India’s Air Defence Efforts are Eroding Pakistan’s Offensive Ability Plus

Through its deployment of land-attack cruise missiles (LACM) and various ballistic missiles, Pakistan stated that it is maintaining “minimum credible deterrence.” However, while that might be accurate in terms of its nuclear deployment capability, Pakistan’s conventional deterrence is at risk of eroding.

By ‘conventional deterrence,’ we refer to Pakistan’s ability to leverage its conventional capabilities – such as airstrikes, deploy armoured columns, or launch conventional warheads at long-range – to dissuade its adversary India from instigating a potential conflict through a pre-emptive strike.

The main causes for this erosion of capability stem from multiple factors, but the most pressing problem, at least in the near-term, is India’s significant investment in ground-based air defence systems. This would include the flagship, the S-400, and an assortment of other potent solutions, such as the Barak 8.

The Impact of India’s Air Defence Efforts

In response to its airstrike on Balakot, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) undertook a retaliatory air campaign – designated “Swift Retort” – centered on its core assets, namely the F-16, JF-17, Mirage III/5, Falcon DA-20 electronic warfare (EW) jammer, and Erieye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system.

Whatever the intent of Swift Retort, it was without a doubt a template of an offensive counter-air (OCA) package. Moreover, with some element of surprise to India (such as the disproportionate size of the OCA force), the PAF had demonstrated a credible offensive capability should India trigger a conflict.

However, the PAF’s ability to exercise that capability is eroding in the face of India’s growing investment in ground-based air defence systems (adding to its significant spending on new multi-role fighters).

The most significant of these new air defence assets is the S-400. In 2018, India signed the $5.5 billion USD contract with Russia for the long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. While the S-400 is best known for the 40N6 missile, which offers a range of up to 400 km, it is in fact a multi-layered solution comprising of various SAMs, including the 250 km 48NG, 120 km 9M96E2 and 40 km 9M96E.