After the "Four Day War"

Some thoughts on the latest India-Pakistan conflict

On May 10th, India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire following four days of direct armed confrontation on a scale not seen since their last major war in 1971. The outcome was somewhat ambiguous, and it will still be some time until we have a full understanding of the implications of what I am taking the liberty to call “The Four Day War.” But as the fog of war begins to disperse, there are some initial takeaways that I think are of urgent importance.

During the conflict, Pakistan shot down a number of Indian military aircraft, including several Russian models, and at least one advanced French-produced Rafale fighter jet. Notably, the Pakistani Air Force used Chinese military equipment for these attacks, including the J-10 Vigorous Dragon fighter jet, and the PL-15 active guided long-range missile.

After these losses, the Indians hit back a few days later with large-scale drone and missile strikes inside Pakistan. These attacks hit a number of sensitive military sites at long-range with a precision never before demonstrated by the Indian military, including near the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, and other targets near the capital city of Islamabad.

In just a few days, as a result of these events, the relationship between the two countries, and potentially the wider world, was transformed in ways that will only become clearer in the months and years to come.

“Vigorous Dragon”

Rather than ideas or arguments, the shape of the world order is mostly determined by which side has superior weaponry. This is what ultimately decided the outcome of the Cold War around much of the world, where U.S. weapons simply proved more reliable and effective than their Russian counterparts. For that reason, the success of Chinese weaponry in battle against advanced Western alternatives is an extremely significant development that will have ramifications far beyond the region.

The J-10 is a mid-tier Chinese fighter jet. Far more advanced designs, some jointly-produced with Pakistan, are expected to become operational in the next few years. Yet the J-10 still proved itself lethal against the advanced Rafale, which had never before been shot down in combat. The success of the advanced PL-15 missile striking a target far beyond visual range was likewise extremely impressive, allowing several Indian aircraft to be downed at a range of hundreds of kilometers. It is believed that the Indian Air Force lost as many as five fighter jets in this conflict, including up to three Rafales.

A few weeks before the war, Egypt held major military exercises with China for the first time. The Egyptians are now just one of many countries viewing the real-world testing of Chinese hardware with intense interest for their own uses. Just as it suddenly came to dominate the global market for EVs, the performance of the J-10 and PL-15 in combat is a watershed moment that signals China’s arrival as a serious military provider, potentially superior to Russia, Europe, and even the U.S. in the global arms market. Affordable, high-quality Chinese weapons sold at scale would transform the balance of power in conflicts across Asia and the Middle East, upending the natural advantage held by U.S. arms buyers today.

In his diaries, Ernst Junger reflected, "The market has the most sensitive feelers; it registers every vibration, and it does so more quickly than seismographs.” The stock price of Chengdu Aircraft Industries, which produces the J-10, skyrocketed over 40% after the first reported downing of the Rafale.

New Rules

Although Pakistani leaders appear to believe that they saved face by inflicting costs on India, I do not think that the outcome of this conflict should be reassuring for them. Indeed, in my assessment they should be significantly alarmed by what the Four Day War has revealed about their deteriorating strategic position.

India initially launched missile strikes on targets inside Pakistan on May 6 following a terrorist attack in late April in the disputed border region of Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed militants. After the loss of their air force jets, India launched hundreds of drones across the border aimed at suppressing Pakistani air defenses, before firing what were likely ballistic and air-to-surface missiles at numerous highly sensitive military targets across the country, including sites located near major population and administrative centers.

According to satellite photos, many these missiles hit their targets with precision. At least one strike on a Pakistani airbase was acknowledged by the Pakistani side to have killed five airmen. India’s military capabilities have clearly improved over the past decade, and even since the last standoff between the two countries in 2019. But more importantly, New Delhi has sent a message that nothing is off limits now with regards to Pakistan’s sovereignty.

This latest conflict only ended after Pakistan began moving around its nuclear assets, which reportedly spooked Washington into pressuring both sides into a hasty ceasefire. But a grave message had already been sent. Pakistan and India had already been engaged in violent proxy wars in both Kashmir and Balochistan. But the Indians are now writing new rules: shooting attacks in Kashmir will be retaliated to with ballistic missile and drone attacks inside Pakistan itself, including against top-level military facilities and major cities.

Satellite images showing strikes on the runway of Pakistani airbase.

No Depth

Pakistan has always tried to fight India on equal terms. But the brute fact is that India is a much larger country in both size, population, and resources. Pakistan meanwhile is a relatively narrow strip of territory, whose major population centers lie on an open plain a short drive from the border. This is also why the risk of nuclear war quickly became so real in this war, and why Pakistan generally does not commit to a “No First Use” policy regarding its nuclear arsenal.

In my view, Pakistanis should not feel happy about what took place during this conflict. New Delhi has sent a message that any proxy attacks against it in disputed regions may now result in decapitation strikes at Pakistan’s leadership. Even if Pakistan struck back in kind, as it claims to have done this time (no real evidence of this has been provided), it could never hope to be able to hit across the length and breadth of the country in the manner that India is able.

Due to a mixture of Pakistan’s own offensive actions and the ruling ideology of the current regime in New Delhi, India today poses a significant existential threat to Islamabad. If Pakistan is going to not just succeed, but merely survive, it needs to develop the same sort of garrison-state mentality as countries like Taiwan or Israel. I do not mean this in the sense of oppressing its neighbors, whom it should in fact seek to reconcile eventually. But Pakistan needs to act like its survival is urgently threatened at all times, and to treat everything it does in terms of internal governance, development, diplomacy, and military preparedness with urgent seriousness as a result.

Pakistanis are very intelligent and capable people when they are working in the context of proper institutions. They demonstrated that in the recent conflict by over-performing in air combat. But Pakistani elites and leadership right now are extremely unserious, and are not acting at all like their country is under existential threat. Instead of militantly focusing on internal reform, they are trapped in an endless loop of political infighting, wasteful consumption, and other types of maladaptive behavior. Rather than feeling satisfied that they may have saved face in this conflict by shooting down a few jets, they should be deeply concerned by what actually took place during the Four Day War, and treat it as a turning point in how they conduct themselves going forward.

In the long term, there is a historical imperative for India and Pakistan, as well as Bangladesh, to reconcile and build a new relationship with one another. This should include economic integration, open borders, and cultural exchange that will help heal the lingering wounds of partition, and build a more humane future. But before arriving at that optimistic end-state, Pakistan, as the smaller and more vulnerable country that has made a mortal enemy of its larger neighbor, will now have to learn how to survive the hard decades of enmity and conflict likely ahead.

Currently, they are not cutting it. More than anything else, that should be the lesson of this war.