Contemporary conflicts are being increasingly fought across both, physical and informational domains. The nature of information warfare has evolved, from being an auxiliary aspect of military affairs to becoming a strategic tool that influences crisis messaging, legitimacy, and escalation. In rapid-onset conflict scenarios, nations find themselves fighting not only on the battlegrounds of war but on those of information in the digital realm. The legitimacy of competing claims impacts national politics, foreign diplomacy, and even military decision making.
The May 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan presents an interesting example against the backdrop of which one could analyse such trends. The four-day military showdown that occurred between India and Pakistan after the Pahalgam terrorist attack showed just how quickly information became another disputed arena to go hand-in-hand with the military conflict. The official government statements, the military reports, the open-source intelligence (OSINT) networks, and even social-media users, all produced their own version of what was happening on the battlefield, generating a situation where the narratives ran faster than the facts.
In the 2025 India-Pakistan crisis, information warfare was not just a passive accompaniment to conventional operations, it actually contributed actively to the process of signalling during a crisis through questioning legitimacy, creating ambiguity, and shaping perceptions.
Information Warfare in Contemporary Security Competition
While traditional warfare aims at the destruction of the enemy’s physical capabilities, information warfare is concerned with perception management, decision-making, narrative control, and ultimately behaviour modification without necessarily resorting to kinetic action. In current conflicts, information warfare is waged through strategic communication, influence operations, and the struggle for narrative supremacy on the battlefield. Instead of just informing, states try to create an authoritative version of events before any independent verification is possible.
During high-level confrontations, especially involving nuclear powers, information ambiguity can turn out to be a security issue in its own right, leading to misunderstandings and increasing the chances of escalating conflict. The 2025 India-Pakistan conflict is a very good example of this kind of interaction since the contestation of narratives took place alongside military action.
Information Warfare during Operation Sindoor
- Competing Narratives
Following the Pahalgam attack, India’s official communication framed Operation Sindoor as a limited counter-terror operation, only targeting terrorist infrastructure rather than the State of Pakistan itself. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) described the attacks as “measured, non-escalatory and responsible” continuing its doctrine of punitive retaliation against cross-border terrorism.
The Pakistani side also tried to project an alternative account of events using Inter-Services Public Relations(ISPR) briefings, which portrayed the attacks as a provocation of Pakistan’s sovereignty without any justification, and said that many of the Indian planes including Rafale and Su-30 fighter jets were shot down by Pakistani forces during the incident. India has refuted these claims and has continued to do so in their statements. Since independent verification was not possible for either of these competing claims during the crisis, the very dispute became part of the information war, where each side sought to frame the story of its air victories in terms of military success.
Indian authorities repeatedly asserted that no Pakistani military establishments were under threat during the mission. This was backed up by the Indian government releasing pictures of terror camps, showing that the mission was aimed at taking out the terror establishment and not at sparking an interstate war. The framing had two strategic effects: First, within India, it helped to legitimise the military operation because it could be presented as a defensive action rather than an aggressive one. Second, internationally, it was aimed at assuring other parties that India was not trying to escalate its actions uncontrollably. Within hours of the attack, the Indian government sought to set out the goal, framework, and justification of the operation through its information campaign by the MEA and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), before Pakistan’s narrative could be formed.
The Pakistani government responded just as quickly through official statements and military communications. The briefings from the ISPR did not accept India’s reason for carrying out attacks but, on the contrary, claimed that it was a case of the Indian forces violating the sovereignty of Pakistan without any provocation and the targets of the strikes were civilian areas and holy places rather than terrorist installations. Pakistani government’s communications portrayed this crisis in terms of the protection of national sovereignty and civilian lives.. The importance of these rival interpretations was not only in the fact that they were different, but in the attempt by each side to assert its version of events before any kind of independent confirmation was possible.
This brings into light one of the key features of modern-day information warfare- the competition between different governments to provide the correct interpretation of what has happened before any form of verification from external sources is possible. However, state authority alone is not enough anymore to ensure that these claims are accepted as international media and other external actors are constantly on the lookout for independently verifiable evidence before accepting state claims.
B) Role of Social Media and Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)
Perhaps one of the most illustrative instances of the evolving nature of social media and OSINT was witnessed during the period of Operation Sindoor in the aftermath of the reported Indian strike on the Nur Khan Airbase of Pakistan by India on 10 May 2025. Immediately following the mission, conflicting reports came up about the level of damage caused to the strategically vital airbase. While the Indian authorities maintained that their strike mission was successful in terms of damaging key military installations, the Pakistani side disputed any such damage Within a few days of the strike, commercial satellite images analysed by OSINT researchers began gaining widespread traction through various online media channels, especially on X. The high-resolution images showed visible structural damage at certain areas of the Nur Khan Airbase, which, accordingly, , was consistent with India’s claims regarding the precision strikes.
. In addition to legitimate images taken by satellites, fake visual content was also seen circulating on social media. For instance, Reuters Fact Check has revealed that the video that claimed to be showing a massive fire at the Nur Khan airbase as a result of the attack, was actually of a burning oil tanker captured in 2023.
The Nur Khan case thus highlights a wider development in crisis communication, whereby informational credibility no longer rests solely with the authority of state officials. Traditionally, states have held a distinct advantage over the construction of the narrative around military events due to their monopoly over information from the battlefields, held by both governmental agencies and militaries. Today, with the increased proliferation of commercial satellite imagery and OSINT, this monopoly has been diminished. In earlier crises between India and Pakistan, information connected to military manoeuvres was generally under the control of governments whereas during Operation Sindoor, claims of damage done to Nur Khan Airbase could be verified using independent imagery, thereby rendering official narratives credible only when they stood up to such scrutiny. This meant that, besides speed, credibility of government messages was determined by the ability to prove their veracity. However, the important point is not that OSINT claims have been found to be inherently more credible than those made by government authorities; rather, what matters is that the source of a claim cannot be taken in itself to prove its credibility. It is the same regardless of whether the claim was made by a government, military personnel, journalist or OSINT analyst.
C) Crisis Stability Risks
The announcement of the ceasefire on 10 May 2025 shows that information warfare moved from the battlefront into the realm of crisis management. Instead of bringing about a decrease in tensions, conflicting accounts about the circumstances under which the ceasefire was agreed upon led to an increase in uncertainties during a critical moment in the crisis.
One of the main differences was the way in which the ceasefire was reached. President Donald Trump of the United States (US) maintained that there was a “full and immediate ceasefire” between India and Pakistan thanks to the US diplomacy , a stance confirmed by the US State Department. On the other hand, India stated that the ceasefire came about through direct communication between the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) of both nations and that there was no intervention from any third party. This uncertainty was further heightened by the reports of a ceasefire violation within hours of the agreement. While India accused Pakistan of breaching the ceasefire along the LoC several times and threatened a military response, Pakistan denied the accusation and reiterated its commitment to the ceasefire.
This case shows how information warfare affects not only public perception but also crisis escalation management. Where adversaries with nuclear capability are involved, delays in verification raises concerns about potential reactions by the political leadership based on perceptions rather than facts on the battlefield.
Beyond South Asia: Information Warfare in the Strait of Hormuz
Information dynamics witnessed in Operation Sindoor are not exclusive to South Asia. Similar trends have been seen during recent conflicts along the Strait of Hormuz, only with slightly differing strategic objectives. While Operation Sindoor was essentially aimed at legitimising India’s response to terrorism, information operations conducted along the Strait of Hormuz are aimed at demonstrating Iran’s naval dominance. The means used to verify these claims also share some important similarities. During Operation Sindoor, OSINT communities made use of satellite images and geolocations to assess the conflicting claims of both sides. Likewise, in the case of Strait of Hormuz, the use of commercial satellite images, Automatic Identification System (AIS)-based ship tracking information and Lloyd’s List, as a source of maritime intelligence was increasing.
However, there were distinct differences in the strategic effects. While the Indian information campaign relied on military action being justified, the Iranian one relied on its ability to affect access to the key maritime route.This was evident not just from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declarations broadening the concept of operations in the Gulf of Hormuz, but also in the disruption of shipping and increased costs as well as re-routing of vessels documented by maritime surveillance.
Though both examples clearly show how the use of information warfare became part of strategic competition, Operation Sindoor focused mostly on legitimacy and de-escalation, while the Strait of Hormuz crisis is more about deterrence and coercive signalling. However, the fundamental objective remains constant: moulding perception prior to the conclusive results of war.
Conclusion: Information Warfare and the Future of Crisis Stability in South Asia
The India-Pakistan incident in 2025 is indicative of how information war has developed into a field of operation besides traditional military operations. This transition has significant implications for crisis stability in South Asia. In future crises involving nuclear-weaponised states, any statements made by both parties can easily be verified by using available information sources, and any conflicting or unreliable communication may heighten the chances of misperception. . Overcoming these challenges demands a multi-faceted strategy that considers information resilience as a core element of national security.
Verifiability must be considered an integral part of strategic communication. Therefore, in the first place, governments must ensure the integration of the use of OSINT and digital verification tools into crisis communication infrastructure so that any official statements can be proven immediately with verifiable evidence. When operational security allows for this, statements made about the results of military operations must include information that can be independently verified, like authenticated images, geo-location data, and other forms of verifiable information. Secondly, the processes of crisis management must incorporate the clear lines of communication between military and political leadership in order to avoid confusion during the process of de-escalation. Crisis communication must have OSINT capacity to spot disinformation and to assess how their own statements will be verified. Statements about military operations must be assumed to be independently evaluated against commercially available satellite imagery and other forms of open-source information. Policy makers should also be able to discern when they are trying to communicate effectively in terms of speed versus credibility. As information environments now challenge any incorrect information released by officials, it will yield short-term gains but long-term losses in terms of credibility.
The key take-away from Operation Sindoor is that credibility in modern crises is based more on verifiability than on state authority alone. The Nur Khan episode specifically shows that the use of satellite images and OSINT makes it possible to verify state narratives in almost real time, thus challenging the government’s long-standing monopoly on interpreting military incidents. It does not render the state message obsolete in any way, but only demands more evidence. Stability will henceforth depend not only on the capacity to deter through conventional means, but also on credible communication and quick verification of information in order to prevent strategic miscalculation.