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Pakistan Air Force’s Shift to Satellites, Jamming, & Standoff Weapons Quwa Premium
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.
Simultaneously, the technical difficulty of penetrating a defended airspace, even with a high-speed weapon, reinforces the need for a more sophisticated munitions doctrine.
The lessons from Ukraine are clear: standoff air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM) are most effective not when launched in isolation, but when preceded by waves of decoy drones and loitering munitions designed to confuse, saturate, and systematically dismantle the integrated air defence system (IADS) before the primary strike munitions arrive.
The May 2025 strike, therefore, serves as a powerful, real-world case study for the PAF, highlighting that its future offensive capability cannot be built on a single platform or weapon, but rather, it needs an integrated ecosystem of assets. Drawing on both the PAF’s experience from Bunyan-un-Marsoos and the Russia-Ukraine War, this article will show how the PAF could build on its groundwork to gain such effective offensive strike capabilities.
India’s ‘Defence-in-Depth’ Architecture
Over the past two decades, India has invested massively in creating one of the world’s most dense, modern, and formidable air defence systems. It is not a collection of disparate assets, but a tailored multi-layered architecture designed to provide overlapping coverage, from long-range, high-altitude reach to short-range, nap-of-the-earth control.
India’s approach is built on a philosophy of ‘defence-in-depth’ whereby each layer is delegated to counter threats at different ranges and altitudes. These systems are increasingly being integrated together under the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS), which aims to fuse data from a vast network of civilian and military radars into a comprehensive or unified real-time picture of the airspace.
- S-400 Triumf: The S-400 is not a single surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, but an integrated suite of distributed sensor and missile elements. While the 40N6E is the common headliner with its range of 400 km, the S-400 leverages missiles that can cover short, medium, and long-range targets. Thus, in a way, the S-400 is a multi-modal SAM that can create reach at high-altitude, long-range while also plugging in one’s short-to-medium-range gaps as required.
- Barak-8/MR-SAM: In tandem with the S-400, India also deploys the Barak-8 medium-to-long-range SAM, which it developed in collaboration with Israel. The Barak-8 is a thoroughly modern platform with dual-pulse rocket motors (DPMR), thrust-vector control (TVC), two-way data-link, and an active radar homing (ARH) terminal-stage seeker. It can be launched vertically from the surface and from surface warships. The standard Barak-8 has a range of 100 km, while the Medium-Range SAM (or MR-SAM) variant has a range of 70 km. A Barak-ER is being developed with a range of 150 km.
- SPYDER: The Israeli SPYDER (Surface-to-Air Python and Derby) forms part of India’s short-range, quick-reaction SAM capabilities. It is an end-to-end air defence solution in the sense it has its own surveillance and targeting radar (EL/M-2106 or EL/M-2084). Its SAMs are repurposed Python and Derby air-to-air missiles (AAM), offering ranges of 15 to 50 km depending on which AAMs are used. This system was deployed to Kashmir during the 2019 skirmish.
- Akash: India also augmented its point-defence network with an indigenous solution, the Akash, which has a range of 25 km. Interestingly, the Akash leverages a ramjet engine alongside a rocket booster, but its successor, Akash NG, uses a DPMR. The Akash NG will reportedly provide a range of 70-80 km, slotting it at a higher tier compared to its predecessor, bringing it in the capability set of the Barak-based MR-SAM.
- QRSAM: Thus, to reinforce and upgrade its lower-tier air defence coverage, India has invested in the development of the Quick-Reaction SAM (QRSAM), a solid fuel rocket-powered missile with a range of 3 km to 30 km. Like the SPYDER and Akash/NG, the QRSAM will be deployed as an end-to-end package consisting of both missile launchers, a surveillance, targeting and fire control radar, and a command-and-control (C2) system.
Taking a step back, one can see from India’s air defence investment that the goal is to thoroughly prevent the PAF from penetrating Indian airspace at all levels. One can assume that the corridors leading up to a high-value target (HVT) or asset would be densely filled with these SAM systems, starting with the S-400 to deny high-altitude operability at the top, then layered with the Barak-8, MR-SAM, and Akash NG to provide area-wide coverage, and QRSAM and SPYDER for short-range, point-defence protection against low-flying threats.
Thus, the intended rationale is to essentially deny the PAF the operating space to deploy SOWs at long-range and high-altitude, even from within Pakistan, and to make it excruciatingly complicated – and, outright, high-risk – to enter Indian airspace (or at least the most accessible corridors leading towards vital targets). Moreover, even the SOWs that could penetrate through these corridors would be at risk of getting shot down by India’s lower-altitude, shorter-ranged SAMs, like QRSAM.
Finally, India’s industrial capacity allows it to manufacture its domestic SAMs (i.e., Barak-8, MR-SAM, Akash/NG, and QRSAM) at scale, ensuring magazine depth and resiliency. In fact, until recent years, India could have comfortably assumed that the PAF lacked enough mass in the way of its own SOWs – especially air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM) – to overwhelm this air defence system.
Moreover, the IAF will wield a strong multirole fighter fleet, i.e., equipped with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars across the fleet (notably via the Su-30MKI, Tejas, and Rafale) and advanced, long-range air-to-air missiles (LRAAM). These will be augmented by the homegrown NETRA/Mk2 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system. Ultimately, the IAF will work to seamlessly integrate these assets onto common data-link frameworks and, in turn, develop strong defensive walls for air-to-air engagements. In other words, one should expect the IAF to deploy a high-quantity defensive air-to-air ‘wall’ similar to that of the PAF on May 7th. In the next conflict, a large-scale PAF offensive package will be targeted by LRAAM fire from across the border.
The Structural Challenge of Breaking World-Class Defences
Penetrating into India was never simple, but moving forward, it will be a complex and very high-risk undertaking, especially for the PAF.
It is difficult to overstate the significance of this dynamic. Basically, if the PAF lacked the capacity to overwhelm India’s air defences, then the option for preemptive or reactive, escalatory strikes would not be tenable. Pakistan would lack the munitions depth to achieve it and, instead, Pakistan would need to be highly selective with its target choices, identifying the most pressing threats and assets, thus resulting in a limited strike reach and impact.
Interestingly, this is how both Operation Swift Retort and Operation Bunyan-un-Marsus had played out. Swift Retort was, by design, meant to be a limited strike so as to avoid further escalation, and Pakistan’s intent was to simply deter India from carrying out incursions. It worked, and from there, Pakistan was likely content with its relatively limited capacity on the assumption that any future – if any – conflict with India would be limited in scale and intensity.
However, that assumption broke in May 2025, when India undertook successive large-scale strikes on Pakistan, including the heartlands of Punjab and Sindh. India also made it clear at both policy as well as material levels that it would control the escalation ladder. Pakistan’s ability to respond to the escalation was limited, and, as the post-battle damage assessment (BDA) images show, the PAF’s retaliatory operations via Bunyan-un-Marsus did not match the scale of India’s late-stage BrahMos and SCALP ALCM strikes. Thus, the PAF honed in on the S-400, perceiving it as a strategic asset (and rightfully so) and its neutralization as a significant perceptual gain. Interestingly, it was Quwa analyst Aseem ul-Islam who had inferred that the PAF had a predetermined catalogue of targets it would engage to achieve perceptual goals, akin to what it did in 2019 via Swift Retort.
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