India, May 16 -- Even as a war reporter who cut my teeth in journalism with frontline coverage of the Kargil conflict in 1999, the scenes I witnessed on the ground during Operation Sindoor were unprecedented, surreal, and harbingers of what modern warfare will look like. Travelling by road through Punjab and Jammu - the airports were shut - one had to adjust to driving blind through precautionary blackouts. If I looked up, I would often see balls of orange fire light up the thick, black sky. Often this would be accompanied by the sound of explosions or the rat-a-tat of distant firing. When it was further away, you could only see the silent sliver of a red streak across the skyline. Of course, it soon became evident that this was India's f...