POST WAR assessment of recent conflict.

[TAC]

Bad as they might be, Modi and co are democratically proper legit.

Your fauj, now out of hibernation/the shadows.. is not.

Munir poked India, and ab uski downfall starts

What utter BS is this and what does it have to do with this thread? If it’s more coping, start a thread for coping and cry on their about what happened to your best in the world Ra-fail and how India and particularly the IAF was humiliated on the world stage. Super power my butt.

 

[Musings]

@Pakistan First
I warned you not to poke - last warning don’t poke me again or I will permanently ban you

 

[Falcon26]

Preface:
I appreciate the premise of this thread very much. No matter how I have been self-critical of Pakistanis and Pakistanis, the one thing that I have always known us to be better at than the Indians is our closer relationship with facts, reality, and critical analysis. Unfortunately, on the last day (yet) of the conflict showed some disturbing trends from our media and general public where I feel like a lot of exaggerations, false-bravados, and propaganda were seen, not as bad but in the same vein as the Indians. I feel VERY STRONGLY that we should NOT become like the Indians in this very important aspect, which is why I really appreciate the creation of this thread. With all of this said, I feel like a lot of people will inevitably do adhominem attacks and call me traitor in the time of war. While I am used to this when I used to call out the military pre-PTI, this will be in a different context, where the whole country is apparently on the same page. I can only request that you please read what I have to say with a cool mind and believe that I do have Pakistan's best interest at heart.

The air-to-air battle:
This happened on the first night and we have essentially undeniable evidence of the losses suffered by IAF at the hands of PAF. Obviously, I wouldn't know exactly why PAF overpowered IAF in this way but I have some theories:
1. The IAF did not expect PAF to shoot at them while they were inside their airspace because PAF did not shoot at them until they crossed or were about to cross in 2019.
2. The PAF has a very well-oiled network-centric doctrine that has been shown to be superior to IAF's slightly hotch-potch doctrine that results from the plethora of systems that they operate.
I feel like PAF has discovered that PAF's best bet is to create panic inside IAF and that is easy to do and creates a favorable situation for PAF.


The drone strikes by India over several nights:
Every night, we would be hit by volleys of all kinds of drones - even target drones. Clearly this was meant to saturate our ADGE and to illicit a response.
1. It is good that we did not activate our main missile defense for hitting them.
2. There was mixed success in EW-based defense against these.
3. I understand that it is nearly impossible to defend against such mass attacks totally effectively.
The mistakes we made:
1. Relying too much on big systems like HQ-16 HQ-9 etc spread over TWO services (PAF PA). It is almost like we were not expecting to deal with drone swarms.
2. Not responding.

Delayed Response: "Time and Place of Our Choosing"
It is exceedingly obvious that in the Indo-Pak theatre mounting defense is tricky. You really have to do offense. Pakistan's failure to respond for days emboldened the Indians to keep terrorizing Pakistani pubic.


Receipts:
The delayed response would be digestable if we actually had receipts for our response. I am sorry but Indians have totally outclassed us in the realm of battle damage assesment. They showed before/after pictures of our bases that will be shared with the world for years. We on the other hand were only able to show videos of radar pictures and everything else was trust me bro. In this day and age it is crucial to have some kind of BDA - as we had in 2019 with the videos using H weapons. Even if someone wants to argue that Pakistan did an amazing response after waiting alot, they cannot because there's no evidence for it.



Key Weakness for Us:
1. Speed of Response: We need to have gameplans and responses preplanned and excercised by units. We can't be caught waiting and doing nothing. Call it restraint or whatever - the delay hurt us.
2. The magnitude of the response: Unfortunately, our response was NOT proportionate - the Indians had been terrorizing us for 3 nights and launched so many Brahmos, Harops, Target drones at us. We only launched some F1 and F2. I understand that we are a poor country that can't afford much, but our response was weak.
3. Ability to give evidence of our response: We need satellites or drones to be part of our response plan because a strike that has no evidence for might as well not have happened.
4. Lack of defense of AFBs against drone swarms - we need cost effective HARD KILL measures against drone swarms that don't rely on using our air defense systems.


People will get angry but I feel that Pakistan's detterence has been greatly damaged if not ruined by this episode. A consequence of this is India will surely repeat something like this, with even more intensity next time something happens on their side and they want some war mongering.

After 2019 our deterrence was solidified, after 2025 our deterrence has been weakened. This begs the question why India did 2025 if 2019 had made such a great detterence? Well,
a. They are kind of beholden to their internal politics too much.
b. The shoot down of so many of their jets really had them out to balance things.
c. They had prepared and improved a LOT since 2019 - they had a whole new strategy this time.

Totally agreed with you on all points.

By dragging its feet on a response after the valiant performance by PAF, Pakistan has made similar stunts by India more likely in the future - not less. Pakistan was too restrained in its response when it finally responded. A smaller country can never show restraint in the face of such fascist Hindutva aggression. This is a death sentence.

Heads should roll at the delayed and restrained response. It’s obvious that the Pakistan army was waiting for some sort of ceasefire while India was aiming to maximize its response so as to have a respectable score when the whistle was blown. Again very confusing and may I say criminal work by the Pakistan army.

 

[Waterboy]

Preface:
I appreciate the premise of this thread very much. No matter how I have been self-critical of Pakistanis and Pakistanis, the one thing that I have always known us to be better at than the Indians is our closer relationship with facts, reality, and critical analysis. Unfortunately, on the last day (yet) of the conflict showed some disturbing trends from our media and general public where I feel like a lot of exaggerations, false-bravados, and propaganda were seen, not as bad but in the same vein as the Indians. I feel VERY STRONGLY that we should NOT become like the Indians in this very important aspect, which is why I really appreciate the creation of this thread. With all of this said, I feel like a lot of people will inevitably do adhominem attacks and call me traitor in the time of war. While I am used to this when I used to call out the military pre-PTI, this will be in a different context, where the whole country is apparently on the same page. I can only request that you please read what I have to say with a cool mind and believe that I do have Pakistan's best interest at heart.

The air-to-air battle:
This happened on the first night and we have essentially undeniable evidence of the losses suffered by IAF at the hands of PAF. Obviously, I wouldn't know exactly why PAF overpowered IAF in this way but I have some theories:
1. The IAF did not expect PAF to shoot at them while they were inside their airspace because PAF did not shoot at them until they crossed or were about to cross in 2019.
2. The PAF has a very well-oiled network-centric doctrine that has been shown to be superior to IAF's slightly hotch-potch doctrine that results from the plethora of systems that they operate.
I feel like PAF has discovered that PAF's best bet is to create panic inside IAF and that is easy to do and creates a favorable situation for PAF.


The drone strikes by India over several nights:
Every night, we would be hit by volleys of all kinds of drones - even target drones. Clearly this was meant to saturate our ADGE and to illicit a response.
1. It is good that we did not activate our main missile defense for hitting them.
2. There was mixed success in EW-based defense against these.
3. I understand that it is nearly impossible to defend against such mass attacks totally effectively.
The mistakes we made:
1. Relying too much on big systems like HQ-16 HQ-9 etc spread over TWO services (PAF PA). It is almost like we were not expecting to deal with drone swarms.
2. Not responding.

Delayed Response: "Time and Place of Our Choosing"
It is exceedingly obvious that in the Indo-Pak theatre mounting defense is tricky. You really have to do offense. Pakistan's failure to respond for days emboldened the Indians to keep terrorizing Pakistani pubic.


Receipts:
The delayed response would be digestable if we actually had receipts for our response. I am sorry but Indians have totally outclassed us in the realm of battle damage assesment. They showed before/after pictures of our bases that will be shared with the world for years. We on the other hand were only able to show videos of radar pictures and everything else was trust me bro. In this day and age it is crucial to have some kind of BDA - as we had in 2019 with the videos using H weapons. Even if someone wants to argue that Pakistan did an amazing response after waiting alot, they cannot because there's no evidence for it.



Key Weakness for Us:
1. Speed of Response: We need to have gameplans and responses preplanned and excercised by units. We can't be caught waiting and doing nothing. Call it restraint or whatever - the delay hurt us.
2. The magnitude of the response: Unfortunately, our response was NOT proportionate - the Indians had been terrorizing us for 3 nights and launched so many Brahmos, Harops, Target drones at us. We only launched some F1 and F2. I understand that we are a poor country that can't afford much, but our response was weak.
3. Ability to give evidence of our response: We need satellites or drones to be part of our response plan because a strike that has no evidence for might as well not have happened.
4. Lack of defense of AFBs against drone swarms - we need cost effective HARD KILL measures against drone swarms that don't rely on using our air defense systems.


People will get angry but I feel that Pakistan's detterence has been greatly damaged if not ruined by this episode. A consequence of this is India will surely repeat something like this, with even more intensity next time something happens on their side and they want some war mongering.

After 2019 our deterrence was solidified, after 2025 our deterrence has been weakened. This begs the question why India did 2025 if 2019 had made such a great detterence? Well,
a. They are kind of beholden to their internal politics too much.
b. The shoot down of so many of their jets really had them out to balance things.
c. They had prepared and improved a LOT since 2019 - they had a whole new strategy this time.

I agree with you. I have said the same. In nokr khan base attacm you could hear cruise missiles.

They fired brahmos, scalp eg and harops. Their target acquisition, precision from stand off distance was better.
They did better in long range offensive strikes.

We need to work on offensive missile capabilities more now.

Air defense has to be drastically improved.

 

[Abdul q]

Assessment is: A lot needs to change including political and military leadership…. Assets used to against internal politics should be used assessing genuine external threats…. Declare RSS a terrorist organisation.. start employing proactive approach rather than waiting for shyt to hit the fan…. Idk why we didn’t see ANZA manpads in action to shoot down drones, our leadership probably didn’t consider IB as part of conflict… loads of failures i can go on…

 

[codeforfood]

First question I want to start with why did we not see stocks of cruise missiles used?

View attachment 119609

I believe we iteratively scaled up our use of weapons based on our needs. It seems for our targets there wasn't a need to show off our cruise missiles. my two cents

 

[Mr X]

A few observations:

For Pakistan:

Its clear that while Pakistan needs better anti-BM, anti-CM, and anti-drone systems, and rapidly, it came out better than expected. Regardless, the amount of damage India was able to do, despite losing 5 fighters in the process, was ridiculously high, and would have been mitigated with proper systems in place.

Plus, with how India was able to saturate Pakistani bases and AA sites with drones shows where a future war between the two will head towards.

The quicker Pakistan finds a solution, the better.

Pakistan also needs better PR, and needs to tell Khawaja Asif to sit down and shut the f*** up, or resign.

It needs better methods to deal with India's misinformation campaign. A dedicated department that debunks Indian claims, and provides facts backed with evidence would do wonders.

It also needs to better fund its diplomats, and give them proper media training to deal with aggressive crony journalists that try to ambush them with misleading information, or just straight up lies.

For India:

Its clear India needs to change its entire air force doctrine, and rethink its future purchases. They can't simply buy expensive, and rely on the philosophy that expensive = better.

They likely need to rethink their forces training, because it's clearly inadequate. They as well should think about investing in anti-drone systems.

It needs to rethink it's aggressive policy towards its neighbors. It's lost all its allies and friends due to its unneeded aggression, because it just ends up looking like a child throwing a tantrum.

It foolishly almost started a nuclear with with its biggest neighbor, because it's nationalist hindutva government was too head strong and refused to cooperate with even its international allies that had a lot of sympathy for it. It needs to think long and hard at what happened, and decide if potentially ending the lives of over 1.7 billion people across the two nations is worth it to satisfy the ego of one man, and his extremist followers.

The biggest factor among both nations was the level of experience. PAF is actively involved in operations against terrorism since last 18 years and its pilots are fully trained to carry out strikes in real world. Indian pilots on the other hand are well trained but haven’t had real fight yet

 

[Goenitz]

Guys, not enough details yet, but let’s establish a consistent narrative on some key questions:

1. “Terrorist HQ” – What does that even mean?​

How is a headquarters defined? Were there any actual training facilities, camps, or firing ranges? Most of these so-called "HQs" were simply mosques or safehouses, not fortified compounds or military structures. No terrorist organisation declares a global headquarters openly—it's not how clandestine groups operate. The label "HQ" is more about narrative framing than verified intelligence.

2. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar – Who sheltered whom?​

It's commonly claimed that Osama lived in Pakistan with full support. But let’s consider this:

• Mullah Omar, the Taliban founder, was discovered (posthumously) to have lived for years in Zabul, just miles from a U.S. Forward Operating Base (FOB Lagman) near Qalat.
  Does that mean NATO was sheltering him? Of course not. It only shows how secretive high-profile fugitives can be.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has captured numerous high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives whenever it had actionable intelligence:

#	Date	City	Name
1	Mar 1, 2003	Rawalpindi	Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM)
2	Sep 11, 2002	Karachi	Ramzi bin al-Shibh
3	Apr 29, 2003	Karachi	Ammar al-Baluchi
4	Jul 25, 2004	Gujrat	Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
5	May 2, 2005	Mardan	Abu Faraj al-Libbi
6	Jul 12, 2004	Lahore	Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan
7	Sep 6, 2011	Quetta	Younis al-Mauritani
8	May 4, 2011	Karachi	Muhammad Ali Qasim Yaqub
9	Jul 19, 2024	Sarai Alamgir (Gujrat)	Amin ul Haq

It was never perceived that Osama was living in Abbottabad until the U.S. raid, just like no one knew Omar was near a U.S. base in Zabul.

3. Kargil – Denial is not unique to Pakistan​

During the Kargil conflict, Pakistan didn’t initially acknowledge the presence of regular troops, true. But this wasn’t unique:

• In 2019, India denied losing a jet and pilot until photo/video evidence surfaced.
• In the same episode, 6 Indian Air Force personnel died in a friendly-fire helicopter incident—and they weren’t given official recognition at the time and buried without a state burial.
• And again, in 2025, official denial followed Indian combat losses.

@RescueRanger @Waz @Trailer23 please select all questions and we can debate and answer here.

 

[Goenitz]

Yes, Pakistan did support the Mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and extended political and moral support to freedom movements in Kashmir—but this was during the pre-9/11 era. At the time, this support was consistent with the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War and was even coordinated with Western powers, particularly the United States.

This is not unprecedented in global politics. Nations, including the West, have often supported armed opposition groups under international legal frameworks. For instance, the UN Charter’s Chapter VII (or some other) allows the UN Security Council to take military or non-military action in response to threats to peace, breaches of peace, or acts of aggression like supporting FSA. While Pakistan had no world or US support but it framed its polcies in the context of opposing foreign occupation and supporting what was then seen by many in the Muslim world as liberation struggles.

However, everything changed after 9/11. Pakistan reversed course entirely, aligning with the international community against terrorism. Since then, Pakistan has not supported any such group and, in fact, has borne the brunt of the fallout: over 90,000 lives lost, and an economic toll exceeding $100 billion due to terrorism and instability.

To understand Pakistan’s historical position, one must acknowledge the context of the times. Calling earlier resistance movements "terrorism" without historical nuance is like calling Udham Singh or participants of the 1857 War of Independence (also called the "Sepoy Mutiny" by the British) terrorists. These were freedom fighters to their people, and their labelling depended heavily on perspective and the prevailing narrative of power.
In essence:

• Pakistan's support in the past was shaped by geopolitical context and was widely accepted at the time.
• Post-9/11, Pakistan decisively broke from those policies.
• Today, Pakistan is a victim of the very groups it once indirectly supported, a painful irony it continues to pay for.

 

[codeforfood]

The subsonic cruise missiles could have been used to saturate defenses. You follow them after a wave of drones.
I think the Indians were given way too much breathing space here.

I agree with giving them a breathing space. I also feel we disengaged as soon as ceasefire was on the table. We potentially could have continued as we had Indians on the back foot until we got some of their action rolled back. Now they have taken a timeout to prepare without giving anything up.

 

[Great Mal]

Yes, Pakistan did support the Mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and extended political and moral support to freedom movements in Kashmir—but this was during the pre-9/11 era. At the time, this support was consistent with the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War and was even coordinated with Western powers, particularly the United States.

This is not unprecedented in global politics. Nations, including the West, have often supported armed opposition groups under international legal frameworks. For instance, the UN Charter’s Chapter VII (or some other) allows the UN Security Council to take military or non-military action in response to threats to peace, breaches of peace, or acts of aggression like supporting FSA. While Pakistan had no world or US support but it framed its polcies in the context of opposing foreign occupation and supporting what was then seen by many in the Muslim world as liberation struggles.

However, everything changed after 9/11. Pakistan reversed course entirely, aligning with the international community against terrorism. Since then, Pakistan has not supported any such group and, in fact, has borne the brunt of the fallout: over 90,000 lives lost, and an economic toll exceeding $100 billion due to terrorism and instability.

To understand Pakistan’s historical position, one must acknowledge the context of the times. Calling earlier resistance movements "terrorism" without historical nuance is like calling Udham Singh or participants of the 1857 War of Independence (also called the "Sepoy Mutiny" by the British) terrorists. These were freedom fighters to their people, and their labelling depended heavily on perspective and the prevailing narrative of power.
In essence:

• Pakistan's support in the past was shaped by geopolitical context and was widely accepted at the time.
• Post-9/11, Pakistan decisively broke from those policies.
• Today, Pakistan is a victim of the very groups it once indirectly supported, a painful irony it continues to pay for.

how is this of any relevance? if your choosing to defend false claims you haven’t really made any progress.

 

[Mr X]

@Goenitz you are way off topic, I was going to delete your posts but request you to review it yourself. This thread is Pakistan-India clash centric and you are discussing something else

 

[RescueRanger]

Guys, not enough details yet, but let’s establish a consistent narrative on some key questions:

1. “Terrorist HQ” – What does that even mean?​

How is a headquarters defined? Were there any actual training facilities, camps, or firing ranges? Most of these so-called "HQs" were simply mosques or safehouses, not fortified compounds or military structures. No terrorist organisation declares a global headquarters openly—it's not how clandestine groups operate. The label "HQ" is more about narrative framing than verified intelligence.

2. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar – Who sheltered whom?​

It's commonly claimed that Osama lived in Pakistan with full support. But let’s consider this:

• Mullah Omar, the Taliban founder, was discovered (posthumously) to have lived for years in Zabul, just miles from a U.S. Forward Operating Base (FOB Lagman) near Qalat.
  Does that mean NATO was sheltering him? Of course not. It only shows how secretive high-profile fugitives can be.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has captured numerous high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives whenever it had actionable intelligence:

#	Date	City	Name
1	Mar 1, 2003	Rawalpindi	Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM)
2	Sep 11, 2002	Karachi	Ramzi bin al-Shibh
3	Apr 29, 2003	Karachi	Ammar al-Baluchi
4	Jul 25, 2004	Gujrat	Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
5	May 2, 2005	Mardan	Abu Faraj al-Libbi
6	Jul 12, 2004	Lahore	Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan
7	Sep 6, 2011	Quetta	Younis al-Mauritani
8	May 4, 2011	Karachi	Muhammad Ali Qasim Yaqub
9	Jul 19, 2024	Sarai Alamgir (Gujrat)	Amin ul Haq

It was never perceived that Osama was living in Abbottabad until the U.S. raid, just like no one knew Omar was near a U.S. base in Zabul.

3. Kargil – Denial is not unique to Pakistan​

During the Kargil conflict, Pakistan didn’t initially acknowledge the presence of regular troops, true. But this wasn’t unique:

• In 2019, India denied losing a jet and pilot until photo/video evidence surfaced.
• In the same episode, 6 Indian Air Force personnel died in a friendly-fire helicopter incident—and they weren’t given official recognition at the time and buried without a state burial.
• And again, in 2025, official denial followed Indian combat losses.

@RescueRanger @Waz @Trailer23 please select all questions and we can debate and answer here.

We need to add @Oscar who is an excellent critical thinker.

@Fatman17 sir, your opinions would be most appreciated and also being chairman of TT can you add some good folks to this discussion.

Thanks.

 

[Goenitz]

@Goenitz you are way off topic, I was going to delete your posts but request you to review it yourself. This thread is Pakistan-India clash centric and you are discussing something else

Thanx bro you didn't, it took me 45 minutes
I didn't create another thread but I thought it is a post-skirmish thing so I should post it here. We should at least have answers to Indian questions/blames.
They continuously, in every show title/video title/article, keep labelling as terrorist/rogue nation etc.
So, we should not only have answers but also use counterwords so that our answer pops up for Google searches/queries, etc.

I don't wanna share the Shashi and Barkha program here, but the way he synonymises Pakistan as a failed/terrorist sympathiser/problem maker/unstable nuclear state, in fact, the world's biggest problem, etc made me think that we should discuss it.

 

[Foinikas]

PAF bases also hit shows air defence needs to layered to a far greater degree.

Agree! Pakistan took a long time to finally get a long-range AA system. Now Pakistan should buy some more systems as soon as possible and not worry about expenses. From Turkey? From China? From both? But fast. This will boost the nation's morale even more and reduce the Indians' confidence.