Well then shouldn't IAF have had multiple aircraft airborne then along with AEWs, AWACS, plus IA and IAF activating missile defenses?
IAF did have Su-30s and Mirage-2000s airborne, but as I said, PAF employed divisive tactics to lure them out and made a window for the incursion. You cannot 'activate' missile defenses if they're not deployed to begin with. It seems that IA did not deploy SAMs at their FOBs in IoK.
I think that the greatest benefit that we have got is to realise that much more the psyche of the Pak armed forces and their extreme desire to show to the people of Pakistan that they are the saviours of the nation. This desire has caused PAF to respond in this manner. Pakistani and Indian forces, though professional, are different in this crucial aspect, and this changes the nature of response. But i think that India should try to get the upper hand militarily (without actual war or with very minor skirmishes) - but how to do that in a democracy like India is a question whose answers are not easily available to our politicians.
Unless Indian arms procurement stalls like during our former defense minister A. K. Anthony's tenure, we will eventually get much better arms from multiple sources (Russian, Western, Israeli, as well as home grown) while Pakistan will become more dependent on China which is not always great.
No, the retaliatory strikes were undertaken to re-establish Pakistan's conventional deterrence. There's nothing unprofessional about this, Pakistani PM had already declared that Pakistan will retaliate if provoked, as per state policy. In fact, to my personal astonishment, the manner in which Pakistan climbed the escalation ladder was exemplary. Instead of going after IAF in hot pursuit or retaliating ASAP, extensive damage assessment was done, which showed no damages to any structures or any casualties. Based on this assessment, the appropriate calibrated proportional response was chosen, i.e. strikes in proximity of IA FOBs to demonstrate retaliatory capability and the will to escalate the conflict.
PAF could've destroyed the chosen targets if the intention was to damage them, but instead chose a very careful response. The successful execution of the demonstrative retaliatory strikes despite IAF's overwhelming majority in numbers and quality, having declared twice that there will be retaliation and conducting the strikes in broad daylight...speaks volumes of the professionalism of the military. The proverbial escalation ball was put back in India's court, which failed to respond in a calibrated proportionate manner.
What does that mean? That PAF could not really know about its shortcomings except for lack of adequate aircraft to send back the intruding mirages?
There are certain shortcomings that are somewhat known, but not really acknowledged unless an incident happens. Case in point, loss of Saab-2000 AEWs & P-3C Orions in terrorist attacks. Similarly, while it is known and acknowledged that PAF has lesser numbers and couldn't possibly "protect" the Muzaffarabad sector all the time...effectively challenging the IAF aircraft crossing the LoC could have been a learning lesson, although might have resulted in PAF aircrafts being shot down.
You speak of localised air superiority - lets assume that PAF achieved localised air superiority. However the entire aerial war stopped pretty rapidly. One reason preferred by Pakistanis is that 2 IAF aircraft got hit and IAF suddenly deescalated the situation; PAF achieved its objective and chose to deescalate. The other extreme favours the Indian narrative (F-16) forcing PAF to deescalate. The middle ground is that PAF after downing the Mig-21 did not want to escalate matters any further as IAF would have been forced to respond - this is the reason why i think that the Su30 was not downed or damaged badly - in an air battle losses are expected especially when local air superiority is achieved, why would IAF keep quiet if it really got a beating?
You have to see the bigger picture, both countries attempted to de-escalate on their own terms, but only one did.
India was already trying to de-escalate after the attempted Balakot strike, when Indian FM was making statements of de-escalation in China. Pakistan chose to respond, and then attempted to de-escalate. And no, India didn't keep quiet, it attempted to escalate with retaliatory BrahMos strikes, which didn't go through due to a combination of Pakistan's missile signaling and the intervention of the International community.
71 performance of Airforce was not bad but don't mix apple and oranges. 71 was more complex than simple one sweeping statement.
I didn't compare any performance, I said that the complacency of the military in '65 led them to underestimate the enemy's capabilities in '71...exactly what is being seen here today. I hope the military establishment will remain humble and will not overestimate themselves, something that they've quite a couple times in the past (cue '65, '99).
Maybe because they wanted them to show we can get deep inside your territory.
Maybe.
I dispute that their bases are well protected. PAF fairly easily targeted locations of interest on feb 27th without any challenge. Technology alone don’t change outcomes. If it did, the Arabs would have prevailed over the Israelis.
Pakistanis need to get over ‘71. No military could have won in that context. You have deeply hostile population, invigorated militants which have support of locals and neighboring country, an enemy already 10x your size and if that wasn’t enough, Pakistan had to fight in a territory separated in excess 1000 miles by India. The US failed in Vietnam without USSR & China not even formally being involved. The US is a super power. Pakistan isn’t. No country super power or otherwise prevails in a hostile environment hundreds of miles away. 1971 was an anomaly which won’t happen again. Even then, the PAF stood up to India even in the Bengal theatre.
You dispute my argument, but do not offer any counter-argument. PAF targeted FOBs undefended by SAMs, a mere 12km across the LoC (Rajouri, Narian), using the best available terminally guided SOWs. Compare that to Srinagar AFS, 45km from the LoC and well-protected by SAMs. Apart from launching SOWs to inflict general damage to infrastructure etc., PAF lacks the ability to conduct successful anti-airfield ops without getting shot down in large numbers. Only H-4s have terminal seekers which can take out individual installations, i.e. radars, command bunkers etc.
It is true that '71 was not only unwinnable, but also inevitable. My point here is not that we lost in '71, its that the Pakistani military became complacent due to a few battlefield victories of '65, both in the air and on the ground.
