Opinion In Operation Sindoor, air power, sky high

The 15-day interlude between the Pahalgam massacre and Op Sindoor gave enough time to tweak operational plans, even while Indian diplomacy and other non-kinetic measures, such as the abrogation of the Indus Waters Treaty, increased Pakistan’s worries. The secrecy of the plans was maintained at the strategic level, despite the attention they received from several quarters.

The choice of the IAF as the first and principal responder, and the reliance on stand-off weapons such as the indigenously-produced BrahMos missile and several loitering munitions, signalled a newfound confidence in taking forward the philosophy of non-contact warfare that began with the Balakot strike. Critical targets such as Bahawalpur, Muridke, terrorist camps close to the Line of Control and airfields deep inside Pakistan, such as Sargodha, felt the impact of this strategy. Equally telling was India’s attempt to avoid needless attrition to its ground and maritime forces, which would have been inevitable had they been pressed into offensive action immediately.

The IAF and Indian Army’s integrated air defence system surprised one and all with its splendid performance over three nights of sustained operations against hundreds of low and high-cost drones, quadcopters, unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. The Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) drew on imported, indigenous, modern and legacy systems. Pakistan erred in assuming that India’s weak link was its air defence system.

The reputation acquired by the Turkish and Chinese drones and UCAVs during the Armenia-Azerbaijan and Russia-Ukraine wars was punctured as the IAF demonstrated multi-domain operations, using an offensive-defensive strategy — this evolved with great speed and managed the escalation with much greater finesse than Pakistan’s strategic establishment.

Calibrated escalation control seemed to have dictated India’s fighting strategy, even if that meant having to play the role of “responder” after the initial strikes, which were aimed at causing significant damage to terrorist infrastructure and leadership — and not target Pakistan’s military or its civilian population/infrastructure. The resilience and depth of the Indian forces allowed them to play the waiting game and caused Pakistan to exhaust most of its surprisingly large inventory of drones, UCAVs and quadcopters on the nights of May 7, 8, and 9. The Indian forces then raised the stakes on May 10 after a night of relentless attacks on civilian and military targets across the length of the LoC and the International Boundary.

The ferocity of the IAF’s airstrikes on the morning of May 10 has left the world stunned — it targeted a vast swathe, from the Nur Khan air base in the north to the Malir Cantonment on the outskirts of Karachi to the south. Some commentators are suggesting that the damage inflicted on 10 PAF airfields surpasses the cumulative damage inflicted by the IAF on PAF airfields during the 1971 war on the western front.

The de-escalation was swift — its modalities principally involved an outreach from the Pakistani DGMO to his Indian counterpart. This was accepted soon after the Indian strikes were successful, and they had not elicited a Pakistani response. The application of offensive air power by India accelerated the de-escalation just as it did during the Kargil conflict.

Building and spreading narratives in contemporary conflict are as important as the execution of politico-diplomatic-military operations. Even as the conflict raged, there was a visible attempt to be transparent and assertive by conducting regular briefings marshalled by an articulate Foreign Secretary, Vikram Misri, and two women officers from the Army and the Air Force. Occupying the moral high ground was as important as offering glimpses of the conflict. After the ceasefire was declared, many were surprised by the detailed and “as transparent-as-can-be” briefings by senior military officers from the three services, with evidence provided of key targets that were attacked in Pakistan. On the other hand, briefings by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations made extravagant claims about the losses inflicted on India without providing a shred of evidence.

The Indian Army stood firm across the LoC and the IB, engaging in artillery duels, destroying terrorist launch pads, thwarting infiltration, and plugging in effectively its air defence weapons. The Indian Navy flexed its muscles in the northern Arabian Sea and showed that it was ready to join the fray as the next escalatory instrument. However, it was for the first time in independent India’s military history that the IAF emerged as the sword arm of the forces. With its first-mover advantage, precision capability, offensive firepower and remarkably effective ground-based integrated air defence network, it surprised several observers.

The writer is a retired Air Vice Marshal of the IAF and a military historian