There are many posters who have been claiming that Pakistan displayed restraint.
It is not a wrong statement, because had there been not restraint, ballistic missiles may have been flying across with involvement of army as well as the navy.
But, this statement is being made as if the restraint was displayed from a position of strength. That is where this observation is wrong.
Restraint was displayed by India too. The reasons are same as written above.
When the claims of so called restraint are made, both the defence forces were firing a certain types of weapons to show resolve and capability without making it too big to avoid escalation.
Pakistan was primarily firing barrages of Fatah, artillery and limited CM400 against high value targets. India was firing Brahmos, Scalp and few other precision long range weapons.
That is when a cessation of operations happened.
How effective were the strikes by Pakistan?
The answer is -pretty ineffective.
There are claims against S400 and a C2 centre. The damage is claimed on the basis of contradictory statements by defence chiefs.
A S400 transmitter is bound to be picked up by sensors from, across and the deployment philosophy is bound to be based on this fact. Whether, it moved away by the time strike came in or it was addressed by AD is a moot point.
Fatah was the primary weapon and apart from smoke rising from the IAF bases there is nothing else to show for its success. Whether they were addressed by IAF AD or they were inherently inaccurate can’t be the basis of their success. They failed to cause detectable damage to any Indian assets at any place. It’s a Pak failure and not display of restraint.
It was Pakistan’s job to test the Indian AD and punch holes in it by striking targets with proof and showing that Indian AD is as bad as theirs. If Indian AD wasn’t tested to it’s limits isn’t Indian fault.
So the claims of restraint by Pakistan aren’t from a position of strength but from a position where it was at the receiving end of pin point accurate Indian strikes.
Pakistan was in a position where its main weapon of choice was found severely lacking in impact. Pakistan failed to identify this and make any changes while India did exactly that after pounding they got on 07 May.
True sense of restraint was visible from Indian side. Side that was striking across entire Pakistan at will and accurately. It had the option of increasing the scale of same weapons and strike many more places or saturate few high value targets and cause much more damage. But it didn’t.
However, it decided to carry out symbolic strikes all across to drive home the point and displayed true sense of restraint.
