India must pick the right lesson from Round One of Iran War II
American Vice President Vance departing Islamabad without a deal, it is increasingly clear that the pause was to help the Americans gather their wits about them and to get their forces into place for Round Two of the ongoing Iran War II. The cusp of the Americans attempting to militarily unlock the Straits of Hormuz by blockading is as good a juncture as any to reflect on the lessons of Round One.
The foremost lesson is to never underestimate the underdog.
The American-Israeli onslaught was predicated on a quick win, perhaps in a forenoon itself. The Iranians – having planned for the eventuality - stood up to the American War Secretary Hegseth’s ‘no quarter’ challenge. Outlasting the Americans was enough to win them Round One.
Ukraine holding out some four years into its conflict with Russia is another case of an underdog’s credibility. Quite like the American-Israeli decapitation strike on the Iranian leadership, the Russians had started off with a coup d’oeil. In the event, both opening gambits of respective wars of aggression came to naught. Underdogs have put paid to equations of comprehensive national power that incentivize such wars.
The lesson for closer home
In relation to the India-Pakistan dyad, the lesson is that India must take underdog Pakistan more seriously than its post Op Sindoor triumphalism lets on. Op Sindoor 2 kept on standby, India must be aware that Pakistan is surely watching Iran’s fight back more closely than India. Since Pakistan put up a credible counter to India’s Op Bandar and Op Sindoor, it can be expected in Op Sindoor 2 to start off where it left off to force a draw of sorts in future iterations.
On its part, India would likely be seeing how its strategic partners - the Americans and Israelis - failed to readily subdue Iran. As Trump found to his embarrassment with his “whole civilization will die” threat, upping-the-ante by the top dog is not always a doable proposition; and can only be much less so against a nuclear armed foe.
In the context of China, India could well emulate Iranian audacity. Pretending there was nothing to fight over - informed by Jaishankar’s logic ‘the meek must suffer what they must’ – is to take the realist fixation with power equations too far. India did mobilise in Op Snow Leopard, but failed to capitalize on the opening created.
Chinese strategic interest lying more to the east, they’d have unlikely risked exposure as a paper tiger. True, the Malacca Strait is no Hormuz and it’s now clear that the Chinese are well-stocked, yet even if not a full hand, military power can still be made serve a political purpose: credibility for an putative great power.
Simply put, given political will, the underdog has the capacity to prevent a top dog from running roughshod. For the top dog to lose, it’s enough for the underdog not to.
Learning the wrong lesson
From India’s post-Op Sindoor acquisitions, structural reform and doctrinal change, it is apparent that it wishes to be top dog in the India-Pak dyad. It seeks to move from offensive deterrence to compellence, under an Iron Dome-like Sudarshan Chakra sometime mid-next decade. It over-reads the asymmetry in India’s favour, missing the principal lesson from the ongoing war: an under-dog can compensate for comparative military weakness in foreseeable ways.
Militarily, the Iran War II shows the limitations of military ways and means for attaining political ends. The asymmetry between the Americans and the Iranians, who were under American sanctions for almost a half-century, could not have been starker. Yet the instrument of choice of the Americans was found wanting, despite obtaining strategic surprise in its employment.
The American navy has taken care to be a safe distance from Iranian shores. The drone-missile combination has turned out a great equalizer, even in a case of complete air dominance. A land invasion on the mainland stands ruled out. American proxies have been defanged at the outset. To compensate, America has upped its defence budget demand by a third.
By inference, the result of Op Sindoor 2 et al. can never be certain. Knowing Pakistan is a nuclear power, India must be made aware it cannot prevail. It would necessarily have to stop short. Thankfully, the tame conduct of Op Sindoor is a positive indicator of cognizance on this score, for now. Such understanding helps limit political aims and military objectives to deterrence. On this score, its spending spree can be taken as an effort not to bested by a Pakistan aided and abetted by China and, if need be, as underdog to checkmate China.
However, an ambitious tendency is visible in India busily fashioning for itself an escalatory-trap.
The quick reaction battalions and brigades forming up indicate a difficult-to-extricate-from scuffle is in the offing. A Dhurandhar-enthused constituency baying for more will see India reinforce failure – as the Americans are set to do in Round Two - with an entanglement as result, as the Russians find themselves in eastern Ukraine.
The assumption appears to be that an escalatory ladder in place, escalation dominance will incentivize an off-ramp for Pakistan. Instead, the under-dog will endeavour to puncture the assumption, leaving India in a self-made thicket. This is especially fraught in light of Pakistan’s tendency for early nuclear signalling. A Sudarshan Chakra to nestle under – by when it will be in the consolidation phase of its defence forces’ vision - will make India more venturesome than prudent in future.
Such a regional strategic trajectory is plausible.
Politically, India is in danger of emulating Israel, with proximity deepened by the new ‘special strategic partnership,’ geared to ‘Peace, Innovation and Prosperity.’ While ‘innovation’ can be conceded, given Israel’s mentorship of Indian defence sector, wishing for ‘peace’ and ‘prosperity’ is but subterfuge. The timing of the agreement in the immediate prelude to the illegal attack on Iran appears not to have been an accident, from India’s subsequent distancing from Iran. The agreement is patently not only about transmission of tactics, techniques and procedures. Strategic partnerships by definition are to induce like-mindedness.
The Israeli perspective is for regional ascendancy based on keeping the surrounding places and peoples unstable into perpetuity. In an India-Israel think-tank bilateral at which this author made a presentation on India-Pakistan reconciliation - back when this was not an anti-national sentiment – the Israelis interlocutors from the Begin-Sadat center (p. 20) queried the idea that a stable Pakistan is in Indian interest. They suggested that tethering Pakistan to a failing state status would be better.
Such philosophy informs the genocidal, ethnic cleansing and apartheid practices of Israel. Whether ‘mowing’ or ‘uprooting’ the grass secures Israel for the long term is moot. Strategic autonomy implies seeking the national interest through our very own culturally informed strategic lights. Uncritical borrowings can only backfire.
At the political-military intersect
India’s military is to ensure deterrence. Moves towards compellence incentivize a top dog mentality, emboldening an ideology-inspired regime. While the regime has an internal ideological project, there is also an external addendum. Indications of this have been put out time to time. When India acquires the self-confidence of a top dog, it can prove a cue for furthering with greater rigour the political project in both its internal and external dimensions.
India is also manufacturing its own potential vulnerabilities, such as by disenfranchising citizens in sensitive border states. The 1987 rigging of the Kashmir elections should alert. With insecurity persisting, prevailing as answer is not an option in a nuclear neighbourhood.
On its part, Pakistan, to compensate for being underdog, will continue to prove uppity and combative. If Op Swift Retort, Baisaran and Op Bunyan ul Marsoos are any guide, Pakistan - under assumptions of an underdog’s efficacy – will fancy its chances. It may even try to deflate a presumptuous India through a preventive conflict, with China in silent support.
Consequently, between the two, their rummaging for lessons on opposite sides of the top/underdog binary, the two sides risk a witch’s brew. For India, getting to regional top-dog status is a stepping stone for global great power status as it attains to the promise of viksit bharat. It will not be deflected from its goal of regional pre-eminence. However, the lesson from Iran War II is that attempting to get there militarily may jeopardise the very enterprise.
A top dog status has the advantage of conferring a position of strength. Such a perch affords magnanimity, a self-belief that allows for concessions in negotiated settlements. India has a choice to make: it can pursue top dog status for regime-pleasing aggrandizement or revise its motives: attain the status for peaceful conflict resolution.
