For years, analysis work at Quwa has pointed to the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) long-term strategic ambition to cultivate a dedicated, deep-penetration offensive air capability, with platforms like the Shenyang J-31 (now the J-35) identified as a potential nucleus for such a force.
However, strategic planning is never static. It is a living, breathing process, constantly shaped and reshaped by the realities of contemporary conflict and direct operational experience.
The PAF’s roadmap for its future offensive power is currently being reworked by two defining events: the fast-paced, large-scale and high-technology lessons of the Russia-Ukraine War at a broad level, and, more specifically, the tactical lessons of its own large-scale air engagements with India during Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos in May 2025.
Central to this rework is the PAF’s use of JF-17 Block-2s armed with Chinese CM-400AKG guided air-to-surface missiles (ASM) in a suppression/destruction of enemy air defences (SEAD/DEAD) role against an Indian S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, specifically its radar.
For the PAF’s Air Headquarters (AHQ), the true value of this engagement lies not in the subsequent propaganda claims from both Islamabad and New Delhi, but in a candid analysis of the mission’s difficulties. The objective is to unpack the intricate challenges of that specific strike to understand what must be done to guarantee success, making such a high-risk operation replicable against the array of high-value air defence targets that protect India’s strategic assets.
The challenges of this single operation cover the entire spectrum of problems facing a modern air force tasked with dismantling a peer-level anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) network.
The S-400 system is not a singular target but a distributed, mobile, and inherently highly resilient system-of-systems. Its strength lies in its layered sensor network – i.e., from the long-range 91N6E ‘Big Bird’ acquisition radar to the 92N6E ‘Grave Stone’ fire-control radar – and its doctrine of mobility and concealment, which allows it to rapidly redeploy to avoid being targeted.
This created a formidable tactical problem for the PAF. The CM-400AKG, a semi-ballistic weapon, requires a high-altitude launch from its host aircraft to achieve maximum kinematic range. This forces the non-stealthy JF-17 into a perilous trade-off: climb into the S-400’s detection envelope and risk being engaged before it can even launch its weapon, or stay low and sacrifice the standoff range that is the missile’s primary advantage. This operational calculus is further complicated by the target’s mobility. While Pakistan claimed a successful strike on an S-400 radar, Indian sources have since asserted that the S-400 units were moved ahead of the strike, having anticipated the attack.
Without delving into the validity of either side’s claims, their supposed actions reveal the intertwined challenges that define modern SEAD.
The Indian claim, if true, underscores a critical intelligence gap: a strike planned against a location that is hours, or even minutes, out of date is a wasted sortie. This ties directly back to recent Quwa discussions regarding Pakistan’s critical need for (and now apparent interest in) its own constellation of imaging satellites with near-real-time refresh rates. A weapon is only as good as the targeting data that guides it, and against a mobile target, that data has an extremely short shelf life.
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