@roma
My reply to your tag, but addressed to everyone at DFI:
1. We have to differentiate between public perception and actual (hidden reality). Let's start with (hidden) reality.
2. The big boys at the top, the Pakistani generals and the Indian government both know what happened. India went in and took out these militants. India has shown that it means business.
Pakistan knows it can never defeat India, nor can it capture/annex Kashmir especially through direct conventional army-to-army war so it has subcontracted operations to militants/terrorists and to Kashmiri separatists.
India however is now showing even that relatively limited (and born out of cowardice) M.O. (modus operandi) will not be allowed or if carried out will be met with direct military action from India inside "Pakistan" (Pakistani occupied Kashmir).
3. The Pakistan army can carry on these cowardly tactics of using militants but then India will carry on going inside "Pakistan" and killing them.
Though this may be hidden from the masses and even the lower ranks of the military, from the senior level to possibly the middle level the army know that India is doing this. They may think that the using terrorists operation is ineffective or causes more damage than benefit. Usage of terrorism is Pakistan's only real option against India and now India is showing even this will not be permitted.
4. The Indian government (GOI) almost certainly had intelligence on what the Pakistani reaction would be if such an operation took place including what Raheel Sharif's reaction would be and they almost certainly knew there would be no reaction hence the operation. Such information is not available to ordinary members of the public like myself or people here at DFI.
5. Pakistan has been humiliated, maybe not to the masses, but to the people that matter, the people in the know.
6. A few years ago Iranian troops went inside Pakistan and were there for about 6 hours inside Pakistani-held Balochistan. The GOI obviously paid careful attention to that and may have studied this in depth and incidents like that and others may have formulated their recent decision for SS (Surgical Strikes).
7. With the Afghan army improving its capabilities year by year in the future the Afghans may carry out SS themselves, maybe not of the same scale and nature of India due to a lack of a nuclear deterrent like the one India possesses, though the Afghans have warlike Pashtun tribes (inside Afghanistan) that would fight like mad if a Pak v Afg war were to break out.
8. To the Pakistani masses who worship their army, "nothing happened", there were no surgical strikes, this was propaganda by evil Hindu against the super-duper invincible and super-strong Pakistan army.
So I am not sure the Pakistan army will even need to dump Nawaz Sharif, and that is a complicated and problematic issue for a number of reasons as the US itself wants a civilian government in Pakistan and a restricted role for the Pakistan army in politics.
FUTURE PREDICTIONS
1. Pakistan will either have to abandon, revise, or at least moderate its usage of militants/terrorists against India in Kashmir.
2. The Pakistan army will never abandon its hatred of India partly because peace between India and Pakistan reduces the power of the army as it's seen as not that important or necessary, partly because of Punjabi Muslims brainwashed with hatred against Hindus and India and fantasizing of a "Ghazwa i Hind" style invasion of India as part of their destiny of being a "great Muslim military power".
Also partly because the US as part of divide and rule wants tension between Pakistan and India for various reasons.
3. In the long run on a political level the Pakistanis may cut down on the whole Kashmir freedom talk as India has shown "you talk Kashmir, we talk Balochistan", which includes direct support for Baloch separatists e.g. passport for Bugti.
On a military level surgical strikes may as I said above a reduction of using terrorists against India.
4. On a longer-term and more strategic level, India has the highest rate of growth in the world for a major economy and Pakistan is facing possible disintegration which reduces the "appeal" of joining Pakistan for Kashmir's Sunni Muslims (the Shias do not want to be part of Pakistan where there is persecution of Shias).
The GOI should even consider hosting conferences or grassroots interaction between Afghan, Baloch or Indian Muslim figures including clergy who emphasize the futility of joining failed state Pakistan and of peaceful existence within the union of India, this should be part of a campaign to intellectually "de-Islamize" Kashmiri separatism.
Bengal_Tiger.
P.S. Bangladesh's support for India on Kashmir and the surgical strikes will really sting the Punjabi Pakistani army hard.
