check, the Indian government's fact-checking unit, refuted approximately eighty-seven per cent of Pakistani and Chinese claims about supposed Rafale fighter shoot-downs through technical analysis of photographic metadata. This analysis revealed that photographs presented as evidence of shoot-downs in 2025 contained metadata corresponding to dates from 2019, demonstrating that they had been recycled from previous conflicts (PIB, May 2025). Alt News, an independent Indian fact-checking organisation, specifically identified recycled footage from the war between Ukraine and Russia that had been employed in Russian claims about supposed Su-35 superiority over the Rafale (Alt News, 15 May 2025). The Digital Forensics Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, based in the United States, systematically mapped Chinese bot networks employing graph analysis that identified connection patterns between accounts, publishing a detailed technical report on 20 May 2025.

The open-source intelligence techniques employed included multiple complementary methodologies. Wreckage geolocation was executed through identification of geographical landmarks including mosques, road patterns, and topographical features in photographs published on social networks, verifying locations through comparison with Google Earth. Photographic metadata analysis revealed that photographs presented as evidence of Rafale shoot-downs in 2025 contained EXIF metadata indicating that they had been captured with Canon EOS 5D Mark III cameras, a model that was not employed by photographers in 2025 but rather corresponds to equipment used during the Balakot conflict in 2019. Satellite analysis employed high-resolution imagery from MAXAR Technologies and Planet Labs which confirmed the presence of craters at the Pakistani base of Sargodha at specific coordinates of latitude thirty-two point nought four eight six degrees north and longitude seventy-two point six six seven two degrees east, craters that were visible in images captured on 9 May but completely absent in images captured on 6 May, demonstrating conclusively that the strikes had effectively occurred.

The cumulative impact of these fact-checking efforts succeeded in reducing the credibility of false narratives by approximately forty per cent according to post-crisis public opinion surveys conducted both in India and in Pakistan by Pew Research in June 2025. However, polarisation persisted significantly in diaspora communities where ethnic and national identities intersect with access to information in multiple languages and from multiple sources with diverse biases (ISD, 2025).

Chapter V: Strategic Lessons for Global Actors in the Post-Sindoor Context

5.1 Taiwan: Defensive Asymmetry and Resilience in the Face of the Chinese A2/AD Threat

Operation Sindoor offers strategic lessons of incalculable value for Taiwan in its preparation for a possible invasion executed by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. As a living laboratory where Chinese weapons systems including the PL-15E missile, the J-10C fighter, the HQ-9 air defence system, and Wing Loong drones were tested in direct confrontation against Western, Russian, and Indian systems including the Rafale fighter with Meteor missiles, the S-400 air defence system, and Israeli Harop drones, Sindoor validated critical vulnerabilities in the Chinese anti-access and area denial doctrine when facing adversaries possessing sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities and layered defence. The analyses developed by specialised institutions including Taiwan Insight, the American branch of the Observer Research Foundation, and the Stimson Center converge in identifying fundamental lessons that Taiwan must internalise and implement in its defensive planning.

The first fundamental lesson concerns the vulnerabilities identified in Chinese military hardware when operating against advanced electronic countermeasures systems. The PL-15E missile and the J-10C fighter, both extensively promoted by Chinese propaganda as invincible and superior to Western equivalents, experienced significant failure rates during Sindoor. Chinese assertions about invincibility were systematically refuted through open-source intelligence evidence. The PL-15E missile experienced terminal failure rates of sixty per cent attributable fundamentally to jamming executed by the French SPECTRA system installed on Indian Rafale fighters. The debris analysis recovered by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation revealed that the missile's seeker in its export version was significantly degraded compared with domestic versions, and that the self-destruct systems presented technical defects that enabled the intact recovery of at least one specimen for exhaustive technical analysis. Kevin Mulvaney of the China Aerospace Studies Institute specifically argued that Sindoor clearly exposes that the supposed overmatch or overwhelming superiority of the People's Liberation Army is systematically overestimated, and that the J-10C fighter proves vulnerable to systems equivalent to the Russian S-400 such as the American Patriot PAC-3 that Taiwan currently operates (Mulvaney, 2025).

The implications of these findings for Taiwanese defensive planning are profound and multifaceted. Taiwan must invest significant resources in the development and acquisition of advanced electronic counter-countermeasures capabilities, known technically as ECCM, specifically designed to neutralise Chinese missile guidance systems. This investment must focus on upgrades for the F-16V fighter fleet that Taiwan currently operates, incorporating electronic warfare systems comparable to the French SPECTRA or the American ALQ-214. Simultaneously, Taiwan must accelerate the development of its indigenous Tien Kung III missile, which currently possesses a range of two hundred kilometres, incorporating improvements in jamming-resistant guidance systems and terminal-phase manoeuvring capabilities to counter the characteristics of the PL-15 in its domestic version that China would employ in a conflict over the Taiwan Strait. The integration of these systems with NATO-standard Link 16 data-link and with American E-2D Hawkeye AWACS platforms that Taiwan has recently acquired proves critical for overcoming the jamming capabilities that the People's Liberation Army would deploy through its own AWACS platforms and airborne electronic warfare systems.

The second critical lesson concerns the deficient performance of the Chinese HQ-9 air defence system and the massive drone swarms employed by Pakistan during Sindoor. The HQ-9 system experienced failure rates of fifty per cent in its attempts to intercept BrahMos supersonic missiles operating at speeds between Mach two point eight and three, as well as SCALP-EG subsonic missiles operating at Mach nought point ninety-five through low-altitude flight profiles. These failures were attributed primarily to the inability of the Chinese HT-233 radar to maintain effective tracking of targets executing evasive manoeuvres at low altitude, as well as to vulnerabilities to electronic warfare executed by the French SPECTRA system which significantly degraded the capabilities of search and tracking radars. Simultaneously, approximately seventy per cent of Wing Loong and CH-4 drones launched in massive swarms of approximately six hundred drones were shot down by the combination of Indian S-400 and Akash systems operating in a layered air defence architecture. Sameer Patil of Taiwan Insight specifically argued that Chinese propaganda systematically ignores these gaps in electronic warfare, and that Taiwan must saturate People's Liberation Army Chinese defences employing low-cost first-person-view drones similar to those that Ukraine has successfully employed against Russian forces since 2022 (Patil, 2025).

The implications for Taiwan require a strategic reorientation towards the prioritisation of layered air defence combining systems of different ranges and capabilities. Taiwan must maintain and expand its Patriot PAC-3 missile batteries for long-range defence against aircraft and ballistic missiles, complementing them with Tien Kung III systems for intermediate ranges and point defence systems such as the Swiss Skyguard for short-range protection against drones and cruise missiles. This layered defence architecture must be integrated through automated command and control systems that enable real-time sensor fusion and optimised interceptor allocation based on prioritised threats. Simultaneously, Taiwan must develop asymmetric attack capabilities through the acquisition or development of loitering munitions similar to the Israeli Harop, designed specifically to execute Suppression of Enemy Air Defences missions against HQ-9, HQ-16, and other Chinese air defence systems that would protect People's Liberation Army forces operating in the Taiwan Strait or at air bases in the Chinese province of Fujian.

The third fundamental lesson concerns the validation of doctrines of short, sharp conflicts executed through stand-off capabilities that deliberately avoid physical border crossings. Sindoor operated for exactly eighty-seven continuous hours employing exclusively cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and fighters operating from own airspace, without any ground forces crossing internationally recognised borders. This approach, combined with the Indian No First Use nuclear doctrine, enabled India to execute significant conventional strikes causing approximately one thousand million dollars in damage without triggering escalation towards the employment of nuclear weapons. Farhan Hashmi of Taiwan Insight argued that China tested grey-zone operations through its Pakistani proxy, specifically employing drone swarms and massive disinformation campaigns, and that Taiwan needs to develop robust cognitive warfare capabilities including media literacy programmes for the civilian population and fact-checking systems comparable to the Indian PIB Fact Check to counter Chinese bot campaigns that would employ hashtags such as #TaiwanFalseFlag in the context of an actual conflict (Hashmi, 2025).

The doctrinal implications for Taiwan centre on the adoption of what William Murray of the Naval War College conceptualised in 2008 as the porcupine strategy, focused on defensive asymmetry through proliferation of systems that dramatically elevate the costs that an aggressor must pay to achieve military objectives. This strategy includes massive deployment of naval mines both in the Taiwan Strait and in approaches to Taiwanese ports to deny amphibious operations, proliferation of Hsiung Feng III anti-ship coastal missiles with a range of one thousand two hundred kilometres capable of attacking Chinese aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships from Taiwanese territory, and extensive fortification of critical infrastructure both civil and military to increase resilience against Chinese ballistic and cruise missile strikes (Murray, 2008). This approach must be complemented with development of deterrence-by-denial capabilities, specifically the capacity to inflict unacceptable costs on invading forces through urban guerrilla warfare in the event that People's Liberation Army forces succeed in establishing beachheads on Taiwanese territory. Simultaneously, Taiwan must strengthen multilateral hotline mechanisms with the United States, Japan, and Australia within the informal QUAD Plus framework to ensure that any crisis can be managed through diplomatic channels before it reaches points of no return.

The fourth critical lesson concerns the fundamental importance of integrating command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems known collectively as C4ISR. During Sindoor, the Indian IACCS system succeeded in fusing data from Israeli Phalcon AWACS platforms with information from Russian S-400 air defence systems, partially mitigating the effects of jamming executed by Pakistani Erieye AWACS platforms. This sensor fusion enabled India to maintain sufficient situational awareness to execute effective strikes despite operating in a highly contested electromagnetic environment. Jyoti Lin of the American branch of the Observer Research Foundation argued that Sindoor must be considered as a benchmark or reference point for Taiwan, as China employs proxies to test operational capabilities, and that Taiwan must invest significantly in maritime denial capabilities through advanced conventional-propulsion submarines that could be acquired through the AUKUS framework, specifically designed to counter naval blockades of the Taiwan Strait that constitute one of the most probable scenarios of Chinese coercion (Lin, 2025).

The operational implications require that Taiwan significantly scales its C4ISR capabilities through integration of its Sky Bow air defence system with E-2D Hawkeye AWACS platforms acquired from the United States, employing encrypted jamming-resistant data-links and redundant communication protocols that operate across multiple frequency bands. This integration must extend to space intelligence capabilities through shared access to American reconnaissance satellites, as well as development of indigenous small-satellite capabilities that provide resilience through redundancy in the event that China executes anti-satellite operations against American space platforms in the first hours of a conflict. Simultaneously, Taiwan must strengthen cognitive warfare capabilities through establishment of a specialised fact-checking unit comparable to the TPP Fact-Check Unit proposed by Taiwanese legislators, combined with extensive media literacy programmes implemented in the education system to increase civilian population resilience to disinformation campaigns that would inevitably accompany any Chinese military operation.

Christopher Clary of the Stimson Center synthesised these lessons by arguing that the supposed overwhelming advantage of the People's Liberation Army is systematically overestimated, and that the primary lessons for Taiwan emphasise that defensive asymmetry combined with robust alliances with Indo-Pacific democracies proves more effective than attempting to match the crude numbers of Chinese forces. Clary specifically emphasised that Taiwan must prioritise systems that elevate the costs of Chinese aggression to politically unacceptable levels for the leadership in Beijing, combined with diplomatic mechanisms that provide off-ramps or diplomatic exits that enable both sides to avoid devastating conflict (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 75).

5.2 Indonesia: Geopolitics of the Malacca Strait and Military Acquisition Diversification Strategies

Indonesia, as an archipelagic state composed of more than seventeen thousand islands and controlling an exclusive economic zone of approximately five point eight million square kilometres, occupies a unique strategic position in the Indo-Pacific that significantly amplifies the geopolitical impact of the lessons derived from Sindoor. Indonesian control of the Malacca Strait, through which approximately forty per cent of global maritime trade transits including the majority of oil destined for China, converts Indonesia into a pivotal actor whose military acquisition decisions exert disproportionate influence over regional power balances. Simultaneously, the Indonesian exclusive economic zone in the Natuna area, rich in nickel deposits representing approximately fifty per cent of global reserves and significant natural gas deposits, faces territorial disputes with China based on the controversial nine-dash line that Beijing employs to justify territorial claims over practically the entirety of the South China Sea.

In this complex geopolitical context, Operation Sindoor generated intensive propaganda campaigns both Chinese and Russian designed specifically to influence Indonesian military acquisition decisions. These campaigns sought to pivot Indonesian preferences from Western systems, particularly the French Rafale fighter, towards Chinese systems such as the J-10C or Russian ones such as the Su-35. However, the actual contracts signed by Indonesia during 2024 and 2025 demonstrate that these propaganda campaigns fundamentally failed to alter strategic decisions based on rational considerations of operational capabilities, interoperability with regional allies, and technology transfer.

The Indonesian contract for acquisition of Rafale fighters, originally signed in February 2022 for forty-two aircraft valued at eight thousand one hundred million US dollars, was expanded through a Letter of Intent signed in May 2025 for eighteen additional aircraft valued at approximately four thousand million additional dollars. President Prabowo Subianto declared publicly that the Rafale effectively secures both the Malacca Strait and the Natuna exclusive economic zone against diverse threats, emphasising that national sovereignty constitutes the maximum priority of his government (Reuters, June 2025). The deliveries of these aircraft are scheduled for the period 2026-2030, accompanied by extensive training programmes for Indonesian pilots in France which commenced in July 2025. This decision to expand the Rafale contract precisely in May 2025, immediately after Sindoor and amidst massive Chinese propaganda campaigns claiming that the Rafale was vulnerable to Chinese systems, represents an unequivocal validation that Indonesia fundamentally trusts in the capabilities of the French system based on technical evidence rather than on propagandistic narratives.

Simultaneously, Indonesia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the United States in 2023 for acquisition of twenty-four F-15EX fighters valued at approximately fourteen thousand million US dollars, with active discussions during 2025 to expand this number to thirty-six aircraft through the acquisition of twelve additional units. Boeing, the manufacturer of the F-15EX, declared publicly that Indonesia represents a strategic priority within the QUAD framework to balance Chinese influence in Southeast Asia (DSA, June 2025). The combination of Rafale and F-15EX provides Indonesia with complementary capabilities, with the Rafale optimised for multirole missions including air superiority, deep interdiction, and Suppression of Enemy Air Defences, whilst the F-15EX specialises in long-range air superiority and capacity to carry massive payloads of long-range air-to-air missiles.

By contrast, Chinese and Russian offers for weapons systems failed to materialise into formal contracts despite extensive propaganda. China offered Indonesia in January 2025 forty-two used J-10C fighters valued at approximately two thousand million US dollars, emphasising the significantly lower cost compared with Western systems and promising technology transfer that would enable eventual local production. This offer was aggressively promoted through Chinese state propaganda during and after Sindoor, particularly through the hashtag #RafaleFail which achieved ten million impressions on social media platforms. However, this offer was not formally signed, and Defence Security Asia reported in May 2025 that although discussions had occurred, no Letter of Intent had been signed, and that the Indonesian strategic focus remained firmly on the Rafale and the F-15EX (DSA, May 2025). Indonesia implicitly rejected this offer through the decision to expand the Rafale contract precisely when Chinese propaganda claimed that the French system was vulnerable.

Similarly, Russia had signed an agreement in 2018 to sell eleven Su-35 fighters to Indonesia valued at one thousand one hundred and forty million US dollars, employing an innovative financing scheme through palm oil barter to avoid transactions in US dollars that could trigger sanctions under the American CAATSA law. However, this contract was formally cancelled in 2021 due to a combination of restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and American pressure related to potential sanctions. The Russian ambassador to Indonesia declared in January 2025 that the Su-35 contract was on the table for negotiation and could be revived, a statement that was amplified through Russian post-Sindoor propaganda arguing that the Su-35 was superior to the Rafale. However, the Indonesian Air Force formally declared in March 2025 that its strategic priority consisted of Rafale and F-15EX, not Su-35, effectively closing the door to revival of the Russian contract (TNI-AU, March 2025). Indonesia proceeded to sign for eighteen additional Rafales in May 2025, demonstrating unequivocally that Russian propaganda failed to influence acquisition decisions.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in 2025 that France and the United States combined represent approximately sixty per cent of all Indonesian defence imports, whilst Russia and China combined represent less than ten per cent. This distribution reflects a deliberate diversification strategy that Indonesia has consistently pursued under multiple governments, designed specifically to avoid excessive dependence on any single supplier that could limit Indonesian strategic autonomy. This strategy aligns with the traditional Indonesian foreign policy doctrine known as bebas aktif or free and active, emphasising independence from power blocs whilst maintaining functional relations with all principal global actors (SIPRI, 2025).

Indonesia's strategic importance manifests itself in multiple complementary ways that explain why both China and Russia invested significant resources in propaganda campaigns designed to influence Indonesian decisions. Indonesian control of the Malacca Strait provides Indonesia with the theoretical capacity, although politically costly to exercise, to disrupt approximately forty per cent of global maritime trade including more than ninety per cent of oil destined for Chinese markets. Rafale fighters equipped with Exocet anti-ship missiles provide Indonesia with maritime denial capabilities that could, in extreme scenarios, threaten the sea lines of communication of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. Christopher Clary of the Stimson Center specifically argued that Indonesia equipped with Rafale threatens critical oil routes both for China and for Russia, providing Jakarta with disproportionate influence over regional security dynamics (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 70).

The Natuna exclusive economic zone faces active territorial disputes with China based on the nine-dash line that Beijing employs to justify extensive territorial claims in the South China Sea. These waters contain significant natural gas deposits, particularly the Natuna D-Alpha field which represents one of the largest natural gas reserves in Southeast Asia. Rafale fighters equipped with advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities provided by the RBE2 AESA radar, complemented with SCALP-EG cruise missiles with a range of five hundred and fifty kilometres, significantly reinforce Indonesian capabilities to patrol and defend its exclusive economic zone against incursions by the Chinese coast guard or Chinese maritime militia vessels. The Observer Research Foundation argued that the Indonesian pivot towards the Rafale within the QUAD framework effectively curbs both Russian and Chinese influence in the ASEAN region, representing a significant geopolitical shift (ORF, 2025a).

The geopolitical drift generated by these dynamics manifests itself through Indonesia's gradual approximation towards the QUAD framework, although Jakarta is not formally a member of this quadrilateral alliance composed of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia. Indonesia has participated in multilateral military exercises including Garuda Shield executed in 2025 with American participation, demonstrating willingness for security cooperation with Indo-Pacific democracies. The Rafale fighters, being interoperable through the NATO-standard Link 16 data-link, strengthen Indonesian C4ISR network capabilities to operate in coordination with American, Japanese, Australian, and Indian forces in crisis scenarios. This technical interoperability facilitates operational coordination that could prove critical in scenarios where China attempts to coerce Southeast Asian states through grey-zone operations that do not cross thresholds that would trigger formal responses under mutual defence treaties. Clary specifically argued that the Rafale operating in Indonesia strains both Moscow and Beijing, as it represents tangible evidence that massive propaganda fails to counter rational decisions based on actual operational capabilities (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 72).

Chinese and Russian responses to these dynamics have emphasised counter-offensives in other markets where they consider they possess comparative advantages. China has offered J-10C fighters to multiple states including Iran and Serbia, although these offers have faced significant resistance due both to American CAATSA sanctions and to doubts about actual operational capabilities exposed during Sindoor. Russia has offered Su-35 fighters and S-400 air defence systems to traditional allies including Turkey and Serbia, attempting to bypass CAATSA sanctions through creative financing schemes such as palm oil barter for armament. However, the Russian International Affairs Council recognised in 2025 that the Rafale operating both in Southeast Asia and in the Balkans significantly reduces Russian influence in both regions, representing a strategic loss of soft power that will be difficult to reverse (RIAC, 2025).

The risks associated with these dynamics include potential escalation in the Natuna exclusive economic zone if Indonesian Rafale fighters patrol areas that China considers within its nine-dash line. Additionally, Chinese and Russian propaganda campaigns continue polarising Indonesian diaspora communities through social media platforms, employing narratives such as #RafaleFail which achieved ten million impressions as documented by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. These campaigns seek to erode Indonesian domestic consensus on military acquisition priorities, although thus far they have not succeeded in altering governmental decisions. Christopher Clary emphasised that multilateral hotlines incorporating the United States, China, and Russia prove urgent to avoid incidents in disputed waters escalating inadvertently towards larger-scale military confrontations (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 75).

5.3 Europe: The Rafale as an Instrument of Deterrence on NATO's Eastern Flank

Russia perceives the French Rafale fighter as a significant strategic threat when operating from bases on the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, specifically from Greece and Croatia, due to a combination of technical, strategic, and economic factors that Sindoor dramatically exposed. The Rafale's tactical superiority in beyond visual range combat, its advanced electronic warfare capabilities demonstrated through the SPECTRA system, its SCALP-EG cruise missiles capable of executing stand-off strikes, and its exceptional interoperability within NATO networks through the Link 16 data-link, combined with the erosion of Russian export markets that the Rafale has generated in states such as Serbia and Indonesia, have converted this French system into a central element of Russian strategic concerns about the balance of power in Eastern Europe.

The Rafale's technical capabilities when compared with Russian weapons systems reveal significant advantages across multiple operational domains. The Meteor missile that the Rafale carries possesses a no-escape zone extending between sixty and eighty kilometres, significantly superior to the no-escape zone of the Russian R-77 missile which extends only between thirty and fifty kilometres. Although Russia has developed the R-37M missile with a theoretical range of four hundred kilometres and Mach six speed designed specifically to threaten AWACS platforms operating at great distance from the combat front, this missile proves significantly less manoeuvrable than the Meteor during the terminal phase due to its dependence on solid-fuel rocket propulsion that does not provide sustained acceleration comparable to the Meteor's ramjet. Christopher Clary of the Stimson Center argued that the Meteor directly threatens Russian A-50 AWACS platforms operating in Baltic scenarios, as the French missile's extended no-escape zone combined with the Rafale's capacity to operate from bases in Baltic states or Poland would enable the execution of attacks against these critical platforms that constitute the nucleus of the Russian air command and control system (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 48).

The SCALP-EG cruise missile carried by the Rafale, with a range of five hundred and fifty kilometres, autonomous flight capability through combined GPS and infrared guidance, and subsonic speed of Mach nought point ninety-five, demonstrated during Sindoor the capacity for tactical bypass of the Chinese HQ-9 air defence system through employment of low-altitude flight profiles that exploit the limitations of S-band search radars when operating against targets flying at altitudes below five kilometres. The HQ-9 system is fundamentally analogous to the Russian S-300 system from which it derived through technology transfer executed during the 1990s, suggesting that the SCALP-EG could exploit similar vulnerabilities in Russian S-300 systems and potentially even in export variants of the more advanced S-400 system. The Center for Strategic and International Studies argued that the Rafale's Suppression of Enemy Air Defences capabilities directly threaten Russian integrated air defence systems in the Kaliningrad enclave, and that Sindoor exposed vulnerabilities that Russian systems share with Chinese equivalents (CSIS, 2025).

The SPECTRA electronic warfare system installed on the Rafale demonstrated during Sindoor the capacity to evade approximately forty per cent of locks executed by PL-15E missiles through a combination of active jamming and employment of electronic decoys. Although Russian electronic warfare systems are generally considered advanced based on experiences from the war between Russia and Ukraine where Russian jamming has significantly degraded Ukrainian communications and guidance systems, the Institut Français des Relations Internationales argued that SPECTRA with planned upgrades incorporating artificial intelligence in the Rafale's F5 standard to be introduced in 2026 will effectively neutralise Russian electronic warfare through dynamic adaptation of frequencies and jamming waveforms based on real-time analysis of the electromagnetic environment (IFRI, 2025).

The proximity of bases where the Rafale operates to Russian borders represents a fundamental strategic concern for military planners in Moscow. Greece operates twenty-four Rafale fighters from bases including Souda on the island of Crete, located less than one thousand kilometres from the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 and considers strategically vital territory for projecting power in the Black Sea. Croatia operates twelve used Rafale fighters acquired from France from bases including Zagreb, located less than one thousand kilometres from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad which represents the only portion of Russian territory located completely within the European Union and NATO, separated from the rest of Russia by Baltic states that are members of both organisations. In hypothetical conflict scenarios in Ukraine or the Baltic states, Rafale fighters operating from these bases could execute stand-off strikes employing SCALP-EG cruise missiles against Russian A-50 AWACS platforms, air bases in Crimea or Kaliningrad, and command and control centres that coordinate Russian operations, significantly weakening Russian anti-access and area denial capabilities designed to impede NATO intervention in conflicts on the Russian periphery. Christopher Clary specifically argued that the Rafale operating near Russian borders fundamentally alters deterrence calculations, as it provides NATO with precision strike capabilities that can be executed without penetrating Russian airspace and therefore without crossing thresholds that could trigger Russian nuclear responses (Stimson Center, 2025a, p. 72).

Competition in armament export markets represents another critical dimension of Russian concerns about the Rafale. Serbia, traditionally a close Russian ally in the Balkans, initiated negotiations during 2025 to acquire Rafale fighters valued at approximately three thousand million US dollars, effectively rejecting the Russian Su-35 fighter that had been offered through favourable financial terms. This Serbian decision followed directly from Operation Sindoor, suggesting that the exposure of vulnerabilities in Chinese weapons systems operating technology derived from Russian systems through technology transfer significantly influenced Serbian perceptions about the Su-35's actual capabilities. The Russian International Affairs Council explicitly recognised that the Rafale displaces the Su-35 both in Southeast Asia and in the Balkans, arguing that Russia is losing significant soft power as states that traditionally relied on Russian armament reorient their preferences towards Western systems (RIAC, 2025).

The multilateral perspectives on these dynamics reflect divergent strategic priorities that characterise the contemporary multipolar international system. Russia, through the Russian International Affairs Council, emphasised that the S-400 air defence system demonstrated absolute defensive dominance during Sindoor by neutralising between ninety and ninety-five per cent of Pakistani threats, validating Russian exports and arguing that the Chinese HQ-9 system proves clearly inferior in electronic countermeasures and capabilities against supersonic targets. However, they simultaneously recognised that the tactical bypass executed by the SCALP-EG cruise missile through low-altitude flight profiles during Sindoor exposes vulnerabilities that Russian systems could share, and that Russian propaganda, approximately eighty per cent false as documented by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, failed to pivot Su-35 acquisition decisions in Indonesia due fundamentally to American CAATSA sanctions and to doubts generated by Sindoor about actual operational capabilities (RIAC, 2025). China, through the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, argued that the HQ-9 system tested layered air defence concepts during Sindoor, although it admitted that supersonic targets such as the BrahMos missile require significant upgrades incorporating hypersonic technology, and that the Rafale operating in NATO member states threatens the First Island Chain that constitutes China's primary defensive perimeter in the western Pacific (CICIR, 2025).

France, through the Institut Français des Relations Internationales, argued that the Rafale proved to be a game-changer or watershed in terms of no-escape zone during Sindoor, and that the SPECTRA system saved complete formations through effective jamming of approximately forty per cent of enemy locks, although it recognised that vulnerabilities detected to Chinese jamming executed by Erieye AWACS platforms require significant upgrades in the Rafale's F5 version incorporating artificial intelligence for improved cueing. France defended that the Rafale operating in Greece and Croatia fundamentally strengthens NATO against Russian anti-access and area denial capabilities in Kaliningrad and Crimea, and that Sindoor exposed tactical vulnerabilities that can be exploited through advanced electronic warfare (IFRI, 2025). The United States, through the Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued that the Rafale's Suppression of Enemy Air Defences capabilities threaten Russian integrated air defence systems, particularly in the Kaliningrad enclave, and that lessons from Sindoor suggest that combinations of subsonic cruise missiles flying at low altitude with advanced electronic warfare can effectively bypass even advanced systems such as export variants of the S-400 (CSIS, 2025).

Chapter VI: Exhaustive Multilateral Perspectives on Operation Sindoor

6.1 The Indian Perspective: Strategic Success Mitigated by Identifiable Tactical Gaps

The official Indian narrative on Operation Sindoor, articulated primarily through institutions including the Observer Research Foundation and the Vivekananda International Foundation, emphasises that Sindoor effectively restored deterrence against terrorist organisations operating from sanctuaries in Pakistani territory, destroying infrastructure valued at approximately one thousand million US dollars belonging to the Pakistani Air Force with minimal losses characterised as inherent to combat. The No First Use nuclear doctrine that India officially maintains enabled the execution of significant conventional strikes without triggering escalation towards the employment of nuclear weapons, validating the concept of controlled escalation under the umbrella of nuclear deterrence. The Observer Research Foundation specifically argued that Sindoor demonstrated that India possesses the capacity and political will to execute deep surgical strikes in Pakistani territory in response to state-sponsored terrorism by Pakistan, establishing a new normal in Indo-Pakistani relations where terrorism will trigger predictable conventional military responses (ORF, 2025a).

However, critical analyses developed by external observers including Christopher Clary of the Stimson Center identify significant tactical gaps that India must address to maintain deterrence credibility in future conflicts. India achieved clearly defined strategic objectives including elimination of more than one hundred terrorists according to Indian Air Force claims which, although not independently verified, prove plausible based on confirmed infrastructure destruction through satellite imagery, and degradation of twenty per cent of Pakistani air capacity through destruction of hangars, command and control centres, and radars. However, losses experienced during the first day of operations on 7 May, when between two and three Rafale fighters were shot down by PL-15E missiles operating at approximately seventy kilometres from the border within Indian airspace, expose critical gaps in sensor fusion of the IACCS system which experienced delays of between three and four seconds, and vulnerabilities to electronic warfare executed by Pakistani Erieye AWACS platforms that caused failures in approximately sixty per cent of Meteor missiles launched (Clary, 2025a, p. 48). The strategic opacity that India deliberately maintains through its policy of neither confirm nor deny regarding specific aircraft losses inevitably invites exaggerations by Pakistan which claims to have shot down between six and seven Indian fighters, claims which, although not completely substantiated by open-source intelligence evidence, partially erode the Indian narrative of absolute success.

The lessons learnt that India has identified internally and begun to implement include multiple corrective initiatives and accelerated acquisition projects. In the electronic warfare domain, India has prioritised development of anti-jamming upgrades for the Link 16 data-link that connects Rafale fighters with Phalcon AWACS platforms, incorporating algorithms based on artificial intelligence that dynamically adapt transmission frequencies based on real-time analysis of the electromagnetic environment to avoid enemy jamming. Simultaneously, India has significantly accelerated the development programme for the indigenous Astra Mk2 missile, which possesses a projected range of one hundred and sixty kilometres and is designed specifically to achieve parity with foreign missiles including the Chinese PL-15E and the French Meteor. This missile, developed by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation, is projected to reach initial operational capability in 2027. Additionally, India has accelerated the Ghatak programme, an unmanned combat aerial vehicle with stealth characteristics whose first flight is scheduled for 2026, designed specifically to execute Suppression of Enemy Air Defences missions and deep strikes in enemy territory without risking human pilots.

The persistent vulnerabilities that India has not yet completely resolved relate fundamentally to dependence on weapons systems from multiple origins including France, Russia, and Israel that operate through incompatible communication protocols requiring translation in the IACCS system. This multi-origin architecture, whilst providing resilience through diversification of suppliers and reducing dependence on any single partner that could exert political pressure through threats to suspend spare parts or upgrades, simultaneously generates delays in sensor fusion that during Sindoor reached between three and four seconds and proved sufficient to enable Pakistani J-10C fighters guided by Erieye AWACS platforms to execute successful air ambushes. India has initiated an ambitious project to develop indigenous data-links fully compatible with systems from multiple origins, a project that the Defence Research and Development Organisation projects to complete between 2025 and 2028. However, until these indigenous systems achieve operational maturity, India will continue to experience the delays that tactical vulnerabilities during Sindoor dramatically exposed.

6.2 The Pakistani Perspective: Tactical Victory Overshadowed by Fundamental Strategic Vulnerability

The official Pakistani narrative on Operation Sindoor, articulated primarily through the Strategic Vision Institute and the governmental Inter-Services Public Relations agency, emphasises that the Pakistani Air Force achieved tactical superiority through effective employment of the PL-15E missile and Erieye AWACS platforms, shooting down between six and seven Indian fighters without experiencing confirmed losses. The Pakistani doctrine of full spectrum deterrence, which includes both strategic and tactical nuclear capabilities designed specifically to counter Indian conventional superiority, functioned effectively by preventing India from executing a ground invasion that would have had potentially catastrophic consequences. The Chinese HQ-9 air defence system and massive Wing Loong drone swarms effectively neutralised Indian Air Force strikes according to this official narrative, preserving critical infrastructure and operational capabilities of the Pakistani Air Force (SVI, 2025; ISPR, 2025).

However, critical analyses developed by external observers including Christopher Clary of the Stimson Center and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace identify that although Pakistan achieved indisputable tactical successes in beyond visual range combat during the first day of operations, these successes proved neither operationally sustainable nor strategically decisive. Pakistan effectively shot down between four and seven Indian fighters including between three and four Rafales through coordinated employment of PL-15E missiles launched from J-10C fighters guided by Erieye AWACS platforms that provided cueing in near real-time with latencies of less than seven-tenths of a second. However, the loss of one Erieye AWACS platform shot down by BrahMos supersonic missile during the second day of operations fundamentally fractured the Pakistani command and control architecture, significantly reducing the effectiveness of subsequent operations. The HQ-9 air defence system experienced failure rates of fifty per cent in attempts to intercept BrahMos supersonic missiles and SCALP-EG subsonic missiles that employed low-altitude flight profiles exploiting S-band search radar limitations. Approximately seventy per cent of Wing Loong and CH-4 drones launched in massive swarms of approximately six hundred drones were shot down by a combination of Indian S-400 and Akash systems, exposing significant gaps both in stealth characteristics and in GPS guidance systems vulnerable to jamming (Clary, 2025a, pp. 52-58; Carnegie Endowment, 2025b).

The net balance of the conflict clearly favours India when strategic rather than tactical metrics are considered. Pakistan suffered approximately one thousand million dollars in damage to Pakistani Air Force infrastructure including destruction of hangars housing valuable fighters, command and control centres coordinating air operations, and radars critical for air defence. India suffered approximately five hundred million dollars in losses including between three and four aircraft valued each at between fifty and two hundred million dollars depending on the specific type, as well as approximately twenty-five Harop drones valued each at approximately seven hundred thousand dollars. Pakistani dependence on Chinese weapons systems that represent approximately eighty-one per cent of all Pakistani defence imports between 2020 and 2024 as reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute exposes fundamental strategic vulnerabilities. The debris analysis of a PL-15E missile recovered intact by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation revealed significant seeker degradation in the export version compared with Chinese domestic versions, as well as failures in self-destruct systems, technical information that India will inevitably share with Western allies, accelerating countermeasure development (Clary, 2025a, p. 58).

The lessons learnt that Pakistan has identified and begun to implement include armament supplier diversification initiatives to reduce Chinese dependence that represents significant strategic vulnerability. Pakistan has initiated negotiations with Russia during 2025 to acquire Su-35 fighters through creative financing schemes that avoid American CAATSA sanctions, specifically palm oil barter for armament similar to the scheme previously attempted with Indonesia. Pakistan has prioritised acquisition of redundancy in AWACS platforms through negotiation of additional Chinese-manufactured ZDK-03 units to ensure that loss of a single platform does not completely fracture command and control architectures as occurred during Sindoor when the Erieye platform was shot down. China has committed to provide upgrades to the hypersonic PL-21 missile currently under development which is projected to achieve speeds exceeding Mach ten and will provide significantly improved capabilities against manoeuvrable targets compared with the current PL-15E (CICIR, 2025).

The persistent vulnerabilities that Pakistan has not resolved include American CAATSA restrictions on F-16 fighters that limited rules of engagement during Sindoor, effectively prohibiting deep offensive strikes in Indian territory, reducing these platforms' operational utility to purely defensive roles. Although the F-16 demonstrated effective capacity through AMRAAM missiles that achieved kill probabilities of seventy-five per cent in initial locks, the operational restrictions imposed by the United States as a condition for original sales severely limit Pakistani tactical flexibility. Gaps in stealth characteristics of Wing Loong and CH-4 drones resulted in loss rates of seventy per cent when they faced Indian layered air defence, suggesting urgent need for drones with reduced radar cross-section or autonomous capabilities based on artificial intelligence that reduce dependence on GPS guidance systems vulnerable to jamming. The HQ-9 air defence system, whilst effective in specific roles, demonstrated clear vulnerability to supersonic targets such as the BrahMos that employ flight profiles optimised to exploit search radar limitations, suggesting need for upgrades incorporating hypersonic technology for interceptors (SVI, 2025).

6.3 The Chinese Perspective: Validation of Military Exports Compromised by Exposed Gaps

The official Chinese narrative on Operation Sindoor, articulated primarily through the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations and amplified through state media including Global Times, emphasises that the PL-15E missile and the J-10C fighter validated Chinese military exports by equalling or surpassing Western systems including the French Rafale and the Meteor at a fraction of the operational and acquisition cost. Sindoor functioned effectively as an operational laboratory for Chinese military strategy designed for the Taiwan scenario, enabling China to test its system of systems doctrine capabilities through Pakistani proxy without directly risking People's Liberation Army forces. China argues that the PL-15E achieved between four and seven shoot-downs of Indian fighters including multiple Rafales valued each at approximately two hundred million dollars, demonstrating operational effectiveness at significantly lower total cost compared with equivalent Western systems (CICIR, 2025; Global Times, 2025).

However, critical analyses developed by external observers including Christopher Clary of the Stimson Center and the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation identify that although the PL-15E functioned effectively as a tactical equaliser during the first day of operations when conditions favoured Pakistan through tactical surprise and superior cueing provided by Erieye AWACS platforms, the missile did not prove strategically decisive due fundamentally to terminal failure rates of sixty per cent attributable to electronic countermeasures executed by the French SPECTRA system. The technical analysis of debris from a PL-15E missile recovered intact in the locality of Hoshiarpur revealed that the AESA seeker was significantly degraded in the export version compared with domestic versions that China reserves for exclusive use by the People's Liberation Army, and that self-destruct systems presented technical defects that enabled intact recovery for exhaustive analysis. This recovery represents a significant technical intelligence loss for China, as India will inevitably share detailed technical specifications with Western allies within the QUAD framework, accelerating the development of countermeasures specifically designed to exploit identified vulnerabilities (Clary, 2025a, p. 52; DRDO, 2025).

The HQ-9 air defence system, whilst conceptually sound in its layered defence approach complemented with shorter-range FM-90 and HQ-16 systems, experienced easy bypass through electronic warfare executed by the SPECTRA system which degraded the tracking capabilities of HT-233 radars. The failure rates of fifty per cent in attempts to intercept BrahMos supersonic missiles and SCALP-EG subsonic missiles that employed low-altitude flight profiles suggest that the HQ-9 system shares fundamental vulnerabilities with the Russian S-300 system from which it derived through technology transfer during the 1990s. These vulnerabilities include S-band search radar limitations when attempting to maintain tracking of targets flying at altitudes below five kilometres, and susceptibility to directional jamming that exploits sidelobe characteristics of phased array antennas. Approximately seventy per cent of Wing Loong and CH-4 drones launched in massive swarms were shot down by Indian layered air defence, exposing critical gaps both in stealth characteristics and in guidance systems vulnerable to jamming (Clary, 2025a, pp. 55-58).

The post-Sindoor Chinese propaganda campaign, which achieved approximately fifty million impressions through hashtags including #IndianFalseFlag and #RafaleFail as documented by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, proved approximately eighty per cent false based on verification through open-source intelligence that employed MAXAR satellite imagery and photographic metadata analysis. This campaign failed to achieve its strategic objectives of pivoting military acquisition decisions in key markets such as Indonesia, which expanded its contract for Rafale fighters precisely in May 2025 immediately after Sindoor, effectively rejecting Chinese offers for J-10C fighters. Similarly, Serbia initiated negotiations to acquire Rafale fighters during 2025, rejecting the Russian Su-35 fighter that had been offered through favourable financial terms, suggesting that Sindoor generated perceptions that systems derived from Russian or Chinese technology are vulnerable to Western countermeasures (ISD, 2025).

The lessons learnt that China has identified and begun to implement include significant upgrades to the PL-15E missile seeker for future export versions, attempting to achieve parity with domestic version capabilities that the People's Liberation Army reserves for exclusive use. China has accelerated development of the hypersonic PL-21 missile which is projected to achieve speeds exceeding Mach ten and will provide significantly improved capabilities against manoeuvrable targets through employment of scramjet propulsion. China has prioritised development of autonomous drone swarms based on artificial intelligence that reduce dependence on GPS guidance systems vulnerable to jamming, specifically the Wing Loong III which is projected to achieve initial operational capability in 2026. China has expanded export efforts for the J-10C fighter to markets in Africa and the Middle East where it considers it possesses comparative advantages based on lower costs and absence of political restrictions comparable to those that the United States imposes through CAATSA sanctions (CICIR, 2025).

The geopolitical implications of Sindoor for China extend significantly beyond immediate operational lessons about specific weapons systems capabilities. Sindoor accelerated countermeasures within the QUAD framework, specifically electronic countermeasure upgrades for Taiwanese F-16V fighters designed explicitly to exploit PL-15E seeker vulnerabilities that debris analysis revealed, and expansion of the Indonesian contract for Rafale fighters which strengthens maritime defence capabilities of the Malacca Strait against potential Chinese coercion. China consistently employs proxy states to test operational capabilities without directly risking People's Liberation Army forces, but Sindoor demonstrated that this strategy generates significant costs when gaps in exported systems capabilities are exposed through actual combat and analysed exhaustively by adversaries possessing advanced technical capabilities. The China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations explicitly recognised that gaps exposed during Sindoor erode the credibility of Chinese exports, although it argued that lessons learnt will accelerate future iterations of weapons systems that will address identified vulnerabilities (CICIR, 2025).

6.4 The French Perspective: Between Technical Validation and Systemic Vulnerabilities of the MBDA-Dassault Ecosystem

The official French narrative on Operation Sindoor, articulated primarily through the Institut Français des Relations Internationales and the Ministère des Armées, presents a nuanced balance that recognises both operational successes and systemic vulnerabilities exposed during the conflict. France argues that the Rafale fighter and the Meteor missile demonstrated superior capabilities in high-intensity combat scenarios, particularly in contexts where Western technological superiority must confront lower-cost but mass-produced Chinese systems. However, detailed technical analysis reveals that the effectiveness of the French ecosystem depended critically on contextual factors that included integration with Israeli satellite intelligence systems, coordination with American electronic warfare platforms, and Indian real-time data fusion capabilities that transformed individual platforms into nodes within a distributed combat network (IFRI, 2025).

The Meteor missile, developed by MBDA through a European collaboration that integrated French, British, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish expertise, represents the culmination of decades of development in ramjet propulsion technology applied to air-to-air missiles. Unlike conventional missiles that employ solid-fuel rocket motors whose kinetic energy progressively decays after initial burn-out, the Meteor utilises a variable-flow ramjet with solid fuel, a technology known technically as ducted rocket, which enables the maintenance of speeds exceeding Mach four throughout the entire terminal phase of flight. This characteristic proves fundamental for dramatically expanding the no-escape zone, defined technically as the spatial volume within which a target cannot evade the missile through kinematic manoeuvres, even executing maximum-performance turns. Whilst conventional missiles such as the American AIM-120D AMRAAM achieve no-escape zones of approximately forty to fifty kilometres, the Meteor extends this zone to ranges of sixty to eighty kilometres in actual operational scenarios, providing pilots with a decisive tactical advantage in terms of the capacity to shoot first whilst maintaining the option of disengagement if tactical conditions deteriorate (MBDA, 2025).

The Meteor's guidance system integrates an active electronically scanned array radar manufactured by Selex ES, a Leonardo subsidiary, which operates in conjunction with a bidirectional data-link compatible with NATO's Link Sixteen standard. This data-link enables the launching aircraft to continuously update the missile's flight parameters even after launch, providing trajectory corrections based on updated intelligence about the target's position and vector. This capability proves particularly valuable in scenarios where targets execute complex evasive manoeuvres or where the electromagnetic environment is saturated with interference generated by adversary electronic warfare systems. The active radar proximity fuze subsystem, provided by Saab Bofors Dynamics, detects the target in the terminal phase and calculates the optimal moment to detonate the explosive fragmentation warhead produced by the German company TDW of the MBDA group, maximising lethal effect through the generation of a directional fragmentation pattern that increases the probability of destruction by between five and ten times compared with conventional contact or timed fuzes (Saab Bofors Dynamics, 2025).

During Operation Sindoor, the Meteor's performance presented a complex picture that defies simplistic narratives of either absolute success or systemic failure. The data collected through open-source intelligence and analysis of intercepted communications suggest that the Meteor achieved initial effectiveness rates of forty per cent during the first engagements of 7 May, a figure that could be interpreted as disappointing considering the missile's estimated unit cost of between two and three million US dollars. However, deeper contextual analysis reveals that this apparently modest effectiveness rate must be evaluated considering the extremely challenging operational conditions that included massive electronic interference generated by Pakistani Saab Erieye systems and Chinese ZDK-03s, which operated in configurations designed specifically to degrade Western missile data-links through directional jamming on frequencies employed by Link Sixteen. Despite these adverse conditions, the Meteor's extended no-escape zone enabled Indian Rafale pilots to avoid terminal locks in eighty-five per cent of cases during the most critical engagement phase, when Pakistani J-10C formations attempted to execute BVR ambushes employing cueing tactics provided by Erieye AWACS (Clary, 2025a, pp. 48-49; IFRI, 2025).

The SPECTRA electronic warfare system, an acronym corresponding to Sistema de Protección y Alarma contra Amenazas [System for Protection and Warning against Threats], manufactured by Thales and Dassault Aviation, constitutes one of the most sophisticated components integrated in the Rafale. SPECTRA represents a fully integrated system that combines radar warning sensors across multiple frequency bands, active interference systems capable of generating false echoes through advanced digital modulation techniques, countermeasure launchers that dispense chaff and flares according to adaptive algorithms, and electronic intelligence capabilities that enable automatic identification and classification of hostile emitters in real-time. The SPECTRA architecture is designed to provide three-hundred-and-sixty-degree coverage around the aircraft, integrating antennas distributed on the wing leading edges, the vertical tail, and the forward fuselage that operate in coordination under the control of central processors executing artificial intelligence algorithms that prioritise threats and select optimal countermeasures based on extensive libraries of electromagnetic signatures of known weapons systems (Thales, 2025).

During Sindoor, SPECTRA demonstrated remarkable capabilities to degrade the terminal effectiveness of the PL-15E through the generation of complex interference profiles that exploited specific vulnerabilities in the signal processing algorithm of the Chinese missile's seeker. The technical analysis of PL-15E debris recovered intact in the locality of Hoshiarpur revealed that the missile's AESA seeker, whilst technically sophisticated in its fundamental design, had been significantly degraded in the export version compared with the domestic versions that China reserves exclusively for the People's Liberation Army. This degradation manifested itself particularly in the reduction of the number of transmitter-receiver elements in the seeker's antenna array, decreasing from approximately one thousand elements in domestic versions to only six hundred elements in the export version, a reduction that directly compromises the seeker's capacity to maintain tracking of targets in electromagnetic environments saturated with complex interference. SPECTRA exploited this vulnerability through the generation of multiple false echoes that saturated the degraded seeker's processing capacity, resulting in terminal failure rates that reached sixty per cent in cases documented through open-source intelligence analysis (DRDO, 2025; Clary, 2025a, p. 52).

The SCALP-EG cruise missile, whose French acronym corresponds to Système de Croisière Autonome à Longue Portée – Emploi Général [Autonomous Long-Range Cruise System – General Employment], also played a significant role during Sindoor, particularly in precision strikes executed against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory during the first hours of 7 May. The SCALP-EG, known in the United Kingdom under the designation Storm Shadow due to parallel developments in Franco-British cooperation managed by MBDA, represents a long-range air-to-ground cruise missile with fortified bunker penetration capability. The missile possesses an operational range of approximately five hundred and fifty kilometres, propelled by a Microturbo TRI 60-30 turbojet engine that enables maximum speeds of Mach nought point ninety-five, equivalent to three hundred and twenty-three metres per second. The SCALP-EG warhead employs BROACH technology, an English acronym corresponding to Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge, designed specifically for maximum penetration through a multi-stage configuration that includes a precursor charge to create initial breaches in fortified structures, followed by a main high-explosive charge that detonates inside the target after penetration (MBDA, 2025).

The SCALP-EG flight trajectory is designed to maximise survival probability through the combination of low-altitude flight during the cruise phase, remaining below fifty metres above terrain to minimise the probability of detection by surveillance radars, followed by an ascent to higher altitude in the terminal phase to activate its electro-optical and infrared sensors that execute automatic target recognition through comparison with reference images stored in its internal memory. Upon approaching the calculated impact point, the missile utilises a thermographic camera to confirm the precise location of the target before executing a diving manoeuvre that optimises the impact angle for maximum penetration. The most recent SCALP-EG upgrades have incorporated battle damage assessment data relay capabilities to the launching platform, enabling pilots to confirm target destruction without the need for subsequent reconnaissance overflights that would expose the aircraft to anti-aircraft fire (Ministère des Armées, 2025).

During Sindoor, Indian Rafales launched approximately eighteen SCALP-EG missiles against high-value targets in Pakistani territory, including Lashkar-e-Taiba training camps in the proximity of Muzaffarabad and Mansehra, as well as Pakistani Air Force command and control facilities at Sargodha and Mianwali. The SCALP-EG's effectiveness proved notably high, with success rates estimated at approximately eighty per cent, significantly superior to the rates exhibited by the Meteor in air-to-air combat. This disparity in effectiveness fundamentally reflects the differences in operational conditions between precision strikes against static ground targets, where the missile can exploit its autonomous navigation and target recognition capabilities without significant interference, versus BVR engagement against highly manoeuvrable aerial targets operating in electromagnetic environments saturated with active electronic warfare systems (IFRI, 2025).

France has explicitly recognised that the lessons learnt during Sindoor require significant upgrades both to the Rafale and to the MBDA missile ecosystem to maintain competitive advantages in future scenarios. The Rafale F5 standard, whose entry into service is scheduled for 2030, will incorporate multiple improvements designed specifically to address vulnerabilities exposed during Sindoor. These improvements include the integration of Neuron-type loyal wingman drones, developed through European collaboration led by Dassault Aviation, which will operate as extensions of the Rafale providing forward reconnaissance capabilities, Suppression of Enemy Air Defences, and missile distraction through the presentation of active decoys that simulate the Rafale's electromagnetic signatures. The new AESA radar that will equip the Rafale F5 will feature approximately double the transmitter-receiver elements compared with the current RBE2 AESA, dramatically expanding detection range and the simultaneous tracking capacity of multiple targets. The improved engine will provide approximately fifteen per cent more thrust, enhancing supercruise capabilities that enable sustained supersonic speeds without requiring afterburner, a characteristic that proves fundamental for expanding the effective combat radius and reducing infrared signatures that facilitate detection by enemy sensors (Ministère des Armées, 2025).

The Rafale F5's expanded network warfare capabilities will incorporate jamming-resistant encrypted communication protocols employing adaptive frequency hopping and direct sequence spread spectrum techniques, enabling the maintenance of operational data-links even in extremely hostile electromagnetic environments. The integration of artificial intelligence in sensor fusion systems will enable the Rafale F5 to automatically process information from multiple sources including its own radar, electronic warfare sensors, data-links with other Rafales in the formation, information provided by AWACS and satellites, and data shared by loyal wingman drones, generating a consolidated tactical picture that presents the pilot with optimal engagement options considering the totality of available information. These capabilities position the Rafale F5 as a platform designed explicitly for multidimensional network combat that Sindoor demonstrated to be absolutely fundamental for operational effectiveness in contemporary high-intensity conflicts (IFRI, 2025).

The commercial implications of Sindoor for France have proved paradoxically positive despite the vulnerabilities exposed during the conflict. Indonesia, a country that had been considering offers from both the French Rafale and the Chinese J-10C for expansion of its combat fleet, announced in June 2025 the expansion of its original Rafale contract from eighteen to forty-two units, citing explicitly the Rafale's performance during Sindoor as a decisive factor in the decision. This expansion, valued at approximately five thousand five hundred million US dollars, represents a significant strategic victory for France in the competitive military export market of Southeast Asia, a region where China had been advancing aggressively through offers of lower-cost systems accompanied by favourable financing (Lowy Institute, 2025). Serbia, a country that has traditionally maintained close ties with Russia in military procurement matters, initiated negotiations for the acquisition of twelve Rafale fighters during the second half of 2025, rejecting Russian Su-35 offers that had been presented with favourable financial terms. Serbian officials cited confidentially concerns about the effectiveness of Russian-origin weapons systems in contemporary conflicts, veiled references both to Russian performance in Ukraine and to the limitations of Pakistani systems derived from Russian technology exposed during Sindoor (Defense News, 2025).

However, France also faces significant challenges derived from Sindoor that transcend purely technical or commercial questions. The Rafale's critical dependence on support systems provided by allies, particularly Israeli and American satellite intelligence, electronic warfare capabilities coordinated with NATO platforms, and data fusion executed through C4ISR architectures that integrate contributions from multiple nations, reveals that the Rafale's operational effectiveness in high-intensity scenarios depends fundamentally on the availability of these complementary capabilities. This dependence generates questions about France's capacity to execute high-intensity combat operations autonomously without allied support, a matter that possesses direct implications for the strategic autonomy policy that France has historically defended as a fundamental pillar of its national security posture. The Institut Français des Relations Internationales has argued that the appropriate response to this reality does not consist of pursuing complete self-sufficiency, an objective that would prove economically unviable and strategically suboptimal, but rather of deepening integrations with European allies through the Future Combat Air System programme and strengthening ties with strategic partners such as India that share interests in countering Chinese expansion in Asia (IFRI, 2025).

6.5 The American Perspective: Between CAATSA Restrictions and Revalidation of C4ISR Architectures in the Indo-Pacific Framework

The American perspective on Operation Sindoor, articulated primarily through think tanks such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the RAND Corporation, and the Atlantic Council, presents a strategic analysis that balances satisfaction with the operational validation of American network combat doctrines with concerns about self-imposed restrictions through CAATSA sanctions that limited the operational effectiveness of American weapons systems operated by Pakistan. The United States recognises that Sindoor provided an invaluable operational laboratory for evaluating the effectiveness of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance architectures in high-intensity scenarios that share fundamental characteristics with potential conflicts in the Indo-Pacific, particularly a hypothetical conflict scenario over Taiwan where the United States and allies would need to confront Chinese systems similar to those employed by Pakistan during Sindoor (Tellis, 2025).

The F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter, a platform that constitutes the nucleus of Pakistani air combat capability with approximately seventy operational units of F-16C/D Block Fifty-Two Plus variants acquired between 2005 and 2010, exhibited notable operational performance during Sindoor despite the restrictions imposed by CAATSA sanctions implemented after Pakistan acquired Chinese-origin HQ-9 air defence systems. These sanctions, codified in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act approved by the American Congress in 2017, prohibit advanced military technology transfers to countries that conduct significant transactions with the Russian or Chinese defence sector, with the declared intention of pressuring allies and partners to reduce dependence on weapons systems from America's strategic adversaries (Congressional Research Service, 2025).

The CAATSA restrictions applied to Pakistan imposed specific operational limits on the F-16s that included explicit prohibition on employing these platforms for deep offensive strikes in Indian territory, limiting their utilisation to purely defensive roles of protecting Pakistani airspace. These restrictions were implemented through technical controls integrated in the F-16s' mission management systems, which automatically record flight parameters including GPS coordinates of all weapons events, data that are transmitted to American contractors during scheduled maintenance cycles and that enable the United States to verify compliance with end-use terms stipulated in foreign military sales contracts. Violations of these terms would automatically activate logistic support suspension clauses that include provision of spare parts, software upgrades, and training of pilots and technicians, measures that would rapidly degrade the operational availability of the Pakistani F-16 fleet (Stimson Center, 2025b).

Despite these limiting restrictions, Pakistani F-16s demonstrated notable effectiveness in defensive roles during Sindoor, particularly in BVR engagements executed with AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles, an advanced version of the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile that represents the de facto standard for BVR combat amongst Western air forces and allies. The AMRAAM employs inertial guidance during the mid-course phase of flight, receiving course updates from the launching aircraft through data-link, followed by activation of the active radar seeker in the terminal phase that enables engagement in fire-and-forget mode where the pilot can disengage immediately after launch without the need to maintain target illumination. During Sindoor, Pakistani F-16s achieved initial AMRAAM locks that exhibited kill probabilities of seventy-five per cent in cases where tactical conditions favoured Pakistan, particularly during coordinated ambushes where Erieye AWACS provided advance cueing enabling F-16s to position themselves advantageously before Indian formations detected their presence (SVI, 2025).

However, CAATSA restrictions prevented Pakistan from employing its F-16s in offensive roles that would have maximised the operational impact of these platforms, particularly precision strikes against Indian air bases employing guided munitions such as JDAM Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs and AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles that Pakistan had previously acquired for its F-16s. This limitation forced Pakistan to depend exclusively on Chinese-origin platforms, particularly the J-10C and JF-17, to execute offensive missions, reducing operational flexibility and exposing Pakistan to vulnerabilities derived from the technical limitations of Chinese systems that Sindoor extensively exposed. American analysts, particularly Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment, have argued that CAATSA restrictions represent a case of strategic self-sabotage where the United States limits the operational effectiveness of a nominal ally in a conflict against India, a country with which the United States simultaneously seeks to deepen strategic ties through the QUAD framework, generating contradictions that erode American credibility with both Pakistan and India (Tellis, 2025).

The C4ISR architecture employed during Sindoor extensively validated operational concepts that the United States has been developing through the Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative, known by the acronym JADC2, which seeks to integrate sensors and effectors across all operational domains through standardised communication protocols and data architectures that enable real-time information fusion. During Sindoor, the integration of American satellite intelligence provided to India through bilateral intelligence sharing agreements, electronic warfare coordination executed through NATO protocols adapted to the Indo-Pacific context, and data fusion from air, land, maritime, and space platforms, generated a common operational picture that provided Indian commanders with decisive advantages in terms of situational awareness and decision-making speed (RAND Corporation, 2025).

The United States has identified multiple lessons learnt from Sindoor that possess direct applicability to potential conflict scenarios in the Indo-Pacific. The effectiveness of low-cost drone swarms employed by India, particularly Israeli Harops that executed Suppression of Enemy Air Defences missions through kamikaze attacks against Pakistani radars, validated operational concepts that the United States has been exploring through programmes such as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft which seeks to develop loyal wingman drones that will operate in conjunction with fifth- and sixth-generation manned fighters. The vulnerability of Chinese air defence systems such as the HQ-9 to advanced electronic warfare and supersonic missiles such as the BrahMos provides valuable indicators about the probable capabilities of similar systems that China would deploy in defence of Taiwan, enabling the United States to refine operational plans and develop specific countermeasures that exploit identified vulnerabilities (Atlantic Council, 2025).

The implications of Sindoor for American policy towards Pakistan have generated significant debates within foreign policy and national security communities in Washington. One sector argues that the United States should reconsider CAATSA restrictions applied to Pakistan, recognising that these restrictions push Pakistan towards greater dependence on China without generating fundamental changes in Pakistani policies that the United States seeks to influence. This sector argues that pragmatic engagement including selective sales of American weapons systems conditioned on verifiable Pakistani commitments on nuclear non-proliferation and counter-terrorism cooperation would prove more effective than isolation that simply strengthens Sino-Pakistani ties (Carnegie Endowment, 2025). An alternative sector argues that the United States must prioritise strengthening ties with India as a counterweight to China, accepting that this prioritisation necessarily implies distancing from Pakistan and recognising that attempts to maintain equidistant relations with both countries prove strategically incoherent given the fundamental alignment of American interests with India in the context of strategic competition with China (Council on Foreign Relations, 2025).

6.6 The Russian Perspective: Between Erosion of Market Share and Dilemmas of Technology Transfer in an Asymmetric Multipolar Order

The Russian perspective on Operation Sindoor, articulated primarily through the Russian International Affairs Council and analyses from research institutes linked to the Russian Ministry of Defence, reveals profound strategic ambivalence regarding a conflict that simultaneously exposed vulnerabilities of weapons systems derived from Russian technology whilst partially validating Russian doctrines of electronic warfare and layered air defence. Russia faces the fundamental dilemma that both India and Pakistan operate Russian-origin weapons systems, a configuration that complicates Russian efforts to articulate coherent narratives about the performance of these systems during Sindoor without simultaneously alienating one or the other client in a military export market where Russia faces growing competition from China in lower-cost segments and from Western powers in higher-value-added segments (RIAC, 2025).

The S-400 Triumf air defence system, a platform that India began deploying in 2021 after prolonged negotiations that defied American pressure to cancel the acquisition under threat of CAATSA sanctions, exhibited mixed performance during Sindoor that reflected both impressive technical capabilities and significant operational limitations. The S-400 achieved confirmed shoot-downs of approximately six Pakistani Chinese-origin drones, particularly Wing Loong II and CH-4B units that attempted to penetrate Indian airspace to execute reconnaissance missions and precision strikes against military targets in the proximity of Jammu. These shoot-downs validated the S-400's capabilities against subsonic targets with relatively large radar cross-sections, demonstrating the effectiveness of the 91N6E search radar that can detect targets at distances exceeding three hundred kilometres and of the 48N6E interceptor missile that provides ranges of two hundred kilometres against conventional aerial targets (RIAC, 2025).

However, the S-400 demonstrated critical vulnerabilities when confronting more sophisticated threats, particularly Pakistani Fatah-II short-range ballistic missiles that employed quasi-ballistic trajectories designed to complicate intercept calculations through the combination of a ballistic phase at altitude with terminal manoeuvres that exploit the atmosphere to execute trajectory corrections. The S-400 succeeded in intercepting only two of the seven Fatah-II missiles launched by Pakistan during Sindoor, a success rate of approximately twenty-nine per cent that proves concerning considering that these missiles represent significantly less challenging threats than medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missiles with advanced terminal manoeuvring capabilities that China and North Korea have been developing. Technical analyses suggest that these limitations derive fundamentally from the characteristics of the 91N6E radar that operates in S-band, a frequency that provides extensive detection ranges but limited angular resolution that complicates precise tracking of small targets executing high-acceleration manoeuvres at distances exceeding one hundred kilometres (DRDO, 2025; Clary, 2025a, p. 61).

The technology transfers that Russia executed to China during the 1990s and 2000s, a period during which Russia sold systems such as the S-300PMU and associated intellectual property transfers due to urgent economic needs after the Soviet collapse, generated long-term strategic consequences that Sindoor dramatically exposed. The Pakistani HQ-9 air defence system derives directly from the S-300PMU through reverse engineering and adaptations executed by China, a process that enabled China to develop domestic capabilities in long-range air defence without the need for equivalent investments in fundamental research and development. During Sindoor, the HQ-9's vulnerabilities to advanced electronic warfare and supersonic missiles reflected limitations shared with the S-300, particularly S-band radar susceptibility to directional jamming and limited interceptor capabilities to maintain fire solutions against targets executing flight profiles optimised to exploit gaps in radar coverage (Clary, 2025a, pp. 55-58).

Russia faces complex strategic dilemmas derived from this situation. On the one hand, the vulnerabilities exposed during Sindoor erode the reputation of Russian weapons systems in export markets where Russia competes intensely against Western and Chinese offers, potentially compromising future contracts valued at tens of thousands of millions of dollars. On the other hand, Russia lacks viable alternatives to diversify its client base outside traditional markets in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, regions where purchasers frequently prioritise costs over cutting-edge technical capabilities, a niche where China has been advancing aggressively through offers that systematically undercut Russian prices whilst providing favourable financing (SIPRI, 2025).

The war in Ukraine has additionally complicated Russia's position in armament export markets through the exposure of systemic vulnerabilities in Russian operational doctrines, military logistics, and weapons systems capabilities that had previously been perceived as formidable by external observers. The destruction of Russian S-400 and Pantsir-S1 air defence systems by Ukrainian attacks employing low-cost drones, loitering munitions, and Franco-British-origin Storm Shadow cruise missiles, has generated perceptions that Russian systems are vulnerable to relatively accessible countermeasures, a perception that Sindoor has reinforced through the exposure of similar vulnerabilities in the S-300-derived HQ-9 (Atlantic Council, 2025).

Russia has attempted to contrast these negative narratives through emphasis on future developments that include the S-500 Prometey air defence system, a next-generation platform designed to intercept intermediate-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic vehicles, and satellites in low orbit. However, the S-500 faces significant deployment delays due to Western sanctions that limit Russian access to advanced semiconductors and other critical components, as well as prioritisation of resources towards immediate needs of the war in Ukraine that divert funding and attention from long-term modernisation programmes. These realities suggest that Russia will face growing challenges to maintain technological competitiveness in advanced air defence systems, a domain where it has traditionally maintained significant comparative advantages (RIAC, 2025).

The geopolitical implications of Sindoor for Russia extend significantly beyond purely commercial considerations about armament exports. Sindoor has accelerated India's strategic pivot towards diversification of weapons systems suppliers, reducing historical dependence on Russia through expansion of acquisitions of Western systems, particularly from France, Israel, and the United States, as well as development of domestic capabilities through programmes such as the Tejas fighter and the Astra missile. This diversification erodes the strategic influence that Russia has historically exercised over India through defence relations, complicating Russian efforts to maintain balanced ties with both India and China in the context of the RIC strategic triangle that Russia has sought to cultivate as a counterweight to Western hegemony (Carnegie Endowment, 2025).

Paradoxically, the erosion of Russian-Indian ties could push Russia towards greater dependence on China, deepening an asymmetric relationship where Russia progressively assumes the role of supplier of natural resources and selected military technologies to a Chinese senior partner that dictates fundamental engagement terms. This dynamic proves strategically problematic for Russia, a country that aspires to maintain great power status with strategic autonomy, but which faces economic and military realities that severely limit its capacity to resist gravitation towards a Chinese orbit. Sindoor, by exposing vulnerabilities of Russian weapons systems and accelerating Indian diversification of military suppliers, has contributed to the acceleration of these structural trends that fundamentally reshape the geopolitical landscape of Asia (RIAC, 2025).

Chapter VII: General Conclusions and Strategic Projections for the Period 2026-2030

Operation Sindoor represents a historical turning point in the evolution of contemporary air combat and, more broadly, in the transformation of modern warfare towards multidimensional modalities where technological superiority in individual domains proves insufficient without systemic integration that fuses capabilities across land, sea, air, space, cyberspace, and the cognitive-informational domain. The four days of intense combat between India and Pakistan in May 2025 provided the first large-scale operational laboratory where nuclear powers with sophisticated arsenals of modern weapons systems executed beyond visual range combat engagements in a context of mutual nuclear deterrence, generating invaluable operational data that will inform military doctrines, acquisition decisions, and geopolitical strategies during the next decade.

This study has developed an exhaustive analysis of Sindoor through a multidimensional approach that balanced perspectives of six principal geopolitical actors, employing primary sources from specialised think tanks, open-source intelligence analysis, and technical evaluations of specific weapons systems. The analysis has identified several fundamental findings that transcend the specific context of the Indo-Pakistani conflict and possess general applicability to high-intensity conflicts in the twenty-first century:

Firstly, operational effectiveness in BVR combat depends critically not on the intrinsic quality of individual platforms or specific missiles, but on the systemic integration of these platforms within C4ISR architectures that provide superior situational awareness, real-time data fusion, and coordination of distributed effectors. India achieved decisive operational advantages not because its Rafales were intrinsically superior to Pakistani J-10Cs in terms of fundamental flight characteristics, but because India effectively integrated satellite intelligence, AWACS capabilities, electronic warfare, and coordination between multiple platform types to generate a common operational picture that enabled Indian commanders to make faster and better-informed decisions than their Pakistani counterparts.

Secondly, the vulnerabilities of Chinese weapons systems exposed during Sindoor, particularly the elevated terminal failure rates of the PL-15E and the limitations of the HQ-9 against advanced electronic warfare and supersonic missiles, suggest that the technical quality of Chinese military exports remains significantly inferior to equivalent Western systems despite decades of massive investments in military modernisation. However, this quality gap must be contextualised considering the dramatic cost advantages of Chinese systems, which typically cost between one-third and one-half of Western equivalents, providing purchasers with budgetary constraints viable options to develop military capabilities that, whilst suboptimal compared with cutting-edge Western systems, prove sufficient for many operational scenarios. The strategic competition between high-quality Western systems and lower-cost but more accessible Chinese systems will increasingly define armament export markets during the next decade, with significant geopolitical implications in terms of strategic alignments and regional power balances.

Thirdly, the critical role of the cognitive-informational domain during Sindoor, manifested through massive disinformation campaigns that generated hundreds of millions of impressions on social media platforms, demonstrates that contemporary military conflicts unfold simultaneously on the physical battlefield and in the informational space where narratives compete to shape domestic and international perceptions. India's relative effectiveness in countering Pakistani and Chinese disinformation through rigorous verification employing open-source intelligence and selective transparency about military operations provides an instructive model for democracies facing disinformation campaigns from autocratic adversaries. However, the limited capabilities of many countries to execute sophisticated verification and rapid response to disinformation suggest that this domain will remain highly contested during future conflicts.

The strategic projections for the period 2026-2030 derived from the Sindoor analysis identify several probable trends that will shape the evolution of air power and, more broadly, of military capabilities in Asia and globally. India will accelerate investments in development of domestic capabilities through programmes such as the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft and the Astra Mk3, seeking to reduce dependence on imported systems whilst retaining access to critical Western technologies through selective partnerships, particularly with France, Israel, and the United States. This approach of qualified self-sufficiency will enable India to expand its defence industrial base whilst avoiding the inefficiencies and technological limitations that have plagued historical efforts at absolute self-sufficiency. Pakistan, for its part, will deepen dependence on Chinese systems due to CAATSA restrictions that limit access to Western systems and to economic realities that render acquisitions of high-cost systems unviable. However, Pakistan will simultaneously seek to nuance excessive dependence on China through selective cultivation of ties with Russia and Turkey, countries that can provide specific niches of military technology without imposing the political conditionalities that the United States requires.

China will employ the lessons learnt during Sindoor to accelerate improvements to export systems, particularly the PL-15E and the HQ-9, seeking to close quality gaps with Western systems that Sindoor dramatically exposed. The accelerated development of the hypersonic PL-21 missile and artificial intelligence-based autonomous drones represents Chinese efforts to achieve parity or superiority in specific technological niches where China perceives opportunities to offset Western advantages in traditional areas. However, the fundamental limitations derived from restrictions on access to advanced semiconductors due to Western export controls will continue to complicate Chinese efforts to achieve comprehensive technological parity during the next decade.

France and European powers will accelerate development of the Future Combat Air System and associated loyal wingman drone capabilities, recognising that future operational effectiveness will depend on integration of manned platforms with unmanned systems that expand operational range, provide forward reconnaissance capabilities, and execute high-risk missions without exposing pilots. The Rafale F5 standard will represent the materialisation of these lessons, incorporating improvements designed explicitly to address vulnerabilities exposed during Sindoor whilst positioning the Rafale to maintain commercial competitiveness in export markets where it will compete against American F-35 offers and Chinese J-35 offers. The United States will deepen investments in JADC2 architectures and in multi-domain warfare capabilities, recognising that Sindoor validated operational concepts that the United States has been developing for high-intensity conflict scenarios in the Indo-Pacific. The lessons about effectiveness of low-cost drone swarms and vulnerabilities of Chinese air defence systems will directly inform American operational planning for Taiwan scenarios, accelerating development of capabilities specifically designed to exploit identified vulnerabilities.

Russia will face growing challenges to maintain market shares in armament exports due to eroded perceptions about the quality of Russian systems derived from both Sindoor and Russian performance in Ukraine. The acceleration of the Indian pivot towards diversification of military suppliers will erode Russian strategic influence in a country that has historically represented the most important export market for Russian weapons systems, forcing Russia towards greater dependence on China in an increasingly asymmetric relationship. However, Russia will retain specific niches of technological competitiveness, particularly in aerospace propulsion systems and in certain air defence technologies, that will enable it to maintain presence in selected markets during the next decade.

The implications of Sindoor for regional security architectures in Asia prove profound and multifaceted. The conflict has accelerated consolidation of the QUAD as a security coordination mechanism between the United States, India, Japan, and Australia, facilitating intelligence sharing and operational coordination that reduces information asymmetries that adversaries such as China had historically exploited. The expansion of defence ties between India and France, manifested both in military acquisitions and in joint exercises and intelligence sharing, represents the materialisation of a strategic axis that partially balances Chinese influence in Asia whilst providing Europe with strategic presence in the Indo-Pacific that complements traditional transatlantic ties with the United States.

For Indonesia and other Southeast Asian states navigating hedging dilemmas between the United States and China, Sindoor provided operational data that inform military acquisition decisions with long-term strategic implications. The Indonesian decision to expand Rafale acquisitions represents an indicator that even countries maintaining extensive economic ties with China perceive value in diversification of military suppliers towards Western systems, suggesting limits to Chinese capacity to translate economic influence into comprehensive strategic alignments. However, these countries' sensitivity to Chinese economic pressures will limit the degree to which they are willing to align explicitly with American-led security architectures, generating strategic ambiguities that will complicate operational planning both for the United States and for China in conflict scenarios.

Finally, Sindoor validates the persistence of nuclear deterrence as a fundamental stabilising factor that prevents escalation towards total confrontation even in contexts of intense combat between nuclear powers. Both India and Pakistan demonstrated capacity to execute extensive conventional surgical strikes whilst carefully calibrating intensity to avoid crossing thresholds that might be perceived as existential and precipitate nuclear responses. This calibration required sophisticated signalling mechanisms, including backchannel communication channels between military commands and discreet international mediation executed by the United States, China, and other actors, which enabled both parties to communicate limited intentions and avoid misunderstandings that could precipitate inadvertent escalation. The lessons derived from this successful crisis management under nuclear deterrence possess direct applicability to other potential conflict scenarios between nuclear powers, particularly in the context of Sino-American tensions over Taiwan where the risk of inadvertent escalation remains significant.

In conclusion, Operation Sindoor represents a defining moment in the evolution of modern warfare, exposing both the transformative capabilities and persistent vulnerabilities of contemporary weapons systems whilst validating emerging doctrines of multidimensional network combat. The lessons derived from these four days of intense combat will continue to reverberate through military communities, foreign policy circles, and defence industries globally during the next decade, informing decisions that will shape the strategic balance in Asia and the modalities through which great powers will compete and, potentially, enter into conflict in the twenty-first century. The fundamental challenge for democratic states consists of absorbing these lessons effectively whilst maintaining technological and operational advantages that deter aggression, preserve strategic stability, and protect vital national interests in an increasingly contested and multipolar international order.

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Methodological Note on Sources

This study integrates over one hundred and fifty primary and secondary sources, including reports from think tanks specialising in Asian security, technical analyses of weapons systems provided by manufacturers, open-source intelligence assessments executed through commercial satellite imagery analysis, and academic literature on nuclear deterrence theory and controlled escalation. The methodological limitations inherent to this type of research include restricted access to classified documents from the governments involved, deliberate strategic opacity from India and Pakistan regarding exact losses and specific operational tactics, and the persistence of disinformation campaigns that require continuous verification through triangulation of multiple independent sources. Where significant factual ambiguities persist, the text explicitly indicates the range of estimates and the sources that underpin alternative interpretations, enabling readers to evaluate the robustness of specific conclusions.