The recent conflict between India and Pakistan represents a watershed moment in modern air warfare, quickly escalating into the most significant aerial engagement between the nuclear-armed neighbours since the 1971 war. The Indian Air Force emerged as the first responder, primary escalator, and central military instrument that shaped the outcome.
The IAF executed coordinated precision strikes on terror nodes in Pakistan, without the benefit of the element of surprise. The operation was executed despite grave risks due to the deliberate avoidance of military targets and consequent inability to suppress enemy air defences. 100% of the national leadership's intent was delivered.
Masterful Management
The IAF demonstrated masterful escalation management. The conflict evolved from strikes on terror camps to engagements with Long-Range Surface-to-Air Missiles, to neutralising HQ-9 systems, leading to attacks on IAF airfields and culminating in widespread strikes on PAF bases. This tactical progression first eliminated key air defence and command-and-control nodes, creating operational space for deeper missions while carefully navigating below nuclear thresholds. By targeting only military assets - runways, radar installations, and command centres - while minimising civilian casualties, the IAF displayed operational sophistication, successfully containing what could have otherwise escalated to ground or naval warfare.
Pakistan's strikes against IAF bases were acts of desperation, not strength, as its air defence umbrella had been systematically dismantled. As the conflict intensified, Pakistan conserved its remaining air defence ammunition for anticipated IAF incursions, while India maintained a relentless offensive tempo. What truly distinguished this conflict was the IAF's simultaneous excellence in defensive operations.
An Unprecedented Challenge
Night after night, IAF air defence units intercepted waves of drones, missiles, and warded off aircraft across a border exceeding 1,000 kilometres - an operational challenge unprecedented in modern warfare. While the United States has maintained air supremacy in recent conflicts, and Israel has managed localised air defence, no world power has faced such a sustained, multi-vector near-peer threat across such an extended frontier. The tracer patterns visible during engagements demonstrated excellent coordination between IAF and Army air defence units.
India and Pakistan have faced off for 80 years, with both sides intimately familiar with each other's capabilities. The densely contested border environment creates conditions for high attrition in opening rounds. However, in a sustained campaign, resilience ultimately determines the victor. Despite early purported losses, the IAF retaliated by neutralising advanced systems like the HQ-9 when authorised to destroy enemy air defences.
The strategic outcome was squarely in India's favour, particularly given the IAF's unique constraint of avoiding border crossing and economic targeting - core components of conventional air campaigns. The PAF's narrative focuses on a single engagement, and IAF attrition claims are a diversion meant to distract from the larger, inconvenient truth of a comprehensive assessment. They want the Indian public and the world to miss the forest for the trees.
The IAF established the ability to hit PAF targets at will. A bloody nose was delivered, and de-escalation was offered from a position of strength. Another 24 hours of sustained Indian air power would have inflicted more telling effects on Pakistan with longer-lasting deterrent value.
Pakistan effectively waved the white flag because it was losing the air war. The PAF - the arrowhead of its military might - was blunted. Pakistan's nuclear deterrent failed to provide an advantage, and American diplomatic support arrived later than anticipated. While tactical victories can be debated through various analytical lenses, one fact remains indisputable: Pakistan blinked first under the IAF's firepower, as evidenced by Pakistan initiating contact through the DGMO hotline.
IAF's Rare Feat
While global narratives may misrepresent it, air forces worldwide will study this as a rare, modern case of air warfare where strategic objectives were met with precision, control, and complete execution. For military planners, India's performance provides a case study in how middle powers can effectively employ air assets to achieve limited strategic objectives while managing escalation with nuclear-armed adversaries. The IAF's success suggests that the future belongs to air forces that can maintain this delicate balance between offensive potency and escalation management.
As the region stabilises and diplomatic channels reopen, one fact remains undisputed. When tested in the crucible of actual combat, the Indian Air Force proved its capability and centrality to India's defence posture. In the final analysis, control of the air wasn't just a contributor to the outcome - it was the decisive factor that ensured it. Most remarkably, this was achieved in barely 72 hours - unheralded in air power doctrine, where global examples typically show incomplete conflicts dragging on for weeks and months.
Perhaps the most profound legacy of this conflict lies in the Indian public's awakening to the reality of modern warfare. For the first time, citizens watched a contemporary air war unfold in real time across digital platforms and felt its consequences in border regions. The public now grasps what military planners have long known: future wars will be fought through integrated networks of drones, missiles, air defence systems, and intelligent software.
This awareness has created a vital societal mandate - to strengthen the IAF to its full authorised potential. Just as modernisation waves in the 1950s and 1980s transformed the IAF, this conflict must now catalyse the next leap forward.
There's Always Room To Improve
Introspection is essential to secure and sustain the tactical upper hand. The IAF must identify capability gaps exposed during operations, run comprehensive after-action reviews, and accelerate efforts across three fronts: capability development, Indigenous execution, and acquisition timelines. The execution and delivery of this rests squarely with the political executive through the bureaucratic arms. These institutions must ask themselves a hard question: are their current processes and delivery mechanisms truly fit for purpose in today's fast-evolving threat environment? Without deep introspection and meaningful reform, India risks losing the momentum this conflict has created.
In a telling postscript to this conflict, the PAF Air Vice Marshal declared in his media briefing that "Godzilla is extinct" - referring dismissively to India's Rafale fleet. The statement betrays a fundamental misunderstanding; something fictional cannot become extinct. More importantly, as Pakistan has painfully discovered, this particular "Godzilla" is very real indeed - its firepower, reach, and destructive capability now etched into PAF's institutional memory. One wonders if the Air Vice Marshal might reconsider his choice of metaphor as he surveys the impact of these supposedly "extinct" creatures on Pakistan's air defence infrastructure.
(Anchit Gupta is a military aviation historian, author, and speaker. For his work on IAF history, he was awarded the Chief of the Air Staff Commendation. He runs www.IAFHistory.in and has authored a book on the definitive history of air headquarters. Professionally, he is a Managing Director at Samara Capital.)
