The India- Pakistan Conflict Thread

[LaAguilaNegra]

About 5-6 hours after the first US brokered ceasefire (17:00 local time), the Trump team engineered another ceasefire (22:30 local time). The second ceasefire is so far holding, ergo DJT actually pulled it off and got both sides back in their corner.

There has been speculation on what triggered the switch from Vance's 'it's not our fight' rhetoric barely 48 hours ago, to the Trump Administration suddenly taking over control and enforcing a ceasefire. Most plausible explanation: yesterday India struck Sargodha AB, and Sargodha AB contains a Pakistani nuclear warhead storage facility. Others indicate that people within the Pakistani top leadership had started talking about a first strike use of a nuclear weapon. Either way, it appears the nuclear threshold got too close hence the Trump Administration intervened.



The dust is settling and India has suffered a tactical defeat. Modi started a fight he wasn't prepared to finish, and in the end India didn't achieve a single one of their already modest military and geopolitical aims. Modi said Operation Sindoor was initiated to bring the perps of the Pahalgam attack to justice, but they still walk around freely. Modi also promised that after Operation Sindoor Pakistan's proxy groups would no longer dare to strike India because the Indian deterrent would be so strong. That didn't happen either.

Man literally had the Pakistani on the mat, got cold feet and was eventually whistled back by Trump. Obeyed with his tail between his legs, pure cowardice. Even Zelensky threw a hissyfit when Trump flipped the chessboard on its head, and eventually managed to bargain a good mineral deal+ continued US engagement. Modi on the other hand literally six hours after getting contacted by Vance signed a ceasefire agreement without asking for even a single concession or commitment. Basically not even interested in achieving results. This was followed by the Pakistani immediately violating the agreement ergo leaving maneuvering room for India yet Modi almost immediately recommitted, again without demanding a single concession or commitment.

After Day 1 of Operation Singoor the ball was in India's court, and New Delhi dominated the escalation ladder. Modi didn't capitalize on it because he's a weak bureaucrat at heart. The Pakistani, who have 1/10th of India's GDP and 1/8th of India's defence spending, aggressively took over the helm using overwhelming force. Thereby Pakistan successfully re-balanced the playing field above. It worked, Pakistan's rational irrationally freaked Modi (and the Americans) out, and the Ghandian subsequently got exposed as posturing toughtalking faker.

It seems Modi fell in love with the throne a long time ago, and the man might very well be forced to pay a political price in the future. Serious cuck vibes from this vegetarian low T geratric. Like, what exactly did this man expect to happen after May 6?



On the socials Modi's RW fanbase is roasting the ceasefire, and is by extension questioning Modi's ability to lead the country. They too were in for a rude awakening, India is most definitely not ready yet to sit at the big boys table. Meanwhile in the big Pakistani cities people are handing out sweets to passersby and the vibe is festive.



India is losing the narrative war and the Modi regime is trying to counter negative sentiment by suppressing news and pushing astroturfed narratives at home. Apparantly Pakistan's blatant ceasefire violation and targeting of Indian cities yesterday didn't even happen. That's next level coping. On the other side of the border Pakistan has declared victory. The Pakistani economy and military were left mostly intact, and the latter got its weak points exposed (lack of a multi layered AD mechanism). Together with the Chinese the Pakistani will immediately start buffing up and work on addressing those shortcomings. Beijing has been very vocal about its support for Pakistan, especially when compared to Russia-Ukraine. The Chinese have fully cemented their position as Pakistan's main backer diplomatic backer vis a vis India (together with Turkey+Azerbaijan) .



Modi has made a massive blunder and his domestic and international enemies will start trying to capitalize on it. The Indus Water Treaty is still unsolved but in the light of the current events the Modi Administration might very well cave on that issue too, after some 'pressure on humanitarian grounds' from abroad. Modi did also manage to lowkey say that any future terrorist attack on Indian citizens would be considered 'an act of war', however seeing the man not go balls to the wall after the premeditated murder of 30 Indian citizens, the sustained missile and drone strikes on Indian cities and his own very recent promises on bringing the perps to justice, that rhetoric sounds very, very hollow.

 

[Cooper]

^There is no threat to Modi from the right, as the saying goes, you can't be more Catholic than the Pope (technically not true, but heh). He's the long-standing leader of the right wing Hindu nationalist party and has been the center of a cult of personality with a compliant low-brow domestic MSM, and the next general elections aren't till 2029.

This skirmish is just a more violent version of this type of third world posturing, kudos to Trump for sending them back to the doghouse:



It's basically a kind of sh**show meant to compensate for the fact that both governments are inept at taking their countries out of the third world the way nearly all their ASEAN neighbors to the east have. India has deep cultural and post-colonial issues that hold it back, and leaders like Modi exacerbate these flaws by further polarizing his society and submitting to ZOG rather than riding the modernization escalator like his Asian neighbors.

China is the big winner of this colossal curry kerfuffle, their J-10s have outperformed Rafales at one quarter the cost. France's MIC is a loser. Going forward, the current technological gap between Chinese and NATO hardware is set to widen due to China being on the cutting edge in semiconductor research, in AI, drone tech, industrial capacity and supply chains. It turns out that their airborne radar tech is superior due to avances in semiconductor material science with radar tech based on gallium nitrate:

​

GPT AI summary:

Gallium nitride (GaN) radar technology has a host of advantages over older arsenide-gallium based radar, which the U.S. still predominantly uses in its advanced fighters, such as the F-22 and F-35. As a result, China has surpassed the U.S. in detection range, power density, and overall radar capabilities.

Gallium Nitride vs. Arsenide-Gallium: GaN offers a much higher melting point, greater power handling capacity, and superior bandwidth. These qualities result in a much more efficient and powerful radar system that outperforms traditional arsenide-gallium radars.

Impact on Air Combat: With GaN technology, China’s radar systems have been able to achieve significantly longer detection ranges compared to the U.S. fighter jets. For instance, Chinese fighter jets like the J-16 can detect typical fighter targets at a distance of 440 km, which is 77% further than what arsenide-gallium systems can achieve.

Technological and Industrial Strength of China’s Radar Development China’s success in gallium nitride radar development is not only due to technological innovation but also its control over the global gallium production market. This gives China a strategic advantage in the radar field, providing the necessary materials to build superior radar systems for its fighter jets. This leadership in radar technology is most evident in China’s newer and older fighter jet models, such as the J-20, J-35, J-10C, J-11, and J-16, all of which have been equipped with cutting-edge gallium nitride radar.

F-35 Radar Problems: One significant example of the U.S. military’s struggle with radar technology is the F-35, whose radar upgrades have been delayed due to power supply and cooling issues. This is a direct result of not having access to more advanced fan-cooled gallium nitride radar technology.

 

[Cooper]

Very harsh indictment by a top Indian military expert of the Indian air force and the Rafale:

Rafale failed in Sindoor! Rethink this French option for MFA

[A grounded Tejas vs a flying Rafale!] The usual, unsatisfactory, inconclusive end to Sindoor. And that too inside of three days of start of military operations! What is equally surprising is how q…

bharatkarnad.com

Rafale failed in Sindoor! Rethink this French option for MFA​

Posted on May 10, 2025 by Bharat Karnad

[A grounded Tejas vs a flying Rafale!]

The usual, unsatisfactory, inconclusive end to Sindoor. And that too inside of three days of start of military operations! What is equally surprising is how quickly we accepted US mediation, unless the entire Op Sindoor was planned on the basis that after a few days of slinging things around in which the Indian military would be permitted to do as much damage to the Pakistan military as possible, the US would step in with the arm twister of IMF credit of $1.3 billion, to bring Islamabad in line.

In the Deccani Hindustani lingo of my childhood in Dharwad, the Op Sindoor was all padenga, padenga, phoos!

The public rhetoric of our leaders in the aftermath of the April 22 Pahalgam massacre promised something very big — recall Prime Minister Narendra Modi talking of “unimaginable” consequences for Pakistan. So were small time exchanges of drone and missile strikes for three days unimaginable?!! There were NO plans to take the Haji Pir Salient or Skardu in the Northern Areas, or to do anything remotely aggressive other than striking Muridke and Bahawalpur — which broke through the system of self-inhibition, the “psychological factor” that I referred to in the previous post, and showed some political will, established a precedent, and injected a bit of credibility into the Indian threat to treat any and every terrorist incident hereafter as casus belli, “cause for war”. This was fine, but not good enough.

In the main, Sindoor revealed the Indian Air Force’s flawed assessment of technology and trends. Its showboat Rafale combat aircraft came a cropper. Based on news stories in CNN (https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/09/china/china-military-tech-pakistan-india-conflict-intl-hnk), Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/world/pakis...ian-fighter-aircraft-us-officials-2025-05-08/) and The Telegraph of London (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/9caaf214c46509a7), featuring Pakistani claims and US sources supporting such claims (of as many as 5 IAF aircraft downed — 2 Rafales, 1 Su-30, 2 Mirage 2000s) , Captain Jawahar Bhagwat, former commander of INS Chakra, SSN, sent in his take on the IAF-PAF tussle in Sindoor which is worth quoting (as he sent it, almost in blank verse!):

“Saab Erieye AWACS patrolling silently
J-10C fighters flying in passive mode
PL-15E missiles—the export PL-15E, the domestic variant with over 300 km reach and Mach 5 speed—locked in and fired
The Rafale didn’t even know it was targeted until the missile was 50 km away. At that speed, the Indian pilot had 9 seconds. Not enough to react. Not enough to survive.”

The IAF presence over J&K was sparse in 2 of the 3 days. Why?

“Because every time a fighter lifts off, Pakistani radars pick it up.
Because the Erieye sees what Indian radars can’t.
Because the PL-15 launches from outside Rafale’s threat envelope.
Because the Rafale, once India’s silver bullet, has been turned into a $250 million sitting duck.The IAF now flies 300 km behind its own borders.”

And, as Captain Bhagwat correctly noted while a spendthrift IAF invested in prohibitively priced weapons platforms, like the Rafale, the PAF invested in the “kill chain” inclusive of a few J-10Cs, Saab AWACS and mostly long range A2A ordnance. Recall how the Rafale was ballyhooed by Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa, CAS at the time of the failed 2019 Balakot strike who, not too long ago rued the fact that he did not have the Rafale for that action.

A highly regarded retired Air Marshal reminded me not to take the stories of US support for PAF’s claims for the IAF Rafales downed except with the greatest skepticism. Absolutely true that the US defence companies are mighty keen to have the Trump Admin push the far more useless and expensive F-35 on Modi’s India and IAF. Even with that caution in mind, PAF’s choices in expenditure are still commendable.

Also because, the PAF has initiated a new method of air warfare with an adjoining country — combat aircraft staying well back in their own air space, firing longrange air-to-air (A2A) and air-to-ground (A2G) weapons with exceptional support. Except, Rafales cost $250 million each. The fleet of 36 is now depleted. This is of larger consequence than the damage done by Indian missiles to frontline Pakistani airstrips and air defence systems. Sindoor has definitively proved that Rafale is an overhyped combat aircraft.

It's not that the Rafale is a crappy plane, it is still the best 4.5 gen multirole fighter in NATO's arsenal, it is that it has been somewhat misused, and has been a very costly option for them, about 4 times the price of Pak's Chinese J-10s.

The Pakistanis have set up a winning kill chain with their Saab AWACS and PL-15-armed J-10 and cheap JF-17s. The Rafale pilots could only detect PL-15s homing in on them at Mach 5 when they are within 50km, about 30 seconds from impact (and far sooner than that if they are initially flying towards the enemy), which doesn't give them enough time and space for "ratcheting" and evasive maneuvers, they would be well within the PL-15 kill envelope by the time they spot it.

The question now is whether India, which has received 36 Rafales and has another 64 on order is going to cancel that order.

 

[RedLagoon]

I think the best thing for India now is to build their own fighter jets.

 

[Cooper]

I think the best thing for India now is to build their own fighter jets.

Best they could do in the short and medium term is to have a JV with technology transfer with Russia, France or Sweden. They turned down an offer from Russia to produce Su-57s domestically, which would have actually been cheaper than buying Rafales, and are a better plane.

 

[RedLagoon]

Best they could do in the short and medium term is to have a JV with technology transfer with Russia, France or Sweden. They turned down an offer from Russia to produce Su-57s domestically, which would have actually been cheaper than buying Rafales, and are a better plane.

Well that whole deal they have with France sounds like they got tricked in to it.

Btw I think the Rafales are great jets but maybe mismanaged by the Indians?

 

[Cooper]

Could be, we don't have all the details. There are some other analyses out that I haven't seen yet.

 

[LaAguilaNegra]

In the last 48 hours there's been lots of releases of previously withheld info, narrative building and press conferences. Both sides are trying to position themselves as victor through information warfare with the Pakistani side emphasizing the 3-5 downed Indian planes, and the Indians stressing that 11 Pakistani ABs have been succesfully targeted.

So far Modi's press conference stood out. Vintage Modi (temporarily) returned, man sounded like he did 10-15 years ago. Unapologetic and confident, speaking clearly and with purpose. Obviously he's trying to appease his concerned& disgrutled electoral base, whilst at the same time attempting to create a Zero Tolerance framework and dynamic wherein India has a freer hand and much stronger deterrent.


Main points from the speech:

* Modi emphasized that from here on Pakistan and its proxy terrorist groups will be considered one and the same, ergo an attack/provocation by one of the many Pakistan supported insurgent groups in Kashmir will be considered a Pakistani attack aka act of war.

* Modi used the phrase 'Operation Sindoor didn't end, we have only paused it'

* Modi stated that nuclear blackmail by Pakistan will no longer be accepted

* Modi used the phrase 'blood and water don't flow together, meaning that the Indus Water Treaty is off unless Pakistan rescinds its policies on supporting Kashmir insurgent/terror groups.









Not only 1 hour after Modi's speech ended there are reports of drone intrusions in several different areas alongside the international border, some on a trajectory to key Indian military infrastructure. Obviously the Pakistani are trying to belittle Modi, and are testing the waters after his tough guy speech. Seemingly successful, because Indian state owned media are already downplaying the fact that their mortal enemy is flying possibly armed projectiles into their country 2 days after major clashes ended.