The Pakistanis fear that India is cashing in its (financial aid) chips in Afg to create trouble for them. Reports say that the Afghans have received Konkurs ATGM (of which we have ample stocks) from an unknown intel agency.
That's probably why the Pakistanis got the Chinese to broker a deal with Kabul post haste. Anyhow, as long as there's no agreement on the Durand Line, the Pakistanis will be on the recieving end of Afg wrath.
Can't say about the Taliban leadership but the Afg intel services nurse a special hatred for the Pak establishment, as former operatives like Amrullah Saleh would tell you.
You're confusing the intelligence set up of the previous Afghan regime with the current one. The previous one was non Pashtun heavy . Saleh himself as you know is a Tajik.
The fact that we're being actively courted by both Russia and America (Trump and Vance, no less) for their 5G wares alone indicates that something is afoot. With news of an imminent sale of J-35 to Pak, I reckon there is greater urgency within the MoD now.
May be so. The number of times the MoD / GoI acted reasonably & logically can actually be counted on one's fingers.
Then again I put it to you when do you think these F-35s will be delivered ? How long will we take to raise a squadron or 2 ? How long will we take to formulate tactics & co ordinate with the other arms of the IAF & the rest of our armed forces establishment ?
Let's assume they kick off negotiations this year. MoD / IAF will start out with maximalist positions as will the DoD . Let's assume they take 3 years for negotiations . That's 2028 . Add another year or two for the contract to be signed given 2028 is election year in the US & 2029 is election year in India.
Add 3 years for the first F-35 to be available & say 3 years for 2 squadrons @ 2/ month which makes 2033 & 2036 respectively. If we consider 5 years for the acclimatization tactics strategy etc from the date of the induction of the first F-35 we should be battle ready by 2037-38 .
Now all this is considering these F-35s won't be integrated with the IACCS will be severely down graded models not only from what the USAF operates but also their NATO allies plus kill switches & what have you . Also factor in that these F-35s won't be FOC for we don't know when will it be certified . Is it worth it at the end of the day ?
Repeat the same exercise with the Su-57 with requisite changes & you reach more or less the same timelines for the MKI ization likely with an addition of 3-4 years.
IIRC, we've received classified briefings on the F-35 in the past. Both jets facing off at AI 25 couldn't have been for nothing.
From what I understand we haven't been cleared by Congress for any classified briefing on the F-35 nor have we asked for one.
Sweetie's the in house authority on this .
@Innominate
Yes, thanks for the correction. But how could we have known the Shaheen wasn't N armed? Afaik, we don't have the kind of warhead discrimination capability the US does.
Maybe we do maybe we don't @ have the kind of warhead discrimination capability the US does. Maybe we estimated Fauji Foundation won't activate their N option so early in the campaign.
In the event what they fired was a Fatah -II not a Shaheen BM .
The Pakistanis don't differentiate between nuke and conventional missiles either.
On principle, this was a fail for our strategic deterrent posture.
In that case we've been a de facto N weapons state since 1974 . That's hardly deterred Paxtan from supporting separatist movements in Punjab & Kashmir not to mention terrorist activities all over India.
Our nukes are perhaps the only thing China respects. Given the volatile situation, we should resume N testing to allay any doubts in the minds of PLA planners about their efficacy.
Too much at stake for us to unilaterally begin testing . There's a school of thought which says that before China embarks on its Mission Taiwan , they'd start testing nukes to deter US involvement. That should be our cue to test for then practically all the N states will begin flexing their N chops.
In terms of conventional forces, we may realistically never be a threat to them.
India's to China what Paxtan is to India. Just as we lack overwhelming military superiority to impose our will over Paxtan , China lacks overwhelming military superiority over us too .
Moreover China has bigger fish to fry in East Asia. We've no such designs on our neighbours so logically China shouldn't be messing with us otherwise it defeats the purpose behind having a proxy which is what Paxtan is to prosecute China's agenda.
Possible but they clearly aren't playing favorites anymore. The Russians and Chinese are flying joint bomber patrols and sending joint naval task forces halfway across the world.
I was referring to the immediate past . You're referring to the here & now.
There is a 'no holds barred' partnership between them covering commercial airlines (Comac C939?) to moon outposts powered by n-reactors. Russia's veto does hold in good stead for India at the UNSC. But France is equally reliable in that regard.
Both Russia & China are bound together because they face a common foe in the US. Just as once the China threat is over so is the bonhomie between US & India something similar or rather worse is in store for Sino Russia relations for while India & the US has no quarrel Russia is sitting on sizeable Chinese land it seized during the Qing Dynasty rule when China was at its weakest.
With the kind of claims China's making of its neighbours only a fool sitting in the Kremlin won't be wary of China. And Putin or his predecessors & successors aren't fools by any yardstick else they won't be able to rule a particularly challenging country like Russia.
. They will never let us live in peace. History has proven that whenever they have supposedly got a wonder/superior weapon than ours, they try to attack us. They will again try to attack us, this way or that, post J-35's acquisition.
