How will we deter the S400?
Unfortunately it looks like it. Take the eg of our Airforce. India is set to take SU 30MKIs numbers to 272. They are getting surplus Mig29UPGs They are getting Tejas MK1A. They arw getting Rafale. We on the other hand are only getting handful of Thunders year by year. India will probably replace their Mig21 Bisons and Jaguars earlier than Pakistan replacing its F7s and Mirages
@Syed Hammad Ahmed
Countering S-400 is difficult but not impossible. I would predict PAF would keep air engagements within Pak Air Space to bleed the Indians using ground based assets and ACs. Mostly likely deploy SOWs and CMs to knock out AD systems on the Indian side. The key will be if PAF quickly does it in the first few days of the conflict with reliable intelligence and satellite imagery (possibly with Chinese help). Basically, who ever attacks 1st will have the upper hand if we act as pacifists we would lose big.
After thinking about it, PAF should create a dedicated team attached to the Air Force and responds directly to the Air Marshall (on set of war):
This teams sole role would be to:
- Analyze Intelligence & Satellite Imagery
- Command over CMs (separate from Army, Navy & Air Force)
- 1 (or 2) Squadrons of ACs to Deploy SOWs
Once targets are identified report to Air Marshall who'll have sole the authority to authorize the attack to destroy those assets. Leaving the rest of the Air Force to solely do what it does best engage IAF and IA without being burdened with SEAD Missions.
However, the other main concern would be restructuring our Chain of Command along the lines of IDF because from my experience, I haven't seen any other model that works as well as it does. It's structure of command allows a decision maker to use all assets and tools available to complete a singular objective effectively. Our Command I haven't seen change much whereas the Army, Air Force and Navy do their own thing.