Operation Bunyanum Marsoos: Pakistan’s Strategic Posture vs. India’s Engineered Falsehoods

May 16^th, Friday 2025, was celebrated as ‘Victory Day’ by Pakistan to commemorate the victory in the recent conflict with India. Not only military, but the youth, media, and political leadership, all stood united as a ‘Steel Wall’ against Indian mischiefs. While the other side of the border stays in a constant loop of propagating false and unverified news, it pushes peace between the two countries to an even distant pole. However, this conflict has reshaped the dynamics in the region to a whole new level, helping Pakistan showcase its deterrence buildup, and has also unmasked India’s reliance on propaganda and disinformation to cover its failures on the battlefield, changing the future of warfare between the two countries.

This conflict, said to have originated from the Pahalgam attack, was linked with Pakistan by India. In response to this unverified, unproven accusation, India launched missile strikes on different points in Pakistan, including mosques, and civilian areas, killing innocent women and children and destroying infrastructure. Pakistan’s Ground-based Air Defense and Air Force halted the entrance of Indian aircraft into its airspace. Following this, five Indian jets were taken down, including three Rafale jets, an SU-30, and a MiG-29, along with a Heron UAV. In its defense, Pakistan, with a difference of three days, carried out ‘Operation Bunyanum Marsoos’ against 26 military installations in India. This included airbases at Sirsa, Suratgarh, Srinagar, BrahMos storage facility, and S-400 systems at Bhuj and Adampur. During the operation, Pakistan utilized its precision-guided missiles, namely the ‘Fatah’ series, drones, and long-range artillery, hitting their targets without attacking civilian areas. As the operation progressed, the US and other countries mediated, and white flags were raised across the Line of Control (LOC), leading to a ceasefire being signed.

China’s support towards Pakistan throughout this conflict played a very crucial role on both diplomatic and technological fronts. China provided Pakistan access to its J-10C fighter jets, which were equipped with PL-15 missiles, with the support of an Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) system and Chinese-run monitoring satellites. These helped Pakistan outplay Indian Rafales and shot them down through the ‘sensor fusion technique’. This led to a collapse of India’s air squadron, which was on standby some 300 km across the border. This coordination between China and Pakistan strengthened their strategic relations, began an era of coordination in warfare and outplayed Indian air dominance in the region.

One of the main highlights of the conflict was India’s campaign of misinformation, which failed to achieve its purpose. This failed narrative building of India cost it its integrity. Alongside its media, the Indian Army’s official Twitter handle falsely accused Pakistan of using Nuclear-capable Shaheen missiles during the conflict in a fake video and later unapologetically deleted it themselves. India’s post-ceasefire narrative has been aimed at painting Pakistan’s image as a nuclear aggressor state, to mask its conventional failures. This “nuclear blackmail” was taken to a new level by India asking the IAEA to cap Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. This move has yet again displayed India’s growing vulnerabilities that ‘Operation Bunyanum Marsoos’ highlighted, and that it seeks to sabotage Pakistan’s proficient deterrence. This operation has led to an evolved image of Pakistan’s deterrence, its conventional and technological progress in terms of warfare.

In a nutshell, the operational network enabled Pakistan to respond precisely and proportionately, countering Indian impulsive aggression during the conflict. This conflict and its resultant deterrence build-up by Pakistan and China’s strategic support will shape future engagements between the two nuclear rivals, providing Pakistan with strategic depth, leaving India with a “death trap” kind of situation in case of any future violations. It only implies one thing, and that is, the balance of power dynamics of South Asia has been shifted.