Two days after seemingly admitting that India lost one of its jets during Operation Sindoor, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan has now said that professional military forces are not affected by losses in a war, rather the achievement of its objectives was important.

Delivering a lecture on ‘Future Wars and Warfare’ at the Savitribai Phule Pune University on Tuesday, Gen Chauhan outlined the evolving nature of global conflict.

“Professional military forces are not affected by setbacks and losses in a war. What is important is that the morale needs to remain high even if there are setbacks,” CDS Chauhan said. “Adaptability is an important constituent of a very professional force. You should be able to understand what went wrong, need to rectify your mistake and go again. You cannot sit down in fear.”

Suppose you go into a cricket test match and you win by an innings, then there is no question of wickets and balls etc, he said.

Gen Chauhan also threw light on various aspects of the conflict.

"On May 10, at about 1 am, their (Pakistan) aim was to get India to its knees in 48 hours. Multiple attacks were launched and in some manner, they have escalated this conflict. We had actually hit only terrorist targets," he said.

"It was also rational on their part as the operation which they thought would continue for 48 hours folded up in about eight hours. And then they picked up the telephone and said they wanted to talk (to us)," he said.

The Chief of Defence Staff said the rationale behind Pakistan's decision could be based on two aspects.

"One -- they must have assumed that if they continue, they are likely to lose much more. And second -- since they had stuck us at multiple fronts, they still did not have the benefit of understanding what they had struck," he said.

On reports of India losing combat jets, Gen Chauhan said that "losses in war are not important, important that the objective was achieved."

In an interview to Bloomberg in Singapore on Saturday, General Chauhan appeared to confirm India had lost fighter jets in the dogfight with the Pakistan Air Force during Operation Sindoor on May 8.

“What is important is… not the jets being downed but why they were downed,” said Chauhan in the interview. “So the good part is that we are able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it and then implement it again after two days and flew all our jets again targeting at long range, which I said.”

In the interview, he added: “I think what is important is that not the jets being downed but why they were being downed.”

The Telegraph Online was the first to report Gen Chauhan’s interview on Saturday.

Talking about India’s precision strikes during Operation Sindoor, Gen Chauhan said on Tuesday that “Pakistan should not be able to hold India hostage to terrorist activities.”

"State-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan has to stop. India is not going to live under the shadow of terror and nuclear blackmail,” said Gen Chauhan, in a rebuttal to Islamabad, echoing what Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said days after the ceasefire.

The CDS also stressed that war is intertwined with politics and human history.

“Warfare is as old as civilisation. Any kind of war has two important elements in it- the violence and politics behind violence… The third element is communication, which is happening continuously," he added.

About the swiftness and impact of India's precision strikes on Pakistan-based terror camps, CDS Chauhan said that the Indian armed forces have “raised the bar” in the fight against terrorism.

"We have drawn a new line of military operation against terror. We’ve connected terrorism to critical resources like water and demonstrated that Pakistan’s strategy to bleed India by a thousand cuts will no longer go unanswered,” the news agency PTI quoted him.

Referring to the recent terror attack in Pahalgam in which 26 people were killed, the CDS said, “They were killed in the name of religion, which is unacceptable in today’s modern world. This act created revulsion across society. It reminded us of the repeated terror attacks India has endured over the years," he said.

He also pointed out Pakistan army chief Gen Asim Munir’s comments against India and Hindus weeks before what happened in Pahalgam.

In April, General Munir described Kashmir as Pakistan’s “jugular vein” and declared that “no one would be able to separate Kashmir from his country.”

Chauhan also highlighted the toll terrorism has taken on the country, noting that “while Western nations may have faced one or two major acts of terror, India has suffered nearly 20,000 casualties due to terrorism."