Pakistan says it has shot down two Indian military jets and captured a pilot
bbc.com
bbc.com
In a perverse way, it is probably a good thing that they are both nuclear powers. The stakes are too high for them NOT to call a truce and end this madness before it gets out of hand. It seems like most remain hopeful that both sides will stand down after a couple of rounds of chest beating.
Knowing humanity, it is only a matter of time though, before two nuclear powers begin an all out war with each other. India and Pakistan are definitely on the top of the list of candidates where such a war could start.
No centralized command and control, little to no fail safes once the physics package is integrated and warmed up, no second strike capability all of this results in a doctrine of tactical deployments with field commanders holding launch responsibilities.
This isn’t the US and Russia where they can obliterate each other conventionally and no one would be able to fire a nuke off unless the leadership calls for it. This could start and end with a field level commander in some valley in Kashmir hitting the button because they can’t get their superiors on the line and some villager claimed they’ve seen a mushroom cloud.
What’s worse is that both sides also lack proper early warning systems, reliable IFF, centralized communications, and essentially everything needs to ensure that no one is going to make a huge mistake.
India and Pakistan are both a joke sadly for the rest of the world not a particularly funny one, and what will start with them won’t end with them since Russia, China and the US would get dragged into the situation.
One of the biggest criticism of the nuclear non proliferation treaty is that it lacks the provision to deal with nations that achieve break out of full nuclear capabilities and allow the nuclear power to provide them with guidance and the tools to actually secure their nuclear arsenal.
To put things into perspective China only now is establishing a centralized and fault tolerant command and control infrastructure with continuity of government and military command, both the US and Russia have been constantly miss identifying anything form wild geese to sounding rockets as possible first strike candidates and you if expect India and Pakistan to handle these issues with competency then you might need to reconsider what you define as such.
Does anybody in India or Pakistan want to share the situation on the ground?
How loudly are the the war drums banging?
How are the media framing these events?
There were almost no dissenting opinions, now I'm always very weary when media on the right and the left agree on things, it typically means it's not in the interest of the citizens.
Not really. You may check Pakistani media via Youtube and others. As far as Pakistanis, we are not getting into such hysteria either. We are more busy in making memes and watching PSL.
Pakistan took offense to this and have retaliated. During this retaliation, they caught one of our fighter pilots behind their lines. This happened when 2 MiG 21's from India engaged a dozen F16's coming from Pakistan. (Not sure about all 12 of them being F16's. There were 12 for sure. Some reports say 4 F16's , 4 JF7 Thunder and 4 Chengdu J-7)
Since then, I want the pilot to be brought back home and want retaliation to take a back burner.
Pakistani's too support going on the offensive.
In our case, it happened to be MiG 21.
Had it been Sukhoi-30, we would had shot down at least half a dozen of them.
The question is still why are the MiG 21s even operating in a contested environment when the opposition is much better armed when there is a better alternative.
MiG 21’s are due to be phased out of service this year. India had signed a deal with France for Dassault Rafale, but the deal stumbled coz opposition party accused the government of misappropriation. Things are a bit clear now and the deal may go through soon, and delivery may take around 2 years, but’s that’s what it is.
India has also signed a deal with Lockheed to produce F16’s indigenously. That may also take a while.
That’s the grim situation here. Our Air Force needs to upgrade the fleet.
Apart from all this, we have created our own Tejas, which is a Light Combat Aircraft, But it will not see action anytime soon.
I personally believe Dassault Rafale can take down F16 Fighting Falcon in a dogfight. What do you think?
https://twitter.com/zartajgulwazir/status/110069112527752396...
Crazy that a minister can write something like that. Not really surprised but still.
Despite of warmongering Media and politicians, PM of Pakistan again asked for dialogues. Even many sane Indians are appreciating it [2]
PS: All of the Info above about India politics is based on Indian newspapers and their politicians' statements.
[1] https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1072503110118096897?lang...
[2] https://www.facebook.com/hanif.ajari/posts/2606114666071848
1. Posture to their own populace that they're not backing down (thus winning political scores)
2. Show to the rest of the world that they are leadership to reckon with, that they don't back down cowardly.
Imagine two high-school teens with some social status fighting on the playground. They will not back off because of social status reasons.
Only here, the teens have nukes.
We Indian's are fed up of these!
Paki's don't let us live in peace.