Anyone studied Iranian millitary doctrine ?
They are supposed to have cost effective deterance against Thier foes - since we never matched budget or even go that route and play that game
Need Something more than just nukes as deterance
Iranian deterance is missiles- we can copy that
They have both quantity and quality here - invest in missiles
That's a good deterance where in case of attack you can raise hell in Urban centers with constant missile attacks- that's Iranian doctrine for crippling Urban centers, millitary installations with day night missile attacks
Proxies to engage Thier enemies but that came at a price for them - can we afford that price? Umh...
You can and you can't- depends on how strong your government, deep state is
We can get proxies going but ain't that good in making sure that it doesn't engulf us too
Blockage of Persian Gulf- this is something you can copy, probably more simpler things to do in this bucket list
You have missile batteries that can choke Persian Gulf for em and can attack Thier tankers (Iranians use swarm boat but that's not what one should follow tbh), chocking off Persian Gulf supply with missile batteries,frigites, submarines etc
We should look at other countries for innovative ways for deterance
Iran's military doctrine is totally different from Pakistan's military doctrine. Pakistan's military is build up to fight a long conventional war against India and only India. This is what is so "pathetic" about our military. Pakistan's biggest existential threat is not India but the US. Pakistan needs to prepare itself to face that threat.
Iran's doctrine is fighting a long war against superpower US+Israel+ GCC. Iran has choosen to adopt a asymmetrical strategy has it cant adopt a symmetrical strategy against such a massive force. Even the UAE has a larger military budget than Iran has.
Iran's assymetrical include using ballistic and cruise missiles, submarines in the persian gulf, anti ship ballistic missiles, anti ship cruise missiles, mines and long range air defence systems. Iran has in other words created a A2/AD strategy in the Persian gulf. Pakistan needs to do the same in Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.
"Need Something more than just nukes as deterance"
Bro... Our longest range missile only has range of 2750 km... What deterence is that? We dont have full scale nuclear deterence. Only when have ICBM's capapble of target pretty much any point on earth we will have a complete nuclear deterence. You will never be safe until you have the ability to hit anyone and at anytime.
Max range of Shaheen 3:
But I agree with you. We need something more than just nukes for deterence. Something that could build up our "conventional deterence". There are a couple of options available to the Pakistani state/military here.
I agree with building up a large conventional missile force with a mix of ballistic and cruise missiles.
"That's a good deterance where in case of attack you can raise hell in Urban centers with constant missile attacks- that's Iranian doctrine for crippling Urban centers,
Disagree with urban centers. We have no need to raise hell in urban centers. It would not serve any purpose. Nor do Iran's missiles arsenal serve that purpose. Iran missile arsenal is mainly aimed at compensating for it's "vintage" air force.
It is aimed at striking enemies naval bases, airbases or military facilities in general.
Building a conventional missile arsenal could take Pakistan perhaps decades too make. It it estimated that Iran has 50k ballistic and cruise missiles while we have maybe a couple of hundreds.
If we can build up a arsenal as large as our requirements we could pound Indian airbases as well as American bases in the Middle East day/night with constant attacks.
We should settle on relatively "cheap" ballistic missiles that could be used to knock out IAF elite fighters such as SU-30MKI and Rafale at their bases.
In the event of a war between Pakistan and India, Pakistan could use it's ballistic missiles to knock out IAF fighter bases along the line of contact in a first strike. While India's fighters on the front line would take heavy losses and see their airbases knocked out, PAF fighters would be able to take the skies unscathed and deliver strikes against Indian troops on the front lines.
"Blockage of Persian Gulf- this is something you can copy, probably more simpler things to do in this bucket list".
You are right about more simple things to do.
Pakistan could have something much more destructive than ICBM'S. That would be the capability to cause global recession and massive disruption of financial markets. A trillion+ market mind you. But before this Pakistan would have to achieve energy independence from Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Also stop "begging" the same countries for money.
Pakistani military could 1000 medium range ballistic missiles to target oil fields and terminals in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq. Imagine what this would do to world oil prices?
Pakistan would in fact not even need to win a single batte or use a single nuke to bring the world down to its knees economically.
We are talking about barrels of oil at 300 USD. Why go for tankers when you could potentially do this? Go for the big fish.
The question is does Pakistan want to use this action? This action would hurt Russia as well as Iron Brother. No country would be spared of effects of 200 dollars oil a barrel.
Another option is developing Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT). A modern war cannot be won without destroying communication network, and any war can be won by taking down satellites as most of the weapons and information channels are now connected and controlled by the help of very sophisticated satellites both of civilian and military. If Pakistan can destroy India/US military satelittes the Indian/US military would be "blind". Pakistan uses Chinese Beidou navigation for our missiles and other weapons. If India/US wants to obstruct Pakistan’s weapons guidance systems, India/US will have to destroy the Chinese satellites. Which is very unlikely.
Here you can see a Israeli Arrow 3 which can be used as ASAT weapon:
It only costs 2-3 million USD per unit.
So summary for possible deterrence to develop:
- Large conventional missile arsenal
- Missiles to target oil fields across the Middle East (excluding Iran)
- ASAT weapons
