MAY 2019 ISSUE NO. 294 The Indian Air Force, Sub-Conventional Operations and Balakot: A Practitioner’s Perspective ARJUN SUBRAMANIAM ABSTRACT India’s employment of offensive air power in sub-conventional operations has evolved rather slowly for several reasons, primary of which is the quest for restraint in the application of force against internal fissures. There is also a popular reluctance to recognise the capabilities of air power in pursuing counter-insurgency, counter- terrorism and counter-infiltration operations. This brief explores the evolution of a doctrinal clarity for the Indian Air Force (IAF) in the sub-conventional domain. It examines such shift in the context of the recent Balakot strikes and the consequent aerial engagement between the IAF and the Pakistani Air Force. The brief concludes with an outline of the key faultlines within the IAF, and the capability gaps that need to be filled for the force to stay relevant across its full spectrum of operations. (This brief is part of ORF’s series, ‘National Security’. Find other research in the series here: https://www.orfonline.org/series/national-security/) Attribution: Arjun Subramaniam, “The Indian Air Force, Sub-Conventional Operations and Balakot: A Practitioner’s Perspective”, ORF Issue Brief No. 294, May 2019, Observer Research Foundation. Observer Research Foundation (ORF) is a public policy think tank that aims to influence the formulation of policies for building a strong and prosperous India. ORF pursues these goals by providing informed analyses and in-depth research, and organising events that serve as platforms for stimulating and productive discussions. ISBN 978-93-89094-23-7 © 2019 Observer Research Foundation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, archived, retained or transmitted through print, speech or electronic media without prior written approval from ORF. The Indian Air Force, Sub-Conventional Operations and Balakot: A Practitioner’s Perspective INTRODUCTION observers to construct a narrative that the IAF was used without thought and restraint, they Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunwa is a mere 300 km must be analysed in the context of the Indian to the northeast of the area where the Indian state’s particular vulnerabilities on multiple Air Force (IAF) first saw action against fronts at that time. It was only when the threat recalcitrant Afridi and Mahsud tribesmen in of two concurrent insurgencies (i.e., Nagaland the mid-1930s. Flying out of Kohat airfield and Mizoram) showed visible signs of (near Peshawar) in their slow and lumbering secessionist tendencies did the Indian state Audaxes and Wapitis, No1 Squadron carried choose to employ offensive air power, and only out effective strafing and bombing raids in the selectively. mountains of Waziristan in what today would have been termed as counter-insurgency Over the decades that followed the operations.1 It is thus ironic that although in Nagaland and Mizoram insurgencies, the the early years of the IAF it was employed Indian state continued to grapple with @ extensively against insurgents and non-state multiple other such movements. The state entities, it would be almost eight decades exercised restraint in using air power against these insurgencies, such as the Left Wing before the Indian state would openly use air Extremist movement and the covert war in power in a less-than-war situation in the same J&K.# area where it cut its teeth during its formative years. Following its success in executing the entire range of conventional offensive air operations In the decades after independence, the IAF during the 1971 war, the IAF assessed that it actively supported the 8th Mountain Division was critical to embark on a doctrinal path that in joint operations against insurgents in focused on building air capability for strategic Nagaland, causing high attrition to the effect in conventional warfighting scenarios. secessionist forces in the years prior to the Propelling this was the need to stay relevant as 1962 war with China. After the 1965 war with a tool of national security in the shadow of an Pakistan, the siege of the treasury at Aizwal by overwhelmingly powerful and dominant the Mizo National Front (MNF) was broken by Indian Army. This doctrinal path gave little a joint operation involving the landing of attention to building capability for sub- heliborne troops supported by offensive air conventional operations; at that time, the power against rebels belonging to the MNF.2 concept of “Full Spectrum capability”$ was still While these incidents may have led some some years away in the horizon. @ Some of the other insurgencies that challenged the Indian state emerged in the states of Jammu and Manipur, Tripura, Assam and across several states (West Bengal, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkand, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh) in the form of Left Wing Extremism (LWE). # The J&K insurgency gradually morphed into a covert war waged against India by the Pakistani Deep State comprising elements of the ISI, Pakistan Army and the Jihadi network of groups like the LeT and JeM. $ ‘Full Spectrum Capability” refers to military capabilities that can concurrently address the entire spectrum of conflict from nuclear conflict to sub-conventional operations and even less-than-war situations that may warrant the use of force. 2 ORF ISSUE BRIEF No. 294 l MAY 2019 The Indian Air Force, Sub-Conventional Operations and Balakot: A Practitioner’s Perspective TURBULENT TIMES cross-border infiltration in the early 1990s, he made an attempt to reach out to divisional The 1980s saw a significant application of air commanders and the corps commander in the power in the operations carried out by the region to find out how the IAF could support Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka, the Indian Army in the emerging scenario.5 He to help end the civil war between the country’s says the Army was reluctant to share plans and military forces and the militant organisation, discuss the possibility of infusing air power LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). into the counter-insurgency, counter- However, those offensive air operations were infiltration and counter-terrorist campaign restricted to “search and destroy” missions by that was unfolding. From this author’s own Mi-25 Attack Helicopters.3 The absence of hard recollections of the time, there was insufficient intelligence resulted in sub-optimal operational doctrinal clarity within the IAF, nor was there outcomes though the LTTE was petrified of the inter-service synergy in terms of supporting ‘Mudhalais (“alligator” in Tamil’), as they called such complex operations through interdiction the Mi-25s.4 by attack helicopters and fighters, or heliborne insertion of Special Forces by day and night The early 1990s saw a significant increase along known infiltration routes that existed in in incidents of cross-border infiltration into under-populated and forested areas like Lolab, J&K involving jihadis from Pakistan, and the Handwara or the Pir Panjal and Rajwar build-up of training camps along the Line of mountain ranges.% To be sure, capability Control (LoC). By then, IAF’s fighter jets and existed for strikes on static targets across the attack helicopters had acquired fair proficiency LoC, but it was never exercised for the reasons in targeting, and many within the air force saw explained earlier. a window for supporting “hot pursuit” operations that the Indian Army was During the Kargil conflict of 1999, the IAF advocating as part of a declaratory punitive was not initially prepared to conduct policy. However, the proposition that air power “restricted” air operations against the intruders was always going to be escalatory in sub- without crossing the LoC or the International conventional operations had permeated Boundary (IB) and few plans existed as part of through the strategic establishment. It was a “limited response” strategies. Air Marshal given that the Indian Army would handle the Patney, the commander-in-control of the IAF’s operations on their own, be it in the northeast Western Air Command (WAC), wanted to open or in J&K. a wider front and hit logistics nodes at places like Gultari (a prominent Pakistan Army base a In a conversation with this author, Air few kilometres north of the LoC opposite the Chief Marshal Tipnis recollects that when he Dras Sector) and airfields at Gilgit and Skardu was Air-Officer-Commanding of J&K Area as in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) to choke 6 an Air Vice Marshal during the peak of the the intruders. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari % While the Pir Panjal ranges separate the Kashmir Valley from the Jammu region, the Rajwar mountain range is a subsidiary Himalayan range that lies to the east of the district of Kupwara, a terrorist and insurgency ridden district of J&K. ORF ISSUE BRIEF No. 294 l MAY 2019 3 The Indian Air Force, Sub-Conventional Operations and Balakot: A Practitioner’s Perspective Vajpayee, however, had taken a decision that all Following the attack on the Indian military operations in response to the Kargil Parliament in December 2001, India's armed infiltrations would not violate the sanctity of forces mobilised in a year-long face-off with the LoC and the IB. Consequently, the aerial Pakistan, called Operation Parakram. Though attacks on Tiger Hill, the Muntha Dalo logistics the IAF was ready for limited strikes across the camp and numerous mountain-top defences LoC and presented plans to PM Vajpayee and occupied by Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry Defence Minister