Monday, April 25, 2022

Ukraine War: Time For India To Rethink its Military Doctrine Modeled On Russia's?

India's Russian-equipped and trained military is watching with great concern Russia's losses in the Ukraine war. Moscow has lost 20,000 soldiers, nearly 500 main battle tanks and a large warship so far, according to media reports. Ukraine's use of Turkish drones, US-made anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) Javelins and Ukrainian anti-ship Neptune missiles has taken a heavy toll on the Russian Army and Navy. It is notable that India's Cold Start Doctrine against Pakistan is modeled on the Russian formation known as the “operational maneuver group” (OMG).   

Russian Influence On Indian Military Doctrine. Source: Air University, US Air Force

Russian Influence on Indian Military Doctrine:

It is well known that the Indian Army relies on Russian tanks, artillery, rockets, and ammunition. The Indian Navy uses Russian ships, submarines and missiles and the Russian Su-30 MKI forms the backbone of the Indian Air Force. Like Russia, the Indian military doctrine is based on deploying large platforms (tanks, artillery, ships and fighter-bombers) with massive firepower.  Here's an excerpt of an article by Dr. Vipin Narang, an Indian-American analyst, on the subject: 

"In terms of doctrine and strategy, although it may be difficult to trace direct influence and lineage between Russia and India, there are several pieces in India’s conventional and nuclear strategy that at least mirror Russia’s behavior. On the conventional side, the core formation in the quick-strike concept known as “Cold Start” or “proactive strategy options” was modeled on the Russian formation known as the “operational maneuver group” (OMG). The idea was to have a formation that could be rapidly assembled from tank and armored divisions that could break through reinforced defenses—NATO for Russia, and Pakistan’s I and II Corps in the plains and desert sectors for India.

"On the nuclear side, India is currently seized with the same dilemma as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War: both NATO and Pakistan threaten battlefield nuclear weapons against conventional thrusts (India, at least, presumably would be retaliating following a Pakistan-backed provocation). While both states refined their conventional concept of operations, there may have also been corresponding adjustments to their nuclear strategies. It was long believed that, in response to NATO threats to use nuclear weapons first on the battlefield, the Soviet Union had strong preemptive counterforce elements in its strategy to try to at least disarm the United States of its strategic nuclear weapons for damage limitation. It is increasingly evident that at least some serious Indian officials are interested in developing the same sort of option: preemptive counterforce against Pakistan’s strategic nuclear forces, both for damage limitation and to reopen India’s conventional superiority. It is no surprise perhaps, then, that India chose to go ahead with acquiring Russia’s S-400 missile and air defense system, despite the threat of Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions from the United States: the S-400 is key to India’s damage limitation strategy, capable of potentially intercepting residual ballistic and cruise missiles that a counterforce strike might miss". 


Pakistani Military Official in Ukraine. Source: New York Times

Turkish Drones: 

Turkish Bayraktar TB2 has been highly effective in destroying Russian tanks and armor in Ukraine. It is playing a key role in Ukraine's counter offensives against Russia's invasion. It is proving so effective that "Ukrainian forces are singing its praises, literally", according to a CNN report

Indian Army has nearly 6,000 tanks of Russian origin. These tanks are just as vulnerable to drone and anti-tank missiles as the Russian tanks that perished in Ukraine. 

Pakistan has developed Baktar Shikan, a second-generation man-portable anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system which uses optical aiming, IR tracking, remotely controlled and wire transmitted guidance signals. It can also be mounted on attack helicopters and Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs). Its long range, penetration power and a powerful anti-jamming capability form a potent defense against armored targets.

Pakistan is also reported to have already acquired Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones recently. It was displayed in the Pakistan Day Parade on March 23, 2022, along with other military equipment acquired recently by the Pakistani defense forces. 

Anti-Ship Missiles:

Ukraine claims that its Neptune anti-ship missiles hit and sank Moskva in Black Sea.  It was a large 10,000-ton guided missile cruiser of the Russian Navy that was launching cruise missiles on targets in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. It is the largest warship to have been sunk in action since WWII. 

Vast majority of Indian Navy ships, including its aircraft carriers and missile frigates, are designed, built and equipped by Russians.  

Pakistan recently showcased its anti-ship missile Harbah at DIMDEX 2022, a defense expo in Qatar. It  is a medium range ship launched subsonic cruise missile system capable of targeting sea as well as land targets in “all weather operation” at a maximum range of 280 kilometers, according to a report in NavalNews. The missile is fire and forget type. It relies on inertial navigation technologies with GPS and GLONASS systems. According to its manufacturer GIDS, the missile features the following guidance systems: a DSMAC camera, imaging infrared seeker, and radar seeker.

Summary:

The war in Ukraine is forcing a defense strategy rethink in countries such as India which rely on Russian equipment and training. Hindustan Times has quoted an unnamed former Indian Army Chief as saying:  “War videos available show that the Russian Army has tactical issues in Ukraine war. Tell me, which tank formation goes to war in a single file without air or infantry cover when the opponent is equipped with the best anti-tank guided missile like Javelin or Turkish Bayraktar TB2 missile firing drones? There is question on Russian air supremacy with Ukraine Army armed with shoulder fired Stinger surface to air missiles as well as the night fighting capability of the Russian Air Force.”

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90 comments:

Javed E. said...

Hopefully the Russian debacle will give pause to all aggressors, even though America’s debacles are often followed by another adventure.

samir sardana said...

The debacles of the Russian army,are to be expected,for an invading army,with a hostile population,and guerilla tactics - when the guerillas are supported,by superpowers !

The REAL DISASTER = SINKING OF RUSSIAN DESTROYER !

On Day 50, the star of the Black Sea Fleet, is lying at the bottom,of the Sea of Azov

Sunk by a Soviet modified land based missile,launched from a mobile launcher

2022

Destroyers are obsolete and Traditional Navies are obsolete

Drones and Shore based missiles,make ships, sitting ducks

What is the future, of the Indian Navy ?

DOOM !

In January,2022, Russian warships were exercising,in the (A)rabian Sea.In April 2022, their star is sunk in the (A)zov sea !

The Russian star,sank on the 14th of April,2022,and the Russian-Naval exercises were held on the 14th of January,2022

The Indian Navy,is banking on Russian Ships,Subs and Mine sweepers !

Just 1 missile hit below the water line,near the engine or the ammu/fuel dump - and then, gravity takes over.

The same applies to the Mach 10 land based aircraft carrier killer missiles, of PRC ,targetting the US Aircraft carriers,in the SCS !

TURNING POINT IN THE UKRAINE WAR

BUT........................

it is the US and NATO which AIDED the UKR military.W/o US/NATO aid and INT,the ship could not,have been sunk

The Missiles and the Ship, are both Soviet,and the UKR military,is trained by the Soviets and Russians,and knows all their tactics and INT and EW and CM.BUT W/O US/NATO tracking and targetting aid, the SHIP,COULD NOT HAVE BEEN SUNK

ODESSA WILL STILL REMAIN CLOSED - TILL THE RUSSIANS ARE IN AZOV - BUT THE SOLUTION TO THE RUSSIAN BLOCKADE HAS BEEN FOUND - AND THE TURKISH STRAITS ARE CLOSED

NATO will ship out the Anti-Ship Missiles soon.Russian Navy will have to keep far off,from land - which will make Ship based missile attacks,from the Russian Navy,on Kiev/Mariupol, unviable

It will also make the fuel and food ships,from Russia to UKR ports unviable.THERE IS NO WAY THAT THE RUSSIAN FRIGATES CAN BLOCK,LAND BASED ANTI-SHIP MISSILES.

AND THIS BRINGS THE US/NATO - DIRECTLY INTO THE WAR - WITH RUSSIA.W/O US/NATO INT AND TECH - NO RUSSIAN SHIP,CAN BE SUNK.dindooohindoo

AND THAT WILL CAUSE THE GEOMETRIC ESCALATION BY PUTIN - AND THE 1 WAY TICKET TO WW3 !

Ranjit S. said...

Actually, the militaries of the whole world is watching. Ukraine is being armed from numerous NATO countries. It seems like the key to Ukraine’s success are drones, hand held anti tank weapons and information from American satellites about Russian positions. I was surprised to see Russian tanks moving in such close formations openly without securing Airspace. Ukraine soldiers are highly motivated as the Pakistani soldiers were motivated in saving Lahore during the 1965 war. Lastly Ukraine Army is not a small Army besides they are intimate with Russian Military hardware and tactics. This war is a great learning opportunity for all armies. Major mistake the Russians made was not moving in a rapid great force. One must overwhelm the enemy, though I do understand that it is very hard for Russians to fight a people who basically are your kin. Hope this senseless war ends soon.

Shams N. said...

How long do you think Russian forces need to bomb out of existence the Kiev airports that are receiving arms, or to blow up the arms coming in by road, or via the port of Odessa? Do you seriously believe that Russians who built in 1980s the International Space Station (while the US/Euro still are not able to) are so incompetent to not be able to target the way they want?

I am convinced that the media reports we are getting are far from the truth, and even farther when it comes to Ukraine's successes. Ukraine is the size of Texas state, and Russia already has full control of Ukraine's entire Black Sea access, except for Odessa which is about 2/3rd the capacity of Karachi port.

Riaz Haq said...

Shams: "I am convinced that the media reports we are getting are far from the truth, and even farther when it comes to Ukraine's successes"

Forget western media reports and ask yourself the following:

Russia’s assault began on February 24 2022, more than 2 months ago. Why has Putin not already been able to subdue Texas-size Ukraine?

Why did Russia abandon armored assault on Kiev?

Who stopped miles long Russian armored column dead in its tracks?

How did a huge warship Moskva cruiser sink?

Think for yourself.

My take: Russia will eventually prevail over Ukraine but at great cost in terms of Russian lives, economy and military. It will be at best be a Pyrrhic victory for Putin.

Riaz Haq said...

India Arming Its Russian Choppers With Israeli Anti-Tank Missiles

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/04/26/india-choppers-anti-tank-missiles/


India is arming its fleet of Russian-origin Mi-17V5 helicopters with Israeli Spike anti-tank guided missiles, Asia News International hasreported.

A limited number of Rafael Spike NLOS (Non-Line-of-Sight) missiles have been ordered, while a larger quantity of the munition will be locally manufactured, the news outlet added, citing sources.

The deployment of tanks and infantry combat vehicles by the People’s Liberation Army along the mountainous Line of Actual Control during a faceoff with the Indian Army two years ago prompted the Indian Air Force to purchase the weapon.

The missile can target armored vehicles, mobile air defenses, and command and control posts.

Riaz Haq said...

“Drones do the talking in Pakistan’s anti-#terror offensive”. #Pakistan has launched a #drone campaign in #Afghanistan against the #TTP– the Pakistani #Taliban, after the #Afghan Taliban’s failure to crack down on the TTP on Afghan soil https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/drones-do-talking-pakistan-s-anti-terror-offensive, via @LowyInstitute


On 16 April, two days after eight Pakistani soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack on a military convoy near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in North Waziristan District, Pakistan military drones targeted TTP hideouts in the Khost and Kunar provinces of Afghanistan. Pakistani officials claimed that the TTP suffered huge losses after its bases near the Afghan border were hit by the strikes.

Pakistan’s attack was in retaliation for the spike in cross-border terrorist attacks that followed an announcement by the TTP on 30 March of a spring offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The TTP still has between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters in Afghanistan according to a recent report by UN monitors.

Contrary to Islamabad’s optimism, Pakistan has witnessed an exponential rise in attacks on the country’s security forces since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August. It appears that Taliban rule has actually emboldened and strengthened the TTP. The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan last year, which significantly reduced US air strikes in the region, also allowed the TTP to operate with increased impunity.

The Taliban has done little to counter the TTP, besides facilitating talks last October between Pakistan and the banned group, and suggesting that Islamabad declare amnesty for the TTP. The October talks failed after the TTP declared an end to a month-long ceasefire with Pakistan in December.

Although Pakistan has repeatedly pressed the Taliban to crack down on the TTP, it’s likely that the Taliban’s reticence is driven by a fear of pushing the group towards Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K). The IS-K is already involved in terrorist activity in the strife-torn country and its actions threaten to destabilise the Taliban government.

Islamabad has conveyed to Kabul that the Afghan government could use a crackdown on the TTP as a test case to address not only Pakistan’s concerns but also establish Afghanistan’s credentials internationally with regards to dealing with terrorist outfits. Use of Afghan territory by the TTP to launch attacks on Pakistan contradicts the Taliban’s commitment made under the 2020 Doha accord with the United States and the international community that Afghanistan would not become a launchpad for attacks by al-Qaeda or other outfits against a third country.

Disappointed by the Taliban, Islamabad ultimately resorted to the much criticised drone attacks, previously used by US forces against Islamic extremists in the so-called Af-Pak region. Pakistan developed its own military drone and used it successfully for the first time in September 2015 in a counterterrorism operation against Pakistan Taliban in its northwestern tribal area along the Afghanistan border.

Pakistan’s most recent drone attack escalated the Pakistan-Taliban tensions that had been on the rise since last August when the Taliban militarily conquered Kabul. In December, Taliban fighters, in a provocative move, uprooted the metal fence erected by the Pakistan military to check infiltration of TTP militants along the border. The Taliban strongly oppose what they call the “illegal” fence, but are unwilling to take the action necessary to keep the group from using Afghan soil for attacks on Pakistan.

Riaz Haq said...

8 years back, Modi promised to transform India’s military. Today, the plan is in disarray
A large number of standalone military reforms have been conceptualised but for inexplicable reasons have not been executed.

https://theprint.in/opinion/8-years-back-modi-promised-to-transform-indias-military-today-the-plan-is-in-disarray/942695/

Even the worst critics of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideology acknowledge that it was committed to national security and a strong military befitting an emerging power. It was expected that the BJP would give utmost priority to national security and transform the armed forces for conflicts of the 21st century. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had absolute clarity on this issue when he addressed the Combined Commanders Conference on 15 December 2015 — “Modernisation and expansion of forces at the same time is a difficult and unnecessary goal. We need forces that are agile, mobile and driven by technology, not just human valour. We need capabilities to win swift wars, for we will not have the luxury of long drawn battles.”

Eight years down the line, the transformation process Modi directed to be implemented, is in disarray. There has been much rhetoric from the political and military hierarchy and the media, based on “reliable sources”, dutifully gave out details of numerous standalone reforms in the offing. However, despite the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff on 31 December 2019, none of the major reforms except a policy with respect to atmanirbharta or self-reliance in defence equipment, which is yet to bear fruit, have fructified.

The political leadership has neither “owned” the transformation by giving clear strategic directions and laying down the process with timelines, nor shown the drive to supervise the execution. Consequently, a “bottom up approach” from a statusquoist military known for inter-Service squabbles was adopted. Non-appointment of a CDS — who could have at least continued to coordinate this flawed approach — for five months, only proves the point.

Own the transformation and correct the process
Historically, transformation of the military is politically driven. The government must carry out a long-term strategic review to evolve ‘National Security Perspective 2050’. From this must emerge a progressive National Security Strategy reviewed periodically and matched with the forecast of the GDP. This is the responsibility of the government and not the military and has been pending with the National Security Advisor since 2018.

----------------

Make a fresh start
Let there be no doubt that, so far, no tangible major reforms have taken place towards transformation of the armed forces. Indeed, a large number of standalone reforms have been conceptualised but for inexplicable reasons have not been executed. The government failed to own the transformation by not formalising a National Security Strategy, issuing formal directions to the armed forces and supervising/coordinating the execution by setting up an empowered committee under the defence minister.

The armed forces too failed to rise to the occasion. They should have seized the opportunity opened by cryptic directions of the Prime Minister given during the Combined Commanders Conferences and systematically reformed from within. More so, when the draft for the Prime Minister’s speech is forwarded to the Prime Minister’s Office by the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

The government and the military must get back to the drawing board and make a fresh start.

Lt Gen H S Panag PVSM, AVSM (R) served in the Indian Army for 40 years. He was GOC in C Northern Command and Central Command. Post retirement, he was Member of Armed Forces Tribunal. Views are personal.


Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan's ‘Harba’ Missile - How Is Indian Navy Preparing To Defend Itself From Moskva-Like Incident

https://eurasiantimes.com/pakistans-harba-missile-how-is-indian-navy-preparing/

Pakistan’s ‘Harba’ Missile – How Is Indian Navy Preparing To Defend Itself From Moskva-Like Incidents?
By
Haider Abbas
May 1, 2022
Alarm bells rang out through India’s defense establishment on April 14, 2022, as the Russian warship Moskva was sunk by Ukrainian Neptune missiles.

In the name of national security, India needed to immediately probe and uncover how one of the world’s mightiest naval forces could lose such a prestigious warship? More so, at the hands of a so-called “underdog” like Ukraine. Furthermore, could India face a similar strategic threat from its own “underdog” neighbor Pakistan?

Soaring High! India’s LCA Tejas To Undergo Critical Testing While Delhi Eyes ‘Debut Deal’ With Malaysia
This was a debacle for Russia, one that India needs to urgently focus on to dissect and learn from. Large portions of India’s arms and weaponry bear the “made-in-Russia” seal.

Russia has been India’s largest supplier of arms and experts in New Delhi would be keenly watching the performance of Russian military hardware in the Ukrainian conflict.

-------------

Pak's Harba missile: How India is preparing to prevent Moskva like incident
Published on May 06, 2022 07:26 PM IST
Since sinking of Russian flagship cruiser- Moskva, after being hit by a Ukrainian missile. India has been keeping a close watch on Pakistan navy’s anti-ship missile - Harba. In March 2022, Pakistan showcased its anti-ship cruise missile Harba for the first time in Qatar. It was developed for Pakistan navy to create an indigenous solution for its vessels. Watch this video for more. #Habra #India #Pakistan #Russia #Moskva #Navy #Ukraine

https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/world-news/paks-harba-missile-threat-how-india-preparing-to-prevent-moskva-like-incident-101651845149904.html

Riaz Haq said...

The US intelligence community is carrying out a sweeping internal review of how it assesses the fighting power of foreign militaries amid mounting pressure from key lawmakers on Capitol Hill who say officials have failed twice in one year on the two major foreign policy crises faced by the Biden administration in Ukraine and Afghanistan.

The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sent a classified letter to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Defense Department and the CIA pointing out that the agencies broadly underestimated how long the Ukrainian military would be able to fend off Russian forces and overestimated how long Afghan fighters would hold out against the Taliban last summer after the US withdrawal from the country, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. They questioned the methodology behind the intelligence community's assessments, and the underlying assumptions behind them, the sources said.
CNN has learned that one smaller intelligence agency within the State Department did more accurately assess the Ukrainian military's capability to resist Russia. But while that assessment was shared within the US government, it did not override the wider intelligence community's predictions.


https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/politics/us-intelligence-review-ukraine/index.html

Current and former intelligence officials acknowledge that only looking at military "capabilities" leaves out the quintessentially human factors that could prove decisive. Assessing a population's will to fight is an art, not a science, that defies purely data-driven analysis, the senior State Department official said. But, the official said, it is a key element to determining how successful a military will be in a fight.
"The basic challenge is, you can see what you can count: so you know something about the armaments they have and you can maybe see something about the training they have," said Treverton.
"But the things that matter are all intangible," he said. "You just don't know how good they're going to be and how willing they're going to be to fight. I've never seen us have much by way of a good method for doing that."

Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine crisis: Could India cut its defence ties with Russia?


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61274042

"There's strong reason to believe that... Russia will be unable to fulfil its contractual commitments to India with delivery of all of the S-400 system," says Mr Lalwani.

He also believes that the losses Russia has incurred in Ukraine could mean it may not be able to meet India's needs "because it will be desperate to use all the spares to replenish its own forces".

Why is Russia losing so many tanks in Ukraine?
And he says Indian policymakers may be taking note of some of the issues that have faced Russian battlefield equipment and munitions in Ukraine.

Could India manage without Russian arms?
That looks unlikely at the moment.

A US Congressional report in October last year said that the "Indian military cannot operate effectively without Russian-supplied equipment and will continue to rely on Russian weapons systems in the near and middle term".

The report noted that Russia offers its weapons at relatively attractive prices.

Sangeeta Saxena, editor of Delhi-based Aviation and Defence Universe, says the Indian army in particular will continue to keep buying from Russia.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan to launch 3rd Babur class guided missile heavy corvette this month

https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/13-May-2022/pakistan-to-launch-3rd-babur-class-guided-missile-heavy-corvette-this-month


According to the Pakistan Strategic Forum, "The class of four Babur corvettes are being built under the joint venture MILGEM project between Pakistan and Turkey, with 2 ships being built in Istanbul, Turkey and 2 in Karachi, Pakistan at a cost of around $1.5 Billion to the Pakistan Navy. The Babur Class Corvettes are 3,000 tonne multi-mission platforms, equipped for anti-ship warfare (AShW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW) as well as anti-air warfare (AAW).

"In the Anti-Surface category, the corvettes will be armed with ATMACA anti-ship missiles, with two four-cell launchers. ASuW helicopters can also be deployed from the ship, carrying anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.

"In anti-air warfare, the corvettes have a 12 cell GWS-26 vertical launch system (VLS) that carries the MBDA Albatros NG/Common Anti-Air Modular Missile-Extended Range (CAMM-ER) surface-to-air missile (SAM) with a range of between 50-65 kilometres. The Babur-class will also use an Aselsan Gökdeniz dual 35 mm close-in-weapon-system (CIWS) with Aselsan ATOM airburst ammunition for terminal and point air defense.

"In Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), the corvettes have two 3-cell 324 mm lightweight torpedoes launchers as well as the Yakamos hull-mounted sonar and a HIZIR towed array sonar system as well as decoy. ASW helicopters can also be deployed from the ship with submarine hunter-killer capabilities.

"Other weapons systems include a 76 mm OTO Melara Super Rapid main naval gun and two Aselsan STOP 25 mm machine guns. The ships will also have a 10-ton capacity helicopter hangar and deck. The warships have a range of 9,300 kilometres and are powered by General Electric LM2500 CODAD engines.

"The electronics suit for the four ships will be supplied by Aselsan at a cost of 215 million dollars which includes a main 3D AESA S-band naval radar, ASELSAN ALPER LPI Surface Radar, AKREP (AKR-D Block B-1/2) Fire Control Radar, SATCOM, a new network-oriented battle-management system, ARES-2NC ESM modules, ELINT and SIGINT modules, Electronic Warfare (EW) modules, SeaEye-AHTAPOT EO Reconnaisance and Survellience System, ASELSAN Piri (Infrared Search and Track) IRST system, as well as the Yakamos hull-mounted sonar system and HIZIR torpedo countermeasure system. The HIZIR is a complete suite consisting of a towed array, decoy array and expendable decoys."

Riaz Haq said...

Is Indian Navy's aircraft carrier a big threat to Pakistan Navy?

https://cscr.pk/explore/themes/defense-security/is-indian-aircraft-carrier-a-big-threat-for-pakistan-navy/

Pakistan’s Counter Options against Aircraft Carriers

Pakistan is beefing up its muscles against the increasing number of Indian warships and capabilities. Part of its efforts is focused on developing anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities. It is developing various anti-ship capabilities to effectively neutralize the Indian advantage of large numbers of warships and aircraft carriers. There are three layers of defence against Indian aircraft if deployed against Pakistan.

Firstly, Pakistan deploys anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) on its submarines. Pakistan currently operates two Agosta-70 submarines that can fire Harpoon anti-ship missiles, three Agosta 90B submarines that can carry Exocet anti-ship missiles. Eight submarines are on order from China which will also have anti-ship capabilities. Secondly, it has also developed or acquired several ASCMs such as Harba ASCM launched from the ship and the air-launched CM-400AKG anti-ship missile with supersonic speed. The coastal/land-based Zarb ASCM provides the third line of defence in the coastal waters of Pakistan against the intruding carrier. The Navy is also reportedly developing a supersonic cruise missile and an anti-ship ballistic missile. The development of anti-ship ballistic missiles will create a long buffer zone against the Indian carrier depending on the missile’s range.

Indian Navy will seriously consider the growing effectiveness of Pakistan’s anti-ship capabilities for the deployment of its carriers. These capabilities will force Indian carriers to operate from a safer distance making it less useful against the country. Even if trying to carry out a blockade of Pakistan or achieve air dominance against Pakistan in the Arabian sea, it risks its survival against Pakistan’s potent anti-ship capabilities.

Riaz Haq said...

Early in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it wasn’t just Moscow that believed its offensive could succeed quickly. In February, even U.S. officials warned Kyiv could fall in days.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-simple-ratio-came-to-influence-military-strategy-11652434202

Russians had numbers on their side, or more precisely a number: the 3:1 rule, the ratio by which attackers must outnumber defenders in order to prevail. It is one of several “force ratios” popular in military strategy. Russia, it seemed, could amass that advantage.

The war in Ukraine has brought renewed interest in force ratios. Other ratios in military doctrine include the numbers needed to defeat unprepared defenders, resist counterinsurgencies or counterattack flanks. Though they sound like rules of thumb for a board game like Risk, the ratios have been taught to generations of both American and Soviet and then Russian tacticians, and provide intuitive support for the idea Ukraine was extremely vulnerable.

“I would imagine that most of them are thinking in those terms, that you need something on the order of a 3:1 advantage to break through,” said John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago professor whose work focuses on security competition between great powers. “It’s clear in this case that the Russians badly miscalculated.”

Modern versions of the 3:1 rule apply to local sectors of combat. A Rand Corp. study determined a theater-wide 1.5-to-1 advantage would allow attackers to achieve 3:1 ratios in certain sectors.

Overall, Russia’s military has quadruple the personnel and infantry vehicles, triple the artillery and tanks, and nearly 10 times the armored personnel carriers, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the London-based think tank.

With 190,000 Russian troops concentrated to invade in February, and Ukraine’s military spread across the country, (only 30,000 troops, for example, were estimated to be in Ukraine’s east near the Donbas region) it appeared Russia had the numbers to overwhelm Ukraine.

-----------

Ratios don’t account for Western intelligence and materiel support, for Ukrainian resolve, for low Russian morale, for Russia’s logistical struggles, or for severe Russian tactical errors, like leaving tanks exposed in columns on major roadways, Mr. Biddle said.

-------------

These ratios originate from 19th-century European land wars.

In his seminal 1832 text on military strategy, “On War,” the Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz proclaimed: “The defensive form of warfare is intrinsically stronger than the offensive.” By the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Prussians distilled this to requiring triple the attackers. Prussia decisively triumphed; maybe they were on to something.

World War I, with years of stalemate in the trenches as combatants struggled to break through defenses, lent further credibility to the idea.

English Brigadier-General James Edmonds, writing shortly after World War I, recorded an early version of the rule: “It used to be reckoned in Germany that to turn out of a position an ebenbürtigen foe—that is, a foe equal in all respects, courage, training, morale and equipment—required threefold numbers.”

--------

Still, he said of Ukraine: “It’s obvious in this case, the force ratio, the number of static units, are a very poor predictor of what’s going to happen on the battlefield.”

To Mr. Epstein, force ratios exemplify a quip from the writer H.L. Mencken—and a lesson Russia is learning the hard way:

“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible and wrong.”

Riaz Haq said...

By June 2022, India intends to deploy the S-400 missile defence system that it has received from Russia to defend itself against threat from Pakistan and China, a Pentagon spy master has told US lawmakers. India started receiving the delivery of S-400 missile defence system from Russia in December last year, Lt Gen Scott Berrier, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during a recent Congressional hearing. As of October 2021, India's military was seeking to procure advanced surveillance systems to strengthen its land and sea borders and boost its offensive and defensive cyber capabilities.

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/180522/india-to-deploy-s-400-missile-system-to-defend-against-pakistan-china.html

“In December, India received its initial delivery of the Russian S-400 air defence system, and it intends to operate the system to defend against Pakistani and Chinese threats by June 2022,” Berrier said.

“India continued to develop its own hypersonic, ballistic, cruise, and air defence missile capabilities, conducting multiple tests in 2021. India has a growing number of satellites in orbit, and it is expanding its use of space assets, likely pursuing offensive space capabilities,” he said.

Berrier told lawmakers that New Delhi is pursuing an extensive military modernisation effort encompassing air, ground, naval, and strategic nuclear forces with an emphasis on domestic defence production.

India is taking steps to establish Integrated Theatre Commands that will improve its joint capability among its three military services.

Since 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given priority to strengthen India's economy by expanding its domestic defence industry, and establishing a negative import list to curtail defence purchases from foreign suppliers.

“India's longstanding defence relationship with Russia remains strong, holding their first ‘2+2' format talks in December — a joint foreign and defence ministerial that India previously only held with the United States, Japan, and Australia.

“India has maintained a neutral stance on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and continues to call for peace,” Berrier told the lawmakers.

---------

Berrier said that Chinese-Indian relations remain strained following the fatal clashes in summer 2020 between their respective forces along the Western sector of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

During 2021, both sides held multiple rounds of high-level diplomatic and military talks that resulted in a mutual pullback of forces from several standoff points. However, both sides maintain close to 50,000 troops along with artillery, tanks, and multiple rocket launchers, and both are building infrastructure along the LAC, he said.

Riaz Haq said...

The US is preparing a military aid package for India to deepen security ties and reduce the country’s dependence on Russian weapons, people familiar with the matter said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-17/us-seeks-to-wean-india-from-russia-weapons-with-arms-aid-package

The package under consideration would include foreign military financing of as much as $500 million, according to one person, which would make India one of the largest recipients of such aid behind Israel and Egypt. It’s unclear when the deal would be announced, or what weapons would be included.

The effort is part of a much larger initiative by President Joe Biden’s administration to court India as a long-term security partner, despite its reluctance to criticize Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, according to a senior US official who asked not to be named.

Washington wants to be seen as a reliable partner for India across the board, the official added, and the administration is working with other nations including France to make sure Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has the equipment it needs. While India is already diversifying its military platforms away from Russia, the US wants to help make that happen faster, the official said.



The major challenge remains how to provide India major platforms like fighter jets, naval ships and battle tanks, the official said, adding that the administration is looking for a breakthrough in one of these areas. The financing package being discussed would do little to make those types of systems -- which can cost billions or tens of billions of dollars -- more affordable, but it would be a significant symbolic sign of support.



India’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials at the State Department and US embassy in New Delhi didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.



India is the world’s largest buyer of Russian weapons, although it has scaled back that relationship of late. Over the past decade, India has bought more than $4 billion worth of military equipment from the US and more than $25 billion from Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which collects data on arms transfers.

India’s dependence on Russia for weapons against neighbors China and Pakistan is a big reason Modi’s government has avoided criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. As the US, Europe, Australia and Japan piled economic sanctions on Russia, India has held off and instead continued imports of discounted Russian oil.



While the US and its allies were initially frustrated with India, they have sought to woo Modi’s government as a key security partner -- including against China in the Indo-Pacific region. Modi is set to join a summit with Biden next week in South Korea. The meeting will include leaders from the Quad, a partnership between the U.S., India, Japan and Australia that has drawn criticism from China. Modi also received an invitation to join the Group of Seven leaders in Germany next month.



Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made the point about China when he spoke at a news conference in April with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Indian Defense Minster Rajnath Singh and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

“We’re doing all this because the United States supports India as a defense industry leader in the Indo-Pacific and a net provider of security in the region,” Austin said. “And we all understand the challenges that we face there. The People’s Republic of China is seeking to refashion the region and the international system more broadly in ways that serve its interests.”

Why the Aukus, Quad and Five Eyes Pacts Anger China: QuickTake

Links between the US and India have steadily deepened over the past two decades, with the two sides reaching agreements that allow for more interoperability between their military platforms.

Riaz Haq said...

Retired colonel speaks out on Russian TV

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61484222

Russia's mainstream media outlets offer a view of the Ukraine war that is unlike anything seen from outside of the country. For a start, they don't even call it a war. But our Russia editor reflects on a rare exchange broadcast on state TV.

It was an extraordinary piece of television.

The programme was 60 Minutes, the flagship twice-daily talk show on Russian state TV: studio discussion that promotes the Kremlin line on absolutely everything, including on President Putin's so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine.

The Kremlin still maintains that the Russian offensive is going according to plan.

But on Monday night, studio guest Mikhail Khodarenok, a military analyst and retired colonel, painted a very different picture.

He warned that "the situation [for Russia] will clearly get worse" as Ukraine receives additional military assistance from the West and that "the Ukrainian army can arm a million people".

Referring to Ukrainian soldiers, he noted: "The desire to defend their motherland very much exists. Ultimate victory on the battlefield is determined by the high morale of troops who are spilling blood for the ideas they are ready to fight for.

"The biggest problem with [Russia's] military and political situation," he continued, "is that we are in total political isolation and the whole world is against us, even if we don't want to admit it. We need to resolve this situation.

"The situation cannot be considered normal when against us, there is a coalition of 42 countries and when our resources, military-political and military-technical, are limited."

The other guests in the studio were silent. Even the host, Olga Skabeyeva, normally fierce and vocal in her defence of the Kremlin, appeared oddly subdued.

In many ways, it's a case of "I told you so" from Mr Khodarenok. Writing in Russia's Independent Military Review back in February, before Moscow attacked Ukraine, the defence analyst had criticised "enthusiastic hawks and hasty cuckoos" for claiming that Russia would easily win a war against Ukraine.

His conclusion back then: "An armed conflict with Ukraine is not in Russia's national interests."

Criticism in print is one thing. But on TV - to an audience of millions - that is another level completely. The Kremlin has gone out of its way to control the informational landscape here: shutting down independent Russian news sources and ensuring that television - the principal tool in Russia for shaping public opinion - is on message.

It is rare to hear such realistic analysis of events on Russian TV.

Rare. But not unique. In recent weeks, critical views have appeared on television here. In March, on another popular TV talk show, a Russian filmmaker told the presenter: "The war in Ukraine paints a frightening picture, it has a very oppressive influence on our society."

So what happened on 60 Minutes? Was this a spontaneous, unprompted and unexpected wake-up call on Ukraine that slipped through the net?

Or was it a pre-planned burst of reality in order to prepare the Russian public for negative news on the progress of the "special military operation"?

It's difficult to say. But as they say on the telly, stay tuned to Russian TV for further signals.

Riaz Haq said...

Air Force and independent think tank simulations show giant drone swarms are key to defeating China’s invasion of Taiwan.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/massive-drone-swarm-over-strait-decisive-in-taiwan-conflict-wargames

"The image we have is you send these things out to the battlespace and they are talking so to speak among themselves. When someone ‘sees’ something of interest – oh that looks like a Renhai [People's Liberation Army Type 055 destroyer] – they’ll gang up on it, and you’ll get multiple looks ... from multiple angles," he explained. "They’ll share data. The automatic target recognition function will turn those data into a nominated target. And as weapons come in, the mesh itself will grab that weapon and say ‘your primary target is this. I’m not only going to assign you to that target, I’m going to help you hit 47 feet aft of the bow so you maximize your probability of kill against that particular platform.'"

Ochmanek acknowledged that there are concerns about the maturity of the technology needed to underpin all of this, as well as the need to mitigate various threats, especially from electronic warfare attacks. He said that RAND, at least, is confident that these challenges are surmountable, particularly through the use of a distributed 'mesh' network formed by the swarm itself, with systems that are available today.

"In a recent Air Force wargame, I was briefing this concept to the adjudication team, and I think it's fair to say the adjudicators were a little bit skeptical about all the magic we were invoking for this sensing grid. And one of them asked ‘well who’s going to command and control all these hundreds of UAVs?'" Ochmanek recounted. "I said, ‘the same guy who commands and controls the 10,000 Uber drivers on the island of Manhattan.’ It’s not Mildred sitting at a switchboard saying ‘Joe, you go to the corner of 42nd and Broadway,’ no it’s the AI. It’s not that hard given the state of current computing to imagine a system where the targeting grid is quote commanding and control itself."

At the same time, "we all know that the EMS [electromagnetic spectrum] environment in any conflict with China, or Russia for that matter, is going to be very demanding," he added. "We also know that if you want to have literally hundreds up to thousands of UAVs operating in the battlespace it’s not going to be practical to have them all be remotely piloted, particularly when your space-based comms are under intensive attack, both lethal and nonlethal."


Riaz Haq said...

Air Force and independent think tank simulations show giant drone swarms are key to defeating China’s invasion of Taiwan.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/massive-drone-swarm-over-strait-decisive-in-taiwan-conflict-wargames

"We looked at eight different classes of radios in different frequency bands, we looked at different jamming threats in terms of their proximity and intensity, and so forth in the Strait, and we concluded that in the 5G band and the high 5G band, even very intensive comm jamming can’t prevent the UAVs in the mesh from communicating, from linking with one another," Ochmanek continued. "And we’re talking about a density in which there’s never more than 10 kilometers [just over 6 miles] between UAVs in that mesh. So that 10-kilometer link distance was our threshold value and we’re quite confident that, even with fair low power off-the-shelf radios, you can sustain that level of connectivity even in the presence of highly powerful jammers."

The former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense further pointed out that doing initial data processing right "at the edge" of wherever the drone swarm is operating will help reduce the amount of information that needs to be transmitted to any additional node. That, in turn, reduces the total amount of bandwidth necessary – "we’re thinking one-tenth of a megabyte per second is more than sufficient" – for the network to operate effectively, further improving its resiliency.

It's not clear exactly how much the Air Force's own internal modeling of cross-Strait conflict might reflect the work at RAND that Ochmanek described during the recent online chat. However, as already noted, RAND has worked closely with AFWIC on wargaming out these scenarios.

The autonomous drone swarm in AFWIC's 2020 Taiwan crisis wargame, which was linked together using a distributed mesh network, was cited as a key contributor to the defeat of Chinese forces in that particular scenario. "Although they were mostly used as a sensing grid, some were outfitted with weapons capable of — for instance — hitting small ships moving from the Chinese mainland across the strait," according to a report on this simulation from Defense News last year.

“An unmanned vehicle that is taking off from Taiwan and doesn’t need to fly that far can actually be pretty small. And because it’s pretty small, and you’ve got one or two sensors on it, plus a communications node, then those are not expensive.,” Lt. Gen. Clint Hinote, the Air Force's Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Integration, and Requirements, told Defense News in a related interview. "You could buy hundreds of them."

At the same time, the victory over the Chinese side in that Air Force simulation two years ago was described in subsequent reporting as "pyrrhic," pointing to still-heavy losses in personnel and materiel. During the Mitchell Institute discussion, Ochmanek specifically highlighted how the U.S. military is aware of the significant existing and emerging threats to established air bases and other facilities in any future high-end conflict, especially one against China in the Pacific, potentially over Taiwan, but has not yet mitigated those risks.

Riaz Haq said...

Air Force and independent think tank simulations show giant drone swarms are key to defeating China’s invasion of Taiwan.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/massive-drone-swarm-over-strait-decisive-in-taiwan-conflict-wargames

All told, there is ever-growing evidence to support the immense and potentially game-changing value of autonomous drone swarms in any potential Taiwan Strait crisis, among other potential conflict scenarios. The U.S. government is now reportedly pushing the Taiwanese military to expand its fleets of unmanned aircraft, among other weapon systems purchases that American authorities believe would do the most to bolster the island's ability to at least resist a Chinese invasion.

This all comes as the U.S. Intelligence Community continues to assess that the Chinese military is aiming to be in a position by 2027 where it would feel confident in its ability to succeed in any future operation to retake Taiwan by force. Of course, U.S. military officials have also said that this does not mean that the People's Liberation Army would automatically launch such an intervention after that point.

It is worth noting that the Chinese military has been heavily investing itself in various advanced unmanned capabilities, including technology to enable networked swarms, and has arguably made more progress in fielding platforms than its American counterparts, as least as far as we know. A future conflict in and around the Taiwan Strait could very well see the People's Liberation Army employ its own drone swarms, launched from areas on the mainland or even ships at sea.

Regardless, concerns are growing that the long-standing potential for a conflict over Taiwan could turn into a reality. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. Air Force, or any other branches of the U.S. military, will take the necessary steps to be able to deploy an autonomous drone swarm if it becomes necessary to defend the island, which looks like it could be a decisive factor in the outcome of such a crisis.

Riaz Haq said...

#India joins as 35th member of #maritime counterterrorism #partnership that includes #Pakistan, #US, #Australia, #Bahrain, #Egypt, #France & #Germany. #PakistanNavy has held the most commanderships of the CTF 150 and CTF 151, at 12 & 9 times, respectively. https://theprint.in/defence/whats-combined-military-forces-bahrain-us-backed-coalition-india-joined-on-quad-sidelines/970558/

What’s Combined Military Forces-Bahrain? US-backed coalition India joined on Quad sidelines
India is 35th member of the maritime counterterrorism partnership that also includes Pakistan, Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany and Greece, among others.


Established in 2001 with only 12 members, the coalition — then called the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) — was formed as a coalition of regional and international like-minded partners to counter the threat of international terrorism and uphold the international rules-based order.

The United States Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) was tasked with leading the then CMF in 2001.

Today, the CMF-B is primarily tasked with ensuring stability and security across 3.2 million square miles of international waters by acting against illegal non-state actors operating in vital sea lines of communication. Its scope has expanded from just counterterrorism to counternarcotics, countersmuggling operations, and suppressing piracy.

The coalition is headquartered in Bahrain, along with the NAVCENT and the 5th fleet of the US.

Other Asian members include Pakistan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Singapore and Malaysia.

Participation in the CMF-B is voluntary — it’s mandated neither by a political agreement nor a military one.

So far, India has been conducting similar anti-piracy missions on its own.

“With India now joining this grouping, it will operate in coordination with the CMF-B members,” a defence source told ThePrint. “Currently, India has two ships deployed round the clock between the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf for anti-piracy and anti-smuggling operations.”

The details of India’s membership have yet to be worked out, the sources said.

“These will be finalised in due course of time,” a source added. “The modalities will map out how many ships India will deploy and whether they will start by deploying personnel.”

CMF-B task forces
The work of the CMF-B is divided into four combined task forces — the CTF 150, CTF 151, CTF 152, and CTF 153.

The CTF 150 focuses on ensuring maritime security in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.

Participating nations have included Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Command of CTF 150 generally rotates between nations on a four-monthly basis. It’s currently being commanded by the Pakistan Navy.

CTF 151 focuses on counterpiracy. The CTF 152 aims to ensure maritime security in the Arabian Gulf (also known as Persian Gulf) and is currently being commanded by the Kuwait Navy.

The CTF 153 — which was established in April 2022 — focuses on ensuring maritime security in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and is currently being commanded by the US Navy.

Pakistan has held the most commanderships of the CTF 150 and CTF 151, at 12 and 9 times, respectively.

As an associate member, India will reportedly not get command of the task forces’ and will also have a limited say in planning operations.

Structurally, the CMF-B is commanded by a US Navy vice-admiral. The vice-admiral also serves as the commander of NAVCENT and the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.

The deputy commander of the CMF-B is a commodore of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy.

Riaz Haq said...

Spotlight on Two Nuclear Powers: India and Pakistan
Factors increasing both countries’ confrontational risks include the war in Ukraine, rivalries with China and Russia, climate change and pandemics

https://impakter.com/spotlight-two-nuclear-powers-india-pakistan/

Why look at India and Pakistan when much of the world is focused on Ukraine? Because of the possibility of the war in Ukraine escalating to the point where the Russians choose to use a nuclear weapon: This would most likely be for tactical gain and psychological effect to force the Ukrainian Government to sue for “peace”.

Yet, if such were to happen, it would be the first time since World War II that nuclear weapons have been used in a conflict since they were successfully banned 75 years ago. It would change the boundaries of confrontation, conceivably forever, as other countries might be encouraged to consider using their nuclear power, and, among the (still) restricted group that has it, India and Pakistan are among those most inclined to do so.

Nuclear weapons analysts estimate that there are currently nine nuclear states — China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and these numbers are likely to grow.

Possible newcomers include Iran, and Saudi Arabia, the former seen as purposefully seeking nuclear weapon capability, the latter pursuing nuclear development ostensibly for civilian purposes, but notably with the assistance of Pakistani experts, the same country that supported the North Korean weapons program.

The Saudis have not sworn off nuclear weapons and are the largest funders of Pakistan, which became a nuclear state primarily because the Netherlands allowed a nuclear physicist working at the Urenco labs in the Netherlands, Dr. Abdul Quadeer Khan, to take the blueprints of the Dutch nuclear enrichment and centrifuge technology and develop the Pakistani program.

Three countries “voluntarily” gave up their nuclear capability, namely South Africa, Libya, and Ukraine.

With respect to these latter two, their histories probably would be very different today if they had not done so. They serve as warnings for other countries that might think about giving up such capacity.

Overall, few regions of the world– maybe South America– are currently “nuclear arms-free” if you will

A Russian breach of the ban will have implications for all other nuclear-capable or “wannabe” countries, especially those facing confrontation with neighbors—which are nearly all countries.

Examples of neighbor disputes are numerous and include the Arctic, China and Japan, Colombia and Venezuela, and the Western Sahara pitting Morocco and Mauritania, to name just a few.

South Asia is very much such a region with India and Pakistan both nuclear-armed, and with the three largest nuclear powers, China, Russia, and the United States having clients, and chosen sides. Then there is the neighboring failed island state of Sri Lanka, in default and with a history of civil war that had drawn its neighbors into its disputes in the past.

Add to the geopolitical tensions, this comes at a time the region is experiencing unbelievable heat waves, affecting their economies and daily lives.

Everywhere, but surely here, the costs and availability of food, fertilizer, fuel, and access to concessional financing, along with an ongoing Covid pandemic, have created very difficult challenges for any government.

Into this mix are the political and religious differences between India and Pakistan (and China), and religious divide and territorial disputes over Kashmir, which have brought them in the past to armed conflict and lingering mistrust.

India and Pakistan never-ending disputes, plus China and Russia in the mix
India and Pakistan have been at odds since independence in 1947 from Great Britain and have fought four wars over the Kashmir region.


Riaz Haq said...

Spotlight on Two Nuclear Powers: India and Pakistan
Factors increasing both countries’ confrontational risks include the war in Ukraine, rivalries with China and Russia, climate change and pandemics

https://impakter.com/spotlight-two-nuclear-powers-india-pakistan/


Recalling the lessons in Gunnar Myrdal’s historical work “Asian Drama”, when large numbers of people and communities are incapable of dealing with daily life and it becomes intolerable and without hope, the inevitable consequence is that social peace disintegrates.

This translates into civil disorder and widespread popular anger directed at their leaders. And often when leaders are not able or unwilling to provide meaningful assistance, they evoke external threats (real or imagined) and blame outsiders as a way to both distract and unite their subjects.

When disastrous living conditions occur in both urban and rural areas, political leaders in weak governments look to external escapism politics, a scenario with a high realism index in today’s South-Asian sub-continent. And with an obvious fallout on Pakistan’s and India’s nuclear policies.

The COVID Factor: The current pandemic has affected virtually every aspect of human activity, including international efforts in nuclear arms control and disarmament, and the work of the 1968 Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT).

In South Asia, there was no official ongoing India–Pakistan, China–India, or China–Pakistan nuclear dialogue prior to Covid. The pandemic effectively stopped all in-person, non-official contacts which might have led to such engagement.

The pandemic and its accompanying worldwide panic shed light on why it is a mistake for governments to expend huge sums on building nuclear arsenals and war-fighting capabilities at the expense of basic economic and social needs.

The prospect of new variants of Covid-19, such as Omicron, and/or another potential readily transmissible virus underscores the fact that these can be very costly and destabilizing events, epidemics, and pandemics that undermine stability and even nations’ survival.

Covid infections in India– at least during the first two years– went massively unreported both in terms of morbidity and mortality. In Pakistan, both numbers were and have been considerably lower than its neighbor, but massive underreporting is likely there as well.

According to recent data, these figures in both countries have declined. As of April 2022 reported cases in Pakistan were down while in India, by the end of May 2022, an average of 2,574 cases per day were reported, with deaths having decreased by 11 percent.

The reported drop in COVID-19 infection rates at present has meant less attention in the public space in both countries—at least for the moment.

Again, there is no assurance that new variants and a wave of infections will not happen, which could cumulatively add to inter-country political tensions, especially if there are accusations that new infections came from across the border.

It all adds up to a worrying picture
Overwhelming heat currently affecting South Asia means that tens of millions are living with very harmful dehydration, exhaustion, food insecurity, and the possibility of added infectious disease from the ongoing Covid pandemic.

Such conditions potentially pose a level of political unrest which very well may influence the political class of these two nuclear countries.

With fanatic groups on both sides of their borders looking for ways to undermine stability, it will not take much for either India or Pakistan leaders to feel pressed to react, then counter-react, each step bringing them to the brink of choosing nuclear.

Let us hope such a tipping point is never reached, that both cooler weather and heads prevail.

Riaz Haq said...

WHAT THE INDIAN MILITARY WON’T LEARN FROM THE WAR IN UKRAINE
ANIT MUKHERJEE JUNE 21, 2022
COMMENTARY


https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/what-the-indian-military-wont-learn-from-the-war-in-ukraine/

Much has been written about India’s diplomatic response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And military analysts worldwide are working to draw lessons from the first multi-domain conventional war between “modern” forces in decades. Yet amidst all this, the Indian military establishment itself does not seem appropriately concerned with drawing its own lessons from the war.

To date, India has focused on managing the fallout from Western sanctions and securing the serviceability of its Russian-origin platforms. The war has boosted India’s efforts to indigenize its defense industry and created opportunities for Western countries to enhance their strategic engagement with New Delhi. However, it has yet to influence Indian military thinking more broadly. It appears that pressing challenges and the limits of existing institutions will prevent India from reforming its forces in response.


Challenging Times

The Indian military is going through a period of considerable churn, making it harder to assimilate lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian war. Its foremost challenge is the rise of Chinese military power. Until recently, this was somewhat of an abstract concern. However, the Chinese military’s 2020 incursions in the Ladakh region have made this much more pressing. For diplomatic and domestic political purposes, these incursions were initially downplayed by the Indian government, but with the death of 20 Indian soldiers the issue gained national attention nonetheless. Amidst a tense stand-off along the disputed border, India has banned Chinese technological companies and the Indian president characterized Chinese actions in unusually blunt terms as an “expansionist move.” There have been 15 rounds of military-to-military border talks and, despite some disengagements, significant military assets are still deployed along the border. These deployments have further constrained India’s diplomatic position vis-à-vis Ukraine, as a significant proportion of its weapons platforms come from Russia.

At the same time, there is considerable excitement and, to a certain extent, confusion as the Indian military is undertaking its most consequential post-independence transformation yet. This effort was triggered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s somewhat surprising decision in August 2019 to establish the position of chief of defense, empowered with an explicit mandate to create joint theater commands. This set off an ongoing debate surrounding the position’s powers vis-à-vis the service chiefs, as well as the organizational structure of the proposed theater command and its relations with existing service formations. Some of these reform initiatives will take time, while in the meantime the Indian military had to deal with three strategic shocks. First, the Chinese incursions in Ladakh halted plans for theaterization of the army’s Northern Command, out of fears that organizational restructuring could lead to force imbalances. Second, the fall of Kabul has created new uncertainties, particularly in regard to the insurgency in Kashmir. Finally, the tragic death of the country’s first chief of defense, Gen. Bipin Rawat, in a December 2021 helicopter accident has also slowed the pace of reforms. Inexplicably, the government has yet to appoint a replacement, giving rise to questions about its commitment to reforms. Thus, despite much initial promise and acclaim, the outcome of the defense reforms process is far from certain. Needless to say, this makes it harder for the military to focus on a war taking place a continent away.

Riaz Haq said...

WHAT THE INDIAN MILITARY WON’T LEARN FROM THE WAR IN UKRAINE
ANIT MUKHERJEE JUNE 21, 2022
COMMENTARY


https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/what-the-indian-military-wont-learn-from-the-war-in-ukraine/

To effectively partner with India in creating its next generation of weapons platforms, Western partners will have to convince New Delhi that these partnerships will be reliable and lasting. Fortunately, the Russo-Ukrainian war is leading to an acknowledgement by some in the West that deepening defense and technology ties with India is critical to their vision of a future world order. Yet whether policymakers in India and the West can realize a common vision remains to be seen. While some Western powers, like France, have gone further than others, engaging with India will still require a leap of faith.

Lessons Not Learned

Like most militaries, India’s has no dedicated institution either at the joint headquarters or in the services with a mandate to study operational lessons from “other people’s wars.” For that reason, there is no office dedicated to and appropriately staffed for analyzing such wars. Despite this, the government gave explicit orders to the Indian military “to study the Russian offensive into Ukraine and draw tactical lessons.” But it is unclear who has been tasked to do so and whether they will have access to adequate data to draw appropriate lessons. This is exacerbated by the ongoing and unexplained lack of a chief of defense. As a result, the joint staff does not carry as much institutional weight as it should, making it difficult to undertake objective analysis of the war free from service-specific prisms. To be sure, the service headquarters and lower formations must be carrying out individual studies at various levels, but they have limited situational awareness, institutional independence, and ability to influence policy. Indeed, it would not be surprising if stories later emerge about how each of the services drew their own institutionally preferred “lessons” from this war.

Nonetheless, Indian military analysts have been busy. They have largely discussed what is widely known about this war — the relevance of force in international relations, the return of conventional wars, the importance of logistics and theater commands for conducting operations, the dangers of relying on a conscript army, and the salience of drones. In addition, others have written on the importance of Starlink systems and of dominating the electromagnetic spectrum. Missing, however, is a detailed discussion of what this means for the Indian military’s current institutional structures or operating environment. To find that one would have to read the idiosyncratic Lt. Gen. H. S. Panag — never one to pull punches — who in a must-read article argues that the Indian military is “tailored for the wars of a bygone era,” and does not “have the technological military capability to defeat Pakistan or avoid a military embarrassment by China.” He then goes on to caution against the potential short-term drawbacks of relying on indigenization in a country with low domestic manufacturing capabilities.

In spite of these warnings, there is no evidence that the Indian military has undertaken any substantive changes to incorporate emerging technologies in warfare. This should be the primary focus for senior military officers as they think through the broader lessons of the war in Ukraine. Based on publicly available sources, there is also little indication that the war will lead to any significant changes in India’s military structures, doctrines, or training. On the contrary, to reduce its inflated manpower costs the Indian military has introduced a controversial, widely criticized “tour of duty” recruitment scheme — amounting to a quasi-conscript military. This has led to widespread public protests and is an all-consuming issue for senior defense officials. For them, as a result, the war in Ukraine must seem like a distant afterthought.

Riaz Haq said...

WHAT THE INDIAN MILITARY WON’T LEARN FROM THE WAR IN UKRAINE
ANIT MUKHERJEE JUNE 21, 2022
COMMENTARY


https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/what-the-indian-military-wont-learn-from-the-war-in-ukraine/


Militaries all over the world are closely observing the war in Ukraine, but some have proven prone to hubris — concluding that they have little to learn because they are different. It is tempting for foreign observers to attribute the failures of the Russian military to its lack of professionalism rather than the increased difficulty of waging modern war. In the short term, the Indian military is focused on managing the immediate disruption caused by the current conflict. In the medium to long term, it is focusing on indigenization, including exploring opportunities to partner with Western countries. Professionally, however, there are few indications that the military is embarking on defense reforms that draw on the lessons of the war. Unfortunately, that might require a bigger crisis somewhere closer to home.

Riaz Haq said...

ASELSAN produces several EWSs and platforms, but one of them, KORAL, occupies a unique position and has played a critical role in Ankara’s recent involvements in several regional theatres. Although Turkey’s unmanned aerial combat vehicles (UACVs) have been making headlines in the last few years, the KORAL has been the invisible power behind their success.

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/turkeys-electronic-warfare-capabilities-invisible-power-behind-its-uacvs


Not much credit is given to this system due to its silent role and lack of publicity; however, there is no doubt that this system has enabled Turkey’s strategic and military planners to boost the efficiency and lethality of its UACVs. This is not to underestimate the unique capabilities of Ankara’s drones, but rather to underscore the value and role of the KORAL.


The KORAL is a land-based transportable EWS with an effective range of 150–200 km. The system offers advanced options and supports Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) operations. It consists of two subsystems: the first provides electronic support operations for conducting ISR, while the other is dedicated to attack operations to degrade, neutralise or destroy enemy combat capabilities. This kind of operation usually involves the use of electromagnetic energy against communication systems and radar systems.

The KORAL was part of a Land-Based Stand-off Jammer System project adopted by the Defence Industry Executive Committee around two decades ago. It came as a response to increasing threats and to meet the growing needs of the Turkish air force command. The system was contracted in 2009, and within seven years, the KORAL EWS entered the Turkey Armed Forces’ (TSK) inventory. In this sense, the EWS filled a gap and offered new opportunities for the TSK.

Since 2016, the KORAL has been battle-tested in different environments, including critical theatres in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan, demonstrating impressive capabilities and executing complex roles in the first-ever wars won by unmanned systems. Ankara incorporated the KORAL in a new unconventional drone doctrine that prescribes the use of drones as an air force in a conventional battle. The doctrine requires a high level of cooperation, coordination and integration between the deployed EWS (KORAL in this case), the UAVs (Aerospace Anka-S and Bayraktar TB2) and the smart micro-munitions (MAM-L and MAM-C).

This innovative military doctrine has generated a lot of discussion. Many defence ministers, military experts and security analysts worldwide have called on their countries and armies to observe what Turkey has done in this field and to draw appropriate lessons, in order to be prepared for the new age of automated wars. During the Royal Air Force’s online Air and Space Power Conference 2020, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace urged the force to go in this direction, hinting that ‘Even if half the claims [about Turkey’s drones and EWSs] are true, the implications are game-changing’.

During Operation Spring Shield against the Syrian regime and pro-Iranian militias, the KORAL set the stage for Ankara’s drones by securing aerial dominance for the TSK. As a result, Turkey’s drones were able to wipe out a large portion of Bashar al-Assad’s army in Idlib using pinpoint technology. During the battle, the Assad regime lost 151 tanks, eight helicopters, three drones, three fighter jets (including two Russian-made Sukhoi Su-24s), around 100 armoured military vehicles, eight aerial defence systems, 86 cannons and howitzers, multiple ammunition trucks and one headquarters, among other military equipment and facilities. Additionally, the KORAL humiliated Russia’s technology, including the air defence systems (ADSs) designed specifically to counter such drone threats.

Riaz Haq said...

Turkey’s Electronic Warfare (Koral) Capabilities: The Invisible Power Behind its UACVs

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/turkeys-electronic-warfare-capabilities-invisible-power-behind-its-uacvs


Video captures by Turkey’s Ministry of Defence proved that Ankara was able to identify, locate, monitor, follow and target several Russian-made ADSs, including the Pantsir, without fear of being hit. One video which went viral on social media showed that the Turkish drones targeted and destroyed the Pantsir, even though its radar was active and combat-ready. Considering the close-up nature of the video and the large size of the TB2, it is highly likely that the KORAL managed to blind the Russian radar. During the operations, the TSK successfully destroyed eight Pantsir ADS units.

In Libya, Ankara’s intervention in favour of the UN-recognised government and against Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) – which has been supported by a host of countries including the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, France and Russia – turned the tide of the war. Turkey’s deployment of the KORAL alongside its TB2s dramatically changed the equation on the ground.

The KORAL disrupted the LNA’s Chinese-made Wing Loong drones supplied by the UAE, and established local aerial superiority for Turkey’s UACVs by rendering the LNA’s ADSs useless (including S-125, SA-6 and Pantsir S-1 systems). Furthermore, it enabled the lethal and precise targeting of Haftar’s military bases, supply lines, military equipment, fortified positions and ground targets. Clash Report claimed that Turkey destroyed at least 15 Pantsir systems in Libya. Once again, in at least one case, a video recording showed a Pantsir’s radar active and hopelessly looking for a threat to engage with, before being hit and destroyed by Ankara’s state-of-the-art drone, the TB2.

During the 44-day war between Azerbaijan and Armenia last year, the KORAL demonstrated its critical capacity on a broader scale. The Turkish-made EWS prepared the ground for a swift and decisive Azeri victory. The KORAL reportedly reduced the formidable Russian-made Armenian formations of ground-based ADSs to junk, enabling the Azeri forces to wipe them out, and thus leaving the Armenian Army at the mercy of Azeri TB2s acquired from Turkey.

Riaz Haq said...

Turkey’s Electronic Warfare (Koral) Capabilities: The Invisible Power Behind its UACVs

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/turkeys-electronic-warfare-capabilities-invisible-power-behind-its-uacvs


Armenia lost around 256 tanks, 50 BMP vehicles, 40 OSA SAM systems, over 400 trucks, hundreds of artillery pieces, and other military equipment during the war. In an act of psychological and information warfare, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defence released video recordings showing Armenian ADSs of all types (SA 8 Osa, SA 13 Strela 10, SA 15 Buk and even Russian-made S-300) being hit and destroyed by its forces. According to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, the Azeri military destroyed at least six S-300 missile systems using mainly Turkish and some Harop loitering munitions or Kamikaze drones.

To gain leverage over Azerbaijan, Yerevan acquired Russia’s Iskander ballistic missile and Repellent EWS in 2016 and 2017. Yet, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan discovered that these systems – worth tens of millions of dollars each – did not actually work, despite Moscow promoting them as advanced, complex and superior systems. Azerbaijan managed to disable and/or destroy many of these systems along with Armenia’s ADSs. In one documented case, an Armenian ADS is seen executing a series of unsuccessful attempts to launch missiles against an aerial target due to the powerful suppression targeting of the KORAL.

In November 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised the KORAL. Confirming the EWS’s critical role in Ankara’s latest battles, he revealed that his country is working on a new, more advanced version of the KORAL. Under the leadership of the Presidency of Defence Industries, ASELSAN has been working on a new generation of KORAL with advanced capabilities, the Kara SOJ-2. More recently, the TSK added the new highly capable SANCAK EWS to its inventory.

These new developments mean that Ankara is now open to exporting the KORAL. Several news platforms claimed that Ankara signed a $50.7 million contract to sell the KORAL EWS to Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces. Last August, a report indicated that the Royal Army of Oman was mulling the possibility of buying the Turkish-made EWS. At the end of that month, Iraq’s Defence Minister Jouma Saadoun reportedly expressed his country’s willingness to purchase Turkish-made military equipment, including TB2 UACVs, 12 T-129 ATAK helicopters and six KORAL EWSs.

Considering Ankara’s rising ambition to become a leader in robotic warfare systems and its relentless effort to add more unmanned offensive and defensive systems to the TSK’s inventory in the coming years, it will definitely focus on boosting its electronic warfare capabilities in the future.

Riaz Haq said...

Umair Aslam
@Defense785
The Pakistan Air Force showcased its latest defence procurements in a video released on the occasion of Pakistan's 75th Independence Day.

- Akinci UCAV 🇹🇷
- Bayraktar TB2 UCAV 🇹🇷
- HQ-9B
- TPS-77 MMR
- J-10CE

https://twitter.com/Defense785/status/1558698930493341704?s=20&t=OhaRQXyqXrw7lfKoJ9Qk5w

SAMIR SARDANA said...

INDIANS HAVE COMMISSIONED THE VIKRANT

BSOLETIUM

It is an OBSOLETE piece of scrap and the PLN will sink the entire Indan Navy. MIG 29K is a disaster. It has failed on RUSSIAN carriers also.

The CARRIER Catapault is obsolete and so,the frequency of aircraft launches is low and thus,the weight of the aircraft w.r.t. weapons and fuel is limited.THIS SEVERELY CONSTRAINTS,THE REACH OF THE CARRIER.

THE OBSOLETE CATAPAULT ENSURES THAT HEAVY AIRCRAFT AND AWACS ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION. A CARRIER W/O AN AWAC AND CARGO PLANES ,IS USELESS

THE LAST DIS-ASS-TER IS THE GAS TURBINE.- WHICH MEANS THAT THE DINDOO NAVY WILL NEED TO REFUEL FROM FRIENDLY PORTS AND NATIONS.IN WAR - THERE ARE NO FRIENDS PLN HAS BUILT ISLANDS PRECISELY FOR THESE REASONS.PLN NEEDS NO FRIENDLY PORT, TO REFUEL

A CARRIER AND A SUB,ARE SITING DUCKS WHEN THEY REFUEL.! THAT ALSO MEANS THAT THE CARRIER WILL LOSE PRECIOUS SPACE AND WEIGHT, TO STOCK FUEL INDIANS ARE CENTURIES AWAY,FROM A NUCLEAR POWER REACTOR,FOR A CARRIER ! PUTIN IS NOW IN THE CHINA ORBIT, AND WILL NOT SELL THE NUKE TECHNOLOGY

THE BIGGEST DI-ASS-T I S THAT THE INDIANS TOOK 17 YEARS TO MAKE THIS CARRIER

THE CHNESE CHURN IS MANY MANY TIMES FASTER.SO THE INDIANS ARE DOOMED

EVEN AFTER RAFALE COMES (WHICH THE FRENCH CARRIERS TOOK LONG TO INTEGRATE) AND EVEN IF THE CATAPAULT IS CHANGED WITH US AID - THE INDIANS STAND NO CHANCE, DUE TO THE SHEER PACE AT THE PLN WILL REPRODUCE

ALSO,,,THE CHINESE WILL HAVE A NUKE CARRIER AT LEAST 20 YEARS BEFORE THE INDIANS - AND THAT WILL BURY INDIA.NUKE POWER MEANS NO FUEL NO SPACE AND WEIGHT LOSS AND LIMITLESS POWER FOR CATAPAULTING AND USE OF ELECTROMAGNETIC CATAPAULTS..NO SPACE AND WEIGHT LOSS,MEANS MORE JF-17+ AWACS + DEFENSE GRADE ATF + WEAPONS + MISSILES + CARGO PLANES= IMPREGNABLE SEA FORTRESS,WITH CARGO PLANES WHICH CAN FERRY RATIONS AND ATF - SO NO NEED TO TOUCH LAND

AND THEN TO COMPLETELY NAIL DOWN THE DINDOO NAVY,THE PLN CAN MOVE TOWARDS ANDAMAN ! THAT WILL TIE DOWN THE NAVY ,LIKE A TADPOLE!

VIKRANT IS A SITTING DUCK ! WHAT PNS GHAZI COULD NOT DO IN VIZAG MINING IN 1971- WILL THE PAKISTANI NAVY STEP UP NOW ?

VIKRANT = LUMBERING OLD PIECE OF SCRAP !

WILL AN INDIAN CARRIER WORK,& CAN INDIANS INTEGRATE THE VARIOUS SYSTEMS, IN THE CARRIER, ASSUMING THE PLN DOES NOT HACK THEM ? ALL OLD INDIAN CARRIERS WERE DECOMMISSIONED RUSSIAN JUNK - & SO,THE RUSSIANS TRAINED THE INDIANS, TO USE THE JUNK

THIS IS AJUNK MADE BY INDIANS IN INDIA - WITH COPY & PASTE TECH,WHICH HAS BEEN INTEGRATED INTO THE CARRIER - WHICH NOW THE INDIAN NAVY, HAS TO SYNTHESISE, ON SEA & IN WAR !

INDIANS CANNOT LAUNCH A BRAHMOS - & "DEFENDING" A FLOATING TARGET ON SEA,FROM EW/EMP/MISSILES &TORPEDOES- WITH THE CARRIER USING MULTIPLE PLATFORMS - & WITH NO KNOWLEDGE OF CHINESE SYSTEMS (AS THEY ARE 100%, MADE IN CHINA) = DOOM !

Y IS INDIA GETTING INTO A CARRIER/SUB RACE WITH PLN,WHEN IT HAS NO MONEY,& NO TECH ? THEY SHOULD LEARN FROM RAMA WHO USED AN ARMY OF APES TO MAKE A BRIDGE& NOT A SHIP - WHICH TOOK 12 YEARS ! ( 5 YEARS LESS THAN VIKRANT) !dindooohindoo


Riaz Haq said...

Venkatesh Kandlikar, defence analyst at GlobalData, told Naval Technology that the INS Vikrant features a significant amount of Indian industrial contribution in the design and manufacturing stage, even using locally sourced steel.

However, the programme was not without its difficulties, with component and equipment delivery and supply chain issues delaying the commissioning by around five years. The programme also suffered from cost overruns, coming in at $3bn more than the initial allocated budget.


INS Vikrant (specifications)
Displacement 43,000t
Speed 28kt
Endurance 7,500nm
Embarked aircraft 30 fixed- and rotary-wing

https://www.naval-technology.com/analysis/ins-vikrant-a-profile-of-indias-newest-aircraft-carrier/

According to Kandlikar, the Indian Navy is expected to field three aircraft carriers in its fleet by the next decade. With Vikramiditya in service and Vikrant now commissioned, India is beginning to plan the build of the future INS Vishal, which is expected to be larger still than existing carriers and feature updated technologies, such as an electromagnetic air-lift systems, also known as EMALS, as being installed on the US Navy’s Ford-class super carriers.

“With the experience gained in the construction of IAC-1, supported by the indigenous ecosystem it is expected that the Indian Navy will soon get a green light from the Indian Ministry of Defence to start designing the third aircraft carrier,” Kandlikar said.

Air wing composition
In terms of embarked aircraft, Kandlikar said the Indian Navy was looking to deploy a new carrier air wing comprising of either F/A-18 Super Hornets or Rafale-M fighters. The Indian Air Force currently operates the conventional Rafale 4.5 generation fighter, which is manufactured by France’s Dassault Aviation, offering a commonality option for the Indian Navy.

Capability-wise, the two aircraft are similar, although the Rafale is the newer aircraft and is being heavily pushed for export. The Super Hornet, meanwhile, is entering the twilight of its naval career. Although it still broadly matches the Rafale in terms of engine thrust it, is slightly slower at Mach 1.6 compared to Mach 1.8, but with a higher payload capacity at 66,000lb (29,937kg) to the Rafale’s 54,000lb.

However, in the near-to-mid-term, India will utilise its fleet of 45 MiG-29K/KUB fighters, acquired from Russia following the signing of separate deals in 2004 and 2010. India is also developing a navalised variant of its LCA/HAL Tejas fighter, although it is not known when the platform will be integrated into the country’s carrier fleet.

The rotary component, vital for search-and-rescue and airborne early warning and surveillance roles, will be fulfilled by the Russian-supplied Kamov 31 helicopter.


Riaz Haq said...

3 cheers for INS Vikrant & 3 questions for India’s leadership on naval doctrine

by Shekhar Gupta

https://youtu.be/3GbgmJM4Ygw

Key points:

1. Indian aircraft carrier is powered by American General Electric turbines

2. Russian MIG 29s require a lot of maintenance. These will be replaced with French Rafales or US F-18s in future.

3. Chinese aircraft carriers are totally indigenous (including engines, weapons, and aircraft) are much bigger

4. China has developed "aircraft carrier buster missiles" to deal with hostile nations' Navies.

5. Indian Navy hid its aircraft carriers from Pakistani submarines during 1965 and 1971 wars.

6. Indian-American analyst Ashley Tellis questions the utility of Indian aircraft carriers in the absence of India's geopolitical aims and its Naval Doctrine.

----------

Ashley Tellis on submarines vs aircraft carriers

https://youtu.be/6BficVBrqls


------------------

The Unusual Carrier Killer Capability Of The Chinese Navy’s Strategic Bomber - Naval News

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/10/the-unusual-carrier-killer-capability-of-the-chinese-navys-strategic-bomber/


China’s recent test of a hypersonic ‘Orbital Bombardment System’ has been characterized as a ‘Sputnik moment’. The world is only just waking up to Chinese advances in strategic weapons technologies. Among a raft of new weapons, which increasingly do not have direct equivalents in the West, are anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs). One of these, an air-launched version, appears to include a hypersonic maneuvering missile.

Riaz Haq said...

INS Vikrant boosts Indian Navy's firepower but Chinese navy still ahead in numbers

https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/ins-vikrant-india-first-indigenously-aircraft-carrier-comparison-with-china-14632391.htm

NS Vikrant is the largest indigenous warship built by India and expected to "bolster India's position in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and its quest for a blue water navy". How will it boost India's naval power, especially against rival China?

For starters, the induction of India's first indigenous aircraft carrier means the navy now has two aircraft carriers, including INS Vikramaditya in service boosting the country's maritime defence. Compared to the Indian Navy, China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has three aircraft carriers. India now has two aircraft carriers—INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya. China has three—Fujian, Shandong and Liaoning.

India has now joined the "select group of nations" which have the capability to indigenously design and build an aircraft carrier, say experts.
"There are only 14 countries in the world which have at least one aircraft carrier and only six countries in the world have the capacity and the capability to build an aircraft carrier. India is one of these six," Lt Col JS Sodhi. a Defence and Strategic Affairs analyst told CNBC-TV18.com.
INS Vikrant's importance for India
INS Vikrant "would bolster India's position in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and its quest for a blue water Navy", the government had said in July this year in a press release.
A blue water Navy "operates deep into the oceans", Sodhi added.

This comes at a time when the ties between the two nations are under stress owing to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army's (PLA) movements around India's borders as well as Chinese PLAN's movement in and around the Indian Ocean.
With INS Vikrant's entry, India can deploy an aircraft carrier each on the eastern and western seaboard and expand its maritime presence.

"We will have two aircraft carriers. Because of that, India, having an eastern and western coast and vast oceans on both sides, will be able to utilise one carrier on each seaboard... we'll be able to cover the primary areas of maritime interest," Captain Kamlesh Agnihotri (Retd.), a senior fellow at the National Maritime Foundation (NMF) told CNBC-TV18.com.
The need for an aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier has great operational range, carrying fighter aircraft which are important in any battle to project power and control the sea.
NMF's Agnihotri said, "projecting powers and sea control is the primary purpose of aircraft carriers," while adding, "the aircraft carrier are floating airfields."

"The aircraft carrier adds to the maritime power of the country. It is the most potent weapon of a navy because it has the capacity to operate at a very large distance. It also acts as an air base at the time of conflict," Sodhi said.

India Vs China maritime power
While INS Vikrant adds to the Indian Navy's firepower, Chinese navy or PLAN is ahead in the number of warships and overall seapower. According to the World Directory of Modern Military Warships (2022), China ranks second on the Global Naval Powers Ranking 2022 after the United States — the true global blue water navy, while India ranks seventh.

"Comparing India's carrier INS Vikrant to Fujian is not correct," said Agnihotri. This is because, while INS Vikrant has a ski-jump kind of take-off mechanism, the Chinese Fujian has a catapult type of take-off mechanism.
"With catapult, you are able to launch heavier aircraft carrying more payloads, and more fuels for longer range," he said. It is better to compare Vikrant with Shandong, the second aircraft carrier China owns.
Besides, aircraft carriers, India has INS Arihant, an indigenously built
nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).

Riaz Haq said...

INS Vikrant boosts Indian Navy's firepower but Chinese navy still ahead in numbers

https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/ins-vikrant-india-first-indigenously-aircraft-carrier-comparison-with-china-14632391.htm

"Comparing India's carrier INS Vikrant to Fujian is not correct," said Agnihotri. This is because, while INS Vikrant has a ski-jump kind of take-off mechanism, the Chinese Fujian has a catapult type of take-off mechanism.
"With catapult, you are able to launch heavier aircraft carrying more payloads, and more fuels for longer range," he said. It is better to compare Vikrant with Shandong, the second aircraft carrier China owns.
Besides, aircraft carriers, India has INS Arihant, an indigenously built
nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN).
Can India counter Chinese navy incursions?
NMF's Agnihotri said, "our strong carrier-based force will be able to counter the challenges." Sodhi, however, said that "India is fast emerging as great naval power but China has an edge."
"We have picked up speed in the defence manufacturing indigenously. We are also slowly matching up," Sodhi added.
Earlier, news agency ANI quoted Southern Naval Command (SNC) Chief Vice admiral MA Hampiholi as saying that the Indian Navy needs three aircraft carriers to deter Chinese presence in Indian Ocean Region.

Riaz Haq said...

India is Building a Carrier Fleet, but Pakistan has a Plan to Sink It
To directly threaten Pakistan, the small-deck carriers will have to maneuver closer to “anti-access / area denial” weapons which could sink them.

by Robert Beckhusen

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/india-building-carrier-fleet-pakistan-has-plan-sink-it-196897


Most likely, India would attempt to enforce a blockade of Pakistan and use its carriers to strike land-based targets. But Pakistan has several means to attack Indian carriers — with near-undetectable submarines and anti-ship missiles — which must also operate relatively far from India itself in the western and northern Arabian Sea. China does not have a similar disadvantage, as the PLAN would likely keep its carriers close and within the “first island chain” including Taiwan, closer to shore where supporting aircraft and ground-based missile launchers can help out.

Thus, Indian carriers would be relatively vulnerable and only one of them will have aircraft capable of launching with standard ordnance and fuel. And that is after Vishal sets sail in the next decade.

To directly threaten Pakistan, the small-deck carriers will have to maneuver nearer to shore — and thereby closer to “anti-access / area denial” weapons which could sink them. And even with a third carrier, the threat of land-based Pakistani aircraft will force the Indian Navy to dedicate a large proportion of its own air wings to defense — perhaps half of its available fighters, according to 2017 paper by Ben Wan Beng Ho for the Naval War College Review.

“Therefore, it is doubtful that any attack force launched from an Indian carrier would pack a significant punch,” Ho writes. “With aircraft available for strike duties barely numbering into the double digits, the Indian carrier simply cannot deliver a substantial ‘pulse’ of combat power against its adversary.”

Essentially, this makes Indian carriers’ self-defeating, with the flattops existing primarily to defend themselves from attack rather than taking the fight to their enemy. Carriers are also expensive symbols of national prestige, and it is unlikely the Indian Navy will want to risk losing one, two or all three. Under the circumstances, India’s investment in carriers makes more sense symbolically, and primarily as a way of keeping shipyards busy and shipyard workers employed.

However, this is not to entirely rule out a carrier-centric naval strategy. Ho notes that Indian carriers could be useful when operating far out at sea and in the western Arabian Sea, effectively as escort ships for commercial shipping and to harass Pakistani trade. Nevertheless, this strategy comes with a similar set of problems.

“In any attempt to impose sea control in the northern Arabian Sea and to interdict Pakistani seaborne commerce by enforcing a blockade of major Pakistani maritime nodes, Indian carrier forces would have to devote a portion of their already meager airpower to attacking Pakistani vessels, thereby exacerbating the conundrum alluded to earlier,” Ho added. “What is more, Pakistani ships are likely to operate relatively close to their nation’s coast, to be protected by Islamabad’s considerable access-denial barrier.”

Another possibility is India massing its carriers in the later stages of a war after the Army and Air Force pummel and degrade the Pakistani military.

But this raises the question as to whether India strictly needs carriers at all if it cannot use them during the decisive periods of a conflict — as opposed to, say, less-expensive warships, and more of them, equipped with long-range missiles.

Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine Routs Russian Forces in Northeast, Forcing a Retreat
Russia acknowledged that it had lost nearly all of the northern region of Kharkiv after a blitzkrieg thrust by Ukrainian fighters.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/11/world/europe/ukraine-kharkiv-russian-retreat.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Stunned by a lightning advance by Ukrainian forces that cost it over 1,000 square miles of land and a key military hub, Russia on Sunday acknowledged that it had lost nearly all of the northern region of Kharkiv after a blitzkrieg thrust that cast doubt on a premise — widely held in Moscow and parts of the West — that Ukraine could never defeat Russia.

Russia’s pell-mell retreat from a wide section of Ukrainian territory it seized in the early summer rattled Kremlin cheerleaders and amplified voices in the West demanding that more weapons be sent to Ukraine so that it could win.

Victory for Ukraine is still far from certain, particularly with a second Ukrainian offensive in the south making far less rapid progress. Russian forces are dug into strong defensive positions near the Black Sea port city of Kherson, forcing Ukrainian troops to pay heavily for every foot of territory they retake.

But the speed of Ukraine’s advances over the weekend in the northeast — an area used by Russia as a stronghold — has muted the gung-ho bluster of Kremlin cheerleaders. It has also undermined arguments in places like Germany that providing more and better arms to Ukraine would only lead to a long and bloody stalemate against a Russian military destined to win.

Late Sunday, in a strike that Ukrainian officials condemned as a fit of pique over its losses, Moscow attacked infrastructure facilities in Kharkiv, leaving many civilians without power and water. President Volodymyr Zelensky said there was a “total blackout” in the regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk.

“No military facilities,” he wrote on Twitter. “The goal is to deprive people of light and heat.”


-----

Speaking at a news conference with his German counterpart, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said, “And so I reiterate: The more weapons we receive, the faster we will win, and the faster this war will end.”


---------

For months now, administration officials have said there is no hope of a diplomatic solution to the war unless Mr. Zelensky’s forces win back enough territory to have the upper hand in any negotiated cease-fire or armistice. But the fear is that if Mr. Putin believes he is losing the war, he may deploy unconventional weapons.

Riaz Haq said...

Harpoon Horror! US ‘Confirms’ Russian Vessel That Was Sunk By Ukraine In June Was Fired From Flatbed Truck

https://eurasiantimes.com/harpoon-horror-us-confirms-russian-vessel-that-was-sunk-by-ukraine/


As Ukraine has received its first batch of truck-mounted Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles (AShM) from the US, its top defense acquisition official said Russia’s Vasily Bekh support vessel was sunk on June 17 by a version of the missile fired from a flatbed truck.

This comes in the backdrop of Ukraine receiving the first batch of vehicle-mounted Harpoon missiles, which US officials said their Ukrainian counterparts consider essential for their coastal defense.

Secretary of Defense, Llyod Austin, announced the road-mobile Harpoons on June 15 as a part of a $650 million Ukraine Security Assistance fund.

US & Allies Team Up To Arm Ukraine
The Harpoon weighs under 700 kilograms and flies at subsonic speeds with a 225-kilogram fragmentation warhead at ranges of 90 to 220 kilometers (536 miles). It has a diameter of 34.4 centimeters and is about 12 feet long.

Following the sinking of the Vasily Bekh, Russia itself claimed to have destroyed Harpoons on July 18 and July 24. In the former, it claimed to have struck an “industrial enterprise” in Odesa that stored the missile. The second strike declared the sinking of a Ukrainian warship and Harpoon missiles in the Odesa port.

In a background briefing call with journalists in June after the package’s announcement, unnamed Department of Defense (DoD) and Pentagon officials surprisingly claimed that the missiles did not come from the US but its allies.

“For Harpoon systems specifically, working with allies and partners, we will provide truck-mounted launch capability and then supported by donations from other allies and partners,” the official added. Thus, combined efforts (from friendly nations) will support these two capabilities (launcher and rockets), with the launchers coming from the US and the missiles coming from NATO allies.

The consternation about not depleting their inventory in support of Ukraine worries the US military leadership. This is because the Pentagon officials said they are “pushing” such systems “to the front quickly” only after “taking into account other considerations such as their (own) readiness.”

Ukraine has long asked for long-range artillery, like more M-777 lightweight towed artillery (which Russia has claimed to have destroyed in large numbers).

Installing Harpoons From A Ship To A Truck
Speaking at the press conference, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Bill LaPlante, recalled the ad-hoc mid-June arrangement that involved taking the Harpoons off a ship and putting them on flatbed trucks.

“We got them off the ship, put the Harpoons, the modules on the flatbed truck, and then a different flatbed truck for the power source, connected a cable between it, figured out was exportable,” LaPlante was quoted as saying by Defense One. On June 17, Russia’s Vasily Bekh support ship was sunk. A week later, Pentagon said the ship was sunk using a Harpoon.

While LaPlante did not disclose the country the missiles were taken from, it is likely to have been Denmark, as Ukraine had said on June 9 about having deployed Harpoons from the Scandinavian country. “So, this is a capability that provides them significantly stronger deterrence,” the official was quoted in the transcript of the call released by the DoD.

The official also said the Ukrainians have ranked coastal defense “at the top of their list of urgent needs.”

He also responded to a query by a journalist on what appeared to be a minimal number of only two such systems. “(That’s) because of what’s readily available that industry has that can be supplied in the near-term process to, again, make and have an effect on the near-term on the battlefield,” the official said.

US has procured the Harpoon launchers through a Request for Information (RFI) tendering process. This will “marry up with allies and partners with missile capabilities.”

Riaz Haq said...

A White House official said Tuesday Russia’s sanctions-struck defense industry is creating an “opportunity” for U.S. and western defense firms to take a bite of Moscow’s share of the market.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/09/27/wh-aims-to-ease-arms-sales-as-sanctions-hit-russian-defense-sector/

“As a practical matter, countries that have had to rely on Russian equipment are going to find it very difficult to get even basic supplies from Russia’s defense industrial base,” said the NSC's Cara Abercrombie.


The remarks come weeks after the Biden administration notified Congress it would make $2.2 billion in new Foreign Military Financing grants available for Ukraine and former Warsaw Pact countries whose Soviet-made gear has been part of international aid to Ukraine.

“In NATO, that could be to transition our eastern flank partners to NATO-standard, western equipment. But certainly as we look to other countries in the Pacific, this is an opportunity as well, not just for the United States, but for western industry as well,” Abercrombie said.

The Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, Bill LaPlante, said more “interchangeability by interoperability” among allies presents an opportunity, not just economically, but geostrategically. Linking industrial bases, or “friendshoring,” would mitigate supply chain shocks and be essential to the common defense of the U.S. and its allies, he said.

“As we have seen in Ukraine, the weapons and equipment provided by the U.S. and its allies are the best in the world,” LaPlante said in pre-recorded remarks at the ComDef conference. “Continuing to more closely integrate these capabilities with increasingly common standards for munitions, software and other components will provide even greater advantages moving forward.”

Though western sanctions have targeted Russia’s defense industry, Russia was in 2021 the second-largest arms exporter after the United States, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Its chief clients are India, China and Egypt.

The head of Russia’s weapons export branch said earlier this year that Moscow’s arms export revenue in 2022 is likely to total about $10.8 billion, roughly 26% lower than reported for 2021.

This week, LaPlante is in Brussels convening a meeting of weapons buyers from more than 50 countries to better coordinate defense industrial efforts as they replenish weapons sent to Ukraine from their own stockpiles. The meeting is taking place under the auspices of the 50-nation Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

Dovetailing with Pentagon-led efforts to boost western and allied defense capabilities, the White House will continue the work of a Department of Defense “tiger team” seeking to streamline the U.S. process of selling arms around the globe, Abercrombie said.

“Within the National Security Council, I am looking at basically a baton pass,” Abercrombie said. “As DoD wraps up its initial analysis, we’ll be doing an interagency process to look at the collective [effort and] how can we make U.S. foreign military sales work better for our partners, or at least be a little faster.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in August established the task force to address the U.S. foreign military sales process, which spans the Pentagon and State Department. Abercrombie said the streamlining is meant to make the process more nimble without cutting corners.

Riaz Haq said...

A White House official said Tuesday Russia’s sanctions-struck defense industry is creating an “opportunity” for U.S. and western defense firms to take a bite of Moscow’s share of the market.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/09/27/wh-aims-to-ease-arms-sales-as-sanctions-hit-russian-defense-sector/


Asked about trade restrictions by the European Union that could hinder U.S. defense exports, Abercrombie said the administration is seeking to reduce those barriers. Supply chain challenges make clear it’s “time to be looking for opportunities to work together to reduce the barriers,” she said.

The U.S.-led meeting of armaments directors in Brussels also highlights some of the headwinds for allied efforts to arm up. The gathering is aimed at addressing supply chain chokepoints for gun barrels, ball bearings and steel casings ― as well as how to sustain equipment for Ukraine on a long-term basis.

“Ultimately, more closely integrating with our allies and friends around the world will make us all more secure and resilient,” LaPlante said.

Riaz Haq said...

#US supplied #Himars rockets are tipping the scales in #Ukraine, changing the way wars are fought. They fly 50 miles, hitting hundreds of #Russian targets, incl command centers, ammunition depots, refueling stations & bridges, choking off supplies https://www.wsj.com/articles/himars-transform-battle-for-ukraine-modern-warfare-11665169716?st=4265ilyri5tdc07 via @WSJ

A global revolution in warfare is dramatically tipping the scales of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, putting in the hands of front-line troops the kind of lethality that until recently required aircraft, ships or lumbering tracked vehicles. It also has the capacity to change battlefields far from Eastern Europe.

The centerpiece of the new battle order is the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars. Provided by the U.S. and operated by Ukrainian soldiers since June, they are augmenting lightweight and precise weaponry that includes drones, Javelin antitank rockets and Stinger antiaircraft missiles, enabled by GPS guidance and advanced microelectronics.

Able to pick off Russian military bases, ammunition depots and infrastructure far behind front lines, Ukraine’s 16 Himars helped its troops this summer halt a bloody Russian advance. Since last month, Ukrainians have seized back swaths of territory in their country’s east and ground down Russian troops in the south. Washington recently pledged to deliver another 18 Himars.

Within Kyiv’s arsenal, Himars offer a unique combination of range, precision and mobility that allows them to do the job traditionally handled by dozens of launchers firing thousands of shells.

By shrinking launchers and nearly guaranteeing hits on targets, Himars and the other equipment are upending century-old assumptions about how wars must be fought—and particularly about military supplies. Himars’s vastly improved accuracy also collapses the massive logistical trail that modern infantry has demanded.

“Himars is one part of a precision revolution that turns heavily equipped armies into something light and mobile,” said Robert Scales, a retired U.S. Army major general who was among the first to envision Himars in the 1970s.

Last month The Wall Street Journal gained rare access to a front-line Himars unit.

One evening at dusk the men in this unit were making dinner when orders for their fifth mission of the day arrived: to target Russian barracks and a river barge ferrying munitions and tanks 40 miles away.

Six men piled into their two Himars: a driver, targeter and commander in each, accompanied by the battery commander and a security detail in an armored personnel carrier. The commander plugged coordinate data into a tablet computer to determine the safest location for firing.

Within minutes, the two Himars rumbled out from cover under an apricot grove toward the launch spot in a nearby sunflower field. Thirty seconds after arriving, they fired seven missiles in quick succession. Before the projectiles hit their targets, the trucks were returning to base camp.

Ten minutes later came another pair of targets: Soviet-era rocket launchers some 44 miles away. Off rolled the Himars again and fired another barrage of missiles.

Soon after, the soldiers were back at camp and finishing their dinner. Some pulled up videos on Telegram showing the fruit of their labor: burning Russian barracks.

Riaz Haq said...

On 07 January 2021, Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) announced that the Pakistan Army test-fired an indigenously developed multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). Designated the Fatah-1, the ISPR said the guided MLRS can deliver a conventional warhead up to a range of 140 km.

https://quwa.org/2021/01/10/pakistan-tests-indigenous-fatah-1-guided-mlrs-2/

Adding to Pakistan’s rocket artillery inventory, the Fatah-1 joins the A-100, Nasr, and Yarmouk-series. Like the Fatah-1, Pakistan manufactures the A-100, Nasr, and Yarmouk domestically.

But in contrast to its other rockets, Pakistan is positioning the Fatah-1 as an offensively oriented weapon. The ISPR says the Fatah-1 gives Pakistan the ability to precisely engage targets “deep in enemy territory.”

Background on the Fatah-1

The Fatah-1 seems to be one of two MLRS the Pakistan Ministry of Defence Production (MoDP) referenced in its annual yearbook in 2015-2016. [1] These were a base MLRS and an “extended-range” MLRS.

In 2019, the ISPR revealed the A-100 (which has a range of over 100 km) as an “indigenous” rocket. If the A-100 is the base MLRS, the 140-km Fatah-1 could be the “extended-range” MLRS design.

There is no confirmed connection between the A-100 and Fatah-1. However, Pakistan apparently localized the A-100, so it would make sense for it to develop the Fatah-1 as a subvariant. If the Fatah-1 is a variant of the A-100, then it could share the same caliber (300 mm) and warhead weight (reportedly 235 kg).

However, this apparent link is only speculation. The Fatah-1 could also be distinct design and, as a result, be a larger rocket design. For reference, the Chinese Weishi or WS-series of rockets have spun out into a diverse line-up of missiles of varying calibres, ranges, and applications.

The ISPR’s mention of “precision target engagement” indicates that Pakistan configured the Fatah-1 with a guidance system. It could be a GPS/INS (or BeiDou/INS)-based suite. This enables Pakistan to feed Fatah-1 missiles with location data of predetermined targets.

Thus, Pakistan could use the Fatah-1 as a long-range strike weapon, and potentially deploy it combination with precision-guided bombs (PGB), land-attack cruise missiles (LACM), and glide-munitions.

How Pakistan May Deploy the Fatah-1

Past footage of Pakistan’s artillery deployments show that it is using the SLC-2 counter-battery radar with the A-100E (which it was using before announcing a locally built variant). However, the range potential of the Fatah-1 exceeds the reported detection range of the SLC-2…

Riaz Haq said...

India successfully test-fires EPRS upgraded Pinaka MLRS rockets

https://www.armyrecognition.com/defense_news_april_2022_global_security_army_industry/india_successfully_test-fires_eprs_upgraded_pinaka_mlrs_rockets.html


A new version of the Pinaka rocket system has been successfully flight-tested by the DRDO and the Indian Army at the Pokhran firing ranges, the Defence ministry said on April 9, echoed by The Hindu: as many as 24 Pinaka Mk-I (Enhanced) Rocket Systems (EPRS) were fired for different ranges during the last fortnight and the weapons met the required accuracy and consistency, it said.

Pinaka is a multiple rocket launcher (MLRS) produced and developed by Armament Research and Development Establishment, Pune, supported by High Energy Materials Research Laboratory, another Pune-based laboratory of the DRDO for the Indian Army. The system has a maximum range of 40 km for Mark-I and 60 km for Mark-I enhanced version. It can fire a salvo of 12 HE rockets in 44 seconds. The system is mounted on a Tatra truck. Pinaka saw service during the Kargil War. After establishing the performance efficacy of the enhanced range version of Pinaka, the technology was transferred to Munitions India Limited (MIL) and Economic Explosives Limited, Nagpur.

The EPRS is the upgraded version of the Pinaka variant that has been in service with the Indian Army for the last decade, The hindu precises. The ministry said the rocket system has been upgraded with advanced technologies enhancing the range to meet the emerging requirements: "Pinaka Mk-I (Enhanced) Rocket System (EPRS) and Pinaka Area Denial Munition (ADM) rocket systems have been successfully flight-tested by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Army at Pokhran firing ranges," the ministry said in a statement. "With these trials, the initial phase of technology absorption of EPRS by the industry has successfully been completed and the industry partners are ready for user trials/series production of the rocket system," it added.

" Different variants of munitions and fuses which can be used in the Pinaka rocket system were also successfully test evaluated in the Pokhran field firing range," the Defence ministry said.

Riaz Haq said...

US Army secretary looks to 2040 to scale key tech


https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2022/10/11/us-army-secretary-looks-to-2040-to-scale-key-tech/

“To be able to win the fires fight; to be able to take dispersed forces and have them converge together to engage the enemy; to be able to see farther, more persistently, longer than our adversaries; to be able to protect ourselves; to be able to share data and communicate, not just with each other but with the other services and our allies; and then to sustain that whole joint force, we’re going to need systems, capabilities,” (US Army Secretary Christine) Wormuth said. “That is really where you get into a lot of the programs that we always talk about in our six modernization portfolios.”

-----------

The war games took into account efforts currently under development — including those on weapons systems, concepts and the new multidomain operations doctrine — in order to determine “the next set of concepts” and the requirements that will drive them, Wormuth explained.

“I can’t think of an area that we’re not doing anything in right now,” she said. “We’ve got work underway looking at networks, at AI, at autonomy, at … biotechnology. Those are the things that I think we want to have the labs focused on, so I don’t think there’s a wholly uncovered area at this time.”

Riaz Haq said...

Using commercial tech for US military:

Machine Learning Predictions
Whether it is understanding 3 or 30 years of historical data or tracking real-time performance from millions of sensors across an electrical grid, AI powers mission readiness and reduces costs. However, with data-enabled trending and predictions not only can things be fixed before they break, so can people.

Big Data Analysis
The sheer amount of data that is generated from sensors on a daily basis makes human processing and analysis impossible, let alone identifying the critical signal amidst the noise. Our portfolio is tapping into commercial big data analysis capabilities to understand adversarial positioning.

AI Enhanced Decision Making
Managing disparate data feeds from various sensors slows our ability to provide decision options at speed. Harnessing commercial capabilities such as financial modeling and insurance risk projections can inform target identification, tracking classification, real-time threat assessment, mission maps, and post-disaster damage assessments.

https://www.diu.mil/solutions/portfolio

Riaz Haq said...

China’s Military Is Catching Up to the U.S. Is It Ready to Fight?
The People’s Liberation Army is emerging as a true competitor but Beijing worries about the ability of its troops
A Chinese soldier held a flag during joint military exercises in Kyrgyzstan in 2016.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-military-us-taiwan-xi-11666268994

China’s military is emerging as a true competitor to the U.S. under Xi Jinping.

The People’s Liberation Army now has hypersonic missiles that evade most defenses, a technology the U.S. is still developing. Its attack drones can swarm to paralyze communications networks. China’s naval ships outnumber America’s, and it launched its third aircraft carrier this summer, the first to be designed and built in the country. Its defense budget is second only to the U.S.’s. China’s military has more serving members, at around 2 million, compared with just under 1.4 million in the U.S.

The question for Mr. Xi, which he has raised in public, is whether those forces are ready for battle.

China hasn’t fought a war since a brief border clash with Vietnam in 1979. Unlike American forces, who have fought for most of the past two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan, China’s service members have virtually no combat experience—which some Chinese leaders have referred to as a “peace disease.” Finding a solution short of actual war has been a priority for Mr. Xi, especially as he seeks to prepare the country for a potential showdown with the U.S.

“We must comprehensively strengthen military training and preparation, and improve the army’s ability to win,” Mr. Xi said on Sunday at the opening of the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress.

The issue has become more pressing for Beijing as tensions build with Taiwan, which China sees as part of its territory. On Sunday, Mr. Xi reiterated that Beijing wouldn’t renounce the use of force in China’s effort to take control of the island.

“The complete unification of the motherland must be realized, and it will be realized,” he said, drawing loud applause.

-------

An effort to make China’s different military branches work more closely together—so-called “jointness,” which is considered crucial to modern warfare—remains untested.

“At present, there are not many commanders in the PLA who are truly proficient in joint combat,” one serving officer at the Zhengzhou Joint Logistics Support Center wrote earlier this year in a commentary in the PLA Daily, the military’s newspaper. “If this situation does not change, once there is a war, it will be very dangerous.”

Outside analysts say the PLA appears to be making progress in bringing forces together for more complex joint exercises, helped by interaction with other militaries, especially Russia’s. Since Mr. Xi took power, China has increased drills with Russia to as many as 10 a year from one or two previously.

Riaz Haq said...

Headache For India, Pakistan Flaunts ‘Much Superior’ Turkish Akinci Combat UAVs In Promotional Video
EUROPE
By
Tanmay Kadam
October 24, 2022

https://eurasiantimes.com/headache-for-india-pakistan-flaunts-much-superior-turkish-akinci/

Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF’s) Public Relations Department recently released a video featuring various aircraft and weapon systems within the PAF’s fleet, including the Turkish-made Akinci combat drone.

The video by the PAF was released on October 19, when Pakistan’s President Dr. Arif Alvi visited the Air Headquarters, Islamabad as a chief guest to attend the inaugural ceremony of the two-day flagship international seminar titled ‘Global Strategic Threat and Response’ (GSTAR) arranged by Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS).


The video lasts for three minutes and twenty-one seconds. After two minutes and twenty-one seconds, a PAF Squadron Leader, reportedly wearing an Akinci patch, can inspect the Akinci drone armed with light glide bombs.

Riaz Haq said...

If China Invaded Taiwan, What Would India Do?
The New Delhi government fears its expansionist neighbor but is deeply wary about getting in the middle of a brawl with Beijing.

By Hal Brands


https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/features/2022-11-14/if-china-invaded-taiwan-what-would-india-do


So how might India react if China attacked Taiwan? Although India can’t project much military power east of the Malacca Strait, it could still, in theory, do a lot. US officials quietly hope that India might grant access to its Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in the eastern Bay of Bengal, to facilitate a blockade of China’s oil supplies. The Indian Navy could help keep Chinese ships out of the Indian Ocean; perhaps the Indian Army could distract China by turning up the heat in the Himalayas.

--------

New Delhi has a real stake in the survival of a free Taiwan. China has a punishing strategic geography, in that it faces security challenges on land and at sea. If taking Taiwan gave China preeminence in maritime Asia, though, Beijing could then pivot to settle affairs with India on land.

Expect a “turn toward the South” once China’s Taiwan problem is resolved, one Indian defense official told me. And in general, a world in which China is emboldened — and the US and its democratic allies are badly bloodied — by a Taiwan conflict would be very nasty for India.

But none of this ensures that India will cast its lot, militarily or diplomatically, with a pro-Taiwan coalition. Appeals to common democratic values or norms of nonaggression won’t persuade India to aid Taiwan any more than they have induced it to help Ukraine.

Armchair strategists might dream of opening a second front in the Himalayas, but India might be paralyzed by fear that openly aiding the US anywhere would simply give China a pretext to batter overmatched, unprepared Indian forces on their shared frontier.

The Modi government has been happy to have America’s help in dealing with India’s China problem but is far more reluctant to return the favor by courting trouble in the Western Pacific.

What India would do in a Taiwan conflict is really anyone’s guess. The most nuanced assessment I heard came from a longtime Indian diplomat. A decade ago, he said, India would definitely have sat on the sidelines. Today, support for Taiwan and the democratic coalition is conceivable, but not likely. After another five years of tension with China and cooperation with the Quad, though, who knows?

Optimists in Washington might take this assessment as evidence that India is moving in the right direction. Pessimists might point out that there is still a long way to go, and not much time to get there.

Riaz Haq said...

Christopher Clary
@clary_co
A bit of a tour d'horizon of India-Israel Aerospece Industries cooperation in the Indian Express the other day. "The reporter was in Israel at the invitation of the Embassy of Israel in New Delhi." A few highlights. /1

https://twitter.com/clary_co/status/1595067490694045697?s=20&t=eh-ePoRuzHrlqM1h0gCXlg
------------------

From UAVs to refuellers: How Israel is helping India keep an eye on LAC
These days, Avi Bleser, vice-president of marketing for India at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), says he is working closely with the Indian Army and Indian Air Force to tailor solutions for their defence needs.

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/from-uavs-to-refuellers-how-israel-is-helping-india-keep-an-eye-on-lac-8272676/

-----------------


Christopher Clary
@clary_co
IAI is working closely with India on "the induction of Heron MK II, a state-of-the-art UAV that can fly at a height of 35,000 feet, cover a radius of 1000 km, see through dense clouds, work in bad weather & fly for 45 hours. It’s learnt that MK IIs are being deployed in Leh." /2

https://twitter.com/clary_co/status/1595067492157849600?s=20&t=eh-ePoRuzHrlqM1h0gCXlg

-------------------


Christopher Clary
@clary_co
"Last year, the Indian Army had also taken on lease Heron TPs, a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for all-weather missions, from IAI. Heron TP drones are one of the two drones made in Israel that can be armed, if needed." /3

---------

Christopher Clary
@clary_co
"The IAI and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have signed a joint venture whereby IAI will not only offer UAVs to India, but also help HAL in manufacturing them in India." /4


-----------------

Christopher Clary
@clary_co
"Earlier this year, HAL signed [an MoU] with IAI to convert civil passenger aircraft into a multi-mission tanker transport for air refuelling with cargo & transport capabilities. The MoU also covers conversion of passenger planes into freighter aircraft." /end

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan Getting Bayraktar TB2 Drones Into Its Air Defense Network; Aims To Promote “Synergy” In Counter-Air Ops

https://eurasiantimes.com/pakistan-getting-bayraktar-tb2-drones-into-its-air-defense/


Pakistan Air Force is reportedly incorporating its newly acquired drones, including Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aircraft, within the nation’s air defense network.

According to Janes, the Southern Air Command of the PAF is integrating these newly acquired unmanned aerial vehicles into its air defense network. On September 28, Pakistan first showed off its Bayraktar TB2, a medium altitude long endurance (MALE), during an Air Force drill.

In March of this year, it was initially reported that Pakistan had acquired the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone to conduct assault and ISR operations. The number of drones delivered to Islamabad has not been made public by either side.

In late May, satellite images revealed the presence of one Bayraktar TB2 at PAF’s Murid Airbase. The exercise on September 28 was the first official documented usage of Pakistan’s Bayraktar TB2s.

According to a statement released by the PAF on September 28, the purpose of an operational air defense exercise was to promote “synergy” in counter-air operations. The PAF released a video of the drill, which featured two TB2s and at least three Leonardo Airborne and Space Systems Falco UAVs.


The PAF Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu, also reportedly visited an undisclosed operational airbase to evaluate how newly acquired UAS were incorporated into the PAF’s operational framework.

Pakistan is also believed to be acquiring the Akinci drone, “Raider,” in Turkish. The Akinci is a high-altitude, long-endurance UAV built as a successor to Turkey’s military’s primary tactical UAV, the TB2 Bayraktar.

Haluk Bayraktar, CEO of Baykar Technology, recently declared that his company would not sell drones to Pakistan’s fiercest adversary, India. He contended that providing weapons to both sides violates their company’s value that forbids “war profiteering.”

These advanced drones, which have demonstrated their effectiveness in Ukraine against the Russian forces, will provide Pakistan with a competitive advantage in the region.

The Turkish TB2 Drone
The Bayraktar TB2 is an unmanned combat aerial vehicle with a medium altitude and long endurance that can be remotely controlled.

Bayraktar’s astonishing performance over one of the world’s most powerful armies – Russia, has captured the world’s imagination. As a result, the demand for this drone has increased dramatically in the global market.

Earlier, Haluk Bayraktar revealed that his company had a three-year backlog of orders and could make roughly 20 Bayraktar TB2s per month. In addition, the Turkish firm has agreements to supply advanced Akinci drones to four nations, including Azerbaijan.

The monocoque design of the Bayraktar TB2 has an inverse v-tail structure. While the connection segments are precisely CNC-machined aluminum components, the fuselage comprises carbon fiber, Kevlar, and hybrid composite materials.

The engine is situated midway between the tail booms, and bladder tanks hold the fuel. The UAV is 6.5 meters long, has a wing span of 12 meters, and can carry 650 kilograms during takeoff.

The UAV is equipped with a triple redundant avionics system. An onboard avionics suite includes devices such as a microprocessor, engine control, servo motor power control, engine signal processing, I/O, and GPS receivers.

The sensor turret on Bayraktar has a laser designator, a night vision system, and an electro-optical camera. The drone’s laser designator can be pointed at a target once the operators have decided where to launch up to four Rocketsan MAM-C micro munitions.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan Getting Bayraktar TB2 Drones Into Its Air Defense Network; Aims To Promote “Synergy” In Counter-Air Ops

https://eurasiantimes.com/pakistan-getting-bayraktar-tb2-drones-into-its-air-defense/


The small, laser-guided glide bombs include thermobaric, high-explosive blast fragmentation, and armor-penetrating warheads. Although MAM-Cs are small, weighing only 48 pounds each, the operators can deploy them precisely where they want them, enhancing their efficacy.

The Bayraktar TB2 UAV is controlled by a ground control station placed on a NATO-spec ACE-III mobile shelter unit. The module incorporates consoles for the payload operator, the pilot, and the image exploitation.

The ground control station is provisioned with rack cabinets, an NBC filtration system, power supply units, wireless systems, an air conditioning unit, and internal communication systems.

The powertrain has a 100hp internal combustion engine driving a two-bladed variable pitch propeller. The tactical UAV can reach more than 150 kilometers and a maximum altitude of 27,030 feet.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan PM Sharif, Turkish President Erdogan jointly inaugurate new warship for Pakistani Navy - The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/pakistan-pm-sharif-turkish-president-erdogan-jointly-inaugurate-new-warship-for-pakistani-navy/article66188327.ece

In response to a question about increased defence cooperation between the two nations, Mr. Niazi noted: "Both militaries are continuously exchanging knowledge and expertise. Construction and upgradation projects such as 17,000 tonne Fleet Tanker, PN-MILGEM and Agosta 90B submarines, Super Mushak trainers, UAV drones, and so on are evidence of this strong friendship and military cooperation." Under the bilateral project, Turkey was tasked to build four corvette warships for the Pakistan Navy — two in Istanbul and two in Karachi.

The first corvette warship for the Pakistan Navy known as PNS Babar was launched in Istanbul in August 2021 while the foundation stone for the second ship PNS Badr was laid in Karachi in May 2022, another report on the inauguration ceremony by the Dawn newspaper said.

Mr. Sharif during the inauguration informed that the fourth warship would be delivered in February 2025.

The new warships have a length of 99 metres, a displacement capacity of 2,400 tonnes, and a speed of 29 nautical miles.

Riaz Haq said...

Turkey has unveiled its indigenously developed AESA radar that will be integrated into the F-16 fighter jets, among other manned and unmanned aircraft in the Turkish Air Force.

https://eurasiantimes.com/trailing-rafale-jets-turkey-develops-own-aesa-radar-for-its-f-16

The spokesperson for President Tayyip Erdogan recently announced that the process of the United States authorizing the sale of F-16 fighter jets to NATO member Turkey is progressing and could be completed in upcoming months.

However, Turkey seems to have taken upon itself the responsibility to upgrade its F-16 fleet with domestically built radars.

The president of Defense Industries, Ismail Demir, unveiled the new Aselsan AESA radar on November 10 and stated that the Turkish Air Force’s (TuAF) Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon combat aircraft, the Akinci unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), as well as the upcoming Turkish Fighter Experimental (TF-X)/National Combat Aircraft, will be retrofitted with the system.

“It is a radar project equivalent to the most advanced radars in the world at the moment,” Demir said at the event. While the F-16s have been in the Turkish fleet for decades, the delivery of Akinci UAV twin-engined UAV is just getting started. The TF-X/MMU is Turkey’s next-generation combat aircraft currently under development.

In March this year, a local Turkish portal informed that the F-16 active electronically scanned array [AESA] radar prototype developed by Aseslan was expected to be delivered by the end of this year. The report could not be corroborated at the time.

According to some sources, the development and integration of the AESA radar on the F-16 are one of the many upgrades in the modernization program undertaken by Turkey.

The single-seat C and twin-seat D variants of the F-16 are the cornerstones of the TuAF’s front-line combat aviation force. The domestic industry has conducted much of the upgrades on these fighters.

The need to upgrade the F-16 fighters becomes all the more important due to the growing might of the Hellenic Air Force with its acquisition of advanced fighter jets. Turkey remains locked in tensions with its Aegean Sea rival Greece, with the possibility of a spillover never being ruled out.

---

The RBE2 radar allows high levels of situational awareness with early detection and tracking of multiple targets, thus denying an aerial advantage to the enemy.

Speaking on a CNN Türk show, military editor and analyst Özay Şendir admitted that Greece is gaining a significant advantage with its new fighters.

Besides operating the advanced 4+ gen Rafales, Greece could also acquire the F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighter jets. It is only evident that Ankara is looking to add more teeth to its existing fighter fleet.

In June this year, the US Air Force and Northrop Grumman announced the conclusion of a significant modernization project that installed powerful new AN/APG-83 active electronically scanned array radars on 72 Air National Guard Block 30 F-16C Viper fighter jets.

At the time, it was informed these AESA radars, known as Scalable Agile Beam Radars or SABRs, were being ordered for hundreds more Air Force F-16s and other Vipers around the globe.

Announcing the breakthrough, Northrop Grumman’s Mark Rossi said, “It’s the closest thing an F-16 can get to F-35 performance within the limitations of the jet.”

Any AESA would be a significant improvement for Air Force F-16C/Ds and other Vipers around the world.

In general, AESA radars provide substantial advantages regarding target acquisition speed, the range at which threats and potential threats can be detected, and the precision and fidelity of the ensuing tracks, especially for smaller objects. They are significantly more reliable, resulting in more “up time” and better jamming resistance.

AESA radars are produced indigenously only by a handful of countries, and now, Turkey has joined the elite club. With the US sale still uncertain, Turkey seems alive to its challenges and is consistently taking upgrades to face the ensuing Greek threat.

Riaz Haq said...

The Turkish Drone That Changed the Nature of Warfare

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/16/the-turkish-drone-that-changed-the-nature-of-warfare

The TB2 has now carried out more than eight hundred strikes, in conflicts from North Africa to the Caucasus. The bombs it carries can adjust their trajectories in midair, and are so accurate that they can be delivered into an infantry trench. Military analysts had previously assumed that slow, low-flying drones would be of little use in conventional combat, but the TB2 can take out the anti-aircraft systems that are designed to destroy it. “This enabled a fairly significant operational revolution in how wars are being fought right now,” Rich Outzen, a former State Department specialist on Turkey, told me. “This probably happens once every thirty or forty years.”

Much of the drones’ battlefield experience has come against Russian equipment. Russia and Turkey have a complicated relationship: Russia is a key trading partner for Turkey, Turkey is a popular holiday destination for Russian tourists, and Russia is overseeing the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which, when completed, will supply a tenth of the country’s electricity. In 2017, Turkey angered its allies in natowhen it bought a Russian missile system, triggering U.S. sanctions. Still, both Turkey and Russia are seeking to restore their standings as world powers, and even before the war in Ukraine they were often in conflict.

In the Libyan civil war, Turkey and Russia backed opposing factions, and the TB2 faced off against Russia’s Pantsir-S1, an anti-aircraft system that shoots missiles at planes and can be mounted on a vehicle. At least nine Pantsirs were destroyed; so were at least twelve drones.

Another theatre opened in the Caucasus in 2020, when Azerbaijan attacked the ethnic-Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Last month, I met Robert Avetisyan, the Armenian representative to the United States from Nagorno-Karabakh, at a café in Glendale, California. Avetisyan told me, “During the first several days, Azerbaijan was not successful, in anything, until the Turkish generals took the joysticks.” Armenia has a security alliance with Russia, which provides most of its military equipment, some dating to the Soviet era. For six weeks, TB2 drones bombarded that equipment relentlessly; one independent analysis tallied more than five hundred targets destroyed, including tanks, artillery, and missile-defense systems. “We lost the air war,” Avetisyan said. TB2s also targeted Armenian troops, and footage of these strikes was shared by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense. A six-minute compilation of the videos, posted to YouTube midway through the war, shows dozens of variations on the same scene: Armenian soldiers, cowering in trenches or huddled around transport trucks, alerted to their impending death by the hiss of an incoming bomb before a blast sends their bodies hurtling through the air.

Riaz Haq said...

#Ukraine strikes #Russian air bases again with #drones, exposing #Russia's #air #defense vulnerability. Experts say it doesn't bode well for Russians' war fighting capability against #US, #NATO #drone https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/06/ukraine-drones-russian-airfield-attacks/

A drone strike attributed to Ukraine rocked an airfield inside Russia on Tuesday, demonstrating once again Ukraine’s ability to reach into Russian territory one day after its forces struck two other air bases hundreds of miles inside Russia.

The attacks have revealed major vulnerabilities in Russia’s air defenses and sent a signal to Moscow that its strategic assets far from the active combat zone are not off limits to the emboldened Ukrainian military.

Officials in the Russian city of Kursk, just north of Ukraine, said the Tuesday drone attack set an oil storage tank ablaze at an airfield.

The two airfields struck by drones on Monday — the Engels-2 base in the Saratov region and the Dyagilevo base in Ryazan, a few hours’ drive from Moscow — are home to jet bombers that can carry conventional missiles used to target Ukrainian infrastructure but can also carry nuclear weapons and normally serve as an important component of Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent.

Ukraine did not officially claim responsibility for the attacks and has been deliberately cryptic about its role in several explosions at strategically important Russian military sites in recent months.

But a senior Ukrainian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that all three attacks were carried out by Ukrainian drones.

“These were Ukrainian drones — very successful, very effective,” the official said of the strikes. The official added that the Russians have “sowed the seeds of anger, and they’ll reap the whirlwind.”

The Russian Defense Ministry blamed the Monday attacks on Kyiv but said the damage done was minimal.

Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine War Lessons For India: Big Wars Are Back, Terrorism Takes A Backseat

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/ukraine-war-lessons-for-india-big-wars-are-back-terrorism-takes-a-backseat-weekender_story-245921?prev

Defence analysts say that the two lessons from the Ukraine War are that, one, the big wars are back and terrorism has taken a backseat, and, two, the superiority of Western weapons is apparent from how Russian advances have been stalled by West-backed Ukraine.

When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it was supposed to be a short war to be ended in a few days with the capture of Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Now even after 11 months, the war is on and military strategists across the world are trying to draw lessons from it as the Ukraine War has transformed modern warfare.

Indian defense analysts say India has to learn a lot from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, ranging from whether to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield and when to use them and whether to be in an alliance or not. They agree that terrorism no longer is an issue in the great power game and it has become a side issue while the war assumed prime position.

Defense analyst Pravin Sawhney says the first lesson from the Russia-Ukraine war is that big wars are back.

“Contrary to the claims of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the era of the war is over, the reality is opposite of what Modi said — the big wars are back,” Sawhney tells Outlook.

Meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit (SCO Summit) in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand, Modi had told Putin, “I know that today’s era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this.”

Modi said democracy, diplomacy, and dialogue have kept the world together. Sawhney, whose latest book is The Last War: How AI Will Shape India’s Final Showdown With China, has been for long arguing that the Indian military is preparing for the wrong war. He says terrorism has taken a backseat in the great power game struggle and it is a side issue for the United States. The USA fought terrorism for 20 years but now it is not a major issue for them but the war is, says Sawhney.

He tells Outlook, “The war now will not be limited to battle space. It will be fought in the war zone and the whole nation could be a battle zone. We have seen cyberattacks, and we have seen Russians attack power stations and various other facilities. That is why I am saying wars will be fought all over the nation and communication will be a key issue as warring nations will try to keep their communication lines intact while disrupting the other.”

Sawhney says that Russia was the first to disrupt communication facilities in Ukraine. But later the arrival of Starlink satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX solved Ukraine’s communication problems. Starlink has been a vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.

“If Starlink would have not provided communication, Ukraine would have been blinded in the war. This happens when the fight is between two equal powers. Here it is between Russia and NATO, so when the fight is between two major powers, it will be protracted war,” Sawhney argues.

“Recently Indian Army Chief said long protracted wars are back. But we must understand that they are back between the two major powers not between the two countries having huge disparity,” argues Sawhney citing example of China and India. He says every country has major red lines and these red lines have to be identified. “NATO expansion was a red line for Russia and this red line was known to all.”

Similarly, Sawhney urges that there needs to be an understanding of what Sun Weidong, who was the Chinese Ambassador to India till recently and is the Vice Foreign Minister of China, stated in his last press conference in New Delhi. Sun Weidong made Chinese red lines known in that press conference and it is the One-China policy, says Sawhney.

Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine War Lessons For India: Big Wars Are Back, Terrorism Takes A Backseat

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/ukraine-war-lessons-for-india-big-wars-are-back-terrorism-takes-a-backseat-weekender_story-245921?prev


Fifty-six-year old Sun, who recently returned to Beijing after a stint of over three years in New Delhi, in his rare briefing in New Delhi had said that the India-China relationship was based on the “One China” principle and called on India to “reiterate” it. Earlier, the Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had called on all parties not to change the status quo over Taiwan, which appeared to be aimed at China for crossing the median line in recent military exercises.

“It is very clear that it is the US that has altered the status quo and undermined peace and stability. China’s measures are justified and legitimate,” Sun had said, referring to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

“The outgoing Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong made it clear that the foundation of India-China relations is on One China Policy. Since the Modi government came to power in India, it is not clear about One China Policy,” Sawhney adds.

He says another lesson for the Ukraine War is the extensive use of new technology like drones during the wars between major powers.

He adds, “It is applicable between Russia and NATO or between India and Pakistan but not between China and India as China has advanced cyber warfare capability.”

A month after the Russia-Ukraine War, Indian Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane in March had said the main lesson from the conflict was that India has to be ready to fight future wars with indigenous weapon systems.

“The biggest lesson is that we have to be ready to fight future wars with indigenous weapons and the steps towards Aatmanirbhar Bharat in defense should be taken more urgently. The wars of the future should be fought with our own weapon systems,” the then Army chief General Naravane said.

As the war in Ukraine has turned into a bloody stalemate with neither side possessing a decisive military advantage to achieve geopolitical objectives, many defense experts like Abhijit Iyer-Mitra say one has to see how Western weapons achieve their objective more quickly than Russian weapons and also how technology and willing to take risks has remodelled the war.

Mitra cites examples of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and achieving its objectives in 78 days and the NATO invasion of Iraq making Bagdad cave in early to point out the superiority of the western weapons.

He adds, “These wars and Ukraine War show initial victory with Western weapons happens very rapidly. The counter-insurgency is altogether a different matter that happened after the initial victories.”

Mitra argues that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has also shown “how obsolete Russian weapons are and how non-existent Russian intelligence has become.”

“An important lesson of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is one should have complete hold on the interpretation of imagery to target the adversary and if you are using Eastern weapons prepare for long-drawn war. The eastern weapons are effective but they require a lot of time. It is brutal and you have to be willing to accept deaths in thousands,” he adds.

Mitra says information warfare is another aspect that cannot be overlooked as at present the Ukraine-Russia conflict’s narrative has been completely captured by the Western media in general and the narratives have the ability to influence the morale of the troops and the nations fighting the war.

“In past wars between India and China or between Pakistan and India, infrastructure has not been targeted. They have been always military-to-military fights. But things started to change when Russia started targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure. You need to be willing to take out energy and all kinds of infrastructure to assist your troops.


Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine War Lessons For India: Big Wars Are Back, Terrorism Takes A Backseat

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/ukraine-war-lessons-for-india-big-wars-are-back-terrorism-takes-a-backseat-weekender_story-245921?prev


“You have to seriously start thinking when you are going to use nuclear weapons on a battlefield. You have to also weigh the cost of being outside an alliance while using nuclear weapons. Because of what Poland, Latvia, and Estonia can do, Ukraine cannot do. Being in an alliance gives you a certain kind of deterrence which you don’t get outside an alliance even if you have nuclear weapons. These are lessons the Russia-Ukraine conflict teaches us,” Mitra says.

However, Mitra was dismissive of Aatmanirbhar Bharat in the defense industry, though he says the main lesson India should learn from the Ukraine conflict is to be Aatmanirbhar — self-reliant.

He adds, “We have been hearing this argument Aatmanirbhar for the past 25 years. Nobody knows it as no one understands it. This was possible twenty years ago but not now when the gap is narrowing. Besides, there are a lot of western weapons you cannot indigenise.”

Riaz Haq said...

How the algorithm tipped the balance in Ukraine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/19/palantir-algorithm-data-ukraine-war/

by David Ignatius

KYIV — Two Ukrainian military officers peer at a laptop computer operated by a Ukrainian technician using software provided by the American technology company Palantir. On the screen are detailed digital maps of the battlefield at Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, overlaid with other targeting intelligence — most of it obtained from commercial satellites.

As we lean closer, we see can jagged trenches on the Bakhmut front, where Russian and Ukrainian forces are separated by a few hundred yards in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. A click of the computer mouse displays thermal images of Russian and Ukrainian artillery fire; another click shows a Russian tank marked with a “Z,” seen through a picket fence, an image uploaded by a Ukrainian spy on the ground.

If this were a working combat operations center, rather than a demonstration for a visiting journalist, the Ukrainian officers could use a targeting program to select a missile, artillery piece or armed drone to attack the Russian positions displayed on the screen. Then drones could confirm the strike, and a damage assessment would be fed back into the system.

This is the “wizard war” in the Ukraine conflict — a secret digital campaign that has never been reported before in detail — and it’s a big reason David is beating Goliath here. The Ukrainians are fusing their courageous fighting spirit with the most advanced intelligence and battle-management software ever seen in combat.

“Tenacity, will and harnessing the latest technology give the Ukrainians a decisive advantage,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told me last week. “We are witnessing the ways wars will be fought, and won, for years to come.”

I think Milley is right about the transformational effect of technology on the Ukraine battlefield. And for me, here’s the bottom line: With these systems aiding brave Ukrainian troops, the Russians probably cannot win this war.

“The power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems is now so great that it equates to having tactical nuclear weapons against an adversary with only conventional ones,” explains Alex Karp, chief executive of Palantir, in an email message. “The general public tends to underestimate this. Our adversaries no longer do.”

“For us, it’s a matter of survival,” argues “Stepan,” the senior Ukrainian officer in the Kyiv demonstration, who before the war designed software for a retail company. Now, he tells me bluntly, “Our goal is to maximize target acquisitions.” To protect his identity, he stripped his unit insignia and other markings from his camouflage uniform before he demonstrated the technology. (The names he and his colleague used were not their real ones; I agreed to their request to protect their security.)

“Lesya,” the other officer, was also a computer specialist in peacetime. As she looks at the imagery of the Russian invaders, on a day when their drones are savaging civilian targets in Odessa on Ukraine’s southern coast, she mutters a wish for revenge — and a hope that Ukraine will emerge from the war as a tech power. Although the Ukrainians now depend on technology help from America, she says, “by the end of the war, we will be selling software to Palantir.”

Riaz Haq said...

How the algorithm tipped the balance in Ukraine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/19/palantir-algorithm-data-ukraine-war/


A new deterrent
Kyiv was cold and snowy when I arrived just over a week ago. The power was out in some places. But the capital was relatively calm. There was a traffic jam entering the city on Friday. On Saturday night, restaurants were so packed it was impossible to get a reservation at one upscale spot.

As Ukraine moves toward the new year, the spirit of resistance and resilience is visible everywhere. Roadblocks have mostly disappeared. Children play near captured Russian tanks in St. Michael’s Square. Couples take walks in the park above the Dnieper River.

I visited here at year’s end to explore what I believe is the overriding lesson of this fight — and indeed, of the past several decades of war: A motivated partner like Ukraine can win if provided with the West’s unique technology. The Afghanistan army cracked in a day because it lacked the motivation to fight. But Ukraine — and, before it, the Syrian Kurdish fighters who crushed the Islamic State with U.S. help — has succeeded because it has both the weapons and the will.

I met with a senior team from Palantir that was visiting its Kyiv office. With the approval of Karp, the CEO, they agreed to show me some of the company’s technology close to the firing line. The result is a detailed look at what may prove to be a revolution in warfare — in which a software platform allows U.S. allies to use the ubiquitous, unstoppable sensors that surround every potential battlefield to create a truly lethal “kill chain.”

Palantir, which began its corporate life working with the CIA on counterterrorism tools, has many critics. That’s partly because its biggest funder, from the start, has been co-founder Peter Thiel, a successful tech investor who has also been a strong supporter of Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans. Karp, by contrast, has supported many Democratic candidates and causes.

The critics have argued that Palantir’s powerful software has been misused by government agencies to violate privacy or serve questionable ends. For example, The Post wrote in 2019 that Palantir’s software was used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help track undocumented immigrants, which led to protests from some of the company’s employees. Tech community activists have asked whether Palantir is too close to the U.S. government and can “see too much” with its tools.

Karp responded to criticism of the company in an email to me last week: “Silicon Valley screaming at us for over a decade did not make the world any less dangerous. We built software products that made America and its allies stronger — and we are proud of that.”

And Ukraine has shifted the political landscape in Silicon Valley. For Karp and many other technology CEOs, this is “the good war” that has led many companies to use their tools aggressively. This public-private partnership is one of the keys to Ukraine’s success. But it obscures many important questions: How dependent should countries be on entrepreneurs whose policy views could change? We can applaud the use of these tools in “good” wars, but what about bad ones? And what about private tools being turned against the governments that helped create them?

We’ll be struggling with these questions about technology and warfare for the rest of this century. But after spending weeks investigating the new tools developed by Palantir and other companies, the immediate takeaway for me is about deterrence — and not just in Ukraine. Given this revolution in technology, adversaries face a much tougher challenge in attacking, say, Taiwan than they might imagine. The message for China in this emerging digital battle space is: Think twice.

Riaz Haq said...

How the algorithm tipped the balance in Ukraine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/19/palantir-algorithm-data-ukraine-war/


A final essential link in this system is the mesh of broadband connectivity provided from overhead by Starlink’s array of roughly 2,500 satellites in low-earth orbit. The system, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, allows Ukrainian soldiers who want to upload intelligence or download targeting information to do so quickly.

In this wizard war, Ukraine has the upper hand. The Russians have tried to create their own electronic battlefield tools, too, but with little success. They have sought to use commercial satellite data, for example, and streaming videos from inexpensive Chinese drones. But they have had difficulty coordinating and sharing this data among units. And they lack the ability to connect with the Starlink array.

“The Russian army is not flexible,” Lesya, the Ukrainian officer, told me. She noted proudly that every Ukrainian battalion travels with its own software developer. Ukraine’s core advantage isn’t just the army’s will to fight, but also its technical prowess.

Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, listed some of the military tech systems that Ukraine has created on its own, in a response to my written questions. These include a secure chat system, called “eVorog,” that has allowed civilians to provide 453,000 reports since the war started; a 200-strong “Army of Drones” purchased from commercial vendors for use in air reconnaissance; and a battlefield mapping system called Delta that “contains the actual data in real time, so the military can plan their actions accordingly.”


The “X factor” in this war, if you will, is this Ukrainian high-tech edge and the ability of its forces to adapt rapidly. “This is the most technologically advanced war in human history,” argues Fedorov. “It’s quite different from everything that has been seen before.”

And that’s the central fact of the extraordinary drama the world has been watching since Russia invaded so recklessly last February. This is a triumph of man and machine, together.

Next: How “algorithmic warfare” evolved over the past decade — and some very human worries.

Riaz Haq said...

Opinion A ‘good’ war gave the algorithm its opening, but dangers lurk

By David Ignatius


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ukraine-war-russia-tech-battlefield/

NORTHEASTERN ENGLAND — To see the human face of the “algorithm war” being fought in Ukraine, visit a company of raw recruits during their five rushed weeks at a training camp here in Britain before they’re sent to the front in Ukraine.

They will soon have a battery of high-tech systems to aid them, but they must face the squalor of the trenches and the roar of unrelenting artillery fire alone. The digital battlefield has not supplanted the real one.

At the British camp, instructors have dug 300 yards of trenches across a frigid hillside. The trenches are 4 feet deep, girded with sandbags and planks, and slick with mud and water at the bottom. The Ukrainian recruits, who’ve never been in battle before, have to spend 48 hours in these hellholes. Sometimes, there’s simulated artillery fire overhead and rotting animal flesh nearby to prepare the trainees for the smell of death.

The recruits practice attacking the trenches and defending them. But mostly they learn to stay alive and as warm as they can, protecting their wet, freezing feet from rot and disease. “Nobody likes the trenches,” says Oleh, the Ukrainian officer who oversees the training with his British colleagues. (I’m not using his full name to respect concerns about his security.) “We tell them it will be easier in battle. If it’s hard now, that’s the goal.”

The paradox of the Ukraine conflict is that it combines the World War I nightmare of trench warfare with the most modern weapons of the 21st century.

“It’s hard to understand the brutality of contact in that front line. It’s Passchendaele in Donetsk,” explains Brigadier Justin Stenhouse, referring to one of the bloodiest battles of World War I. He oversees training for the British Ministry of Defense in Whitehall and arranged my visit to the training camp.

Silicon Valley Pentagon
The Ukraine war has fused the flesh-and-blood bravery of these Ukrainian troops on the ground with the stunning high-tech arsenal that I described in Part 1 of this report. The result is a revolution in warfare. This transformation, rarely discussed in the media, has been evolving for more than a decade. It shows the lethal ability of the United States and its allies to project power — and it also raises some vexing questions about how this power will be used.

One of the leading actors in this underreported revolution has been Palantir, which developed its software platform after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help the CIA integrate data that was often in different compartments and difficult to share. News reports have frequently said that Palantir software helped track al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but the company won’t confirm that.

The Pentagon’s use of these ultramodern tools was encouraged by a very old-fashioned commander, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the gruff and often profane chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When he was Army chief of staff in 2018, the service began working with Palantir and other tech companies to integrate data through a program called Army Vantage. Milley was frustrated by an antiquated data system that made it hard to gather details about what units were ready for battle. The Army, like so many government institutions, had too many separate repositories for information.

Palantir technicians showed me an unclassified version of the Army database they helped create to address that problem. You can see in an instant what units are ready, what skills and experience the soldiers in these units have, and what weapons and ammunition are available. Logistics problems like this once took weeks to solve; now there are answers in seconds.

“The U.S. military is focused on readiness today and readiness in the future,” Milley told me in an email last week. “In defense of our country, we’re pulling together a wide variety of technologies to remain number one, the most effective fighting force in the world.”

Riaz Haq said...

Opinion A ‘good’ war gave the algorithm its opening, but dangers lurk

By David Ignatius


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ukraine-war-russia-tech-battlefield/


The Army began testing ideas about algorithmic warfare with individual units around that time as well. The first choice was the elite 82nd Airborne, commanded in 2020 by Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue; it was part of the XVIII Airborne Corps, then headed by Lt. Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla. These two worked with Palantir and other companies to understand how the Army could use data more effectively.

Simultaneously, the Pentagon was exploring the use of artificial intelligence to analyze sensor data and identify targets. This effort was known as Project Maven, and it initially spawned a huge controversy when it was launched in 2017. The idea was to write algorithms that could recognize, say, a Russian T-72 tank in drone surveillance images in the same way that facial recognition scans can discern a human face.

The military’s AI partnership with Silicon Valley got off to a bad start. In 2018, engineers at Google, initially the leading contractor for Maven, protested so angrily about writing targeting algorithms that the company had to withdraw from the program.

Maven has evolved. It’s now supervised by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and it generates AI models on a fast, one-month cycle. A tech executive explained to me that companies now compete to develop the most accurate models for detecting weapons — tuning their algorithms to see that hypothetical T-72 under a snowy grove of fir trees, let’s say, rather than a swampy field of brush — and each month the government selects a new digital array.

For a Pentagon that usually buys weapons that have a 30-year life span, this monthly rollover of targeting software is a revolution in itself.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the U.S. Army had these tools in hand — and commanders with experience using them. Donahue had moved up to become head of the XVIII Airborne Corps, which transferred its forward headquarters to Wiesbaden, Germany, just after the Russian invasion. The 82nd Airborne moved to forward quarters near Rzeszow, Poland, near the Ukraine border.

Kurilla, meanwhile, became head of Central Command and began using that key theater as a test bed for new technologies. In October, Kurilla appointed Schuyler Moore, a former director of science and technology for the Defense Innovation Board, as Centcom’s first “chief technology officer.”

For the Army and other services, the impetus for this technology push isn’t just the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the looming challenge from China — America’s only real peer competitor in technology.

A tool for good and ill
In the age of algorithm warfare, when thinking machines will be so powerful, human judgment will become all the more important. Free societies have created potent technologies that, in the hands of good governments, can enable just outcomes, and not only in war. Ukrainian officials tell me they want to use Palantir software not just to repel the Russian invasion but also to repair Ukraine’s battered electrical grid, identify hidden corruption and manage the vast tasks of reconstruction.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation and vice prime minister, explained in written answers to my questions how he plans to use technology not just to beat Russia but also to become a high-tech superpower in the future.

Riaz Haq said...

Opinion A ‘good’ war gave the algorithm its opening, but dangers lurk

By David Ignatius


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ukraine-war-russia-tech-battlefield/

Fedorov said Ukraine is “massively” using software platforms “to deal with power shortages and in order to ensure telecom connection.” To repair electricity cutoffs and damaged energy infrastructure, the country uses Starlink terminals, Tesla Powerwall systems, and advanced generators and lithium batteries. It backs up all its important data on cloud servers.

“For sure, I’m convinced that technologies will also allow us to build a bright and safe future,” Fedorov said. “Only the newest technologies could give us such an advantage to run and create the country we deserve as fast as possible.”

But these technologies can also create 21st-century dystopias, in the wrong hands. The targeting algorithms that allow Ukraine to spot and destroy invading Russians aren’t all that different from the facial-recognition algorithms that help China repress its citizens. We’re lucky, in a sense, that these technologies are mostly developed in the West by private companies rather than state-owned ones.

But what if an entrepreneur decides to wage a private war? What if authoritarian movements gain control of democratic societies and use technology to advance control rather than freedom? What if AI advances eventually allow the algorithms themselves to take control, making decisions for reasons they can’t explain, at speeds that humans can’t match? Democratic societies need to be constantly vigilant about this technology.

The importance of the human factor is clear with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, who illustrates the strength — and potential weakness — of America’s new way of war. If Musk decides he isn’t being paid enough for his services, or if he thinks it’s time for Ukraine to compromise, he can simply cut the line to his satellites, as he briefly threatened this fall.

Riaz Haq said...

Opinion A ‘good’ war gave the algorithm its opening, but dangers lurk

By David Ignatius


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ukraine-war-russia-tech-battlefield/

Looking at the Ukraine war, we can see that our freewheeling entrepreneurial culture gives the West a big advantage over state-run autocracies such as China and Russia — so long as companies and CEOs share the same democratic values as Western governments. That’s why we need a broader public debate about the power of the technologies that are being put to noble use in Ukraine but could easily be turned to ignoble purposes in the wrong hands.

Ukraine, which has suffered so much in this war, wants to be a techno-superpower when the conflict finally ends. Fedorov, who’s overseeing Kyiv’s digital transformation, explains it this way: “Let’s plan to turn Ukraine into the world’s ‘mil-tech valley,’ to develop the most innovative security solutions, so the world will become a safer and more digital place.”


But first, the Ukrainians freezing in the filthy trenches will need to prevail.

Lt. Col. Harris, the commander of the camp in northeastern England, says he’s humbled amid the recruits there. Through five combat tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, though, he knows he has never faced anything as horrifying as many of them will see in a month or two.

On the firing range, 10 Ukrainian recruits squeeze off shots from their AK-47s. They’re on the second day of live-fire exercises, with eight more to come. They’re accountants, cooks and college students; some unsteady with their weapons, others newly bold. As they take aim at targets 50 feet away, a British sergeant commanding the range barks at them through an interpreter: “You need to kill the enemy before he kills you.”

And it’s as simple as that. This is a war of survival for Ukraine. But it should comfort the recruits that whatever their misery in coming months, they will have a level of technological support beyond anything the world has seen.

Riaz Haq said...

North Korea, Iran, Pakistan: Secret arms suppliers keep war in Ukraine going

Russia and Ukraine are seeking to replenish their stocks by any means, including deals shrouded in secrecy.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/09/07/north-korea-iran-pakistan-secret-arms-suppliers-keep-the-war-in-ukraine-going_5996095_4.html

This is an unexpected consequence of the so-called high-intensity war that Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in since February 24, when Vladimir Putin launched his "special military operation." Both sides are engaged in attrition warfare, which Europe has not seen since World War II, and are now short on some equipment. According to the Western military and intelligence services, they are no longer hesitating to call upon countries such as North Korea, Iran and Pakistan to replenish their armories.

According to information declassified by Washington and revealed on Tuesday, September 6 by the New York Times, Russia is buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea to supply its troops in Ukraine. While no evidence or details were given regarding the materials supplied, Pyongyang is capable of manufacturing 152mm shells, one of the calibers used by Russian forces, as well as projectiles for TOS-1 multiple rocket launchers, which have been reported on the Ukrainian front.

In mid-July, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also said that Washington had information that Tehran "is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred [drones] on an expedited timeline." "Russian transport aircraft loaded the [drones] at an airfield in Iran and subsequently flew from Iran to Russia over several days in August," confirmed Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder on August 30.

According to military experts, the devices sent by Tehran could be ground attack drones, in particular the Shahed-129, a machine that can fly for up to 24 hours at a time and is considered to be a competitor to the American Predator. They could also include the Mohajer-6, a smaller drone capable of carrying up to four munitions. According to the US Department of Defense, these drones have probably not yet been sent to the front lines and could have "numerous failures," which the Russians would try to resolve. In fact, no images have yet surfaced showing these devices in action over Ukrainian soil.

Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine Says Makiivka HIMARS Attack Killed 400 Russians: 'Absolute Carnage'


https://www.newsweek.com/himars-attack-ukraine-makiivka-russia-new-years-eve-100-russians-1770671


The Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Makiivka has suffered a major attack that resulted in multiple casualties, according to reports.

The Moscow-installed administration of Ukraine's Donetsk region said that at least 25 rockets were fired by Ukrainian forces at the region overnight on New Year's Eve, according to a Reuters report.

Russia's state news agency TASS, said the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has confirmed that 63 servicemen died as a result of the attack.

However, Ukrainian media estimates have put Russia's losses in the hundreds.

Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian online newspaper, said the strike killed 400 soldiers with an additional 300 wounded.

The report cited Department of Strategic Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (StratCom) for the figure.

Newsweek has not been able to independently confirm the number of Russian casualties.


Ukrainian-American journalist Viktor Kovalenko shared a screenshot from a video that has gone viral that allegedly shows the aftermath of the attack on Makivvka.

Kovalenko wrote: "Ukraine Armed Forces claim that in the new year's night, 400 newly arrived Rus. mobilized men from Saratov were killed and 300 wounded as a result of a HIMARS strike on Makiivka trade school #19 in the Donbas region of Ukraine where they headquartered and watched Putin's NY greeting."

The viral video, which was posted on Telegram by user Horevica, began circulating on Twitter on January 1. It has since been viewed more than 210,000 times.

Posted by Twitter user Tendar, the caption read: "The Russian base in Makiivka is but dust.

"HIMARS have delivered absolute carnage. An expected response for the Russian Shahed terror attacks on New Years Eve and the newest reminder that no matter where Russians position themselves, they are not safe."

Former Russian military commander Igor Girkin took to Telegram to say that more than 200 Russians had been killed in the strike and many more may be buried in rubble.

Dmitri of the War Translated project, an independent project concerned with translating various materials about the war, tweeted Girkin's Telegram posts.

He captioned the images: "Girkin on Makiivka incident—hundreds of victims, many still under the rubble. The building where they were housed also contained an ammunition cache and vehicle storage, which is why the strike was so deadly.

In recent days, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has been keen to highlight an increase in Russian casualties.

On Sunday, the department said that the previous day's toll of Russian soldiers killed was 760, which is significantly more than the typical daily average of less than 600.

On Saturday the Defense Ministry said that 710 Russians had been killed, bringing the two-day total for Russian dead to 1470.

Since the start of the war, Russia has lost an estimated 106,720 soldiers, according to Ukraine.

Since February 2022, when Russia launched its invasion, Ukraine's Defense Ministry has been releasing figures regarding Russian losses.

These have regularly been higher than the official figures the Kremlin has provided.


Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine war impacts spare parts supply for Indian military: Army chief

https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2023/01/12/ukraine-war-impacts-spare-parts-supply-for-indian-military-army-chief/

India’s army chief said Thursday the war in Ukraine has impacted the supply of spare parts for India’s military.

Gen. Manoj Pande made his comments to reporters while discussing the border situation with China, which he described as stable but unpredictable. The two countries remain in a nearly two-and-a-half-year standoff in the eastern Ladakh area. He added that the countries were continuing to talk both at the diplomatic and military levels, and that India’s military maintains a high level of preparedness.

“The sustenance of these weapons systems — equipment in terms of spares, in term of ammunition — is one issue that we have addressed,” Pande said, without providing more details.

“We have adequate forces. We have adequate reserves in each of our sectors to be able to effectively deal with any situation or contingency,” he added.

Experts say up to 60% of Indian defense equipment comes from Russia, and New Delhi finds itself in a bind amid the standoff with China over a territorial dispute. Twenty Indian troops and four Chinese soldiers died in a clash in 2020.

The Times of India newspaper reported Thursday that India is having problems transporting back one of its diesel-run submarines after a major refit in Russia, which was hit with sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometers (14,672 square miles) of its territory in the Aksai Chin plateau, which India considers part of Ladakh, where the current faceoff is happening.

India says any unilateral change in the border status quo by Beijing is unacceptable.

The Line of Actual Control separates Chinese- and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China fought a deadly war over the border in 1962.

Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine gets its tanks: Poland sending Leopard 2, and other nations may follow
“A company of Leopard tanks for Ukraine will be transferred as part of building an international coalition,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a Jan 11 social media post. “Such a decision [has] already [been taken] in Poland."



https://breakingdefense.com/2023/01/ukraine-gets-its-tanks-poland-sending-leopard-2-and-other-nations-may-follow/

The supply of the main battle tanks arrives as Ukraine looks to mount a spring counteroffensive to reclaim territories lost to Russia and ahead of a new Ramstein Ukraine contact group meeting on Jan. 20 where Western leaders could agree on additional Leopards being transferred, potentially alongside US Stryker armored protection vehicles.

“The Leopard 2 supply will give Ukraine access to a suite of vehicles they haven’t had access to since the war with Russia started and by all accounts will be very effective against Russian armor,” said Ed Arnold Research Fellow for European Security at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute.

The Leopard 2 A4 variant is equipped with a 120 mm smoothbore cannon, fire control computer and offers a range of 450km, according to manufacturer KMW. Warsaw signed off on a A4 upgrade effort in December 2015.

Arnold added that the operational impact of the Leopard tanks will depend on how many are delivered.

“It’s a very logical step to focus on the Leopard because there are far more of them in use across Europe compared to [other main battle tanks like the British Army’s] Challenger 2,” a reference to reports this week linking the UK to a potential new agreement to send those vehicles to Kyiv.

“The Government has committed to match or exceed last year’s funding for military aid to Ukraine in 2023, and we will continue to build on recent donations with training and further gifting of equipment,” said a UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson in a statement, declining to comment on Challenger 2 specifically.

At a capability level the Leopard 2 will offer Ukraine greater firepower, greater mobility and better protection from enemy fires supported by more modern countermeasures that Ukraine has been predominately relying on with the Soviet-era T-72 tanks, according to Arnold.

That considered, underfunding by the Bundeswehr and different standards among export customers mean that many Leopards lack the protection, weapon, and electronics upgrades of the latest version, the A7+.

Fielding the Leopard through a common logistics supply chain appears to be feasible because of how many European operators use the tanks, but a number of drawbacks include their size as they are considered relatively easy to spot from distance, require more fuel, and need a crew of four, one more than the T-72. Perhaps most problematic of all, at 55-plus metric tons, they are too heavy to safely cross many Ukrainian bridges.

In 2015, Ukrainian transportation authorities banned vehicles over 44 metric tons (49 US tons) citing potential damage to bridges and highways, an issue that could prove troublesome in terms of leading to excessive training for Ukrainian tank crews, commanders, staff planning, supply units, and maintenance on the Leopard 2, once deliveries have been made.

Riaz Haq said...

Christopher Clary
@clary_co
"The IAF... informed the parliamentary panel that the Russia-Ukraine war affected its supplies so much that it slashed its projected capital expenditure... for the financial year ending March 31, 2024, by nearly a 3rd compared to the previous fiscal year."

https://twitter.com/clary_co/status/1638909910179037186?s=20

-----------------

NEW DELHI, March 23 (Reuters) - Russia is unable to deliver vital defence supplies it had committed to India's military because of the war in Ukraine, the Indian Air Force (IAF) says.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-cannot-meet-arms-delivery-commitments-because-war-indian-air-force-says-2023-03-23/

New Delhi has been worried that Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 could affect military supplies from India's largest source of defence equipment. The IAF statement is the first official confirmation of such shortfalls.

The IAF statement was made to a parliamentiary committee, which published it on its website on Tuesday. An IAF representative told the panel Russia had planned a "major delivery" this year that will not take place.

A spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in New Delhi said: "We don’t have information which may confirm the stated."

There was no immediate response from Rosoboronexport, which is the Russian government's weapons export arm.

The report does not mention specifics of the delivery.

The biggest ongoing delivery is the S-400 Triumf air defence system units India bought in 2018 for $5.4 billion. Three of these systems have been delivered and two more are awaited.

IAF also depends on Russia for spares for its Su-30MKI and MiG-29 fighter jets, the mainstay of the service branch.

Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, has been India’s main source of arms and defence equipment for decades.

Russia accounted for $8.5 billion of the $18.3 billion India has spent on arms imports since 2017, according to the latest data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Over the past two decades, New Delhi has sought to reduce its dependence on Moscow and looked westward towards France, the United States and Israel.

It is also pushing Indian companies to produce more at home in collaboration with global players.

The IAF also informed the parliamentary panel that the Russia-Ukraine war affected its supplies so much that it slashed its projected capital expenditure on modernisation for the financial year ending March 31, 2024, by nearly a third compared to the previous fiscal year.

The air force had projected a capital expenditure of 853 billion rupees ($10.38 billion) for fiscal 2022-23 and cut it to 588 billion rupees ($7.15 billion) in the national budget presented in February.

Riaz Haq said...

#China Defense Minister Wants to ‘deepen and expand’ #military ties with #Pakistan for mutual interests and to jointly protect regional #peace and #stability. “China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners and close friends...no matter how the international situation changes, China always gives Pakistan priority" https://aje.io/78u6aw via @AJEnglish

China says it will work with Pakistan’s military to “further deepen and expand” the two nations’ mutual interests and jointly protect regional peace and stability.

A statement by the Chinese defence ministry on Wednesday said Zhang Youxia, the vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, made the comments during his meeting with Pakistan’s army chief, General Syed Asim Munir, who is on his maiden visit to Beijing.

“Noting that China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners and close friends, Zhang said that no matter how the international situation changes, China always gives Pakistan priority in its neighbourhood diplomacy,” said the statement.

Another statement released by the Pakistan army’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said Munir was given a warm welcome and presented with a guard of honour upon his arrival at the People’s Liberation Army headquarters in Beijing on Wednesday.

“Matters of mutual security interests and military cooperation were discussed. Both military commanders reiterated the need for maintaining peace and stability in the region and enhancing military to military cooperation,” the Pakistani statement said.

The ISPR said Munir will hold further meetings with military officials in China to enhance the “longstanding relations between the two militaries” during his four-day visit.

Muhammad Faisal, an Islamabad-based foreign policy analyst and close observer of Pakistan-China ties, told Al Jazeera Munir’s visit is crucial as it comes amid political, economic and security crises in Pakistan.

“Of late, Pakistan’s dependency on China for economic stability and regional security coordination has grown in the face of financial challenges, renewed threat of terrorism and India-centric challenges,” he said.

Pakistan and China have ongoing border disputes with India, threatening regional security.

Munir’s predecessor General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited China two months before his retirement in November last year. That month also saw Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif making a trip to Beijing and meeting President Xi Jinping.

China has invested $60bn in the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project and is Pakistan’s key economic and defence partner.


The South Asian country owes nearly $30bn – 23 percent of its total debt – to China.

As Islamabad struggles to resume a much-needed $1.1bn loan programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it has sought help from its allies, mainly China, to roll over some of its existing loans.

Analyst Faisal said while the Pakistani military remains engaged with China on regional security, economy has also taken over as a central agenda in the meetings between the military commanders of the two nations.

“This is a new development and indicates that Chinese military is closely following Pakistan’s economic challenges,” he told Al Jazeera.

As China continues to help Pakistan economically, the last few years saw multiple attacks on Chinese nationals and facilities carried out by the armed groups in Pakistan.

Earlier this month, a Chinese national working at a hydropower plant being constructed by a Chinese company in northern Pakistan was accused of blasphemy – a sensitive issue in Muslim-majority Pakistan.

The Chinese man is currently in a two-week judicial custody which ends on May 2.

Two years ago, 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals working at the same hydropower project, were killed in an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP.

Riaz Haq said...

Chinese shipyard delivers final two Type 054 A/P frigates to Pakistan Navy - Naval News

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/05/chinese-shipyard-delivers-final-two-type-054-a-p-frigates-to-pakistan-navy/

On May 10, 2022, China's Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard delivered the final two Type 054A/P frigates to the Pakistan Navy with a ceremony held in Shangai, China.


----------

The contract for four multi-role frigates (Type 054-A/P) for Pakistan Navy was signed between Pakistan and China in 2018. The first and second ships PNS TUGHRIL and PNS TAIMUR joined the PN fleet in 2022. The development of these state-of-the-art naval units for the Pakistan Navy is hinged upon modern stealth design with the capability to simultaneously engage in multiple naval operations to counter maritime threats. The 4000 tons frigates are technologically advanced and highly capable platforms having enormous surface-to-surface, land attack, surface-to-air and underwater firepower coupled with extensive surveillance potential. These ships will provide deterrence and mean for averting threats in our region while contributing towards the protection of Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCS).



--------

The Type 054A is a multi-role frigate and is recognized as the backbone of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) fleet of surface combatants with 30 vessels in commission. They have a length of 134 meters, a beam of 16 meters for a displacement of 4,000 tons. They have a crew complement of 165 sailors and are fitted with:

a H/PJ-26 76mm main gun
2×4 CM302 anti-ship missiles
32x VLS cells for HQ-16 surface-to-air missiles
2x Type 730 30mm CIWS
2x Triple Torpedo launchers
In PLAN service, those frigates feature a Type 382 radar which shares a close resemblance with the Russian MR-710 Fregat radar. Unlike the Pakistan Navy variant – whose first ship-in-class is fitted with an SR2410C radar – the Type 054A in Chinese Navy service does not feature a long-range/metric wave radar.

Riaz Haq said...

The future of war: A special report


https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08

Big wars are tragedies for the people and countries that fight them. They also transform how the world prepares for conflict, with momentous consequences for global security. Britain, France and Germany sent observers to the American civil war to study battles like Gettysburg. The tank duels of the Yom Kippur war in 1973 accelerated the shift of America’s army from the force that lost in Vietnam to the one that thumped Iraq in 1991. That campaign, in turn, led China’s leaders to rebuild the People’s Liberation Army into the formidable force it is today.

The war in Ukraine is the largest in Europe since 1945. It will shape the understanding of combat for decades to come. It has shattered any illusions that modern conflict might be limited to counterinsurgency campaigns or evolve towards low-casualty struggles in cyberspace. Instead it points to a new kind of high-intensity war that combines cutting-edge tech with industrial-scale killing and munitions consumption, even as it draws in civilians, allies and private firms. You can be sure that autocratic regimes are studying how to get an edge in any coming conflict. Rather than recoiling from the death and destruction, liberal societies must recognise that wars between industrialised economies are an all-too-real prospect—and start to prepare.



As our special report explains, Ukraine’s killing fields hold three big lessons. The first is that the battlefield is becoming transparent. Forget binoculars or maps; think of all-seeing sensors on satellites and fleets of drones. Cheap and ubiquitous, they yield data for processing by ever-improving algorithms that can pick out needles from haystacks: the mobile signal of a Russian general, say, or the outline of a camouflaged tank. This information can then be relayed by satellites to the lowliest soldier at the front, or used to aim artillery and rockets with unprecedented precision and range.

This quality of hyper-transparency means that future wars will hinge on reconnaissance. The priorities will be to detect the enemy first, before they spot you; to blind their sensors, whether drones or satellites; and to disrupt their means of sending data across the battlefield, whether through cyber-attacks, electronic warfare or old-fashioned explosives. Troops will have to develop new ways of fighting, relying on mobility, dispersal, concealment and deception. Big armies that fail to invest in new technologies or to develop new doctrines will be overwhelmed by smaller ones that do.

Even in the age of artificial intelligence, the second lesson is that war may still involve an immense physical mass of hundreds of thousands of humans, and millions of machines and munitions. Casualties in Ukraine have been severe: the ability to see targets and hit them precisely sends the body-count soaring. To adapt, troops have shifted mountains of mud to dig trenches worthy of Verdun or Passchendaele. The consumption of munitions and equipment is staggering: Russia has fired 10m shells in a year. Ukraine loses 10,000 drones per month. It is asking its allies for old-school cluster munitions to help its counter-offensive.



Eventually, technology may change how this requirement for physical “mass” is met and maintained. On June 30th General Mark Milley, America’s most senior soldier, predicted that a third of advanced armed forces would be robotic in 10-15 years’ time: think of pilotless air forces and crewless tanks. Yet armies need to be able to fight in this decade as well as the next one. That means replenishing stockpiles to prepare for high attrition rates, creating the industrial capacity to manufacture hardware at far greater scale and ensuring that armies have reserves of manpower. A nato summit on July 11th and 12th will be a test of whether Western countries can continue to reinvigorate their alliance to these ends.

Riaz Haq said...

The future of war: A special report


https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2023-07-08


The third lesson—one that also applied for much of the 20th century—is that the boundary of a big war is wide and indistinct. The West’s conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq were fought by small professional armies and imposed a light burden on civilians at home (but often lots of misery on local people). In Ukraine civilians have been sucked into the war as victims—over 9,000 have died—but also participants: a provincial grandmother can help guide artillery fire through a smartphone app. And beyond the old defence-industrial complex, a new cohort of private firms has proved crucial. Ukraine’s battlefield software is hosted on big tech’s cloud servers abroad; Finnish firms provide targeting data and American ones satellite comms. A network of allies, with different levels of commitment, has helped supply Ukraine and enforce sanctions and an embargo on Russian trade.

New boundaries create fresh problems. The growing participation of civilians raises legal and ethical questions. Private companies located outside the physical conflict zone may be subject to virtual or armed attack. As new firms become involved, governments need to ensure that no company is a single point of failure.

No two wars are the same. A fight between India and China may take place on the rooftop of the world. A Sino-American clash over Taiwan would feature more air and naval power, long-range missiles and disruptions to trade. The mutual threat of nuclear use has probably acted to limit escalation in Ukraine: nato has not directly engaged a nuclear-armed enemy and Russia’s threats have been bluster so far. But in a fight over Taiwan, America and China would be tempted to attack each other in space, which could lead to nuclear escalation, especially if early-warning and command-and-control satellites were disabled.

Silicon Valley and the Somme
For liberal societies the temptation is to step back from the horrors of Ukraine, and from the vast cost and effort of modernising their armed forces. Yet they cannot assume that such a conflict, between large industrialised economies, will be a one-off event. An autocratic and unstable Russia may pose a threat to the West for decades to come. China’s rising military clout is a destabilising factor in Asia, and a global resurgence of autocracy could make conflicts more likely. Armies that do not learn the lessons of the new kind of industrial war on display in Ukraine risk losing to those that do. ■


Riaz Haq said...

US holds title for world's most powerful military, Pakistan ranks 7th, Where does India stand?

https://www.livemint.com/news/world/us-holds-title-for-worlds-most-powerful-military-pakistan-ranks-7th-where-does-india-stand-11689136456322.html

Pakistan has entered the top 10 of the most powerful militaries in the world, securing the seventh spot. Japan and France have dropped to eighth and ninth respectively. The United States, Russia, and China remain the top three.

According to Global Firepower, a prominent data website specializing in defence-related information, the United States possesses the most powerful military force worldwide.

Russia and China follow closely in second and third place, respectively, while India secures the fourth position. The recently released 2023 Military Strength list, which evaluates over 60 factors, also highlights nations with comparatively weaker military forces such as Bhutan and Iceland.

The assessment by Global Firepower takes into account various criteria, including the number of military units, financial resources, logistical capabilities, and geographical considerations, to determine each nation's overall score.

"Our unique, in-house formula allows for smaller (and) more technologically-advanced nations to compete with larger (and) lesser-developed powers… special modifiers, in the form of bonuses and penalties, are applied to further refine the list which is compiled annually. Trends do not necessarily indicate a declining power as changes to the GFP formula can also account for this."

The report lists 145 countries and also compares each nation's year-on-year ranking changes.

Here are the 10 nations with the most powerful militaries in the world:

United States

Russia

China

India

United Kingdom

South Korea

Pakistan

Japan

France

Italy

Here are the 10 nations with the least powerful militaries in the world:

Bhutan

Benin

Moldova

Somalia

Liberia

Suriname

Belize

Central African Republic

Iceland

Sierra Leone

The top four nations remain as they were in the 2022 Global Firepower list.

In a shift from the previous year's rankings, the United Kingdom has advanced from eighth to fifth place in terms of military strength. South Korea retains its sixth position from last year.

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1678023296833720322?s=20

Notably, Pakistan has entered the top 10, securing the seventh spot. Conversely, Japan and France, which held the fifth and seventh positions respectively last year, have dropped to eighth and ninth this year.

Despite ongoing conflicts and Russia's "special operation" invasion of Ukraine in February of the previous year, Russia maintains its second position. The rankings reflect the evolving dynamics and complexities of global military capabilities and highlight the continuous assessment of various factors influencing military strength.

Riaz Haq said...

The Future of War Has Come in Ukraine: Drone Swarms

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-future-of-war-has-come-in-ukraine-drone-swarms-kamikaze-kyiv-31dd19d7

By Eric Schmidt

The innovations that have led to Kyiv’s remarkable successes against Russia will change combat dramatically.

Kramatorsk, Ukraine

My most recent trip to Ukraine revealed a burgeoning military reality: The future of war will be dictated and waged by drones.

Amid a front line covering 600 miles, the Ukrainian counteroffensive faces a formidable Russian force, as it tries to break through to the Azov Sea and stop the Russian overland supply line to Crimea. Between the two armies, there are at least 3 miles of heavily mined territory followed by rows of concrete antitank obstacles, with artillery pieces hidden in nearby forests. The Russian military has amassed so much artillery and ammunition that it can afford to fire 50,000 rounds a day—an order of magnitude more than Ukraine.

Traditional military doctrine suggests that an advancing force should have air superiority and a 3-to-1 advantage in soldiers to make steady progress against a dug-in opponent. Ukrainians have neither. That they’ve succeeded anyway is owing to their ability to adopt and adapt new technologies such as drones.

Drones extend the Ukrainian infantry’s limited reach. Reconnaissance drones keep soldiers safe, constantly monitoring Russian attacks and providing feedback to correct artillery targeting. During the daytime, they fly over enemy lines to identify targets; at night, they return with payloads.

Unfortunately, Russia has picked up these tactics, too. Behind the initial minefields and trenches blocking Kyiv’s advance, there’s a more heavily defended line. If courageous Ukrainians make it there, Russian soldiers will send in drones and artillery. All the while Russia’s army—which excels at jamming and GPS spoofing—is working to take out Ukrainian drones. A May report from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies estimated that Ukraine was losing as many as 10,000 a month even before the start of the counteroffensive.

Yet Ukraine has continually out-innovated the enemy. Its latest drone models can prevent jamming, operate without GPS guidance and drop guided bombs on moving targets. Ukrainian command centers use personal computers and open-source software to classify targets and execute operations.

Ukraine has also pioneered a more effective model of decentralized military operations that makes its tech use varied and quickly evolving. In the war’s early stages, Ukraine’s government put the new Digital Ministry in charge of drone procurement but left important decision making to smaller units. While the ministry sets standards and purchases drones, the brigades are empowered to choose and operate them. Ten programmers can change the way thousands of soldiers operate. One brigade I visited independently designed its own multilayered visual planning system, which coordinates units’ actions.

To win this war, Ukraine needs to rethink 100 years of traditional military tactics focused on trenches, mortars and artillery. But the innovations it and Russia make will carry on far beyond this particular conflict.

Perhaps the most important is the kamikaze drone. Deployed in volume, this first-person-view drone—invented for the sport of drone racing—is cheaper than a mortar round and more accurate than artillery fire. Kamikaze drones cost around $400 and can carry up to 3 pounds of explosives. In the hands of a skilled operator with several months of training, these drones fly so fast they are nearly impossible to shoot down.

Riaz Haq said...

Why Is Ukraine's Foreign Minister Visiting Pakistan?


https://globelynews.com/europe/ukraine-foreign-minister-visit-pakistan/


Ukraine Arms Likely on Agenda
Pakistan, like many non-Western countries, says it’s adopted a neutral position in the Russia-Ukraine war. But, compared to other countries in the Global South, it’s an outlier in one big way: it’s been providing Ukraine with weapons. Nothing fancy — mainly artillery shells — but Kyiv is burning through massive amounts of firepower and will take ammunition from wherever it can get it. (The U.S. decision to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs makes the coalition’s desperation clear.)

Kuleba — who may be joined by Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov — could ask for more arms during his visit, though that won’t be mentioned in any readout or local press reports.

The reason? Pakistan has yet to publicly acknowledge that it’s been providing Ukraine with arms. The weapons transfers have been covert, taking place indirectly through other European partners. The behind-the-scenes relationship was, however, acknowledged months ago by a European Union (EU) official in a television interview.

India AWOL on Ukraine
It does not appear that Kuleba will stop by New Delhi on this trip. Strikingly, Ukraine’s diplomatic engagement with India is taking place at a lower level. Emine Dzhaparova, the Ukrainian first deputy foreign minister, visited New Delhi in April. And last week, a mid-level Indian diplomat paid a visit to Ukraine.

India, whose leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made recent state visits to France and the United States — continues to remain an ally of Russia and has emerged as a major importer of Russian oil.

India is using its leadership of the G-20 this year to pronounce its rise as a global power. But it’s been absent when it comes to the biggest war Europe has seen since World War Two, seeing it as a sideshow. Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has been dismissive of the Ukraine war, calling it one of “Europe’s problems.”

For his part, Kuleba has harshly criticized New Delhi for its import of Russian oil. He said last August, “Every barrel of Russian crude oil delivered to India has a good portion of Ukrainian blood in it.” Months later, he said India was “benefit[ting] from our suffering,” and called on New Delhi to play a more diplomatic role in the war.

Insurance for the Pakistan Army
Though Kuleba’s visit to Islamabad was requested by Kyiv, it is important for Pakistan — especially its powerful army, which is behind the secret provision of arms to Ukraine. The Pakistan Army has been given a cold shoulder by Washington in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. By arming Ukraine, Pakistan is sending a message to Western powers courting India: we can still be useful to you.

The Pakistan Army is also under criticism domestically and internationally for its crackdown on the party of ex-cricketer Imran Khan.

Pakistani intelligence services have been forcing defections from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) party after violence targeting military installations that followed the violent arrest of the ex-cricketer by paramilitary forces on May 9.

This month, EU Ambassador to Pakistan Riina Kionka said that “the crackdown on PTI and supporters in the aftermath of May 9th is certainly something that we’re paying a lot of attention to.” Khan and others who remain with PTI could be tried under military courts.

-----------

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan–Ukraine_relations

Dr. Riina Kionka, European Union's ambassador to Pakistan, in an interview with local media in Pakistan on 21 February 2023 said that Pakistan has been helping Ukraine in its protracted conflict with Russia by sending military and humanitarian aid.[24]

Riaz Haq said...

Indian view of Pakistan Navy Modernization

https://thediplomat.com/2023/07/china-is-helping-modernize-the-pakistan-navy-what-does-that-mean-for-india/

by Guarav Sen

Pakistan has been proactively procuring technologically advanced naval vessels from China, headlined by a $5 billion deal signed in 2016 for Pakistan to acquire Yuan class Type 039/041 diesel submarines by 2028. Pakistan is all set to acquire eight such submarines from China, with four of them scheduled for delivery by the end of 2023. The first four subs are being built by China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation; the other four will be built in Pakistan by Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works, further bolstering Pakistan’s indigenous capabilities.

These submarines are equipped with advanced sensors and modern armaments, which tilts the tactical power balance slightly in favor of Pakistan. These diesel attack submarines align with the Pakistan Navy’s offensive sea denial strategy, which prioritizes the use of submarines and missile-carrying maritime patrol aircraft in naval warfare.

Apart from this, Pakistan is also expanding its surface fleet. It has commissioned Zulfiqar-class frigates, based on China’s Type 053H3 vessels, which serve multiple roles, including anti-submarine warfare. It carries YJ-82 missiles for anti-surface warfare and FM-90N short-range surface-to-air missiles for self-defense.

In January 2022, the Pakistan Navy commissioned its most advanced vessel, the guided missile frigate Tughril. The Tughril is the first of four powerful Type 054A/P frigates being built in Shanghai for the Pakistan Navy. The vessel is armed with surface-to-air missiles and supersonic surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs), is a versatile warship capable of undertaking multiple missions. The second such vessel, the Taimur, was commissioned in June 2022.

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While the Tughril-class frigates represent a significant addition to Pakistan’s surface fleet, they do not pose a credible deterrent against the Indian Navy’s superior capabilities and numerical advantage. But still, India needs to monitor Pakistan’s shift toward power projection in the IOR. The addition of these advanced frigates enhances the Pakistan Navy’s capability to operate in distant waters, which is demonstrated by its ability to conduct joint drills with China’s navy in the East China Sea this year.

Besides China, Turkey is also playing a key role in stretching and modernizing Pakistan’s naval fleet. In 2018, Pakistan and Turkey signed a contract for the construction of four Milgem-class corvettes based on the design of Turkish Ada-class ships. Under the deal, Turkey will deliver four ships to Pakistan by February 2025.

Pakistan’s continued induction of higher-tonnage surface vessels reflects its ambition to enhance power projection in the region. The concerns for India lie not only in the naval imbalance but also in Pakistan’s first-ever maritime doctrine, “Preserving Freedom of Seas.”

Pakistan’s maritime strategy has evolved from an offensive sea denial approach to one focused on a sustained presence in the IOR. The Chinese-made J-10 fighter, which is part of China’s naval arm, can be used by the Pakistan Navy to carry out maritime operations in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The warplane can carry anti-ship missiles, which could enable the Pakistan Navy to play a more responsive role in the Indian Ocean.

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Presently, Pakistan cannot come close to matching the maritime power of its archrival India, but the continued push for modernization and renewed strategic cooperation with China and Turkey could change the status quo by transforming Pakistan into a genuine regional naval power. A strong Pakistan Navy equipped with advanced frigates and other weapons is part of Beijing’s grand plan to ensure the security of Chinese oil imports coming from the Persian Gulf and attain control of the sea lanes traversing the Indian Ocean.

Riaz Haq said...

What’s Cooking Between Ukraine and Pakistan? – The Diplomat

https://thediplomat.com/2023/07/whats-cooking-between-ukraine-and-pakistan/

By Umair Jamal

The recent visit of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to Pakistan was far from ordinary. Not only was it the first visit by a Ukrainian foreign minister to Pakistan since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1992 but also it holds significant potential for revitalizing ties between Ukraine and Pakistan.

What sets this visit apart is the exceptional protocol extended to Minister Kuleba, a gesture rarely bestowed upon dignitaries from friendly nations visiting Pakistan.

An incident involving the expulsion of a Russian journalistfrom a joint presser of the Ukrainian and Pakistani foreign ministers led to Russia seeking an explanation from Pakistan. This action, seen by many as in bad taste, could potentially dent ties between Islamabad and Moscow. However, despite this risk, Islamabad complied with Ukraine’s wishes in this regard.

The Ukrainian foreign minister’s visit has sparked intrigue and speculation also because of his meetings with Pakistan’s senior intelligence officials. This is a significant development, as it is rare for a foreign minister of another country to meet with intelligence officials in Pakistan. The fact that Kuleba engaged in such meetings suggests that there may be more at play than just enhancing government-to-government ties. It raises the possibility of Ukraine seeking Pakistan’s assistance in areas such as training of its troops or gaining access to weapons.

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Furthermore, the visit of the Ukrainian foreign minister serves as a means for Islamabad to renew its diplomacy in Western capitals. By engaging with Ukraine at such a high level, Pakistan aims to expand its diplomatic outreach and forge new partnerships that can contribute to its strategic interests.

Overall, Minister Kuleba’s visit signifies a promising chapter in the relationship between Ukraine and Pakistan, with immense potential for collaboration and mutual benefit. Pakistan’s current policy suggests that it does not need to take sides and can work with both Russia and Ukraine at the same time and ease their concerns.

It is clear that both countries have strategic interests at play. As events unfold, it will be interesting to see how this visit shapes future exchanges between Ukraine and Pakistan, and how it impacts the geopolitical policies of the two countries.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistani defense conglomerate unveils new drone, missiles at IDEF

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2023/08/03/pakistani-defense-conglomerate-unveils-new-drone-missiles-at-idef/



A Pakistani defense conglomerate has unveiled new missiles and a drone during Turkey’s IDEF defense conference.

During the event, which ran July 25-28, Global Industrial and Defence Solutions showed off its Faaz-RF and Faaz-IIR medium-range, air-to-air missiles, as well as the Shahpar III medium-altitude, long-endurance combat drone.


The Faaz missiles and the unmanned system on display were mockups, GIDS chief executive Asad Kamal told Defense News.

The Faaz-RF is an active radar-guided missile, while the Faaz-IIR features an imaging infrared seeker. Both have a range exceeding 100 kilometers (62 miles), can reach a speech of Mach 3.5 and can fly 6,000 feet above sea level, according to GIDS.

The Faaz-RF seeker has a 25-kilometer detection range, and the Faaz-IIR a 40-kilometer range.


The Faaz design appears to have been partly inspired by the Chinese SD-10/PL-12 weapon, which is produced under license by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex. GIDS said its products are locally developed and owns the intellectual property rights.

Shahpar III is a Group 4+ drone able to carry weapons, meaning it weighs more than 1,320 pounds.It has six hardpoints for up to 530 kilograms (1,168 pounds) of disposable stores; a 1,650-kilogram maximum takeoff weight; the option for an internal payload; indigenously developed avionics; anti-icing/deicing system; a 1553 architecture dual-redundant flight control computer; and multiple sensor options, including electro-optical/infrared, synthetic aperture radar, communications intelligence and signals intelligence.

Engine configurations of 140 horsepower and 170 horsepower are available, both with a 300-kilometer line-of-sight and 3,000-kilometer beyond line-of-sight range. However, the 140-horsepower option has a 30,000-foot ceiling when rigged for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions and a 24-hour endurance, and a 28,000-foot ceiling and 17-hour endurance when armed.

The figures for the 170-horsepower variant are 41,000 feet and 40 hours, and 35,000 feet and 35 hours, respectively.

The engines are foreign, but GIDS did not disclose the origin.

Shahpar III will be available for export next year after in-house trials, the organization said.

Riaz Haq said...

Ukraine’s drones (USVs) provide a lesson - Taipei Times


https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2023/08/04/2003804199

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been going on for nearly a year and a half. At the end of last year Ukraine started building the world’s first “naval fleet of drones” to counter Russia’s Black Sea fleet, news reports said. One of Ukraine’s maritime drones — an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) that resembles a speedboat — is 5.5m long and weighs one tonne. It has an operational radius of up to 400km and can operate autonomously for up to 60 hours. It can carry a combat load of up to 200kg and has a maximum speed of 80kph. The USV’s main functions include long-range maritime reconnaissance and coastal surveillance, escorting and supporting Ukraine’s conventional fleet and countering amphibious operations, among others. This Ukrainian-developed USV is believed to be the weapon that badly damaged the Kerch Bridge in Crimea on July 17, effectively blocking Russia’s logistical supply line, and had attacked the Crimean Black Sea port of Sevastopol the previous day.

Taiwan would do well to learn from this experience. To be ready for a war across the Taiwan Strait, the nation should develop a sea-drone fleet that is maneuverable, fast, cheap and effective. In recent years there have been several incidents of Chinese illegally crossing over to Taiwan on simple rubber dinghies. As well as favorable sea conditions and good luck, another reason they managed to reach Taiwanese territory is that a dinghy’s low profile on the sea surface makes it hard to detect using electronic devices. For the same reason, USVs have a “stealth” function. Despite their small size, they can be used to hit ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy as they try to cross the Taiwan Strait, thus giving Taiwan a chance to win decisively outside its own territory.

Taiwan also needs to develop a system that can launch sea-to-air or sea-to-ground missiles from USVs. If China were to invade Taiwan, the first attack waves would destroy more than half of Taiwan’s military airfields, warships, naval harbors and missile bases, as well as a large number of the military personnel stationed at those sites. In such a scenario, easily concealed sea drones and their operators stationed in bunkers might well play a role in turning the tide of the war.

Riaz Haq said...

Turkey said nearly 200 Pakistani engineers and officials are involved in the Turkish Aerospace Kaan fifth-generation fighter project. (Turkish Aerospace)


https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/turkey-to-engage-pakistan-over-officially-joining-kaan-project

The Turkish government has announced that Pakistan may officially join its fifth-generation Turkish Aerospace (TA) Kaan fighter aircraft programme.

In an announcement on 2 August in Karachi, Turkish Deputy Defence Minister Celal Sami Tüfekçi said Ankara and Islamabad would initiate discussions about Pakistan joining the project. “Pretty soon, within this month, we will be discussing with our Pakistani counterparts to officially include Pakistan in our national fighter jet programme (Kaan),” Tüfekçi said.

He also revealed that nearly 200 Pakistani officials and engineers were “already [taking] part in the development of this programme”.

Tüfekçi's announcement follows an early announcement by Turkish officials in February 2022 that Pakistan was a collaborative partner for the development of the fighter aircraft. At the time, the CEO of Turkish Aerospace (TUSAÅž), Temel Kotil, had said the TF-X (Kaan) was a “Turkish-Pakistani fighter programme”.

However, Tüfekçi's recent announcement suggests that Pakistan's involvement is not yet official. Both Pakistan and Turkey seek a fifth-generation fighter aircraft to replace their fourth-generation Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter aircraft.

According to information published by TA, the Kaan is intended to have a maximum speed of Mach 1.8 at 40,000 ft (12,192 m) and a service ceiling of 55,000 ft.

Turkey's interest in making Pakistan an official partner in the project reflects Ankara's ambition to enhance resources and expertise to mature the programme. Pakistan's potential involvement in the Kaan project will almost certainly be supported by the Pakistan Air Force's (PAF's) new National Aerospace Science and Technology Park (NASTP). This facility was established on 4 August at the PAF base at Base Nur Khan near Islamabad.

Riaz Haq said...

Arif Rafiq
@ArifCRafiq
British and Ukrainian envoys to Islamabad co-author op-ed that calls on Pakistan to "continue to support" Ukraine. But they never mention how exactly Pakistan has been supporting Ukraine.

For context, see:

https://globelynews.com/south-asia/pakistan-ukraine-war-weapons-arms/

https://twitter.com/ArifCRafiq/status/1695101508855923175?s=20

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A day to celebrate Ukraine’s resilience
Country arks its 32nd Independence Day amidst war and uncertainty

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2432216/a-day-to-celebrate-ukraines-resilience


Jane Marriott/Markian Chuchuk
August 24, 2023


Ukraine’s Independence Day is celebrated just ten days after Pakistan’s, but the Ukraine-Pakistan relations started long before official diplomatic ties were established in 1992. Back in the 1960s and 70s, Ukrainian specialists contributed to Pakistan’s economic growth through its support to key Pakistani industries, for example the construction of Pakistan Steel Mills in Karachi and hydroelectric plants in Tarbela and Kalabagh. For decades, Ukraine has played a vital role in supporting Pakistani military strength and its ability to defend its people. And Ukraine has been a nation that has extended its hand to Pakistan in times of need, aiding it during times of poor harvest. At the peak of the “grain crisis” in 2020, Ukrainian traders covered two-thirds of the grain deficit in Pakistan, exporting more than 1.2 million tons of wheat to feed Pakistanis.

This could not contrast more starkly with Russia’s despicable behaviour based on vested interest — something that has not only caused untold suffering in Ukraine, but has directly impacted the lives of ordinary citizens around the world. From the bustling streets of Karachi to the serene mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan, the consequences of Putin’s actions reach us here. Pakistani people feel the pinch as prices soar, pushing the most vulnerable citizens even closer to the brink. The cost of fuel has skyrocketed and the price of wheat has risen dramatically. Russia’s unilateral decision to withdraw from a vital international grain deal means every roti and naan will now cost more. Economists say Putin’s invasion has cost Pakistan up to 1% of its GDP, pushing more and more Pakistanis into poverty.

In its just struggle, Ukraine relies on its military forces along with the assistance from its international friends and partners. What is at stake is not just Ukraine’s future but the UN Charter and international law, which support the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of all countries. We must never let countries attempt to rewrite borders by force. The UK, a long-standing friend of Ukraine, is inspired by the ongoing resistance and bravery of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russian aggression and atrocities.

Eighteen months ago, Putin thought he would overwhelm Ukraine in three days. He underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people, the skill and determination of their Armed Forces, and the world’s commitment to Ukraine’s independence. Putin’s military strategy clearly has not worked: he is isolated on the world stage. Over 40 nations, ranging from China to Turkey, the UAE and South Africa, attended the Peace Conference in Saudi Arabia. Over 20 countries have now committed to helping Ukraine win the war through military support. The UK and our partners will continue to provide Ukraine with humanitarian, economic and military aid until Russian forces leave, which would be the quickest path to securing a just and sustainable peace.

Ukraine will win this war and we must all stand with them for as long as it takes. The Ukrainian spirit shines brightly. In Ukraine’s hour of need, we call for the people of Pakistan to continue to support their brothers and sisters in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion will fail. Moscow cannot hope to outlast Ukraine’s resolve and international support.

Riaz Haq said...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's decision to replace his defence chief has been seen primarily as an attempt to clean up corruption. But the appointment of Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar and a Muslim, is a signal that Ukraine is serious about returning Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66704769

Speculations about the replacement of Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine's defence minister since November 2021, have been rife for months.

While personally not accused of any wrongdoing, the man by President Zelensky's side since day one of the Russian full-scale invasion was seen as unable to stop corruption penetrating his ministry.

Military procurement scandals and accusations of bribery against officials at enlistment centres made him damaged goods in the eyes of Ukrainian society, currently in need of a morale boost in the wake of a slower than expected offensive.

This is where Rustem Umerov comes in.

The 41-year-old is a government official who for the past year headed Ukraine's State Property Fund, but is best known for negotiating with Russia and for organising successful prisoner exchanges.

Not a complete unknown but not someone in the media spotlight either, he is a Crimean Tatar born in exile and an active member of this ethnic community, trying to reinstate its cultural identity and its place in the world.

Most importantly for Ukrainians, he has not been accused of corruption, embezzlement or profiteering.

Mr Umerov came into politics in 2019 when he ran for parliament with the reformist "Holos" party, which he later left to become a government official.

Before that he worked in the private sector, first in telecoms and later in investment.

In 2013, he founded a charity programme to help train Ukrainians at the prestigious Stanford University in the US.

But the defining part of his identity are his Crimean Tatar roots and the role they can play in Ukraine's firm intention to return Crimea.

Riaz Haq said...

Vijainder K Thakur
@vkthakur
How Russia Could Well Be Defeated

Ukraine's repeated attacks on Russian Black Sea fleet warships have inflicted a lot of pain on Russia, but the attacks are not going to help Ukraine win the war in any conceivable manner. Fleet warships are not participating in the war in any substantial way, other than some small warships occasionally launching cruise missile attacks against Ukraine.

The Ukrainian attacks are aimed at weakening Russia, which is not Ukraine's war aim in the conflict. Ukraine's war aim is to forcibly seize back its territories that have switched allegiance to Russia. So why is Ukraine repeatedly striking Russian air and naval assets in Crimea instead of focusing on its three months old counteroffensive which, despite huge personnel losses, has made little progress.

Weakening Russia is a US/NATO war aim and make no mistakes; indeed, the US & NATO are waging a low intensity war aimed at weakening Russia, particularly the Russian grip on the Black Sea and its influence in the region. Overly cautious Russia has chosen to turn a Nelson eye towards the US & NATO war being waged against it.

The attacks on Crimea by aerial and maritime drones, cruise missiles and saboteurs are being orchestrated by US/NATO personnel - weapon system specialists and data analysts - using US/NATO ISR, communication and navigation assets. In any given operation, more US/NATO personnel are involved than Ukrainian personnel.

The large number of US/NATO ISR assets committed to the attacks on Russian Naval bases in Crimea is testimony to the fact that the US and NATO are waging an altogether separate war on the side of the Ukraine conflict. A war that doesn't help Ukraine regain its lost territory. A war that is militarily weakening Russia.

If Russia doesn't challenge the US and NATO now it may not be in a position to do so a few months from now. The attacks on Russian Naval and air bases are not just likely to persist, they are likely to intensify and get more deadly. The US is on the verge of supplying ATACMS to Ukraine. It may well have supplied them already. Same could be true of the German Taurus missile.

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, speaking in the context of the ATACMS supply on ABC, clearly stated, "In terms of their targeting decisions, it's their decision, not ours." He was clearly overstepping a Russian red line.

How many more warships of the Black Sea fleet does Russia want to lose to US/NATO attacks? The fact is, once the Russian Black Sea fleet is debilitated, the next logical step for the US would be to move a carrier group into the Black Sea. Turkey's desire and ability to stop the US, Turkey's NATO ally, from moving a carrier group into the Black Sea, is questionable.

Once a US carrier group moves into the Black Sea, Ukrainians special forces, who currently get cluster bombed into oblivion in their high-speed boats when they make surreptitious attempts to beach in Crimea at night, will be able to arrive unscathed in Crimea in beachwear on sailboats during the day! A Russian defeat would be inevitable. It will be a grind to the last Ukrainian. It will take time. But it will be inevitable.

Russia's only option to prevent defeat would be to fight NATO by shooting down US/NATO ISR assets and if necessary, attacking their low earth surveillance and communication satellites. As I have said before, without the ISR assets and communication network, US forces cannot fight even Mexican drug lords.

So the big question for Russia is - Why not be prepared to fight NATO now when it still has its Black Sea fleet intact? The fact is Russian readiness to fight NATO is likely to bring peace, not war, because the US and NATO, even as they prepare for war, have no stomach for it. Russian readiness to fight US and NATO will bring peace a lot faster than continued Russian diffidence.

https://x.com/vkthakur/status/1701909661694431260?s=20

Riaz Haq said...

Army’s Project Udbhav to rediscover ‘Indic heritage of statecraft’ from ancient texts - The Hindu


Project Udbhav to integrate age-old wisdom with modern military pedagogy, the Army says; focus on indigenous military systems, historical and regional texts and kingdoms, thematic and Kautilya studies

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/army-project-to-rediscover-indic-heritage-of-statecraft-from-ancient-texts-develop-indigenous-strategic-vocabulary/article67365776.ece

The Indian Army has started an initiative, named Project Udbhav, to rediscover the “profound Indic heritage of statecraft and strategic thoughts” derived from ancient Indian texts of “statecraft, warcraft, diplomacy and grand strategy” in collaboration with the United Service Institution of India, a defence think-tank.

In connection with this, USI will conduct a Military Heritage Festival on October 21 and 22, to acquaint “future thought leaders with the dynamics of comprehensive national security with special emphasis on India’s strategic culture, military heritage, education, modernisation of security forces and Atmanirbhar Bharat,” according to an Army statement.

Bridging past and present
“The project endeavours to explore India’s rich historical narratives in the realms of statecraft and strategic thoughts. It focuses on a broad spectrum including indigenous military systems, historical texts, regional texts and kingdoms, thematic studies, and intricate Kautilya Studies,” the statement said. As part of this process, a panel on September 29 discussed the “evolution of Indian military systems, war fighting and strategic thought”, exploring both current research in the field and the way forward.



The initiative stands testimony to the Army’s recognition of India’s age-old wisdom in statecraft, strategy, diplomacy, and warfare, the statement said, adding that Project Udbhav seeks to bridge the historical and the contemporary. “The goal is to understand the profound depths of indigenous military systems, their evolution, strategies that have been passed down through the ages, and the strategic thought processes that have governed the land for millennia,” it said.

Indigenous vocabulary
The aim of Project Udbhav is not limited to just rediscovering these narratives, but also to develop an “indigenous strategic vocabulary”, which is deeply rooted in India’s “multifaceted philosophical and cultural tapestry”. The overall aim is to integrate age-old wisdom with modern military pedagogy, it stated.

A study to compile Indian stratagems based on ancient texts has been ongoing since 2021, and a book has been released listing 75 aphorisms selected from ancient texts. “The first scholarly outcome of the initiative is the 2022 publication titled, Paramparik Bhartiya Darshan…Ranniti aur Netriyta ke Shashwat Niyam, meant to be read by all ranks of the Indian Army. English translation of the title being Traditional Indian Philosophy…Eternal Rules of Warfare and Leadership,” the Army said.

The September 29 panel discussion included a dialogue on the study of ancient texts from the 4th century BCE to the 8th century CE, with a focus on Kautilya, Kamandaka, and the Kural. By reintroducing these classical teachings into contemporary military and strategic domains, the Army aims to nurture its officers to apply ancient wisdom in modern scenarios and also allow a more profound understanding of international relations and foreign cultures, the statement added.

Riaz Haq said...

Pentagon pushes A.I. research toward lethal autonomous weapons

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/pentagon-pushes-ai-research-toward-lethal-autonomous-weapons/

There is little dispute among scientists, industry experts and Pentagon officials that the U.S. will within the next few years have fully autonomous lethal weapons. And though officials insist humans will always be in control, experts say advances in data-processing speed and machine-to-machine communications will inevitably relegate people to supervisory roles.

That's especially true if, as expected, lethal weapons are deployed en masse in drone swarms. Many countries are working on them — and neither China, Russia, Iran, India or Pakistan have signed a U.S.-initiated pledge to use military AI responsibly.

It's unclear if the Pentagon is currently formally assessing any fully autonomous lethal weapons system for deployment, as required by a 2012 directive. A Pentagon spokeswoman would not say.

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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Artificial intelligence employed by the U.S. military has piloted pint-sized surveillance drones in special operations forces' missions and helped Ukraine in its war against Russia. It tracks soldiers' fitness, predicts when Air Force planes need maintenance and helps keep tabs on rivals in space.

Now, the Pentagon is intent on fielding multiple thousands of relatively inexpensive, expendable AI-enabled autonomous vehicles by 2026 to keep pace with China. The ambitious initiative — dubbed Replicator — seeks to "galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap, and many," Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in August.



While its funding is uncertain and details vague, Replicator is expected to accelerate hard decisions on what AI tech is mature and trustworthy enough to deploy - including on weaponized systems.

There is little dispute among scientists, industry experts and Pentagon officials that the U.S. will within the next few years have fully autonomous lethal weapons. And though officials insist humans will always be in control, experts say advances in data-processing speed and machine-to-machine communications will inevitably relegate people to supervisory roles.

That's especially true if, as expected, lethal weapons are deployed en masse in drone swarms. Many countries are working on them — and neither China, Russia, Iran, India or Pakistan have signed a U.S.-initiated pledge to use military AI responsibly.

Riaz Haq said...

Why Did Pakistan Test Its MIRV-Capable Ababeel Missile?

https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/why-did-pakistan-test-its-mirv-capable-ababeel-missile/

As India’s ballistic missile defense system is further tested and development, Islamabad was compelled to illustrate its own response capabilities.

By Usman Haider and Abdul Moiz Khan
November 18, 2023

In late October 2023, Pakistani test-fired an Ababeel missile for the first time since 2017. Pakistan’s decision to develop and test multiple independent re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capable missiles like the Ababeel are within Pakistan’s policy of “full spectrum deterrence under the dictum of credible minimum deterrence.” The Ababeel, the Pakistani military explained back in 2017, was developed to ensure the “survivability of Pakistan’s ballistic missiles.”

The development of such MIRV capable missiles is a response to threat perceptions emerging from New Delhi, because of India’s efforts to develop and expand its ballistic missile defense (BMD) program. Islamabad fears that India’s operationalization of its BMD systems on land and at sea would significantly undermine Pakistan’s ability to retaliate to an Indian first strike. Pakistan is worried that the Indian BMD program, along with New Delhi’s enhanced missile capabilities, especially in terms of speed and precision, is part of an Indian strategy to launch counterforce strikes against Pakistan’s deterrent forces. Therefore, the goal of Ababeel’s development is to neutralize the threat that an operational Indian BMD system poses to Pakistan’s deterrent and ultimately to South Asia’s strategic stability.

India is presently developing a missile defense shield to protect its command-and-control centers, major population and industrial centers, and critical military infrastructure, including missile storage sites, airfields, and large cantonments. The Indian BMD program commenced in the 1990s, with the first interceptor tested on November 7, 2006, making the country the fourth to test the anti-ballistic missile apart from the United States, Israel, and Russia.

India has a two-tiered ballistic missile defense system, consisting of Prithvi Air Defense Vehicle (PAD)/Prithvi Defense Vehicle (PDV) and Ashwin Advanced Air Defense (AAD) interceptors. The former can intercept missiles at exo-atmospheric altitudes between 50-180 kilometers, while the latter can destroy missiles within atmospheric (endo-atmospheric) altitudes, ranging between 20-40 kilometers. Both interceptors have been tested successfully multiple times.

According to Indian media sources quoting Indian defense officials, the first phase of India’s BMD will be deployed soon and the system will initially protect two major cities: New Delhi, the capital, and Mumbai, a key business center.

Phase 2 trials of the BMD system began on November 2, 2022, when India successfully test-fired the AD-1 interceptor, capable of intercepting long-range ballistic missiles in low exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric conditions. The new interceptor will increase the range of interception up to 5,000 km, a significant enhancement from the Phase 1 range of 2,000 km, according to Janes, quoting Indian Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) officials.

To support the tracking and targeting of incoming projectiles, India is constructing a BMD radar site at Udaipur, likely to become operational by 2024, along with other sites in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The sites are being developed to host long-range tracking radar (LRTR), the Swordfish, an advanced variant of Israel’s Green Pine radar.

Riaz Haq said...

Pakistan tests Fatah-2 missile


https://www.defensenews.com/training-sim/2023/12/27/watch-pakistan-test-new-long-range-precision-strike-weapon/

The Fatah 2 test “marks another step in Pakistan’s efforts to field multiple precision strike artillery systems with variable ranges to hold adversary targets at risk,” said Frank O’Donnell, a nonresident fellow with the Stimson Center think tank’s South Asia Program and a senior research adviser at the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network.

The fact Pakistan developed the weapon, he added, demonstrates the country has learned lessons from recent or ongoing conflicts.

“When viewed in the context of Pakistan’s parallel efforts to field a similarly diverse arsenal of combat drones, its implementation of certain lessons — which the military feels the Azerbaijan-Armenia and Russia-Ukraine wars have reinforced — become clear,” O’Donnell told Defense News. “They include the advantages of assigning adversary precision ground bombardment missions to relatively low-cost artillery and combat drone systems, preserving manned fighter aircraft for higher-end strike missions and interception of their counterparts.”

India’s S-400 air defense system is likely a key target of the Fatah 2, he added, as Pakistan could fire the weapon as a decoy to create “greater room for a combat drone to strike the S-400 itself in the midst of the bombardment.”

Riaz Haq said...

The Stunning Effectiveness of Houthi Harassment



https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/the-stunning-effectiveness-of-houthi-harassment/



A Lesson in 21st Century Sea Control
The Navy’s current presence mission is problematic for 21st-century maritime operations. Missile technology has rapidly accelerated, becoming faster and more capable of reaching across ever-further distances. Maintaining sea control is a taller order than in previous ages.

Confined to the oceans and seas, navies are vulnerable to missiles and threats from land. As technology continues to develop, those distances continue to lengthen. Presence for its own sake exposes naval vessels inside of the weapon engagement zone of modern threats, without necessarily exercising local control of the sea. Indeed, the Houthis have shown exactly how difficult it is to maintain command of the sea in the 21st century. Their small, asymmetric blockade may not be inflicting exorbitant, acute damages to ships, but the simple threat of attack has disturbed one of the globe’s major maritime chokepoints.

Further complicating the matter, the Houthis have utilized cheap drones and ballistic missiles in their efforts. The U.S. Navy has praised the efforts of the USS Carney for its actions in combatting Houthi attacks, but the asymmetric costs cannot be understated. The Carney and other American ships in the region have likely employed SM-2 missiles (at an average cost of $2 million) against improvised drones and missiles that are estimated to cost maybe $2,000 apiece. To put this in perspective, the U.S. Navy is effectively spending a cost differential upward of 1000:1. Nor does the U.S. Navy possess an unlimited supply of SM-2s, which take months if not years to build. Furthermore, the Houthis have shown that they do not even need to sink vessels in order to hold a waterway hostage.