World Affairs
- Sep 12, 2024
- 822
- 222
- Origin
- Residence
- Axis Group
Date of Event:
May 15, 2025
How Pakistan’s Drone Army Won the War Against India
One side in the India-Pakistan War invested heavily in drone capabilities over the last decade. The other did not.
nationalinterest.org
One side in the India-Pakistan War invested heavily in drone capabilities over the last decade. The other did not.
The night of May 9, 2025, should henceforth be required course material for all Western defense experts. That was the night when the Pakistani military retaliated against their Indian neighbors in what Islamabad has come to call “Operation Bunyaan al-Marsoos,” (derived from the Quran, meaning “a structure firmly joined together”) with a massive drone swarm.Pakistan’s operation was truly massive, involving the coordination of hundreds of drones. And it demonstrated the importance of the weapons—Turkish drones, to be precise—as much as Islamabad’s effective shooting down of multiple European and Russian-made warplanes demonstrated the effectiveness of Chinese-made, Pakistani-operated warplanes and missiles.
During the drone operation, Pakistan launched an astonishing 400-500 drones that penetrated deep inside Indian territory. The idea was for the drones to trigger India’s air defense systems. Pakistan’s military would then map out those systems, gathering essential data for a future full-scale attack.
Canada: Here's The Estimated Cost Of Installing A Senior Stairlift In 2025Clear Living
Diabetes and Numb Feet? Put These In Your Shoes!akusoli.com
And there is evidence to suggest that Pakistan used the information their drones collected on May 9 for a massive jamming operation on May 10. Indeed, while unconfirmed, there are multiple reports indicating that the Pakistanis even targeted the powerful Russian-built S-400 air defenses that India had ringing their airbases.
All the claims made by Pakistan have been denied by India. But that’s just par for the course; Pakistan routinely does the same to India when New Delhi has battlefield successes.
Plus, it remains likely that, should the current ceasefire break down and the war continue, and if the Indians continue escalating on their end, India will enjoy the upper hand over its Pakistani rivals. For now, however, the Pakistanis have deftly used whatever capabilities at their disposal—and a lot of gumption—to stymie India’s offensives.
Drones Are the Future of Warfare
Just as in the Ukraine War and the various iterations of fighting between Iran-backed militants and Israel in the Middle East, one side in the India-Pakistan War—Pakistan, in this case—invested heavily in drone capabilities over the last decade. Specifically, Pakistan purchased drones from Turkey and China, each of which produces high-quality drones at relatively low cost.Because of their indigenous production capabilities and strong partnerships with China and Turkey, Pakistan has managed to avoid a fate that most everyone assumed would befall them. They did not lose to India. And, as noted above, in key instances, they pushed back hard against the Indians.
India made the mistake, perhaps understandably, of trying to model its military on those of the West. But the Western militaries no longer possess the war-winning formulae they once did. Sure, Western militaries have expensive gadgets. But with countries like China, Russia, and Turkey now rising, having the most expensive systems are no longer viable substitutes for victories.
Even with the Russian example, it should be noted that India relies heavily on Russian military technology. Their Su-30MKI was among the five planes shot down by Pakistan in the opening phases of the war. Further, the Pakistanis managed to blast the S-400s after jamming them on May 10. Here, too, are lessons U.S. and NATO planners could learn in how best to stymie powerful Russian air defense systems.
Pakistan Used Its Drones Brilliantly
Pakistani strategists likely calibrated their forces for the four-day-long engagement with India to maximize their advantages, notably with Turkish drones and Chinese weapons. Comprehensively, the Indians are a superior force. Yet, specifically, in terms of the kind of tactical engagements Indian and Pakistani forces found themselves in, the Pakistanis had flipped the board in their favor.India will next have to return to the drawing board and begin developing far more effective countermeasures for shooting down incoming drones. What’s more, they must invest in their own drone swarms.
It was an understandable move by India to rely on standoff weapons. In fact, those systems did destroy massive numbers of Pakistani military infrastructure (multiple airbases, for instance). Yet, the fact that New Delhi was moving toward destroying economic hubs, like Karachi, or that Indian forces had fired at Pakistani nuclear weapons facilities, indicated that Indian war planners were desperate. The reason? The Indians—like the Taiwanese, like the Afghan National Army, and so many other proxies of the United States—attempted to emulate the technology and tactics of the Americans and their Western allies. The Pakistanis, however, did not.
Both sides have accepted a stalemate and both sides are telling their people they won. But it should not have been close. Pakistan should have never been able to fight back as well as they did, given the economic and technological advances of the Indian military and wider society. That India struggled as they did indicate that, at least in the first phase of the conflict, Pakistan was winning.
Whether that would have persisted is unlikely. But it’s a vital warning that Western military analysts need to hear—notably Taiwanese military leaders, as their own great power war approaches.
