The morning of Day 4 of Operation Sindoor suggests that the conflict has widened, taking into its scope all of eastern Pakistan and north-western India. The conflict now stands poised at a crossroads. It can either die down, or begin climbing an escalatory ladder.
After penetrating the fog of war and disinformation, we can determine that Day 2 and 3 saw drone strikes between India and Pakistan. Yet, the remarkable thing is that no casualties were reported from India, except from among the hapless civilians living near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, which is experiencing intense shelling. On Thursday evening, Pakistani drones attempted to strike three Indian military bases – Jammu, Pathankot and Udhampur, but were foiled.
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Another feature is that the two air forces continue their operations without crossing the international border, using long-range air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles. And yet, both seem to have hit the other side in terms of damaged facilities and aircraft shot down.
Why The Escalation
One reason for the intensification of the conflict is that on Day 1, India did not strike military targets. But though the Indian aircraft launched their missiles from the Indian side, they were attacked by a barrage of air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles from across the border, which reportedly downed a number of aircraft on the Indian side.
Thereafter, on Wednesday night, Pakistan launched its drone assault on India, targeting several air bases and air defence facilities in north-western India. The deliberate targeting of military facilities was an escalation. It was at this point that India decided that it had to do what it should have done first – knock out the Pakistani air defence system. And it did so spectacularly, taking out an HQ-9 air defence missile site outside Lahore.
According to a state press release on Thursday, India targeted Pakistani air defence radars and systems at a number of other locations in Pakistan as well. While the release does not say so, these are likely to have been done largely through drones. The release says that on the night of May 7, Pakistan “attempted to engage a number of military targets in northern and western India… using drones and missiles”; it listed several cities and towns, many of which correspond to Indian air bases. The release said that the Indian Integrated Counter-UAS Grid and Air Defence system neutralised them. This could indicate that the attacking craft were primarily drones. “The debris of the attacks is now being recovered,” the release noted.
The Drones On Both Sides
Tellingly, the release said that the “Indian response has been in the same domain and with the same intensity as Pakistan”. This suggests that the domain is indeed Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), and also that neither side swarmed the other. However, reports that India used Harpy drones to attack air defence targets.
NDTV, citing ANI, said that the S-400 system was used to neutralise 15 missiles fired at India. It also noted that Israeli Harpy and Harop drones were thereafter used to disable Pakistani air defence systems. The numbers of drones employed by both sides do not seem to be too high. India has a little over 100 highly capable Harpies and Harops – which are effectively missiles – in its arsenal, and many of them would have been used in Operation Sindoor. India does have a few Israeli-origin attack drones, too, and is acquiring American MQ-9s. On the other hand, Pakistan has over 100 Chinese-made Wing Loong II and CH-4, which can carry munitions, as well as a few Turkish attack drones and a larger number of smaller short-range drones made in Pakistan. Neither country is really ready for the intense kind of drone war that the Russians and Ukrainians are fighting currently.
Beyond the onset of drone warfare across the India-Pakistan borders, there are other issues that we need to consider. There is so much misinformation in the news and on social media that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. But confronting reality is the best way to learn from it. If the news about Indian aircraft being downed is true, it is important to know the circumstances.
The China Factor
What is also intriguing is a picture circulating online of a booster of a Chinese P-15 air-to-air missile used by Pakistan, which is an export version of its P-10. According to Bloomberg, Chinese defence stocks jumped up 36% after Operation Sindoor. They were reportedly buoyed by the performance of Chinese defence equipment, such as J-10C fighters in the clashes.
All this suggests that learning lessons from Operation Sindoor is important, and that requires a degree of openness. In defence, there is no finality. Countries are constantly improving their systems and sub-systems and given the hostile environment that we live in, there is always room to improve.
Eventually, our primary adversary in the region is China, which has made enormous investments in its science and technology field, as well as in defence. Chinese equipment was generally known to be inferior to Russian ones — which they were largely copied from. But those days have gone. The J-10C that Pakistan has is, for example, inferior to the Su-30MKI that India has. But it possesses an AESA radar that enables it to track multiple targets. Pakistan also uses Chinese JF-17s, and both aircraft use the PL-15 long-range missile (145 km).
Some Questions
In essence, Operation Sindoor did what it had to – strike Pakistan terror bases, including the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Taiba (Muridke, near Lahore) and the Jaish-e-Muhammad (Bhawalpur). The operations was strategically restrained and its roll out was perfectly crafted with the closing of the sluice gates of Baglihar to dry out the Chenab and set alarm bells ringing down river. At the same time, it was timed with the Operation Abhyas mock-drill across the country, which unfolded on the very day that the news of the Operation Sindoor hit the country.
But, the alleged crashes raise questions among the public. Considering India planned to use missiles like the SCALP, with a 300 km range, and the Brahmos, with a 500 km range, were they doing so too close to the India-Pakistan border?
A second major question is as to whether the Air Force should have also struck Pakistani air defence systems first and then hit the terror sites. But that would have spoiled the key messaging from the Indian side, that they were only responding to the Pahalgam terror attack.
The Pakistanis have chosen to escalate and now the conflict stands poised at a cross-roads. Which direction it takes is still too difficult to discern.
(The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
