Some of the comments made need to be examined.
Well I had heard of FEBA but FEBA weapons is a new concept for me, however its never too late to learn new concepts. I generally agree with you that Pakistan had US weapons mostly and India had Russian weapons so we had a slight edge over indians, but only till 1965. Pakistan's strong defence in 1965 actually surprised India as they were expecting they will be able to celebrate their victory by nightfall in Lahore Gymkhana on 6th of Sep 1965.
This is a fabrication; there is nowhere any evidence that there was such a war aim, there was not even a casual, facetious remark made by any senior Indian officer to this effect. The closest I have got to it was a small column in the Amrita Bazar Patrika, but once that was quoted by a Pakistani newspaper, it became concrete fact.
1965 onwards India started making deliberate efforts to improve the efficiency of its warfighting apparatus both in equipment and doctrine. from 1965 to 1982 India had a significant edge in Air Force and Navy and almost a balance in Army. Indian Armour was considered better but on the other hand Pakistan's Artillery was considered superior in training as well equipment. As far as numbers were concerned Pakistan was always out gunned and out numbered on the ground, in the air and sea. Things changed when US reduced the sanctions during Zia regime to help Pakistan against USSR. Some equipment came in the shape of F16s, M109 SP Artillery and vehicles etc but it was not at all sufficient to change the balance of power in favour of Pakistan. USA made sure not to antagonize their friend India as it was an emerging market.
You need to consult your references, for this is an absurdity. The cold indifference shown by the USA (and the UK and NATO in general) towards India lasted till nearly the millennium, till Clinton. Nixon was positively hostile, Ford was embattled, Carter could not get his second term. Reagan was again positively hostile, to the extent that he had any views on any subject, and the older Bush reacted to India from his background as a bitter critic during his days as US Ambassador to the UN. Under Clinton, there was no movement until the Kargil conflict broke out, and everyone suddenly realised that two nuclear powers were locked in combat.
It was entirely the attitude of the Pakistani side - the spineless inability to resist the military on the part of the politicians, the duplicity of the military - that brought opinion at those levels around to favour India.
For further information on this, you might like to refer to the candid memoirs of key members of the administration, especially Strobe Talbot. He is devastating on the subject, and much of the illusion-peddling that goes on today between supporters of Nawaz Sharif and supporters of Musharraf would be dispelled by a reading of this book.
on the other hand India bought almost 400 Mirage 2000s, Jaguars, SU30MKIs just to take care of 40 F16s of PAF. In Kargil War India had a clear edge over PAF in BVR regime the price of which we paid while sitting on the Tiger Hill when Mirage 2000s started targeting the posts with laser guided ammo after two kills (Sqn Ldr Ajay Ahuja in a Mig 21 and Flt Lt Nachiketa in a Mig 27) were brought down by SHORADS of Pakistan Army.
Why does it never occur to any Pakistani observer to look at the inventory of the IAF at the end of 1965? Vampires and Mysteres were front-line inventory, and Gnats were the super-stars, India being the only country to fly them. This was against PAF F-86s and F-104s; even against such odds, 3 F-104s were shot down. With the increasing obsolescence of the B-57 Canberra, the Jaguar was inducted, and the Mirage 2000 because of the widening gap in inventory with the total elimination of older types such as the Vampire, the Mystere, and the Gnat, a gap that the MiG 21, in its role as point interceptor with very short range, was unable to fill. This was also when the MiG 23 and the MiG 27 were inducted. The overall strength of the IAF did not change dramatically.
At that precise point of time, the PLAAF was also strengthening itself and its existing stock of MiG 17s and MiG 19s with large numbers of MiG 21s. They also rebuilt the MiG 19 and MiG 21, and these re-builds were supplied in quantity to the PAF. The imagery of a poverty-stricken orphan service humbly depending on 40 F-16s is ludicrous.
The Indian SU30 MKI came in with the SU30 MKK; if you want to project action and reaction, this is the proper pairing.
Coming on to the present and future, India is making an effort to acquire latest systems to teach Pakistan a lesson of a life time after which Pakistan will be silenced for good and India will be able to focus on China which India considers (and rightly so) a major stumbling block in her path to greatness and becoming a superpower.
Quite clearly, this is a deliberate attempt at assuming the garb of victimhood. It is public knowledge that the IAF inventory is planned to be 42 squadrons. That just barely permits both hostile neighbours to be held off, there is no scope there for teaching lessons of a life time. It is this planned strength that is being sought to be made up; as is clear, there was, and is, no question of anybody being silenced for good. These dramatic attitudes and poses may appeal to some deep psychological inadequacy, but have no connection with real life.
Apaches, C17s, C130s, Rafales, nuclear and diesel submarines, Israeli SAMs, S400s and many other such procurements are significant achievements for a third world country like India which was used to kind of boring, unreliable, cumbersome and heavy equipment from Russia. But unfortunately for India it is not enough. Even if we disregard the nuclear aspect India needs 4:1 superiority to defeat Pakistan in a decisive manner. The rise of China as an alternate economic and military power has tilted the balance of power in favour of Pakistan. For every move which India makes, Pakistan and China are ready with a counter move. Pakistan has become a battle testing ground for Chinese equipment which suits both Pakistan and China. India's lack of imagination, failure to indigenize and political intolerance has also not helped India. Mega corruption in defence procurement (Rafale and Bofors deals being a prime examples) is yet another obstacle. India is buying weapons in bits and pieces where as Pakistan is indoctrinating weapon systems in its military fabric. With more and more budget diverted towards pays and pensions of such a huge Armed Force India is day by day faced with an ever increasing gap in balance of conventional weapons with Pakistan.
This is one half of the picture; for obvious reasons, we find the other half obscured.
On the front of armour, on the front of aircraft, there has been a clear trend in Pakistani procurement, that only your military leadership can comment on. All the comment that can be made gracefully is that the Al Zarrar and the Al Khalid might not have been the main battle tank that the Army leadership would have wanted; nor might your Air Force leadership have been happy with the JF-17, but necessity makes strange bed-fellows.
I do not see a military solution to the problems being faced by India and Pakistan. Its best for India and Pakistan to sit down and find a solution for Kashmir problem which satisfies Pakistan, India and most importantly Kashmiris. I do not see another solution to Indo Pak enmity unless both the nations want to go up in a nuclear mushroom.
For that last, there is no faith in India about Pakistan's willingness to live in peace if in a hypothetical way the Kashmir issue were to be resolved; the language conceals Pakistan's outright demand that the resolution should be one dictated by Pakistan. As this has been attempted through brute force, and has failed, and has also been sought through the deployment of extra-state players, this naked demand for acquiescence with Pakistan's desires is unlikely to gain much traction among Indian circles. If this had been the single-minded earnest objective of the Pakistani establishment, if the efforts at gaining by subterfuge in 1947-48 had not happened, if the gigantic hoax of home-grown insurgents had not been played in 1965, if there had not been an outright attack with armour and artillery on the failure of the home-grown insurgents ploy, if there had not been a covert attempt (once again, after 1947 and 1965) to gain advantage in 1999, if there was not an on-going campaign to inject terrorism into the state, there might be some credibility in such a Pakistani statement of intent.
As it is, there is none.
