Friday, December 02, 2005
EDITORIAL: Cope India 2005 - lessons for us
At Cope India 2005, the recently held two-week India-US joint air exercise, Indian pilots flying the Sukhoi-30 MKIs are reported to have outperformed the United States F-16s. Indian pilots not only came out the winners in various visible-range encounters, dogfights as they are called, but also responded to target assignments by AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) much faster than the US pilots.
One USAF (United States Air Force) controller working aboard an AWACS plane was quoted by the media as saying that "he was impressed by the speed in which Indian pilots responded to target assignments given them by AWACS". The AWACS were being operated by the Americans but were "acting as a neutral party, feeding target assignments to both Indian and American pilots during the exercise". Given that the Indian pilots were using the American AWACS capability for the first time, this must be billed as impressive performance.
Jasjit Singh, a former air commodore and currently director of the Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi told a US newspaper that first reported the outcome of Cope India 2005: "Since the Cold War, there has been the general assumption that India is a Third World country with Soviet technology, and wherever the Soviet-supported equipment went, it didn't perform well. That myth has been broken."
Another Indian air force officer, a former vice chief of air staff, Air Marshal Vinod Patney said that the Sukhoi is a better plane than the F-16. "But we're not talking about a single aircraft. We're talking about the overall infrastructure, the command and control systems, the radar on the ground and in the air, the technical crew on the ground, and how do you maximise that infrastructure. This is where the learning curve takes place."
This report should definitely interest Pakistan, especially the Pakistan Air Force whose primary threat so far comes from the IAF. There are two important aspects of the outcome of the US-India joint air war-game: the Indian pilots outperformed the US pilots and the exercises gave them the opportunity to see the performance of American technology in war conditions. The latter factor, it should be clear to us, would be of great importance to the IAF in case of a conflict with Pakistan with the latter relying heavily on US technology as its mainstay.
As for the performance of Indian pilots, one US officer said that the Indians planned the war game in such a way as to deny the American pilots their advanced BVR (beyond visual range) capabilities. That may be so, but it is still important to flag that the Indians performed better in dogfights. One US pilot conceded that Su-30 MKI is a much more manoeuvrable machine and that makes a difference. This is important information for Pakistan, which is relying mainly on F-16s. But even more interesting, and perhaps worrisome for Pakistan, is the fact that in an earlier joint exercise, Indian pilots were reported to have done well even with MiG 21 Fishbeds and MiG 27 Floggers, presumably much lesser in capability vis-à-vis both Su-30 MKIs and F-16s and F15s.
Writing of the recent exercise, one US newspaper wrote: "If it turns out the US Air Force did, in fact, get their clocks cleaned, it will have been the second time. In Cope India 2004, an air combat exercise that took place near the Indian city of Gwalior, US F-15s were eliminated in multiple exercises against Indian late-model MiG 21 Fishbeds as fighter escorts and MiG 27 Floggers."
Are there lessons in these outcomes for Pakistan? Quite a few. First, the IAF is not merely enhancing its technological capability but also focusing on the training of its human resource. In other words, it is trying to create a lethal combination. Second, it is learning about US equipment and platforms, presumably taking home the lessons and incorporating them in its training as well as making use of them in equipment acquisition. Third, the IAF is learning to make full use of AWACS system, which is a force-multiplier system. Fourth, as Air Marshal Patney said correctly, the winning combination comes with a holistic approach to combat and involves, in the case of air combat, the entire infrastructure, from the ground staff to the men flying the machines. Finally, this means the PAF is facing an adversary quick on the uptake and getting first-rate opportunities to learn.
How do we respond?
First the obvious: we need to take the same holistic approach. We do not know if we have institutions like Air Power Studies in Pakistan. The air force definitely looks into professional issues but we also need to have outside-the-air-force input. Two, we need to study reports of the performance of various platforms carefully for reasons of acquisitions. Three, since we will always have the problem of asymmetry in quantitative terms, there is even more reason for us to focus on quality both for the equipment and the human resource. The PAF pilots have a great reputation but we cannot rest on our laurels. Four, critics who are not convinced that PAF needs expensive aircraft need to revisit the issue in light of the constantly improving capabilities of IAF. They also need to realise that air power is also essential for ground-support missions. Five, we also need to appreciate the force-multiplier effect an early warning system has on the performance of an air force - even ground forces - and which the critics do not seem to realise. Finally, it is absurd to argue that we do not need advanced military systems because there is no threat now. Threat perception is a function of other states' capabilities, not their intentions. Moreover, to say that with nuclear capability we do not need to boost our conventional capability ignores two important factors, one empirical, the other conceptual: with every increase in expenditure on nuclear forces, nuclear-weapon states have seen a corresponding increase in expenditure in conventional capability; nuclear capability requires that states should increase the nuclear threshold to avoid escalation to the nuclear level. That is possible only by enhancing the conventional capability.
Pakistan not only needs a strong air force, it also requires a strong navy. It is time that we looked at the two neglected forces. *
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