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2020 and beyond
- The PAF and the IAF compared
The PAF is a defensive air force, limited to operations within its borders. The IAF, with its new inductions, is slowly building capacity to expand its offensive umbrella beyond its borders. Pakistan’s air space, unlike China’s, is particularly vulnerable to this new Indian doctrine.
| Aircraft Category | PAF Number of Aircraft | IAF number of aircraft |
| Combat Aircraft | *70 F-16 A/B/C/D Available 90 percent: 63 | **317 Rafale(8)/SU-30MKI (260)/Mirage 2000 (49) Available 90 percent: 190 |
| Air to Air Refuelers | 4 IL-78 | 6 IL-78 |
| A&EWC | 3 SAAB-2000, ZDK-03 | 5 EMB-145,Beriev A-50 |
| Armed Drones | None with Air Force Burrak, CH-4 | ***10 IAI Heron Drone with Harpy Loitering Munition |
** IAF Mirage 2000, SU030 MKI, and Rafale can enforce their will in their designated area of operation. All of these jets, with their advanced radar, avionics, targeting systems, and weapons, complement each other’s weaknesses. If these are all concentrated on the Pakistan border, IAF will run through Pakistan’s defenses, and that would be a nightmare scenario. MiG-29, on the other hand, is chronically unreliable for the envisaged high-intensity battle between IAF and PAF.
Looking at this ratio of frontline combat jets, IAF cannot win the war against PAF, for now. The roughly a 3:1 ratio of frontline combat planes, means that Pakistan just might inflict too many embarrassing kills on IAF. So, the deterrent holds.
However, PAF cannot even think of supporting any offensive operations across the fence.
Pakistan, hamstrung by a constant political doctrine for PAF, has presently lowered its bar to just deny air dominance to IAF in Pakistan’s airspace areas of significance. This is a marked scale down from the heyday when Pakistan struck Indian installations relatively deep in Indian territory, both from West and East Pakistan.
India, on the other hand, has consistently upgraded IAF’s political objectives of War and backed it up with resources to now reach a stage that it can somewhat impose its will on weaker border countries.
India has played its Anti-China and Anti- Political Islam card well. The series of US-India Defense Deals and strategic deals with all Western countries shows this.
Pakistan on the other hand is chugging along reluctantly on the Islamic Ummah track, with hardly any plan, and no clear destination in sight.
PAF will never be able to achieve victory– without a consistent narrative of political objective– that every Pakistani supports.
How can PAF even think of winning in this scenario? What will PAF aim for, if the political and intellectual institutions don’t guide it? This is also reflected in how the PAF, in the absence of domestic political inputs, has been scaling back its offensive doctrine.
This scale-back is hastened by the level of support from the USA, non-existent now, and PAF’s battle teeth are getting progressively duller. Pakistan’s chief edge against India has been the quality of front-line aircraft since Ayub aligned tightly with the USA.
Pakistan fending off the Indian Army’s thrust in 1965 was made possible by the highly reliable and agile F-86 Sabre, in the only significant tactical victory Pakistan has against India.
All PAF victories over the years have been tactical; the wars have been lost.
Indian military planners know Pakistan is looking for bang-for-the-buck, because of its frail economy– and cannot afford any grand designs of sustained operations beyond its borders. India has outflanked Pakistan here.
PAF aims to reasonably deny free rein to Indian air superiority and ground attack fighters in Pakistan’s air space to give enough room to Pakistan Army to hold ground against an Indian offensive. PAF keeps shopping for Western fighters, weapons, training, and radars to achieve this. The sources have now dwindled to a trickle.
India, on the other hand, with a burgeoning economy and the West falling over each other to get a piece of its market, aims to inflict punishing raids into Pakistan’s territory decimating Pakistan’s offensive capabilities to deter military attacks.
Whenever IAF feels it has all its Rafales ready, its SU-30s upgraded with Western targeting and weapon systems, Indian political machinery will give it the go-ahead for offensive raids targetting Pakistan’s leading Combat Aircraft, and force multiplier platforms like AEW&Cs/refuellers and armed drones.
The rest of the PAF’s aircraft will be a cakewalk.
With PAF out of the way and the Pakistan Army mortally vulnerable, the purpose will be to bend Pakistan politically to Indian will.
There is even talk of the IAF creating air superiority over a bridgehead inside Pakistani territory, right at the border that blunts whatever thrust Pakistan makes towards dislodging it– thereby expending Pakistan’s resources completely.
The Indian Military thought process has now moved away from stopgap military purchasing to a more coherent national doctrine for the IAF. India is now moving away from whichever country can give them political support to a more reliable western fleet.
PAF has in the past exploited IAF’s weaknesses in Russian planes and weapons– but that is ending. Indian political government has the option to cherry-pick fighters, and target systems of choice. India has US sufficient support to make that happen.
A lot of IAF’s rise is attributable to solid political oversight by quality political institutions.
Military strategists on both sides of the fence want different things and the scales are tipping in IAF’s favour rapidly.
PAF’s complete dependence on Chinese military technology and its reliability issues will not cover the current Pakistan vulnerabilities. The Indian government realizes this and has recently signed a slew of defense deals with the USA to keep Pakistan out of the procurement loop.
IAF would be just about there when they get their full delivery of 36 Rafale jets and upgrade SU-30MKI with western weapons and avionics.
IAF already has perfect target imagery, accurate target coordinates, satellite real-time visuals, drone footage, radio intercepts, diplomatic umbrella, and a sympathetic world audience, to cream PAF.
PAF will have to think long and hard whether it wants to stick to the old ways of cajoling Western capitals for top-line weapons or create a new doctrine of necessity.
Pakistan might have to drastically change its doctrine of war from precision strikes at concentration nodes, to one of several damaging waves of raids with its weapons.
Pakistan might have to alter the structure of its military from a WW2 styled all-inclusive manpower to one with high mobility, maximum firepower, and precision. This will require letting go of dead-weights.
Let the private sector build the aircraft and weapons that you need– there seems no other way.
Modernize, Modernize, and Modernize should be the catchword.
The PAF should have only combat aircraft and allied systems that support direct offensive action and nothing else.
This involves correcting the rank structure, career profile, and numbers of the human resource in PAF.
PAF will have to restrict itself to projecting firepower only and inflicting unacceptable damage on IAF and the Indian economic machine.
Pakistan will have to privatize its Aeronautical Complex and Weapons Development Agencies so that meaningful and result-oriented research takes place there.
Pakistan Air Force must incorporate MALE Armed Drones in huge numbers so that low-altitude targeting can be given to them and also to swamp IAF Air Defense.
For this modernization in PAF, only 10 years are available.
If PAF does not heed IAF’s rapid modernization, it may well become irrelevant in the coming decade as an instrument of national political power.
The recent skirmish in Kashmir that PAF won, cannot be repeated whenever the fundamentals do not allow it.
PAF F-16 managed to shoot down a Mig-21 and scare away the formidable SU-30MKI because of the surprise of releasing a BVR AMRAAM at its maximum range of 100 km, something the Russian R-77 missile could not do because of its 80-km closure distance. This allowed the PAF’s formation to break away early. The SU-30s were left scrambling to evade the incoming missiles.
This left the IAF MiG-21s vulnerable and they walked straight into PAF’s trap. Wing Commander Abhinandan of IAF was shot down in Pakistani territory.
India has piled up quite an impressive array of Recon planes, Gunship Helicopters (Apaches), and Troop carriers (C-17 & C-130) but the IAF vs PAF war would be decided in a few days, long before these planes could join in. Tejas and other domestic platforms have still not matured enough to prove decisive. The remaining luxury transporters, troop carriers, helicopters also mean nothing.
What IAF does not have is accurate and long-distance western offensive weapons for the time being. But that is about to change.
IAF currently does not enjoy the dominance it so desperately craves against PAF, mostly due to unreliable Russian planes and weapons. The moment India completes its acquisition of Western weapon systems and armed drones, in the next decade, PAF and the ground forces will be in a huge fix. Pakistan policymakers need to work fast.
The writer retired from the PAF as a win commander
