The significance of the May 7 strikes arises from a number of interrelated factors. First, New Delhi’s actions have effectively normalised a new counter-terrorism doctrine, grounded in the principle that India will respond militarily to terrorist attacks, regardless of the consequences.

Second, by unilaterally proceeding with its punitive response without consulting or convincing the international community, India has effectively turned the argument that it must satisfy global expectations on its head. If the international community is genuinely concerned about escalation between the two nuclear powers and wants a peaceful South Asia, it must press Pakistan to stop supporting terrorism rather than urging India to suffer acts of terror without responding. The international community must stop confusing the victim and the perpetrator.

India’s unilateral action without attempting to satisfy the international community also limits Pakistan’s ability to persuade the global community to restrain Indian responses going forward. Put differently, Islamabad will no longer be able to rely on the good offices of the international community to justify its bad behaviour, both because New Delhi is now less constrained by concerns over international reactions and because the international community has become less indulgent of Pakistani excesses.

Clearly, the international community has been less than supportive of India’s efforts to fight terrorism in the past, and this continues to be the case even after the recent attack in Pahalgam. Thanks to their inability to call a spade a spade on the question of terrorism, several members of the international community may have diminished their influence in New Delhi. By carrying out punitive strikes without regard for “what will others think”, India has now created a hard choice for its partners: To stand with it or not stand with it, each of which will have consequences. Being India’s strategic partner is not only about access to Indian markets or receiving support when India’s partners are having a bad day: It also means standing by India during periods of crisis. How many of India’s strategic partners did so after Pahalgam?

Third, with foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s systematic presentation at the presser linking the attacks to the Lashkar-e-Taiba — a UN proscribed terror group based in Pakistan — and highlighting India’s right to self-defence, New Delhi has effectively managed to tilt the burden of conclusive proof argument against Pakistan. The new Indian argument is that insofar as there are terrorist organisations in Pakistan that have attacked India — which have not been brought to justice by Islamabad — that is evidence enough for establishing Pakistani complicity. Forensic evidence is not always readily available, can be disputed, and, by the time evidence is gathered, the opportunity for action may have already passed. More so, India’s experience of giving evidence to Pakistan and accepting joint investigations into terror attacks have not produced any results in the past. The trial in the 2008 Mumbai attack is an example of the former, and India inviting Pakistani investigators into Pathankot airbase for joint investigations in 2016 is an example of the latter.

Operation Sindoor has also shown that the international community’s nuclear fears are misplaced, and part of that fear has been a product of Pakistan’s deft diplomacy. In 2016, 2019, and now, in 2025, neither side (or at least no one in charge) made any mention of the use of nuclear weapons, even in Pakistan. And because Pakistan has not used the nuclear argument, its nuclear bluff of full spectrum war against Indian aggression also stands called. Given its conventional inferiority relative to India, Islamabad has consistently tried to link conventional conflict with nuclear dangers, while simultaneously maintaining denial over sub-conventional attacks against India, to avoid triggering a conventional response.

Operation Sindoor calls both the bluffs: It removes the space between sub-conventional and conventional aggression, and by carrying out a series of conventional strikes disregarding Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine, it has called its nuclear bluff. Put differently, Pakistan can no longer depend on nuclear threats to deter Indian conventional attacks in response to sub-conventional aggression.

While escalation remains a concern, the real challenge for India is two-fold: The breakdown of the ceasefire at the Line of Control (LoC) and getting caught in a bilateral back-and-forth with Pakistan. The former will demand more military commitment at the LoC and in Kashmir, and the latter will be at the cost of India’s grander foreign policy objectives when it comes to the global arena. While India’s demonstration of resolve is a major political signal to its partners and adversaries alike, that it is a decisive military actor, it is not in New Delhi’s interest to get caught in conflict with Pakistan in the longer run.

Happymon Jacob teaches India’s foreign policy at Jawaharlal Nehru University and is editor, INDIA’S WORLD, a foreign affairs magazine. The views expressed are personal