][1] Operation Brasstacks involved numbers of infantry, mechanized, air assault divisions, and 500,000 army personnel who were massed within 100 miles of Pakistan.

[1] An amphibious assault group formed from Indian naval forces was planned and deployed near to the Korangi Creek of Karachi Division in Pakistan.

The security information website Global Security.org characterized Operation Brasstacks as "bigger than any NATO exercise – and the biggest since World War II".

[1] Even today, Pakistani military analysts and strategists regard it as a planned "blitzkrieg-like" integrated deep offensive strategy to infiltrate into dense areas of Central Pakistan.

On the other hand, India maintained that "[the] core objective of Operation Brasstacks was to test new concepts of mechanization, mobility, and air support devised by Indian army.

[5] In December 1986, with more than ten thousand armoured vehicles spread across its western desert, India launched the final stage of a huge military exercise that stirred new tensions with Pakistan.

[9] According to General Hoon's memoirs, a letter was directed to Sundarji by Western Command, arguing that "when such a large exercise is conceived", the movement of Indian forces is going to attract the attention of Pakistan.

[9] When Brasstacks was executed, Pakistan quickly responded with maneuvers of its own forces, first mobilizing the entire V Corps and then the Southern Air Command, near the Indian state of Punjab.

[9] Within weeks, the Pakistan Navy's combat ships and submarines were deployed for the purpose of intelligence management, in the northern Arabian Sea.

[9] By mid-January 1987, the Pakistani Armed Forces and Indian Army personnel stood within firing range along an extended border area.

[11] Western scholars have theorized that Brasstacks was an accidental crisis, caused by Pakistan's misinterpretation of an inadvertently provocative Indian Army exercise.

"[11] Even today, Pakistani military analysts and strategists regarded this as a "blitzkrieg-like"[3] integrated deep offensive strategy to infiltrate into dense areas of Pakistan.

[3] The New York Times noted that India's accelerated drive for military technology, motivated Pakistan to turn to its rationale of stockpiling atomic bombs as a nuclear deterrent.