The Sukhoi Vulnerability And Other Post-Balakot Lessons

Diminishing gap in India’s asymmetry encouraged Pakistan to retaliate against a counter-terror air strike.

- Vishal Thapar

DURING THE HIGH STAKES KARGIL WAR IN 1999, THE USE OF AIR power by India, albeit belatedly, turned out to be a huge force multiplier to the heroics of foot soldiers in winning back the forbidding heights. But while the Indian Air Force (IAF) flew game-changing bombing sorties, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was not seen close to the scene of action. The PAF was deterred because unlike the IAF, it did not have Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missile capability at that time. The IAF exercised asymmetry with the S530D and R-27 BVR air-to-air missiles on its Mirage 2000 and MiG-29 fighters and went unchallenged in the air.

In the post-Balakot aerial skirmish on February 27, the asymmetric gap in favor of the IAF had demonstrably diminished. After the IAF’s surprise attack on the Jaish-e-Moham mad terrorist training camp at Balakot on February 26, the PAF dared to retaliate within a day. While Operation Swift Retort was largely foiled by the IAF, with the formidable attack package of Pakistani fighters failing to hit a single target on the ground, the shooting down of an IAF MiG-21 in a dogfight and the capture of the ejected pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman enabled Pakistan to claim redemption for Balakot, notwithstanding the glaring contradictions in its claims, brazen denial of the shooting down of its own F-16 and unabashed flogging of the fiction of shooting down an IAF Su-30MKI.