Who Won the 100-hour War: Pakistan or India?

The government of India continues to field awkward questions about whether the Indian Air Force (IAF) won or lost the 100-hour war that it launched against the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on May 7.

In a mission that was designated Operation Sindoor, IAF combat aircraft were launched at terrorist targets inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, two weeks after a group of Pakistan-backed terrorists gunned down 26 tourists in Pahalgam – a resort in the disputed province of Kashmir.

With the Indian public seething and demanding retaliation, the IAF launched punitive air strikes on May 7, relying on its fighter aircraft and BrahMos missiles. At the end of four days of fighting, it was Pakistan that was claiming victory, arguing that it had shot down six IAF fighter jets without any losses of its own.

The IAF accepted losing a small number of combat aircraft, but claimed that all its pilots were back home safely. Neither the IAF nor the PAF could support their claims by displaying captured pilots or aircraft wreckage. Instead, they minimized casualties by launching missiles and bombs from their own side of the border, inflicting damage with precision-guided munitions (PGMs), such as the BrahMos cruise missiles.

Truth-telling in Jakarta

The controversy over casualties bubbled over again on June 10 in Jakarta, when India’s defense attaché to Indonesia, Captain Shiva Kumar of the Indian Navy, acknowledged that the IAF lost “some aircraft” when they initially struck terrorist camps and PAF bases in mainland Pakistan under Operation Sindoor.

Speaking at a seminar in Jakarta, Kumar said that the IAF reacted to its initial aircraft losses by modifying its combat tactics. Responding to a previous presenter at the seminar who referenced Pakistan’s claim that India lost six aircraft, Kumar said: “I may not agree with him that India lost so many aircraft. But, I do agree that we did lose some aircraft and that happened only because of the constraint given by the political leadership to not attack the military establishments and their air defenses.”

In a subsequent statement, the Indian embassy said that Kumar’s “remarks were misquoted and media reports reflect a misrepresentation of the purpose and tenor of the presentation.” The presentation was to demonstrate that “India's Indian Armed Forces operates under civilian leadership, which is different from many other countries that are in this region. The statement also clarified that the goal for Operation Sindoor was to target the terrorist infrastructure, and that India's response was non-escalatory,” the embassy said.

Since the start of Operation Sindoor, Pakistani and Indian military experts, political leaders, and the public in both countries have been apportioning victory and defeat by comparing the number of aircraft shot down by both air forces.

In the circumstances, the IAF could hardly call off Operation Sindoor when its net score of Pakistani combat aircraft casualties was less than the numbers scored by the PAF. That was why the IAF, abandoning restraint, switched to pounding Pakistani military targets. The shift was intended to drive home the message that Indian patience was limited.

“After the loss [of May 7],” explained Kumar, “we changed our tactics and went for their military installations. We first achieved suppression of enemy air defenses [SEAD] and destruction of enemy air defenses [DEAD] and that’s why all our [subsequent] attacks could easily go through using surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-surface missiles…On May 8, 9 and 10, there was complete air superiority by India.”

At the seminar in Jakarta, Tommy Tamtomo, vice chairman of the Indonesia Center of Air Power Studies, cited figures that were significantly more flattering for the IAF. He said that PAF lost six fighter jets, two Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft, and a military transport plane. “India lost a lot, but Pakistan also lost a lot. Maybe more than India,” he said at the seminar.

Coming, as the statement was, from an Indonesian official, this is seen to reflect the ground reality more accurately.

Indian officials also explained that the objective of Operation Sindoor was to target terrorist infrastructure, while the decision to avoid PAF infrastructure and bases was a non-escalatory measure.

Earlier, India’s senior-most defense official, Chief of Defense Staff General Anil Chauhan, flatly rejected the Pakistani military’s claim that it had downed six IAF fighter jets. Chauhan termed the claims “absolutely incorrect.”

Lessons of Balakot

In its reactions and retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack, the IAF largely followed the steps it had taken in response to the terrorist attack on February 14, 2019, when a vehicle convoy transporting Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers to Kashmir was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber near Pulwama in Kashmir. That blast, which killed 40 CRPF personnel, was claimed by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a banned terror outfit from Pakistan. In retaliation for the February 14 attack, the IAF struck a JeM terrorist camp at Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This was the first time since the 1971 War that IAF aircraft had struck targets on Pakistani soil. However, the IAF aircraft launched their weapons from Indian airspace, so as to reduce the provocation.

Both after the attack on Balakot and after Operation Sindoor, the IAF admitted to having lost aircraft, but declined to confirm the number of aircraft lost.

Losses were attributed to the constraint imposed by India’s political leadership not to attack the Pakistani military establishments and its air defenses. “No military installations, no civil installations, nothing which was not connected to terrorists were to be targeted,” Kumar said of New Delhi’s operational guidelines.

The PAF’s retaliation to the February 26, 2019, air strikes was prompt, coming the next day in the form of Pakistani air strikes on a range of targets in Kashmir. In the ensuing aerial battle, the IAF claimed to have shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter aircraft while losing a MIG-21 whose pilot was captured after he ejected over Pakistani-held territory.

Fortunately, an “off-ramp” was readily available. Mediation by Washington led to the IAF pilot’s repatriation within 48 hours, allowing both India and Pakistan to declare victory.

For the present, India’s domestic politics has overtaken military events. Accusing the Modi government of misleading Parliament, the opposition Congress Party has demanded a special session of Parliament and an all-party meeting to discuss this issue.

So, who came out on top in this skirmish, India or Pakistan? From a purely tactical and operational standpoint, it would appear as if the PAF won the numbers game, downing a larger number of combat aircraft while warding off the numerically larger IAF. Yet that would be a fallacious and incomplete assessment. The Indian military demonstrated conclusively that it had no appetite for Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and that it would not hesitate to retaliate against future Pakistani transgressions with armed force. In calling off hostilities before too much damage was done, New Delhi demonstrated its awareness of its own strengths and weaknesses and the confidence of a growing power.