Following the Pulwama terror attack, Washington has supported India's right to self-defense against cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. Those hoping for instant retribution, however, will need to be patient and remember there is no magic key here. Only sustained, strategic pressure on Pakistan can work. Even if, let us say, a strike on terror facilities in Pakistan should go through successfully, very likely they will already have been evacuated by now, and can always be rebuilt later. What's needed to alter Pakistan's fundamental strategic calculus is a larger, more comprehensive, hybrid and long-term strategy - comparable to the strategy of hybrid warfare Pakistan deploys against India. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the armed forces freedom to retaliate at a time and place of their own choosing. Matters should be left at that, while India should work on complementary diplomatic and economic instruments that raise the cost to Pakistan for offering safe haven and assistance to terror groups. MEA should set up a permanent department whose job is to lobby foreign governments and missions offering evidence of Pakistan's complicity in terror. Indian agencies are preparing a dossier for global financial watch dog FATF where it will seek the blacklisting of Pakistan, a good step in this direction. Pakistan's dire financial straits should be leveraged. India has pulled Pakistan's MFN status, but that in itself won't matter much as India-Pakistan trade was already limited. New Delhi could impose sanctions which designate Pakistan as a terror state and force companies and businesses to choose between Pakistan and India's larger market. The same logic should be applied to China as a whole, as the country is Pakistan's strategic patron and mentor. The 'Wuhan spirit' cannot, after all, be exclusively a brown man's burden - China must do some of the heavy lifting as well.