Thank you for trying. You decided to not address my question about who called who's bluff. India did not follow through despite two decades of noise about CSD.
India didn't call Pakistan's bluff, unless one expected a nuclear response over a crow. Pakistan kept its promise to retaliate at the time and place of its own choosing and followed through.
Winning was great but in large scheme of things was secondary. Following through is the difference: India called the escalation an act of war, but did not follow through. How do you deny, on factual grounds, that it was Pakistan who called India's bluff? (Please don't respond. Just a rhetorical question.)
Article below might help clear up any misconception of Pakistan not prepared to retaliated in case of future adventures.
Feb stand-off exposed India’s conventional bluff
Looming threat of another aggression again gives a wake-up call to international community to exercise its influence for solution of outstanding issues India making new deployments on its western border
Sohail Nasir
April 08, 2019
Islamabad - The failed Indian attack near Balakot and next day early morning retaliation by the PAF and subsequent events
not only exposed conventional bluff of India but also stabilised the nuclear threshold by bestowing upon Pakistan the confidence that it could effectively take on arch rival in the realm of conventional warfare.
Pakistan, without going to war, smartly established its superiority by outclassing India in air, land, sea, diplomacy, intelligence and information combat. Stunning performance by PAF and vulnerabilities of IAF really surprised the military circles all along the world. ISPR, led by Major General Asif Ghafoor, without applying any propaganda tool, took lead over India by providing true and real time information of land and air skirmishes.
Despite these setbacks, India’s instinctual appetite for escalation and sheer madness to avenge the recent humiliation is once again putting the region in danger. Reportedly India is making new deployments of armoured, infantry and air defence contingents on its western border with Pakistan. On LOC, it has increased ceasefire violations many-fold. Prime Minister Imran Khan has explicitly made it clear that threat is not over yet and Pakistan will have to remain vigilant until the end of upcoming election process in India. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, during his Sunday press conference in Multan, even gave the timeline of India’s likely aggression by saying that there was danger of another misadventure by India between 16th to 20th April. It seems that another Pulwama is in making. It would be worth mentioning that Indian general elections are scheduled to be held in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha. The looming threat of another round of aggression and February standoff between two nuclear weapon states again gives a wake-up call to international community to exercise its influence for solution of outstanding issues. Pakistan-India military conflict would have devastating effects on region and beyond as the war between two countries could spiral out of control.
With return of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, , so far Pakistan has taken a number of steps for de-escalation and also re-initiated dialogue process on Kartarpur corridor. Instead of showing reciprocity, India consistently making hostile manoeuvres, giving impression that any peace move with Pakistan will be electorally damaging for BJP but this is mere deception.
According to assessment of security quarters in Pakistan, Jingoistic design of India are based on a three dimensional strategy. Firstly, malign and try to subdue Pakistan by using sheer kinetic force for electoral and political gains. Secondly, to impede CPEC through military tension and thirdly to put Kashmir issue on back burner.
Since ever, India has hysterically been trying to militarily cope with Pakistan once for all but so far it has been unsuccessful to figure out that how to do it. 2001 military standoff with Pakistan provided Indian political and military leadership with an opening to bring about doctrinal changes in its operational strategy to fulfil the dream of trampling Pakistan. Pursuing this agenda, India evolved so called cold start doctrine which simply means to attack Pakistan with amazing swiftness, using unimaginable massive, integrated land and air force, capturing sizeable area and leave Pakistan with no option but to crumble.
Be it BJP or Congress, the idea presented by India generals always fascinated top ranks of both parties.
Bringing about doctrinal changes in military strategy is by all means a gigantic task and there are very rare examples of its success.
A military fantasy like cold start doctrine can be a successful story in an Indian film but on the ground there are very serious obstacles in way of strategy formulation and its execution. After consistent efforts of 18 years, the culmination of cold start doctrine was formation of integrated battle groups in limited numbers .IBGs and IAF, two month ago, carried out two separate exercises near Pakistan border to assess its abilities in battleground environment. Ironically, through pulwama episode, India created an opportunity to test the CSD but Pakistan nipped the evil in bud by pre-empting India designs.
What India needs to know is that during 18 years of development of CSD, Pakistan has successfully plugged gaps by construction of superstructure of roads, bunkers, canals and subsidiaries on eastern flank. This enabled Pakistan, for real time military buildup, ensure safety of troops and civilian population and disable Indian advance into Pakistani territory. On the top of that battlefield range ballistic missile NASR, short range ballistic missile Ghazanvi and small nuclear arms fully neutralised CSD. NASR tipped with small nuclear arms is sufficient to wipe out any Indian military formation advancing on Pakistani soil.
Aerial bout on LOC also exposed the myth of Israeli technology where Indian Mirage jets had to drop their payload of SPICE 2000.Much propagated SPICE bomb kit of Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems consists of a sophisticated guidance system, inertial navigation, satellite guidance and electro-optical sensors for pinpoint accuracy, and control fins to a conventional unguided bomb. Claims made in Israeli media it turns the bomb into sophisticated long-range munitions. With this state of art and lethal weaponry, Indian planes could only create several large craters, flipped over some trees and killed one black crow.
Failed Indian attack near Balakot must have negatively impacted the marketing of Russian jets and Israeli munitions.
In February India attacked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which is main land Pakistan but International community kept silent on blatant Indian aggression. At the same time, powerful countries cannot always scramble to defuse India –Pakistan tension.
Economic stability, political harmony and internationalization of Indian threat to CPEC are the factors that can halt India. CPEC is part of Belt and Road project which intends to link more than 66 countries from different continents. Any attempt by India to hamper CEPEC would tantamount to damage the interest of all member countries of B&R project.