The sheer scale of India’s current tri-service exercise, codenamed ‘Trishul’ (with the IAF component being ‘Mahagujraj’), has inevitably drawn comparisons with one of the most significant and tension-filled military mobilizations in South Asian history: Operation Brasstacks of 1986-87. The Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) issued for this exercise, covering a vast swath of airspace over Rajasthan, Gujarat, and the Arabian Sea from October 30 to November 10, 2025, restricts movement up to 28,000 feet, underscoring its immense scope and high-stakes nature.
Operation Brasstacks, the brainchild of then Army Chief General K. Sundarji, remains an inflection point in the subcontinent’s military history. Conducted in the Rajasthan desert, it was the largest military exercise since World War II, involving an estimated 500,000 troops, almost half of the Indian Army, along with most of the Army’s offensive formations, including armored and mechanized divisions. Its proximity to the Pakistani border, particularly the sensitive Sindh province, led Pakistan to believe it was a rehearsal for a full-scale invasion, culminating in a nuclear scare and the deployment of both nations’ forces to forward positions. The crisis was ultimately defused through diplomacy, including the famous ‘Cricket Diplomacy.’
The current Exercise Trishul, while officially described as a “routine” annual drill, is “substantial” and “unusual” in its scale, complexity, and area of operations, according to military officers. The NOTAM area, as depicted, stretches across the Western border and includes critical maritime and coastal regions, suggesting an operational scope that mirrors, and in some aspects, surpasses the geographical expanse of Brasstacks by effectively integrating the Army, Navy, and Air Force across all domains.
While Brasstacks was a landmark test of India’s mechanized warfare strategies and deep offensive capabilities in the desert, Trishul is a demonstration of India’s evolved ‘joint operational capabilities’ and multi-domain warfare doctrine.
The current exercise includes offensive maneuvers in the creek and desert sectors, amphibious operations off the Saurashtra coast, and complex joint combat drills. The deployment of over 20,000 Army troops, alongside frontline IAF fighters like the Rafale and Sukhoi-30MKI in the ‘Mahagujraj’ operations, and the Navy’s frigates and destroyers, signifies a cohesive demonstration of India’s integrated military power. Critically, it includes a focus on modern warfare domains such as Electronic Warfare (EW), Cyber capabilities, and Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) kill-chains, areas that were non-existent during the Brasstacks era.
Adding a layer of geopolitical significance is the location of a major part of the exercise near the Sir Creek region, the disputed 96-km tidal estuary between Gujarat and Pakistan’s Sindh province. This area is strategically vital for access to key sea routes. The exercise follows a stern warning by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh regarding Pakistan’s military infrastructure build-up in the region, declaring that any Pakistani misadventure there would “change both history and geography.”
By drawing a parallel to Operation Brasstacks, the message of the Trishul NOTAM becomes clear: a massive mobilization designed not just for operational readiness, but as a potent signal of deterrence and strategic resolve. Unlike the 1980s, where miscommunication escalated tensions, today’s NOTAM serves as a transparent yet forceful declaration of intent, a contemporary exhibition of overwhelming conventional superiority, now fully integrated across all three services, in a volatile strategic theater.
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