April 25, 2025
Note
This article was written 25 Apr 2025 on X, a week before the India–Pakistan aerial engagement; almost all of the speculations made in the article came out to be true and exact.
Kinetic engagement seems inevitable. From Pakistan’s standpoint, such a move by India — while potentially difficult to prevent in entirety — must be viewed in terms of its implications, its likely tools of delivery, and the day-after fallout, which may not remain confined to military retaliation alone. The question is no longer if India strikes, but how, and what it hopes to awaken in doing so.
Indian planners aren’t just asking what to strike - but what comes next. A visible response is politically necessary, but every kinetics carries the risk of domain spillover. Post 2019, Pakistan shifted redlines: retaliation is no longer an escalatory choice - it is procedural!
Visibility is the currency. For elections & domestic appetite, India requires a strike that is cinematic, contained, & deniable. Missile strikes, drone swarms, or deep aerial raids all sit on the table. The key lies in packaging: wrapping aggression in an “anti-terror” veneer.
Naval options are unlikely. PNS Saad and Pakistan’s P-3C Orions have signatures. Tracked Sindhughosh subs (2016, 2019). Naval deployments would unnecessarily broaden the conflict, exposing strategic assets & inviting maritime retaliation — a domain India prefers to keep insulated. Similarly, Indian carriers are showpieces. Their GE LM2500 propulsion is cyber-prone, Shakti EW suite is rudimentary, and L-band radars are not for projection. MiG-29Ks offer little beyond visual optics. 70s-era carriers in a modern fight is not deterrence — but $6B liabilities. LoC artillery barrages are too outdated. While Indian K9 Vajras & Dhanush 155mm guns offer firepower, they lack precision & risk unwanted civilian tolls. In optics, symbolic damage without civilian impact is the metric. Artillery duels won’t deliver the desired “surgical” narrative. Cyber warfare, though effective, lacks visibility. While India’s cyber command has matured, a grid shutdown or radar spoofing will not generate the kind of political capital that a missile launch or bomb drop offers. In India’s current doctrine, CW will be support, not headline!
Drone and loitering munition use is increasingly likely. India now operates ALFA-S, Nagastra, SkyStriker, & Heron Mk2 platforms. These can be deployed as decoys or jammers to blind Pakistani radar and saturate its ADs — opening corridors for precision air-launched munitions.
And the strike itself? It will be airborne, standoff, and largely Israeli-made. In 2019, India employed SPICE-2000s from Mirage-2000s — but lacked proper training. Pilots failed to adjust Z-axis coordinates on hasty dive trajectories, leading to bombs hitting miles off-target and hundreds of meters above intended altitude, and hilariously undetonated. There was no live ISR, no EO seeker lock, no spatial-signal sync. Pilots, munitions, and coordinates weren’t talking to each other. The result wasn’t a surgical strike — it was a high-altitude miss, marketed as military mastery. Lmao.
Today’s planning is deeper — but the risks remain. The quiver is far wider — both in depth and range — largely thanks to Israeli strategic cooperation. India will likely have these Israeli weaponry to employ this time:
- LORA, a surface-launched, quasi-ballistic strike weapon with a range exceeding 400 km, offers India a hard-to-intercept, GPS/INS-guided option for deep precision strike — ideal for fixed “terror camp” style targets without breaching airspace.
- RAMPAGE (or MARS) is a supersonic air-to-surface missile designed for hardened installations like airbases or C2 centers. It can be launched from Su-30s and Mirages, with a range of 150–200 km.
- SPICE-250 and SPICE-1000 munitions offer AI-enabled automatic target recognition, enabling multi-target precision strikes at 100–150 km ranges. These munitions are deployable in conjunction with UAV decoys and electronic warfare pods.
- ROCKS, Israel’s hybrid glide-cruise munition, offers a 300+ km range and uses EO terminal guidance in GPS-denied environments — ideal for radar and missile defense suppression.
- Delilah, a loitering air-to-surface missile with man-in-the-loop control and 250+ km range, could strike time-sensitive or mobile targets — a dangerous upgrade if transferred.
- Popeye, though older, remains relevant for fixed, hardened targets. Already integrated with Indian Su-30MKIs, it can be deployed with minimal operational risk.
- SCALP/Storm Shadow cruise missiles on Rafales remain India’s premier strike option. Range: 550 km, terrain-hugging profile, & precision terminal accuracy, SCALP can strike deep without detection. The limitation lies in cost, availability, & political friction (French connection).
These munitions allow India to conduct precision strikes without breaching Pakistani airspace, especially when supported by UAV surveillance, EW support, and radar decoys. The emerging pattern — drawn from recent wars in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Israel-Iran — prioritises multi-domain suppression: drones and jammers blind radar; stand-off munitions strike hardened nodes; media and cyber spin shape post-strike narratives.
What does India seek now? A more layered, harder-to-trace Balakot 2.0. A Mirage or Rafale flight hugging terrain, escorted by decoys and jammers, releasing a SPICE or SCALP, then exiting before detection. The choreography is underway. But is the region ready for the DAY-AFTER? Pakistan’s strategic leadership recognises that India may initiate a calibrated, stand-off kinetic action under the pretext of targeting “terror infrastructure.” Even if such a strike is contained to uninhabited or symbolic sites, its implications cannot be viewed in isolation. A spillover — in perception, retaliation, or escalation — is not just possible, it is likely. Pakistan may or may not intercept the entire strike package. However, the question for New Delhi — and for Washington, Paris, Tel Aviv, and Brussels — is this: Is the region prepared for what happens if Pakistan goes with strike spills over, and which is highly likely?
The answer lies in Pakistan’s multi-domain readiness, already underway: Aerial surveillance, EW platforms, and AEW&Cs are already activated. ZDK-03 and Erieye fleets are airborne; DA-20 platforms are on alert. EW pods and radar-deception units have been repositioned. Forward deployment of both strategic and tactical nuclear systems is under review — including Nasr, Fatah, and potentially Shaheen-XX with advanced terminal manoeuvrability? This time, the deployments shouldn’t be ambiguous. They must be visible, deliberate, and optical. Pakistan must publicly declare that the use of non-Indian weaponry — particularly Israeli systems — will be treated as an act of war. This message is not just for India — it is for its suppliers. This is the golden opportunity but I highly doubt we’ve proactive visionaries here! Cyber and EW capabilities must be demonstrated visibly. Tactical spoofing, radar interference, or electromagnetic drills must become part of Pakistan’s deterrent theater. There was some reporting of GPS jamming and spoofing yesterday but likely by India. Pakistan must retaliate. An immediate request for strategic SOJ (stand-off jamming) platforms should be sent to Turkey and China — with the possibility of co-deployment or rapid acquisition. There have been prior precedents of such cooperation in ‘65, ‘71 and beyond. Otherwise, spatial intelligence and defence sharing agreements must be pursued with China and Turkey — even if announced publicly. The message: Pakistan is not alone in this domain anymore. Israel-Palestine/EU/US/UK and Ukraine have normalised this kind of assistance. Troop mobilisation along the LoC must be visible. As India crosses a redline, Pakistan has signalled that Shimla Agreement’s status will be reviewed, reintroducing Kashmir’s international character and inviting external mediation — the very outcome India historically avoided.
At the root of this conflict lies a stubborn truth: India and Pakistan remain locked in conflict not due to terrorism, but because of territory — and denial. India’s unilateralism, its haughtiness on Kashmir, and its refusal to engage on Junagarh, Hyderabad, and Manawadar, have kept the subcontinent hostage. The Shimla Agreement was intended to resolve these matters bilaterally. But if India continues to use time, force, and proxies to delay, Pakistan must respond with clarity, posture, and escalation — if necessary. Pakistan will not accept coercive closure. It will not accept silence as settlement. And it will not allow stand-off weapons to rewrite maps drawn in blood.
No nation defines its destiny through the weapons of another. It never has. And no infinite player in history ever will.
For now, India may opt for a strike — short, optical, and precision-guided. But the strike will be short — and the shadow will be long. For Delhi, the choice isn’t whether to hit — it’s how to hit, without being hit back visibly. But in today’s battlefield, there’s no such thing as a one-way strike anymore.
What you hit may be less important than what you awaken.