Air Commodore (Retd) Shahid Kamal Khan
This is the strategic imperative, stated perforce in summary here. There is an attendant requirement; a reevaluation of tactics. I have always believed that the concept of SEAD, Suppression of Enemy Air Defences is nugatory. In short duration, fixed inventory fights the aim should be to do exactly the opposite. We must actually have a well-developed strategy of Enemy Air Defence Excitation. We must trigger the enemy air defences frequently, repeatedly, realistically. Excite them in a manner that ensures that he expends his limited resources while we conserve ours. Defence Suppression enables the exact opposite. The enemy conserves while we expend.
We need to develop and deploy a substantial arsenal of drones, decoys, spurious track generators. False targets, false alarms, real engagements, real responses. Cheap and plentiful triggers forcing expensive and complex solutions. Electronic emitters that duplicate radar signatures of strike aircraft. Long range artillery shells that dispense clouds of intelligent micro emitters deep inside hostile territory. These are but examples; there are many, many more options, cheaper, better, indigenously produced and sophisticated enough that can fool the Phalcon. To be more precise, fool the Indians that fly the Phalcon. Of this I am sure.
The Phalcon system shall enable the Indians to see more. Let us show them more. A whole lot more. Let us devise means that overwhelm their early warning systems. Let us excite their defences, encourage them to expend their weapons, their energies, their countermeasures. Let us deplete their inventory and their will. Done rightly and purposefully it can redress the force imbalance at far lesser cost and with substantially more effectiveness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Air Commodore (Retd) Shahid Kamal Khan was born in Abbottabad, Pakistan in I948. He was commissioned in the PAF in 1966 and retired in August, 1998. During a service span of 32 years as a fighter pilot, he flew all frontline aircraft of the PAF.