The May 2025 conflict was a brutal validation of a new reality in South Asian warfare. While the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) demonstrated tactical prowess in air-to-air engagements on the conflict’s opening night, the subsequent days revealed a key vulnerability.
India’s large-scale, coordinated use of supersonic-cruising BrahMos cruise missiles to strike targets deep within Pakistan, bypassing frontline defences to hit main operating bases, was not merely a tactical success; it represented a strategic shock. It proved that a determined adversary could hold Pakistan’s core military infrastructure at risk with conventional, standoff weapons, threatening Islamabad’s air power before it could even get airborne.
This reality has rendered Pakistan’s previous air defence posture insufficient. The challenge, however, is not simply about acquiring a new surface-to-air missile (SAM) system that can shoot down a supersonic missile. The actual threat is one of mass and saturation. Therefore, the solution must also be one of mass.
The central question for Pakistani strategic planners is no longer just “What missile should be bought?” but rather, “How can the nation acquire the sovereign industrial capability to field a dense, scalable, and technologically superior air defence shield?”
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The Threat: Supersonic vs. Hypersonic Clarity
Before building a strategy, it is essential to precisely define the problem. The lexicon of advanced missiles is often conflated, but the distinction between “supersonic” and “hypersonic” threats is critical, as combat data from Ukraine makes clear.
- The Supersonic Threat: These are missiles, like the Russian Kh-22 and P-800 Oniks, that travel between Mach 1 and Mach 5. They are incredibly fast, often fly at low altitudes (sea-skimming), and can perform terminal maneuvers. This is the category the BrahMos squarely falls into.
The crucial takeaway from Ukraine is that modern Western SAM systems – specifically the Norwegian and American NASAMS and the German Diehl IRIS-T SLM – are exceptionally effective against this class of threat. NASAMS, for example, has demonstrated a high success rate against over 900 Russian missiles and drones, while the IRIS-T SLM has been credited by Ukrainian and German sources with intercepting over 110 targets with a success rate often cited as approaching 100% (United24).
- The Hypersonic Threat (The Kinzhal): These are weapons that travel above Mach 5 and, critically, are capable of maneuvering throughout their flight path. The data from Ukraine is just as clear here: standard SAM systems like NASAMS and IRIS-T have no operational capability against true maneuvering hypersonic or advanced ballistic missiles. That mission has fallen almost to the US Patriot PAC-3 system.
For Pakistani defence planners, this distinction provides a vital strategic clarity. The immediate, demonstrated, and most persistent threat is a saturation attack by supersonic BrahMos missiles. Neutralizing this threat is Priority One. While serious. the hypersonic missile is a future challenge that will require a different, more advanced class of interceptor. The strategy, therefore, must be two-tiered: solve the supersonic problem now, and use that solution to build a bridge to the hypersonic future.
Glimmers of a Sovereign Strategy
The recognition of the need for a scalable, domestic SAM solution is not entirely new within Pakistan’s defence establishment. For years, entities under the National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) and Global Industrial & Defence Solutions (GIDS) have been working on indigenous programs, signaling a strategic foresight that has, until now, lacked the resources and high-level focus to come to full fruition.
The most notable of these efforts are the FAAZ-SL and LoMADS (Low-to-Medium Altitude Air Defence System). The FAAZ-SL represents a pragmatic, “good enough” approach born from necessity: it reportedly pairs the fire-control radar from legacy MBDA Spada systems with a surface-launched variant of the FAAZ air-to-air missile (AAM), itself likely a licensed variant of the Chinese SD-10 AAM. This creative repurposing of existing assets is a clever way to field a capability quickly and affordably.
The LoMADS, in contrast, appears to be a more ambitious, purpose-built program aimed at creating a dedicated medium-range interceptor. While details remain scarce, these programs collectively prove one thing: at a top policy level, there is an understanding that only domestic production can provide the mass required to counter a saturation threat. They offer a nascent, yet vital, ambition to break the cycle of foreign dependency.
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