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South Asia waited expectantly for India’s response to a February 14 suicide bombing by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) that left over 40 Indian soldiers dead. That response came at 3:00 AM on February 26, when India conducted an airstrike on a JeM training camp in northern Pakistan. The strike, which marks the first Indian airstrike in Pakistan since the 1971 war between the two countries, is a marked escalation of the conflict. Skirmishes continued through the following day, with Pakistan shooting down an Indian fighter jet and capturing its pilot. Yet airstrikes alone won’t force Pakistan to stop supporting anti-India terror groups.
The details of India’s airstrike depend entirely on which country’s media you read. According to Indian reports, the strikes preemptively killed 300 militants who were plotting another attack. According to Pakistani ones, Indian jets dropped their bombs into the forest in what was merely a political stunt for Modi ahead of spring elections. A resident of a village near where the strike took place told the New York Times that the airstrikes missed the facility and hit an empty ravine. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
Regardless of the actual number, airstrikes are more likely to embolden Pakistan’s army than force its hand. The army’s credibility rests on a narrative that sees Pakistan as under permanent threat from its belligerent Hindu neighbor. This case fits the narrative like a glove: an oppressed Kashmiri Muslim kills 40 Indian occupying soldiers, and India wrongly blames Pakistan. Without presenting evidence, India tries to bomb Pakistan, but the ever-ready Pakistani army prevents a successful airstrike.
For the Pakistani army, 300 militants are a small price to pay for vindication of its preeminence in Pakistan. Beyond this, even if the strikes killed 300 militants, there are legions of angry, Indian-hating youth among Pakistan’s 200 million people that can replenish a madrassah or training camp. Meanwhile, the army will use this to grow its outsized share of Pakistan’s federal budget.
The airstrikes’ intended audience, given their foreseeable limited costs on Pakistan’s military, was thus most likely commentators in Delhi and voters; not the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi. In this case, the airstrikes were a success. In their aftermath, an editorial in the influential Times of India praised Modi for making it “amply clear to Pakistan that it will hit back quickly and impose costs,” while Bollywood stars flooded Twitter with nationalist messages. The prime minister himself assured a rally that “the country is in safe hands.”
If Modi’s goal was to rally his domestic audience ahead of elections, then the airstrikes worked. Yet if the goal was to force Pakistan to cut ties with its terrorist proxies, a different strategy is necessary. Until the government adopts one, February 14 surely won’t be the last terror attack on India’s soldiers.
Indian airstrikes alone will not stop Pakistan’s backing of terror groups.
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