India faces a critical moment, understanding that avoiding war does not equate to establishing credible deterrence. Recent investigations into a Hamas-inspired terror attack in Delhi have exposed the country's vulnerabilities to highly adaptable and technologically advanced enemies. These incidents demonstrate that adversaries are willing to exploit India's reluctance to escalate by using asymmetric attacks that bypass traditional military thresholds. Asymmetric attacks are tactics that target the weaknesses of a stronger opponent through surprise, innovation, or unconventional methods.

Deterrence vs War Avoidance: Understanding the Gap

True deterrence involves convincing adversaries that any aggression will be met with decisive and unacceptable consequences. In contrast, mere war avoidance is a passive stance, often mistaken for strategic restraint. While avoidance can reduce the risk of large-scale conflict, it may encourage both state-backed proxies and radical non-state actors to escalate unconventional and hybrid threats.

India’s adversaries have become adept at exploiting this gap, employing asymmetric tactics that circumvent India's substantial investments in conventional defence and nuclear deterrence. This includes not only the traditional proxy conflicts in Kashmir but also urban terrorism, cyber-attacks, and digitally-enabled radicalisation.

Lessons from Israel: A Society-Wide Approach 

Israel offers a strong example, showing that effective deterrence depends on combining government strength with societal awareness. In Israel, intelligence collection is not only handled by security agencies. Ordinary citizens understand security risks and actively report suspicious activities. This collective attitude, reinforced by widespread education and community involvement, strengthens resilience and allows quick responses to potential threats.

India lacks this level of societal engagement in security. Law enforcement and intelligence efforts still operate mainly independently from the communities they serve. Reactive measures often respond to security lapses after they occur, rather than preventing them through an intelligence-rich environment supported by citizen participation.

Anatomy of a Modern Threat

The latest plot uncovered in Delhi exemplifies the new face of terrorism: technologically sophisticated, ideologically radicalised, and organizationally connected. The group aimed to use weaponized drones and crude rockets for coordinated mass-casualty attacks on high-value targets. These were not impoverished criminals but educated professionals, doctors, graduates, and technicians employing encrypted communications, technological modifications, and complex funding networks.

The operation’s success in avoiding early detection reveals significant weaknesses in surveillance, community vigilance, and interagency communication. Seizures and arrests happened only after suspicious activities triggered alarms, rather than through a coordinated, preventive intelligence network.

Importance of National Unity: Integrating Minorities

Unless India's minorities are genuinely integrated as equal partners in the vision of national unity, societal fault lines will continue to foster resentment and provide fertile ground for radical ideologies. Throughout India's modern history, incidents of communal violence and systematic marginalisation, such as the tragic aftermath of Partition, the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, and the Gujarat riots of 2002, have demonstrated how exclusion deepens grievances within minority communities. The recent unrest in Manipur has also shown how exclusion intensifies grievances among minorities. Radicals often exploit these grievances to justify violence and attract followers.

When minorities feel alienated or discriminated against, their distrust of state institutions grows, undermining the social fabric essential for national security. Strengthening this fabric involves upholding constitutional equality and ensuring no community feels marginalised. By fully integrating minorities as valued members of the national community, India can diminish the impact of radical ideologies and foster a genuinely resilient society united against terror threats.

Harnessing Community Policing and Minority Outreach

A sustainable approach to evolving threats must go beyond high-tech surveillance and kinetic counteraction. It requires active participation from communities, especially minorities, who are both vulnerable to exploitation and crucial sources of intelligence.

Community policing builds trust between law enforcement and residents, which enhances early detection of at-risk individuals. Officers who are part of the community are better equipped to notice behavioural changes, grievances, or other warning signs of radicalisation. Outreach programs engage minorities through counselling, economic support, representation, and rehabilitation, thereby lowering the appeal of extremist narratives.

Such engagement improves the flow of human intelligence and strengthens social cohesion, thereby reducing the appeal of divisive ideologies. Multi Agency collaborations among educators, religious leaders, and NGOs ensure culturally sensitive, effective interventions.

Integrating Community Outreach Into National Security

A strong deterrence strategy must combine community policing, minority outreach, and advanced law enforcement technology. District-level radicalisation cells can monitor online suspicious activities, offer counselling, and coordinate responses across multiple agencies. National fusion centres and secure information sharing among intelligence agencies, police, and social services help assess and address threats proactively.

India’s state-level experiences with de-radicalisation programs show their potential. When societal trust matches state capacity, opportunities for extremist manoeuvres decrease significantly.

India’s Future Security Posture: Some Recommendations 

- Establish systematic community policing and minority outreach programs nationwide, emphasising genuine local participation and early threat detection.

- Modernise and link law enforcement agencies through predictive analytics, real-time data sharing, and integrated operations.

- Supervise students and professionals studying abroad in sensitive regions using fair, rights-based approaches.

- Encourage public reporting via anonymous hotlines and awareness campaigns.

- Base counter-radicalisation efforts on constitutional safeguards, avoiding profiling that alienates communities.

India’s security challenges in an age of asymmetric power demand a shift from avoiding conflict to implementing proactive, society-wide deterrence. This transition must include all citizens as partners, leverage advanced technology, and build trust among minority communities. By fostering a truly inclusive national identity, India can close the security gap and enhance resilience against a broad spectrum of internal and external threats.

(The writer, an Indian Army veteran, is a strategic analyst. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at manojchannan@gmail.com; linkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/manoj-channan-3412635; X @manojchannan )