The Pakistan Navy’s (PN) emerging anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) posture will draw on the timely convergence of two developments: the operational experience coming from the wars in Ukraine and Iran, and Pakistan’s domestic industry increasingly leaning into uncrewed platforms, one-way attack (OWA) or loitering munitions, and conventional surface-to-surface missiles (SSM).
Essentially, there is no apparent ‘lag’ between the following emerging warfare trends and the Pakistani industry’s ability to provision solutions. Therefore, the PN can leverage existing and planned indigenous solutions to steer its A2/AD efforts to leverage the following:
- (1) uncrewed aerial, surface, and sub-surface platforms
- (2) loitering munitions and swarming drones
- (3) supersonic-cruising and hypersonic ballistic missiles
In tandem, the PN will extend the capabilities of both its data link and wider network-enabled warfare architecture, i.e., Link Green and the Naval Information Exchange System (NIXS), respectively.
More Lessons From Ukraine and Iran
The Russia-Ukraine War and the US-Iran War have both demonstrated the high efficacy of OWA loitering munitions and SSMs, particularly conventional ballistic SSMs.
In each of these examples, the primary use or end-user benefits of these solutions flow into two points:
First, these solutions are platform-independent in that the end-user can deploy them directly without the need for an underlying system, such as a warship or combat aircraft.
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