Weighing in to what you said here (part of selectively posting).
1.
2008 - My 'connect' with air force that you are aware of, was placed on a short notice to be the first wave of An-32s to go for bombing run. The 'air force' strike was planned with
our transports doing a bombing run. Not even fighters were considered, a raid planned to blatantly & willfully violate the Pakistani airspace and that too with aircrafts that one would be considered a fool for replacing Mig-27s or Jaguars with!! One can always throw a bravado of 'come on if you have guts' etc etc, and I can always say that perhaps IAF was being too cocky!
2.
Dec 2016 Interesting to note range of missiles is being quoted, that too at the maximum firing envelope. I would really love to see how that actually pans out, with the surveillance and stand off capability of IAF today covering both the Eastern and Western borders of Pakistan, I am actually quite intrigued how that shall happen. We did the dry run in 2016, I wonder how many on other side are willing to talk about the 'painting' of their assets along the Western Airspace of their nation, at will.
All the more interesting to note is the 'China' card. History has shown us exactly what reliance is to be placed on that. History has also shown us that India always has it's ducks lined well before any action is initiated.
surprised to see you post here