Coercive War Diplomacy

Following the Terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 by Pakistan based groups, India launched operation Parakram, that saw a large scale military buildup along the Indo-Pak border. 

The public mood was overwhelmingly in favour of war. Nonetheless, when then Prime Minister Vajpayee was questioned on the possibility of war, he answered as follows with crafty statesmanship: 

To succeed in any war, one needs a clearly defined objective. If we start a war now, will our mission be to completely decimate Pakistan, or will it be to breakup Pakistan like in 1971, or will it at least be taking back the occupied Kashmir? Well, if our objective is to merely beat up the Pakistanis, then that's an meaningless pursuit. 

The press then probed further on whether they can derive the conclusion that India won't go for war? Vajpayee replied, "The preparation for war must be so real that you should believe it and even we should believe it. Only then will subsequent coercive diplomacy work". He added that if war mongering in that context leads to war, he shall take that risk.