What has been the history of Pakistan’s wars with India? Tactically good, but strategically bad. This is the reason why he loses every battle despite starting with full strength. But except 1971 and Kargil war, it has claimed victory in most of the wars. Just look at the 87-hour encounter last year. From Munir to the lowest level of Pakistani politics, the whole of Pakistan believes that it has won this time; That America then embraced him again and this was considered an approval of his self-proclaimed ‘victory’. Whereas the reality is that just four days before the Pahalgam massacre and about two weeks before Operation Sindoor, the visit of Steve Witkoff’s son Jacques and the crypto deal had taken place. Munir knew that India would respond to Pahalgam. Therefore, he had already prepared the move to take advantage of the greed of the Trump family. You can praise Munir for realizing this before most people in the world, or maybe Saudi Arabia had already warned him. Even before the fight started, he had turned Trump’s ‘system’ in his favor. A week earlier, on April 16, 2025, his speech to Pakistanis living abroad had indicated this. That massacre was part of their plan to see India retaliate. His strategic goal was to raise the Kashmir issue by bringing Trump to his side. The first move was successful, but the second was a complete failure. Pakistan had provoked India knowing that India would take military action in response, hence it must have guessed which places would be targeted. They also knew what weapons India would use. Therefore, when the Indian Air Force took off at 1:07 am on 7th May, they were ready. They could not stop attacks on targets in their hinterland, but this was not their objective either. They wanted to limit the response to aerial encounters. This action was practiced in advance by placing forward AEW aircraft and J-10C, JF-17 along with PL-15 missiles. They had some success and were celebrating it. The loss of some aircraft has been acknowledged at high levels in India. The former CDS called it a ‘tactical mistake’, but the IAF planned to settle the score. First of all, to put Pakistan’s air defense under pressure, anti-radiation drones were attacked. And finally, continuous air strikes were carried out on the most heavily defended air bases of the PAF. No PAF aircraft, or any long-range missile, could take off to respond. By the time Pakistan called for a ceasefire, only one side had evidence of the extent of damage caused to the other: commercial satellite images showed that at least 13 PAF air bases and three radars had been destroyed. Despite this, Pakistan is celebrating its victory. An Indian commander said it was as if India had defeated Pakistan 3-1 in a hockey match. The point was that their center forward scored a goal and our players converted three penalties. There is no evidence for their claims of harming us. All airports in India have cities built up near them, nothing is hidden, but no satellite images have been revealed. All claims of Pakistan are useless. However, here I am not trying to repeat recent history, but rather emphasize my main point. That is, the Pakistani military mind thinks well, but only in terms of strategic moves. He cannot predict how India will respond. This could be internal weakness, disrespect towards the Indian Army or a combination of both. We also got this idea from Pakistani writer Shuja Nawaz’s book Crossed Swords. Talking about the Kargil war, he has written that the Pakistani team playing ‘war game’ with India had correctly guessed how the Vajpayee government would respond. Had it been taken seriously, Pakistan could have avoided defeat, retreat and humiliation, but it was ridiculed. Kargil war was brilliant from strategic point of view. The deception, the planning, the secrecy, the choice of terrain and the significance of the location, brilliant in every way. But no one thought that if this did not happen…, what if India competed? This requires strategic thinking, which is lacking in Pakistan. Kargil therefore proved to be a strategic defeat because it strengthened global recognition of the Line of Control. While stopping briefly at Islamabad airport, Bill Clinton had told Pakistan on camera that the borders drawn on the map of the subcontinent can no longer be changed with blood. This story has been repeated before in old battles. In 1965, Operation Gibraltar to capture Chhamb and then Operation Grand Slam to capture Akhnoor were launched to cut off Kashmir from India. The Pakistani Army assumed that India would abandon Kashmir and did not properly consider India’s possible retaliation. In the same war, the surprise attack by tanks at Khemkaran is counted among the most daring attacks of the subcontinent. The biggest battle of that war was the defeat of Pakistan and the destruction of its best tanks. Pakistan claimed victory in that war too, but the irony is that it celebrates September 6 as ‘Defence of Pakistan Day’! This is the lesson of history…Pakistan has taken a wrong lesson from Operation Sindoor. In such a situation, we will have to anticipate Pakistan’s next provocative action. History shows that when Pakistani power reaches such a situation, it takes the worst and most self-defeating strategic decisions. (These are the author’s own views)
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Shekhar Gupta’s column: Pakistan’s destiny has become to live in oblivion.
