India and the Balakot airstrike: Reflections beyond hard power

Abstract This article argues that while India’s Balakot airstrike garnered popular attention as a hardline military approach, the role of soft power, which was very much part of it, received little or scant regard. Moving away from the popular view of the Balakot airstrike as a hard power-oriented military approach, taking a nuanced look at it from the soft power and strategic narrative vantage point, this exegesis explores both the hard and soft dimensions of power employed as means to advance India’s aims and ends. In doing so, this examination finds the strike as a smart power strategy.