Lieutenant General Kapil Kumar Aggarwal, AVSM, SM, VSM (Retd)

This paper examines the hard lessons emerging from Operation Sindoor and links them to the urgent question of how India must rebalance its defence budget to meet future conflict realities. Operation Sindoor, though brief and currently in pause mode, has already reshaped India’s strategic thinking by exposing both strengths and critical vulnerabilities in a potential two-front collusive scenario. This paper argues that while the operation showcased national resolve and deterrence credibility, it has simultaneously underlined the need for accelerated modernisation of the armed forces. Given the capital intensive nature of induction of next-generation aircraft, missiles, drones, naval assets and surveillance platforms, this paper stresses that the fiscal response cannot be business as usual. With the Defence Budget 2025–26 as a baseline, it highlights the imbalance between capital and revenue expenditure and points to longstanding structural constraints such as pension liabilities, maintenance needs and slow procurement cycles. This paper also evaluates whether compression of revenue heads is feasible and concludes that meaningful modernisation will require calibrated increases in overall defence allocation as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. In doing so, it positions Operation Sindoor as both a wake-up call and a policy inflection point for funding preparedness, capability development and indigenous defence production.