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What India’s New Security Paradigm Means for Israel
An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plane lands at the Ben Gurion International airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, March 22, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Indian strategic restraint was designed to prevent escalation with Pakistan. In practice, it did the opposite. Terror groups backed by Pakistan’s security agencies exploited the firebreak between terrorism and state aggression, on the assumption that India would avoid decisive retaliation or cross-border action. Limited responses produced predictable patterns, and predictability invited more violence.
India has replaced this framework with a doctrine of compellence. Major attacks are now treated as acts of war. This principle was made explicit during Operation Sindoor, when the Prime Minister announced that major terrorist attacks would be answered as acts of war rather than treated as matters for law enforcement. The government no longer waits for lengthy attribution cycles or international pressure before acting. Pre-emption is considered a sovereign right. During Operation Sindoor, India struck early and deep, using long-range fire, drone swarms, loitering munitions, and real-time fused intelligence. The operation broke the old template and signaled a permanent doctrinal change.
The end of strategic restraint
This evolution is institutional, not episodic. Indian deterrence is now pattern-based rather than event-based, signaling that retaliation is now to be expected rather than debated. Public expectations help shape policy, and citizens expect retaliation rather than investigation. The political reality, in which national strategy is tied to public sentiment, narrows the space for restraint.
The shift extends beyond military action. During the 2025 ceasefire discussions with Pakistan, Delhi rejected all external mediation. That was not a negotiating tactic. It was the expression of a new doctrine. India now treats crises with Pakistan as regionally internal and prefers direct communication between the Directors General of Military Operations, the top operational military officers on each side. Outside involvement is kept at a minimum to preserve freedom of maneuver and crisis ownership.
Treaties under conditional legitimacy
India’s approach to treaties has changed as well, reflecting the same shift toward coercive clarity. The suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, a 1960 agreement that divided the rivers of the Indus basin and survived multiple wars, marked the first time a resource-sharing treaty was used as coercive leverage in South Asia. The shift echoed earlier remarks by Indian leaders that blood and water cannot flow together, a formulation now reflected in policy rather than rhetoric. For decades, arrangements like this were treated as stabilizing anchors meant to insulate both countries from conflict. India no longer accepts that premise. Water, airspace, and border-management agreements now survive only if they reinforce India’s security narrative.
The same logic applies to the Shimla Agreement of 1972, which committed India and Pakistan to resolve disputes bilaterally. Once a cornerstone of India’s diplomatic posture, it now carries less weight because it places more constraints on India than on Pakistan.
India continues to declare a No First Use nuclear policy, but political leaders have introduced deliberate ambiguity about how that commitment should be interpreted in a rapidly changing threat environment. What was once a doctrine of assured retaliation is evolving toward assured punishment, a formulation that narrows the room for adversary miscalculation while maintaining rhetorical restraint. Precision conventional strikes now operate close to Pakistan’s nuclear command-and-control infrastructure, compressing the conventional–nuclear firebreak. New capabilities such as MIRVs (canisterized missiles kept at higher readiness) and routine SSBN patrols show that India’s deterrent is no longer merely symbolic. It is becoming a readiness-oriented system in which technology and doctrine are evolving together.
India has also redefined its counterterrorism doctrine. Proxy groups are treated as instruments of hostile state policy, not as deniable actors operating in a grey zone. Zero tolerance refers not only to the occurrence of terrorism but to the continued existence of the networks that enable it. India now views the broader ecosystem surrounding terrorist groups as a legitimate set of targets.
A final dimension is often overlooked. China is the silent second audience for India’s choices. Signals meant for Pakistan carry an implied message for Beijing. India’s interception of Chinese-origin PL-15 air-to-air missiles and successful defeat of Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied air defense systems during Operation Sindoor provided valuable intelligence on Chinese weapons design and vulnerabilities. India’s new deterrence logic is built for a two-front environment in which actions in one direction have consequences in the other.
What emerges is a picture of a state transforming under fire. India is not becoming reckless; it is becoming coherent. It is aligning doctrine, public expectations, defense industrial capacity, and geopolitical messaging around a single principle. Security must be achieved by India, not granted through outside mediation or constrained by outdated assumptions.
Despite these shifts, several structural constraints remain unchanged. India continues to face significant intelligence gaps, limited real-time ISR coverage along key sectors, and persistent bureaucratic friction in inter-service coordination. The political leadership remains sensitive to the costs of prolonged conflict, and the military is deeply cautious about simultaneous commitments on two fronts. These enduring limitations serve as a crucial reminder that doctrinal evolution does not eliminate operational friction.
Not all members of India’s strategic community concur with this trajectory. Several scholars argue that a posture centered on rapid retaliation and pre-emption may, in practice, erode crisis stability rather than strengthen it, particularly without sustained reforms in civil-military coordination and decision-making. Moreover, Pakistan’s domestic fragility, decentralized proxy networks, and continued reliance on nuclear signaling introduce significant uncertainty. These structural conditions suggest that India’s increasingly assertive doctrine will not necessarily yield predictable adversary behavior and may interact with Pakistani vulnerabilities in destabilizing ways.
A coherent but high-stakes doctrine
This shift is not without risks. A posture built on pre-emption and rapid retaliation compresses decision time on both sides, increasing the danger of misinterpretation or premature escalation. Pattern-based deterrence assumes intent can be accurately discerned, but intelligence failures or political pressure could easily prompt India to act on incomplete signals. The erosion of stabilizing agreements such as the Indus Waters Treaty and the weakening of the Shimla framework remove guardrails that once shaped crisis behavior. Greater strategic autonomy gives India more room to maneuver, but also narrows the margin for error in a nuclearized environment.
There is also a diplomatic cost. India’s rejection of external mediation strengthens its claim to sovereign crisis management, but reduces the number of actors capable of de-escalating a crisis once it begins. Washington’s traditional stabilizing role will become more constrained, while Beijing may interpret India’s new doctrine through its own rivalry calculus, tightening the two-front dynamic India seeks to manage. Assertiveness delivers clarity, but can also prompt counter-moves that make South Asia more volatile, not less.
Implications for Israel
These shifts matter for Israel. India’s new deterrence posture — explicitly rejecting nuclear blackmail, collapsing the line between proxy terror and state responsibility, and demonstrating a willingness to strike early and with precision — mirrors many of the principles Israel has relied on for decades. Both states face adversaries that use terrorism as a strategic tool under the umbrella of nuclear ambiguity.
India’s performance in Sindoor, especially its defeat of Chinese-origin PL-15 missiles and HQ-9/P air defenses, provides operational insights that are directly relevant to Israel, as Chinese technology expands across the Middle East. The emerging convergence is not rhetorical; it is doctrinal. India’s willingness to impose costs on an ecosystem that enables terrorism, and to do so without waiting for external validation, opens new avenues for Israel-India strategic coordination.
India has written a new playbook, and the world needs to pay attention.
Dr. Lauren Dagan Amos is a member of the Deborah Forum, a lecturer and a researcher in the Department of Political Science and the Security Studies Program at Bar-Ilan University. She specializes in Indian foreign policy.
John Spencer is Chair of War Studies at the Madison Policy Forum and Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute. He served 25 years as an infantry soldier, including two combat tours in Iraq. He is author of the book Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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China Warns Against Foreign ‘Interference’ in Iran as Trump Mulls Response to Regime Crackdown
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with fire from a burning picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside the Iranian embassy during a rally in support of nationwide protests in Iran, in London, Britain, Jan. 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
China on Monday expressed hope that the Iranian regime would “overcome” the current anti-government protests sweeping the country, warning against foreign “interference” as US President Donald Trump considered how to respond to Iran’s deadly crackdown on nationwide protests.
“China hopes the Iranian government and people will overcome the current difficulties and uphold stability in the country,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters during a press conference.
“China always opposes interference in other countries’ internal affairs, advocates that all countries’ sovereignty and security should be fully protected by international law, and opposes the use or threat of force in international relations,” she continued. “We call on parties to act in ways conducive to peace and stability in the Middle East.”
The comments came as Iran continued to face fierce demonstrations, which began on Dec. 28 over economic hardships but escalated into large-scale protests calling for the downfall of the country’s Islamist regime.
If the regime in Tehran was seriously weakened or potentially collapsed, it would present a problem for a strategic partner of Beijing.
China, a key diplomatic and economic backer of Tehran, has moved to deepen ties with the regime in recent years, signing a 25-year cooperation agreement, holding joint naval drills, and continuing to purchase Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing. Traders and analysts have said that Chinese reliance on Iranian oil will likely increase and replace Venezuelan oil after US forces captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month.
Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when Tehran faces mounting economic sanctions from Western powers, while Beijing itself is also under US sanctions.
According to some media reports, China may be even helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following the 12-day war with Israel in June.
The extent of China’s partnership with Iran may be tested as the latter comes under increased international scrutiny over its violent crackdown on anti-regime protests.
US-based rights group HRANA said by late Monday it had verified the deaths of 646 people, including 505 protesters, 113 military and security personnel, and seven bystanders. The group added that it was investigating 579 more reported deaths and that, since the demonstrations began,10,721 people have been arrested.
Other reports gave indicated the number of protesters killed by the regime numbers well into the thousands, but with the regime imposing an internet blackout since Thursday, verification has been difficult.
Trump has said he will intervene against the regime if security forces continue killing protesters. Adding to threats of military action, Trump late on Monday announced that any country doing business with Iran will face a new tariff of 25 percent on its exports to the U.S.
“This order is final and conclusive,” he said in a social media post.
According to reports, Trump was to meet with senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, including military strikes, using cyber weapons, widening sanctions, and providing online help to anti-government sources.
Iran has warned that any military action would be met with force in response.
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories [Israel] as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf told a crowd in Tehran’s Enqelab Square on Monday, adding that Iranians were fighting a four-front war: “economic war, psychological warfare, military war against the US and Israel, and today a war against terrorism.”
However, the White House stressed that Trump hopes to find a diplomatic resolution.
“Diplomacy is always the first option for the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.
“What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” she said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Al Jazeera that he and US envoy Steve Witkoff have been in contact.
Trump said on Sunday the US could meet Iranian officials and he was in contact with Iran’s opposition.
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Arson Suspect Targeted Mississippi Synagogue for ‘Jewish Ties,’ Laughed During Confession: FBI
Smoldered remains of the Beth Israel Congregation’s library. Photo: Screenshot.
The suspect believed to have intentionally ignited a catastrophic fire which decimated the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi has told US federal investigators he targeted the institution over its “Jewish ties,” according to an affidavit the FBI has submitted to federal court.
Stephen Pittman, the FBI said in portions of the affidavit made public on Monday, “was identified as a person of interest and ultimately confessed to lighting a fire inside the building.” The document added that Pittman, arrested on Sunday, purchased the accelerant, gasoline, with which he ignited the blaze from a gas station.
Pittman, 19, allegedly started the conflagration in Beth Israel’s library during the early morning hours on Saturday, setting off a blaze which coursed through the entire building and intensified to the extent that its flames, according to one local account, “were coming out of the synagogue’s windows.” As he carried out the act, he notified his father of it via text message, saying “I did my research,” the
According to the court filing, Pittman also told his father that he was aware of the incident being filmed by Beth Israel’s security cameras, describing them as “the best.”
“Pittman laughed as he told his father what he did and said he finally got them,” read the affidavit from Nicholas Amiano, an FBI agent in the Jackson division.
In the end, Pittman allegedly destroyed a number of Torah scrolls and caused damage so great that the building must, for now, be abandoned while authorities conclude their investigation of the incident and Beth Israel, founded in 1860, weighs a reconstruction which could takes years to complete.
The institution was once targeted by the Ku Klux Klan over its rabbi’s support for civil rights for African Americans. With the latest destruction, some 150 families will be left without the only Jewish house of worship in the city.
“As Jackson’s only synagogue, Beth Israel is a beloved institution, and it is the fellowship of our neighbors and extended community that will see us through,” Beth Israel president Zach Shemper said in a statement. “We are a resilient people. With support from our community, we will rebuild.”
Jackson Mayor John Horhn, a Democrat also issued a statement, saying, “Acts of antisemitism, racism, and religious hatred are attacks on Jackson as a whole and will be treated as acts of terror against residents’ safety and freedom to worship. Targeting people because of their faith, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation is morally wrong, un-American, and completely incompatible with the values of this city.”
He added, “Jackson stands with Beth Israel and the Jewish community, and we’ll do everything we can to support them and hold accountable anyone who tried to spread fear and hate here.”
Reactions to the suspected hate crime poured in from major Jewish civil rights organizations across the country, with Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt saying, “An attack on any synagogue is an attack on all Jews.” The American Jewish Committee (AJC) called the fire a “hateful act” that “is only the most recent symptom of the dangerous rising antisemitism facing Jewish communities across the country and around the world.”
For several consecutive years, antisemitism in the US has surged to break “all previous annual records,” according to a series of reports issued by the ADL since it began recording data on antisemitic incidents.
The ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024 — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, providing statistical proof of what has been described as an atmosphere of hate not experienced in the nearly fifty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL’s data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
The FBI disclosed similar numbers, showing that even as hate crimes across the US decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this rise in antisemitic hate crimes, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
“This latest deplorable crime against a Jewish institution reminds us that the same hatred that motivated the KKK to attack Beth Israel in 1967 is alive today,” the Florida Holocaust Museum said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner on Monday. “Antisemitism are still trying to intimidate Jews, drive them out of public life, and make houses of worship targets of violence instead of place of safety and community.”
It added, “With your help we can resist this evil. The more society understands about the nature of antisemitism, including the Holocaust, the better prepared it will be to identify and reject anti-Jewish bigotry. May Beth Israel’s Holocaust Torah, which survived the fire, inspire us all to stand up for each other and create a more just and accepting world.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Synagogue arson suspect posted antisemitic cartoon on day of the attack
Stephen Spencer Pittman, who has been charged with setting fire to Mississippi’s oldest synagogue, recently launched a website promoting “scripture-backed fitness” and shared antisemitic content on Instagram the day of the arson attack.
Pittman, 19, was charged Monday in the Jan. 10 arson of Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., which he targeted because it was Jewish and described as a “synagogue of Satan,” according to an FBI affidavit. The affidavit included images of a text message conversation with his father showing Pittman went by his middle name.
St. Joseph Catholic School, Pittman’s alma mater, posted a photo of him in November 2023, with congratulations on his decision to attend Coahama Community College. St. Joe’s, as it’s known, has confirmed that Pittman is the suspect charged in the fire.
Social media accounts appearing to belong to a Spencer Pittman in Madison, Miss., a city about 15 miles north of Jackson, and a website registered to Pittman show a deep interest in Christian evangelism and physical fitness. He regularly posted quotes from the New Testament and images of himself exercising or playing sports.
The website, www.onepurpose.us, is laden with Bible references, including seemingly Judaic ones. Its homepage prominently features the Hebrew tetragrammaton representing God’s name, and calls on young men to transform their lives through a “Temple plan” of exercise and Bible study. It used a Hebrew word, heichal, to refer to sanctuary.
Pittman’s Instagram account took a darker turn in recent days.
Two days ago he reposted an animated video of a woman seeing a Jewish caricature holding moneybags and exclaiming, “A Jew in our backyard!” before pushing the figure into a swimming pool and adding, “You’re getting baptized right now.” The account he reposted has primarily shared that meme over and over. It was unclear whether he posted the video before or after the arson attack, which occurred Jan. 10 at around 3 a.m.
Before that, most of Pittman’s posts were about baseball, which he played at Coahoma Community College. It appears from an Instagram post about three weeks ago that Pittman had stopped playing baseball. In a post from Dec. 19, Pittman wrote, “Peace out to the game that made me ascend.”
He was the team’s starting center fielder at the end of last season. The school has deleted Pittman’s page from its website.
Pittman, who is in federal custody, remains hospitalized with burns it’s believed he received as a result of the arson. He was appointed a public defender on Monday, who appeared with him via videoconference for a preliminary hearing. He is expected to be released from the hospital on Wednesday, his lawyer said. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 20.
According to WLBT 3, a Jackson-based TV news station, after a federal judge asked Pittman during the hearing if he understood his rights, Pittman responded, “Yes sir. Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Law enforcement is still investigating the attack, and additional charges may be filed. If convicted on the current charges, Pittman could face up to 20 years in prison.
Calls to Pittman’s lawyer and to his family were not returned Monday.
The post Synagogue arson suspect posted antisemitic cartoon on day of the attack appeared first on The Forward.