A rare war lesson for Beijing: What did China learn from India-Pakistan military conflict?
Sentinels of the skies: Trails from an Indian air defence system are seen above Jammu on May 9 | AFP
The recent four-day military stand-off between India and Pakistan highlighted the importance of the system of systems in warfare, as systemic operations seem to have replaced individual weapon performance in modern-day conflicts.
The Study Times, the official newspaper of the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, in recent commentary highlighted the lessons China could learn from the India-Pakistan conflict.
“Recent real-world combat experience from regional conflicts has profoundly revealed the core logic of modern warfare: the contest of individual weapon performance has been replaced by systemic operations,” the commentary read.
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The article observed that multi-domain coordinated operations, which involve integration and simultaneous use of military capabilities across multiple domains—land, air, sea, cyber, space, and the electromagnetic spectrum—are increasingly replacing conventional physical attacks and warfare.
Highlighting the importance of surprise strikes and silent and unpredictable moves, the article read: “From the moment an enemy aircraft takes off, our early warning aircraft must immediately detect it, guiding air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles to strike before the pilot even realises the danger,” according to SCMP.
In what came as a dig to India, the paper claimed that Pakistan, a seemingly weaker force, used an imported combat system—purportedly from China—“combining data links, early warning aircraft, air defence systems, and coordinated fighter jets” to overwhelm India's defence system which is a mixture of weapons from different countries.
Pakistan employed a range of foreign-supplied weaponry, including PL-15 air-to-air missiles, HQ-9 long-range air defence missiles, LY-80 (HQ-16) medium-range and FM-90 (HQ-7) short-range air defence missiles, J-10C fighter jets and JF-17 fighter jets against India.
As China has not fought a hot war since the 1970s, the conflict between India and Pakistan gave it a chance to examine the capabilities of its weapon systems.
Defence