Pakistan Air Force

The future of Pakistani combat aviation lies with the Chengdu JF-17 Thunder aircraft, designed in China but manufactured under license in Pakistan.

Built on British heritage, the Pakistani Air Force today represents a significant force in the region, using an unusual combination of American and Chinese equipment, as well as equipment from other countries. Pakistan builds defense independence on the basis of nuclear deterrence, but does not neglect conventional means of defense, both in terms of deterring a potential adversary and in terms of the actual conduct of hostilities.

Pakistan, or rather the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in the southern part of Central Asia, almost 2,5 times larger than Poland in area, with a population of more than 200 million citizens. This country has a very long border with India in the east - 2912 km, with which it "always" had border disputes. In the north it borders with Afghanistan (2430 km), and between India and Afghanistan - with the People's Republic of China (523 km). In the southwest, Pakistan also borders on Iran - 909 km. It has access from the south to the Indian Ocean, the length of the coast is 1046 km.

Pakistan is half lowland, half mountainous. The eastern half, with the exception of the northern part itself, is a valley stretching through the Indus River basin (3180 km), flowing from northeast to southwest, from the border with the People's Republic of China to the banks of the river. Indian Ocean (Arabian Sea). The most important border with India in terms of defense passes through this valley. In turn, the northwestern half of the country along the border with Iran and Afghanistan is a mountainous area, with a mountain range belonging to the Hindu Kush - the Suleiman Mountains. Their highest peak is Takht-e-Suleiman - 3487 m above sea level. In turn, at the northern tip of Pakistan is part of the Karakoram Mountains, with the highest peak K2, 8611 m above sea level.

All of Kashmir, most of which is on the Indian side, is a large disputed area between the two countries. Pakistan believes that its state-controlled part of Kashmir is inhabited by Muslims, and therefore by Pakistanis. The area on the Indian side of the demarcation line that Pakistan is claiming is the Siachen Glacier on the Sino-Indo-Pakistani border. In turn, India demands control over all of Kashmir, including the part controlled by Pakistan, and even over some territories voluntarily handed over by Pakistan to the PRC. India is also trying to abolish the autonomy of its part of Kashmir. Another disputed area is Sir Creek in the Indus Delta, which is the demarcation of the fairway, although this bay has no harbor, and the whole area is swampy and almost uninhabited. Therefore, the dispute is almost pointless, but the dispute over Kashmir takes on very sharp forms. Twice, in 1947 and 1965, there was a war over Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The third war in 1971 focused on the secession of East Pakistan, leading to the emergence of a new Indian-backed state known today as Bangladesh.

India has had nuclear weapons since 1974. As one would expect, full-scale wars between the two countries ceased from that moment. However, Pakistan has also launched its own nuclear program. Work on Pakistani nuclear weapons began in January 1972. The work was led by nuclear physicist Munir Ahmad Khan (1926-1999) for more than a quarter of a century. First, the infrastructure for the production of enriched plutonium was created. Since 1983, several so-called cold tests, where atoms can be divided into charges below the critical mass, which prevents a chain reaction from starting and leads to an actual nuclear explosion.

Munir Ahmad Khan strongly advocated a spherical charge of the implosion type, in which all the elements of the spherical shell are blown inward with conventional explosives, sticking together at the center, creating a mass above critical with high density, which speeds up the reactions. At his request, a technology for the production of enriched plutonium by the electromagnetic method was developed. One of his main associates, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, advocated a simpler "pistol" type charge, in which two charges are fired at each other. This is a simpler method, but less efficient for a given amount of fissile material. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan also advocated the use of enriched uranium instead of plutonium. After all, Pakistan has developed equipment to produce both enriched plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

The last test of Pakistan's nuclear capability was a full-scale test on May 28, 1998. On this day, five simultaneous tests were carried out in the Ras Koh mountains near the Afghan border with an explosion yield of about 38 kt, all charges were implosive uranium. Two days later, a single test was carried out with an explosion of about 20 kt. This time, the site of the explosion was the Haran Desert (a little over 100 km southwest of the previous place), which is strange, because this is the territory of the national park ... All the explosions were underground, and the radiation did not break out. An interesting fact about this second attempt (the sixth Pakistani nuclear explosion) was that although this time it was an implosion-type charge, plutonium was used instead of enriched uranium. Probably, in this way, the effects of both types of materials were practically compared.

In 2010, the Americans officially estimated Pakistan's reserve of 70-90 warheads for ballistic missiles and aerial bombs with a yield of 20-40 kt. Pakistan is not trying to build super-powerful thermonuclear warheads. In 2018, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was estimated at 120-130 nuclear warheads for missiles and aerial bombs.

Nuclear Doctrine of Pakistan

Since 2000, a committee known as the National Command has been developing the strategy, readiness and practical use of nuclear weapons. It is a civil-military organization led by Prime Minister Imran Khan. The government committee consists of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Defense Industry. From the side of the military command, the chairman of the chiefs of staff, General Nadim Raza, and the chiefs of staff of all branches of the armed forces: the Ground Forces, the Air Force and the Naval Forces. The fifth military man is the head of the consolidated military intelligence, the sixth is the director of the strategic planning department of the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff. The last two bear the rank of lieutenant general, the remaining four combat - the rank of general (four stars). The seat of the PNCA (Pakistan National Command) is the capital of the state of Islamabad. The committee also makes a major decision regarding the use of nuclear weapons itself.

In accordance with the current nuclear doctrine, Pakistan exercises nuclear deterrence at four levels:

• publicly or through diplomatic channels to warn about the use of nuclear weapons;
• home nuclear warning;
• tactical nuclear strike against enemy troops on its territory;
• attack on military installations (only objects of military importance) on enemy territory.

With regard to the decision to use nuclear weapons, it is officially stated that there are four thresholds beyond which Pakistan will use its own nuclear weapons. Details are not known, but from official speeches, statements and, probably, the so-called. The following managed leaks are known:

• spatial threshold - when enemy troops cross a certain border in Pakistan. This is believed to be the border of the Indus River, and of course, this is the Indian military - if they push the Pakistani troops into the mountains in the western part of the country, then Pakistan will nuke the Indian forces;
• threshold of military capability - regardless of the frontier reached by the enemy forces, if as a result of the fighting Pakistan would lose most of its military potential, which would make further effective defense impossible if the enemy did not cease hostilities, the use of nuclear weapons as a means of compensating force ;
• economic threshold - if the adversary led to a complete paralysis of the economy and the economic system, mainly due to a naval blockade and the destruction of critical industrial, transport or other infrastructure related to the economy, a nuclear attack would force the adversary to stop such activities;
• political threshold - if the enemy's overt actions have led to severe political destabilization of Pakistan, for example, by killing its leaders, provoking riots turning into a civil war.

Dr. Farrukh Salim, a political scientist and international security specialist from Islamabad, has a significant impact on threat assessment and the development of Pakistan's defense doctrine. His work is taken very seriously by the state and the military leadership. It is from his work that the official assessment of threats to Pakistan comes from: military threats, i.e. the possibility of a conventional invasion of Pakistan, nuclear threats, ie. the possibility of India using nuclear weapons against Pakistan (it is not expected that other states will threaten Pakistan with nuclear weapons), terrorist threats - it turns out that the problem in Pakistan is fighting between factions of Islam, Shiites and Sunnis, and it should be remembered that neighboring Iran is a Shiite state, and Pakistan is predominantly Sunni.

Sectarian terrorism peaked in 2009, but with the help of the United States, the threat was reduced to manageable proportions. Which does not mean that terrorism does not remain a threat in this country. The next two threats identified are cyber attacks and economic threats. All five were identified as hazards that should be taken seriously and appropriate countermeasures taken.