Eurasia Review:
The emergence of strong aerial defense as an important component of warfare is the legacy of the 20th century. A careful analysis of the conflicts that occurred at the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st century reveals the strategic importance of air defense systems. Due to technological developments enhanced role of air and air defense systems have increased manifolds in peace and wartime situation for states.
Today these systems have the capability to change the basic dynamics of warfare by adding asymmetry and nonlinearity. In this regard, the ground-based air defense systems (GBAD) have emerged as the most lethal and reliable air defense systems. Initially, these systems comprised of guns that were used to targets the planes, and apparently, the success rate was low. However, with the development in aerial technology, GBAD also improved and the range of their targets include air-breathing targets (planes and helicopters), UAVs as well and different kinds of missile systems. Effective utilization of these systems could mitigate or deny the results to the adversary by the destruction of elements of its air power.
South Asia is widely known as a volatile region primarily because of the ever-existing hostility between the two nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan. In this regard, the military escalation of February 2019 is the most recent crisis that both countries have faced. Likewise, this recent crisis highlighted the importance of air and air defence systems, where both countries were involved in an aerial dogfight in aftermath of Indian aircraft’s intrusion into Pakistan’s air space. Since Pakistan was left with no choice but to give an appropriate response to such an Indian act; it shot down two Indian Air Force (IAF) jets while a helicopter of IAF became the target of friendly fire from its ground-based air defense. Although Pakistan successfully achieved escalation dominance and maintained the credibility of its nuclear deterrent in face of Indian aggression, during the crisis there were few takeaways, which were not missed by Pakistan…
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