Analysis-With militaries upgraded, risks multiply in any potential India-Pakistan conflict

By Saeed Shah and Shivam Patel

ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India and Pakistan person importantly upgraded their subject capabilities since the nuclear-armed neighbours clashed successful 2019, posing accrued risks of escalation adjacent successful a constricted conflict, erstwhile subject officers and experts say.

Pakistan says India plans a subject incursion aft New Delhi blamed Islamabad for a deadly onslaught connected home tourists successful Indian Kashmir past month. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to punish the backers of the onslaught "beyond their imagination".

Pakistan has denied engagement successful the onslaught but has warned it volition deed backmost if it is targeted.

In 2019, India carried retired aerial strikes wrong Pakistan aft the bombing of an Indian subject convoy successful Kashmir and said it destroyed "terrorist camps". Pakistani jets conducted a retaliatory aerial onslaught and changeable down an Indian craft during actions dispersed implicit 2 days.

The neighbours person fought 3 wars - successful 1948, 1965 and 1971 - and clashed countless times since gaining independence, mostly implicit the Kashmir portion which some claim. Both acquired atomic weapons successful the 1990s and Kashmir is considered 1 of the astir unsafe flashpoints successful the world.

Military experts accidental neither broadside volition see atomic weapons unless pushed to the wall, but adjacent a constricted struggle would transportation precocious risks of escalation.

They accidental specified a struggle is apt to impact aircraft, missiles oregon drones, wherever India and Pakistan are considered intimately matched, though India's acold greater resources would travel into play implicit a longer period.

"Decision makers successful some states present person a higher hazard appetite for struggle initiation and escalation than anterior to 2019," said Frank O'Donnell, a non-resident chap astatine the South Asia Program astatine the Stimson Center, a think-tank successful Washington, arsenic they had managed past to clash without atomic weapons being used.

"But without a wide communal consciousness of the precise actions, that could trigger inadvertent escalation," helium added.

Both sides person acquired caller subject hardware since 2019, opening up caller accepted onslaught options.

"Each broadside volition deliberation they are successful a amended presumption than past time," said Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia information researcher based astatine the University of Technology, Sydney. "It is lone erstwhile we spot existent combat that we volition find out."

In particular, India believes that it was astatine a disadvantage successful 2019 due to the fact that it had to trust chiefly connected ageing Russian jets. It has since inducted 36 French-made Rafale combatant jets, a apical Western aircraft, with much connected bid for its navy.

To counter, Pakistan got 1 of China's astir precocious warfare planes, the J-10, a unsmooth equivalent of the Rafale, successful batches since 2022. It has astatine slightest 20 of the aircraft, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The planes transportation precocious capabilities, with the Rafale equipped with Meteor air-to-air missiles that run beyond ocular range. The J-10 is equipped with the comparable PL-15 missile, according to a Pakistani information authoritative who declined to beryllium identified due to the fact that they were not authorised to little the media.

To plug the gaps successful aerial defences exposed connected some sides successful the 2019 conflict, India secured Russia's battle-tested S-400, a mobile anti-aircraft rocket system. Pakistan obtained the HQ-9 from China, which is based connected Russia’s S-300, 1 notch down.

'CLAMOUR FOR ACTION'

"Most surely successful immoderate respects we are amended disconnected (than 2019)," said Anil Golani, a erstwhile aerial vice marshal successful the Indian Air Force, and the manager wide of the Delhi-based Centre for Air Power Studies deliberation tank.

"There's a batch of clamour for enactment successful the state but, successful my idiosyncratic assessment, some India and Pakistan are not looking for an all-out conflict," helium added.

Hanging implicit immoderate struggle is China, India's rival and Pakistan's adjacent state and biggest supplier of subject equipment. Although the U.S. has urged India and Pakistan to easiness tensions, it volition intimately ticker immoderate struggle for insights connected Beijing's aerial strength.

The Chinese level and its PL-15 rocket person not antecedently been tested successful combat.

"It could beryllium a contention betwixt Western and Chinese technology," said Faisal, adding "for India, determination is the dilemma of however galore aerial squadrons to perpetrate to the Pakistan front, arsenic it indispensable besides defender against China."

China and India fought a little borderline warfare successful 1962 and the 2 armies person clashed, astir precocious successful 2022, on their tense Himalayan frontier.

Pakistan has a fleet of F-16s, the U.S. craft acquired decades backmost erstwhile ties with Washington were stronger. These F-16s were deployed successful the 2019 tussle, starring India to lodge protests with the U.S., though New Delhi present enjoys acold person ties with Washington.

This time, to debar the governmental fallout with the F-16 and to instrumentality vantage of having a much precocious aircraft, Pakistan volition apt spearhead with the Chinese J-10, experts said.

But a drone oregon ground-launched rocket onslaught is considered much apt since neither would hazard a aviator being changeable down.

India has turned to Israel for combat-capable drones, getting the Heron Mark 2, and it has U.S. Predator drones connected order. Pakistan has acquired Turkey's Bayraktar TB2 - utilized by Ukraine successful its warfare with Russia - and the Akinci, besides from Turkey, according to the Pakistani information official.

Amid the standoff, Pakistan tested a surface-to-surface ballistic rocket with a scope of 450 km (280 miles) connected Saturday, to amusement that the equipped forces were acceptable to "safeguard nationalist information against immoderate aggression," according to a connection from the country’s military. Pakistan besides has a scope of short-range and medium-range missiles, susceptible of being fired from ground, oversea and air.

There was nary contiguous remark from India connected the test. India's capabilities see the BrahMos supersonic cruise rocket of astir 300 km scope arsenic good the Agni bid of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The 2019 skirmish astir spiralled retired of control, with aggregate rocket strikes threatened earlier U.S. involution calmed the concern down.

Kaiser Tufail, a erstwhile combatant aviator successful the Pakistani aerial force, said that India did not negociate to found deterrence successful 2019, truthful it would purpose for a much incisive onslaught this time, bringing much risks successful its wake.

Modi said pursuing the 2019 skirmishes that the state had felt the deficiency of Rafale fighters astatine the time, which were connected order, and suggested that the results of the clash could person been antithetic if it had the French fighter.

"If you spell beyond what we saw successful 2019, it is precise risky," said Tufail. "Nuclear-armed countries slugging it retired is highly dangerous."

(Reporting by Saeed Shah successful Islamabad and Shivam Patel successful New Delhi; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)