The first set of challenges arises from domestic political considerations: Balancing the need to address public outrage with the benefits of a military response. There is undoubtedly significant outrage in the country that the BJP-led government would find challenging to ignore, mainly for political reasons. However, Delhi will face the dilemma of fulfilling public demand for decisive military action while ensuring that any measures it undertakes effectively achieve their intended objectives. Neither option is easy. If Delhi undertakes covert action for targeted impact, it might not quell public anger; if it engages in overt military action, it could encounter strong resistance from Pakistan, potentially failing to achieve the intended outcomes without costs. Moreover, if the government issues threats and then doesn’t follow up, it might lose face domestically. If it follows through with military action but its publicly declared objectives are not met, the government could still lose face.

The second level of the dilemma lies at the bilateral level: Balancing military action aimed at inflicting punishment and restoring deterrence against terrorist strikes while preventing unintended escalation between the two sides. India would want punishment without escalation; Pakistan would challenge punishment threats of escalation and could even follow these up. So far, India’s non-military punitive measures have only met with lower-level responses from Pakistan, most of which are futuristic in nature. Pakistan has played safe by taking actions that are lower in severity compared to India’s measures, while indicating that its next retaliatory steps will be more serious, thereby putting the ball in India’s court.

Herein lies the Indian dilemma. An Indian military response is likely to attract a similar reaction as in 2019. Being a superior military power, India might win a conventional war, but not without costs. In a short, conventional military action-reaction scenario, it is hard for even a stronger military to emerge as a clear winner. Second, India might want a clean military option without being drawn into a long-drawn fight, but exercising a clean military option without escalation or by controlled escalation will also depend on Pakistan. In other words, a limited conventional exchange that fails to produce a clear winner could lead to several consequences: Prolonged standoff with heavy firing along the Line of Control (LoC); India may need to redeploy troops from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to the LoC if military tensions with Pakistan persist; and, if Pakistan fulfils its threat to unilaterally abrogate the Simla Agreement, the situation in the LoC and Kashmir could deteriorate further. While it is true that the employment of conventional military options might not lead to a large-scale war between two nuclear-armed States, this will undoubtedly alter the current balance of violence between India and Pakistan.

The third set of challenges for India is at the international level: Balancing the country’s global ambitions with a credible response to major terror attacks emanating from Pakistan without getting dragged into another conflict with Pakistan. A military action-reaction spiral with Pakistan, laden with escalatory potential, will take Delhi’s political and diplomatic attention away from its global objectives. India has successfully managed to de-hyphenate itself from Pakistan in the eyes of the international community including for the previously Pakistan-friendly West Asian States. Continuing tensions, nuclear fears, and concerns about military escalation in the subcontinent will once again encourage the international community to hyphenate India and Pakistan at a time when the international community is least interested in Kashmir or the subcontinent.

Conversely, failing to respond to high-profile terror attacks on its soil could be perceived by its peers as unworthy of a nation aspiring to be a great power in the international system. What kind of great power aspirant doesn’t respond to such provocations? How can a country that can’t effectively respond to challenges from its neighbourhood project force internationally?

None of these three dilemmas are easy to deal with — whichever options India chooses in addressing each of these dilemmas will have their own consequences. For now, Indian responses have remained below the kinetic level, yet they are still punishing in their impact, even if not immediately, over time.

Over the past few years, India’s objective has been to demonstrate that it will only deal with Pakistan without Kashmir on the table and that it can deal with Kashmir without meeting Pakistan on the negotiating table. Through the terror strike, Pakistan has tried to deflate the Indian argument that Kashmir can be stabilised without Pakistan. For India, the challenge is to choose a response which doesn’t end up hyphenating Kashmir with Pakistan and re-hyphenating India with Pakistan.

Happymon Jacob teaches India’s foreign policy at JNU, and is editor, INDIA’S WORLD. The views expressed are personal