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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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Trump Safe After Being Rushed from White House Correspondents Dinner, Shooter in Custody
U.S. President Donald Trump is escorted out as a shooter opens fire during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026, in this screen capture from video. REUTERS/Bo Erickson
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner by Secret Service agents on Saturday night after a man armed with a shotgun tried to breach security, officials said.
A man armed with a shotgun fired at a Secret Service agent, an FBI official told Reuters. The agent was hit in an area covered by protective gear and not harmed, the official said.
All federal officials, including Trump, were safe. About an hour after Trump was rushed from the event, he posted on Truth Social that a “shooter had been apprehended.”
“Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job,” Trump added.
Shortly afterwards, he posted, “The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition.” He said he would be holding a White House press conference on Saturday night.
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said the service was investigating a shooting near the main screening area at the entrance to the event.
After the sound of shots, dinner attendees immediately stopped talking and people started screaming “Get down, get down!”
Hundreds of guests dove under the tables as Secret Service officers in combat gear ran into the dining room. Trump and the first lady had bent down behind the dais before being hustled out by Secret Service officers.
Many of the 2,600 attendees took cover while waiters fled to the front of the dining hall.
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Trump Cancels Envoys’ Pakistan Trip, in Blow to Hopes for Iran War Breakthrough
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump canceled a trip by two US envoys to Iran war mediator Pakistan on Saturday, dealing a new setback to peace prospects after Iran’s foreign minister departed Islamabad after speaking only to Pakistani officials.
While peace talks failed to materialize Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops to “forcefully” attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, his office said, further testing a three-week ceasefire.
Trump told reporters in Florida that he decided to call off the planned visit by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner because the talks in Islamabad involved too much travel and expense, and Iran’s latest peace offer was not good enough for him.
Before boarding Air Force One on Saturday for a return flight to Washington, Trump said Iran had improved an offer to resolve the conflict after he canceled the visit, “but not enough.”
In a social media post, Trump also wrote there was “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership.
“Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” he posted on Truth Social.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi earlier left the Pakistani capital without any sign of a breakthrough in talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other senior officials.
Araqchi later described his visit to Pakistan as “very fruitful,” adding in a social media post that he had “shared Iran’s position concerning (a) workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy”.
Iranian media reported that Araqchi had flown to Oman’s capital Muscat, saying he will meet with senior officials to “discuss and exchange views on bilateral relations and regional developments”.
Sharif wrote in a post on X that he spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about the regional security situation and told him that Pakistan was committed to serving “as an honest and sincere facilitator — working tirelessly to advance durable peace and lasting stability.”
Tehran has ruled out a new round of direct talks with the United States and an Iranian diplomatic source said his country would not accept Washington’s “maximalist demands.”
IRAN AND US AT AN IMPASSE
Washington and Tehran are at an impasse as Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, while the US blocks Iran’s oil exports.
The conflict, in which a ceasefire is in force, began with US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28. Iran has since carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, and the war has pushed up energy prices to multi-year highs, stoking inflation and darkening global growth prospects.
Araqchi “explained our country’s principled positions regarding the latest developments related to the ceasefire and the complete end of the imposed war against Iran,” said a statement on the minister’s official Telegram account.
Asked about Tehran’s reservations over US positions in the talks, an Iranian diplomatic source in Islamabad told Reuters: “Principally, Iranian side will not accept maximalist demands.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come over the weekend, while Vice President JD Vance was ready to travel to Pakistan as well.
Vance led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran in Islamabad earlier this month.
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Hezbollah Says Ceasefire ‘Meaningless’ as Fighting Continues in South
Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in a village in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army operates in it as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said a US-mediated ceasefire in the war with Israel was meaningless a day after it was extended for three weeks, as Lebanese authorities reported two people killed by an Israeli strike and Hezbollah downed an Israeli drone.
US President Donald Trump announced the three-week extension on Thursday after hosting Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors at the White House. The ceasefire agreement between the governments of Lebanon and Israel had been due to expire on Sunday.
While the ceasefire has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Responding to the extension, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said “it is essential to point out that the ceasefire is meaningless in light of Israel’s insistence on hostile acts, including assassinations, shelling, and gunfire” and its demolition of villages and towns in the south.
“Every Israeli attack… gives the resistance the right to a proportionate response,” he added.
Hezbollah is not a party to the ceasefire agreement, and has strongly objected to Lebanon’s face-to-face contacts with Israel.
BUFFER ZONE
The April 16 agreement does not require Israeli troops to withdraw from the belt of southern Lebanon seized during the war. The zone extends 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanon.
Israel says the buffer zone aims to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which fired hundreds of rockets at Israel during the war.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the group opened fire in support of Iran in the regional war. The ceasefire in Lebanon emerged separately from Washington’s efforts to resolve its conflict with Tehran, though Iran had called for Lebanon to be included in any broader truce.
Nearly 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2, the Lebanese health ministry says.
ISRAELI MILITARY WARNS RESIDENTS TO LEAVE TOWN
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike killed two people in the southern village of Touline on Friday.
Hezbollah shot down an Israeli drone, the group and the Israeli military said. Hezbollah identified it as a Hermes 450 and said it had downed it with a surface-to-air missile.
An Israeli drone was heard circling above Beirut throughout the day on Friday, Reuters reporters said.
The Israeli military warned residents of the southern town of Deir Aames to leave their homes immediately, saying it planned to act against “Hezbollah activities” there.
Deir Aames is located north of the area occupied by Israeli forces, and it was the first time Israel had issued such a warning since the ceasefire came into force on April 16. Posted on social media, the Israeli warning gave no details of the activities it said Hezbollah was conducting in the town.
The Israeli military also said it had intercepted a drone prior to its crossing into Israeli territory, and that sirens were sounded in line with protocol.
WAR-WEARY RESIDENTS SEEK END TO FIGHTING
The continued fighting has angered war-weary Lebanese, who say they want to see a genuine ceasefire put a full halt to violence.
“What’s this? Is this called a ceasefire? Or is this mocking (people’s) intelligence?” said Naem Saleh, a 73-year-old owner of a newsstand in Beirut.
Residents of northern Israel had mostly returned to daily life, but expressed pessimism about the longevity of the ceasefire with Lebanon.
“I believe that the ceasefire is so fragile, and unfortunately it won’t stand long, in my opinion,” said Eliad Eini, a resident of Nahariya, which lies just 10 km (6 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least five people in the south, including a journalist.
Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter, in his opening remarks at Thursday’s talks, said “Lebanon should acknowledge the temporary presence of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the right of Israel to defend itself from a hostile force that is firing on the population.”
Lebanon’s Ambassador to the United States Nada Moawad, in a written statement sent to Reuters, called for the ceasefire to be fully respected and said it would allow the necessary conditions for meaningful negotiations.
Lebanon has said it aims to secure the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from its territory in broader talks with Israel at a later stage.
Trump said on Thursday that he looked forward to hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the near future, and said there was “a great chance” the two countries would reach a peace agreement this year.
Hezbollah attacks killed two civilians in Israel after March 2, while 15 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon since then, Israel says.