Hehe - i see everyone riding the bandwagon of bashing Sidhu - most of these are just petty things (except few) compared to the work he has done.
Only those who have real connections with PAF know the transformation which has taken place over past 5 years in PAF - a difference of heaven and earth.
People assume Sidhu is just enjoying the cherries and taking the credit while people down the line are the ones doing the heavy lifting - nope that's not true - his job was to give danda and directions which he did very well.
Cyber operations in PAF wasn't a thing until only recently (yes, you don't have any idea about the role of cyber in may conflict and btw it was the novice cyber command which traced the sources of white paper leaks lol).
MDOs, satellites, space, EW, silent kill chain concepts were only novice concepts until recently.
Integration between Sensor-shooter and everything in-between and true net-centricity was only an immature concept until recently.
Induction of J10s in such short span of time wasn't a walk in the park.
GBAD was hardly recognized an important domain until recently. (Many of the AD inductions which you are seeing now were proposed by sidhu when he was DCAS AD).
Project Vision has completed projects directed by sidhu, you have no idea about.
since NASTP deals with R&D. Please be patient for the results you want to see. R&D takes decades to yield actual meaningful results. And they are slowly getting there so take a patience pill.
The traditional PAF was just a platform oriented force just like the IAF was in may 25. And that's exactly where they were lagging behind - being platform centric instead of net-centric - that's exactly what AM Masood Akhtar says here in this video about how all the old veterans used to laugh at Sidhu for what stupid stuff he was doing.
wonder how he is managing the funds for all these projects? Its not just more buying on credit cards.
He has re-organized the PAF - big cut on ranks, manpower and post retirement benefits - big cut on unnecessary flying hours especially of the transporter sqns - big cut on routine purchase funds of units in supporting roles - completely revamped the IG's branch to enhance organizational efficiency - numerous other measures in admin domain to cut down the expenses like bills, work services at bases etc.
Now lets come to the things you are all going after - yes he is Hungry for praise - yes he doesn't like criticism - yes he wants yes men around him - yeah maybe he saves some shares for his pocket - yeah bad things for a leader - but you don't get perfection in any man - you got to deal with goods and bads - he has got good vision and he has got exceptional admin skills - and that's what matters more than people worrying about sidhu having his pictures all over the walls.
Dear
@side-winder,
You wrote a detailed post mentioning things CAS is doing. Well that's the least is expected when one is not willing to rotate leadership. Warfare is changing rapidly in times of autonomous systems, killchains, AI and when you have a leader who is continuing his service for 7 years then all those things are MUST to be done. Its not a favor that CAS is doing. Its his very responsibility. That's why nation pays his salary / perks.
Secondly, every CAS adopts new mechanisms, technologies as time goes on. This is nature of the job (infact nature of every job, its an continous evolution). For-example at some point in time AEW&Cs were inducted, maybe the biggest game changer, at some point PAF became BVR capable, at some point some other new stuff came into play. Tactics, trainings, systems were oversaw by other CAS at times who happened to be leader only for their dedicated 2 years and then gracefully retired and rotated the leadership role to next batch and that's how things must be done. No use of tax payer money on self-marketing, not pasting yourself all over the official videos. Not making an environment where
your juniors have to say "Allah kay baad hamaray CAS".
The institutions are built and operated independent of select individuals. Institution must have a system where leadership is routinely rotated in a fixed tenure of 2 years. You can't make a massive gap of seniority between your top leader and next inline deserving candidates. Passing on the responsibility is a key trait of good military leader. Otherwise you must join politics if you absolutely love to rule.
Its bare bones of military hierarchy and institutional health for military leaders to be regularly rotated.
Prevents Personalization of Power: Fixed terms prevent a single military leader from building a personal cult of personality or an independent power base within the armed forces.
Maintains Political Neutrality: Long-tenured chiefs risk becoming overly entangled with a specific political administration. Rotation keeps the military's leadership apolitical.
Injects Fresh Perspectives: Warfare, technology, and geopolitics evolve rapidly. Rotations bring in new leaders with up-to-date ideas on modernization, cyber warfare, and contemporary strategy.
Prevents Intellectual Stagnation: Prolonged leadership can lead to dogmatic thinking, where a chief becomes overly attached to their own past strategies, doctrines, or procurement choices.
Matches Physical and Mental Demands: The cognitive load and high-stress nature of commanding a nation's entire military require peak resilience, making retirement limits practical for operational readiness.
Prevents Promotional Bottlenecks: When top leaders stay indefinitely, it stalls the career progression of highly capable generals, admirals, and colonels below them.
Retains High-Value Talent: If ambitious, younger officers see no path to top leadership due to a stagnant upper echelon, they are more likely to retire early, draining the military of its best strategic minds.
Ensures Broad Institutional Experience: Rotating leadership forces the military to continuously develop a deep, capable bench of senior officers ready to step into command during a national crisis.
Some of the points above were previously mentioned by
@Oscar and others too. In the end what CAS in terms of systems upgrades etc is just keeping up with the rapidly evolving battlefield scenarios. He is doing what anybody in his place would have been doing. That doing your basic responsibility. What he is not doing is refusing to leave a rank - which should never have been up for discussion in any military. We already have army which had this non-professional trend. But airforce was largely clean from such things and had nation's admiration that they don't get into extensions. But here we are today unfortunately.
