Lessons for PH from India’s Operation Sindoor

On April 22, a deadly terrorist attack occurred in Pahalgam, a town in the Indian state of Kashmir. The tragic incident led to the death of 25 Indian and one Nepali citizen. In response to the terror attack, India launched a military operation, dubbed Sindoor, on May 7. 

As a restrained and measured response to the terror attacks, the first stage of Operation Sindoor did not target any Pakistani military facility.

Rather, nine sites and camps of Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir-based terrorist groups, such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), which have a clear record of orchestrating terrorist attacks against India throughout the years, were targeted.

In fact, JeM Chief Masood Azhar admitted that his relatives were killed in India’s missile strikes. The Pakistan Army then decided to escalate by launching a series of drone attacks on Indian military infrastructure. While these attempts were effectively repulsed by India’s network of comprehensive and multilayered air defense systems, the Indian military successfully conducted high-impact air operations on major military bases in Pakistan – as confirmed by satellite imagery reported by the New York Times.

While both sides suffered losses, the Washington Post reported that after thoroughly evaluating over two dozen satellite images in the conflict’s aftermath, it was clear that Pakistan incurred the most strategic losses.

Moreover, the Indian military’s ability to strike highly defended targets under complex conditions and undertake follow-on attacks point to the success of Operation Sindoor.

But what does a conflict thousands of kilometers away have to do with the Philippines? There are three lessons that Manila can pick up from the events that transpired.

First, Pakistan relies heavily on Chinese defense equipment for its military modernization. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Pakistan imported over 80 percent of its defense requirements from China in the last five years – this includes the vast majority of its air-to-air missiles and air defense systems.

Accordingly, by hitting Pakistani military bases, the Indian military illustrated its capability to bypass and jam Pakistan’s layered air defenses, which included the made-in-China air defense systems like the HQ-9.

Additionally, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah confirmed that the Indian military used its BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to hit these targets effectively.

Visual reports also confirm that India has gotten its hands on China’s PL-15 missile, which malfunctioned and failed to self-destruct.

Further, as integral elements of its air defense network, India’s indigenously built Akash air defense missiles, and D4 anti-drone systems displayed exemplary results in repelling various attacks from Pakistan.

For Manila, Operation Sindoor’s outcome gave the Philippine military some assurance regarding its investment in the BrahMos. This comes at a time when the Southeast Asian nation just received the second batch of supersonic cruise missiles from India in April.

As the Philippines contemplates a potential deal with India for the Akash, the recent conflict illustrated the operational success of the India-made air defense system.

Additionally, the operational loopholes in Pakistan’s air defenses and missile attacks should have also provided the Philippines with a more nuanced understanding of China’s military capabilities to temper exaggerated claims about its impenetrable prowess.

While China’s expanding militarization in the West Philippine Sea is a clear existential threat to the Philippines, Manila must eliminate any trace of defeatism and more emphatically prioritize its military modernization program based on an integrated, comprehensive, and practical roadmap, along with institutionalizing maritime security cooperative frameworks with its ally and partners to ensure continuity in applying cost on China’s unilateralism at sea.

Second, aside from the purchase of defense equipment, the events that unfolded throughout the conflict demonstrated that the prerequisite for a successful defensive or offensive military mission is a robust intelligence, surveillance, target-acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) system.

Therefore, the Philippines’ purchase of new military equipment must align with a proportional investment in ISTAR capabilities. This is where Manila will need to leverage its security partnerships with technologically advanced nations.

Manila’s 2023 satellite sharing agreement with Ottawa and its 2024 General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Washington are significant developments that can bolster the Philippines’ ISTAR capabilities.

However, more attention must be directed at this area of defense and technological modernization.

Third, beyond the physical space, disinformation campaigns through social media have also greatly affected the perception of the tussle even before the dust of the conflict had settled.

Similarly, Beijing has been trying to manipulate the global and Philippine information space to malign the Southeast Asian nation’s intent to defend its sovereignty and sovereign rights in the maritime domain against Chinese expansionism.

While the Philippines’ transparency initiative, for instance, helps push back against these information operations by exposing China’s illegal and dangerous activities within Philippine waters, the Southeast Asian nation still lacks a clear and coherent narrative on its legitimate claims in the South China Sea.

Accordingly, former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio lamented that Filipinos have incoherent and inconsistent stories regarding the historical, legal, and factual basis of the Philippines’ claims in the South China Sea.

Given the growing strategic importance of the information and digital space, this may create long-term challenges for Manila’s position, even in traditional security matters.

Therefore, a thorough and coherent whole-of-government and society approach would be vital.

Despite being concentrated in South Asia, Operation Sindoor provides important lessons for the Philippines in its quest for a more secure and stable strategic environment.

Such events can offer practical guidelines for the Southeast Asian nation.

(Don McLain Gill is a geopolitical analyst and lecturer at the Department of International Studies, De La Salle University. He is also an Indo-Pacific Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada)