The Balakot strike and Operation Swift Retort’s strategic sequels

Pakistan Air Force celebrated the second anniversary of Operation Swift Retort (OSR), conducted on February 27, 2019. The country's triumph in the brief air combat not only compromised Indian Air Force's superiority but also wired Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to purchase 36 Rafaele jets from France. Besides, it reinvigorated Pakistanis’ confidence in their armed forces courage, combat skills and professionalism to defend the country from numerically bigger India.

The Balakot strikes and OSR have had a decisive impact on the strategic thinking in India and Pakistan. It brought a theoretical and practical transformation in both states’ military strategies. It also raised a question about the continuity of nuclear taboo—a normative inhibition against nuclear first use—in South Asia. Because, in nuclear history, it was the first occasion when two nuclear-armed states’ air forces had air combat with one losing two of its fighter jets in combat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had successfully used illusive ‘surgical strike’ claims to muster the support of the Indian hawks, nationalists and above all, Hindu fundamentalists in the states’ election since 2016. They planned on increasing tensions with Pakistan after the suicide attack on the Central Reserve Police Force on February 14, 2019, in Pulwama, Indian-administered Kashmir, to boost the popularity of Modi to win the Lok Sabha (lower house of India’s parliament) election scheduled between April-May 2019. 

Tensions reached their peak when the IAF violated the LoC from Muzaffarabad sector on February 26, 2019. Air Marshal Hari Kumar, the man who planned and executed the Balakot air strike said, “The choice of target and execution came with a lot of planning and intelligence inputs. It was important to send a message to Pakistan that India will not tolerate any more attacks like Pulwama.” 

Simultaneously, a group of Jaguars in the Rajasthan sector flew in the vicinity of India-Pakistan border to distract the PAF so that the latter could not spoil the Balakot preemptive strike plan. 

The OSR spoiled India’s surgical strike stratagem, conflict escalation and dominant self-assurance and brought a shift in its nuclear doctrine from credible minimum deterrence to nuclear compellence and swapping no-first-use with first-use nuclear policies.

Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal

 

The members of Modi’s ruling BJP celebrated operation Balakot to demonstrate India’s victory to muster popular support. Amit Shah, the BJP president, wrote on Twitter that the strike was a testament to Modi’s “strong and decisive leadership.”

The IAF strike on Balakot was a breach of Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty. On the following day, therefore, PAF undertook Operation Swift Retort across the LoC in broad daylight as a display of strength. An air-combat ensued between the IAF and PAF after the former violated Pakistani airspace over Azad Kashmir. Pakistani pilots hit two Indian jets, a MiG-21 Bison and an SU-30, which were downed — one in India and one in Pakistan. Indian Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman ejected and was captured by Pakistani forces. In confusion, the IAF system shot down its own helicopter in the “fog of war.

The Indian Navy directly and the Indian Army indirectly flaunted their nuclear muscle. The latter decided to launch its nuclear capable missiles targeting Pakistani cities. The Indian Navy deployed its nuclear-propelled, nuclear-armed submarine—INS Arihant that can carry 12 theatre ballistic missiles with ranges of 700 to 1,000 kilometers. It was a clear shift in India’s nuclear posture; however, Pakistan did not reciprocate.  

Acting responsibly, Pakistan unconditionally returned the captured Indian pilot Abhinandan as a gesture of peace. It provided a space in a charged strategic environment to the leaders on both sides to halt the conflict before it could escalate out of control or across the nuclear threshold. This move not only lowered the temperature on both sides, but also boosted Pakistan's overall image on the international stage as a responsible nuclear weapon state.

The OSR spoiled India’s surgical strike stratagem, conflict escalation and dominant self-assurance and brought a shift in its nuclear doctrine from credible minimum deterrence to nuclear compellence and swapping no-first-use with first-use nuclear policies.

Unlike Pakistan, India codified the nuclear taboo in its NFU policy and for two decades used it to present itself as a nuclear responsible state. Nevertheless, during the last two years, it appeared that weakening the taboo due to the doctrinal drift away from India’s NFU policy, non-deployment of nuclear assets and towards a more aggressive nuclear posture.

The OSR improved salience of Pakistan’s quid pro quo plus military strategy and full spectrum deterrence nuclear doctrine. It manifested Pakistani armed forces' preparedness for fighting all rungs of war with India. It restored conventional deterrence and established operational and psychological ascendancy.

Pakistan, without changing its First Use (FU) nuclear policy, has reinforced the nuclear taboo by demonstrating that its armed forces are capable of defending their country with conventional weapons capability and sticking to its declaratory policy that nuclear weapons are for nuclear deterrence.

In summary, the IAF Balakot Strike and PAF Operation Swift Retort rang alarm bells about the probability of an escalation of conflict between nuclear-armed belligerent neighbors. Therefore, it is imperative that Islamabad and New Delhi restart a sustainable dialogue process to prevent perilous military eventualities.

– Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal is an Islamabad-based analyst and professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University.
Twitter: @zafar_jaspal