Wouldn't it be great if there was no need to have an army for a nation? It is not just a romantic, impractical notion. As a matter of fact a number of countries are already there! Samoa,Monaco, Iceland, Mauritius,Panama and a few other do not have armies. Although there are security arrangement for protection. Mostly with a bigger neighbouring nation with an army.
Distinction for the only army that has a country unarguably falls to Pakistan. This special arrangement means that this army actually does everything except protect the nation. It develops real estate and collects commissions on infrastructural works. It makes cement; bottles water; runs sugar mills and has interests in healthcare, insurance and financial sectors. Interestingly it also sells pizza! According to reports a three star general (now retired) owns hundreds of Papa John franchises worldwide. Army is the top most sought after 'no risk-fantastic rewards' career choice in Pakistan. Behind closed doors It is humorously referred to as 'Al Fayda' (The profit) !
Pakistan's army has never lost an election and never won a war. Depending on who you ask their most memorable battlefield moment is the largest surrender in the modern history after world war II. On 16th December 1971, over 93000 Pakistan troops meekly surrendered to the Indian army after mere 14 day of fighting. They also lost half of their country in the process. Based on their statements just a few hours previous to that event, you would not have guessed their intent to raise the white flag. They maintained that they are winning on all fronts and enemy armies are running away. Public lapped up their fantastic fibs ! Soon after they actually laid their arms down instead. The thermonuclear shock of this colossal betrayal was so hugethat fifty years on it still pulsates painfully through their national psyche.
To be fair, propaganda is a very common tool. Every entity deploys it to confuse and misdirect the adversary as well as advance their cause. This army however uses it to control the minds of its own domestic population. In the last 78 odd years that it has held power covertly or overtly, they have succeeded in creating millions of indoctrinated, low intellect, radicalized Islamic zealots. Army directly shapes their thinking and directs their responses to events. In my personal experience of interacting with several different nationalities; Pakistan's society under their jihadist army has produced a higher percentage of fundamentalist individuals than Iranians under mullahcracy or even Afghans under Taliban. This conclusion has surprised me too, but that is my first hand experience and now I believe every Pakistani is afflicted by this malady to some degree or the other. I would like to clarify here that I am not equating conservatism or religiosity to fundamentalism. Pakistan army has really done an unpardonable disservice to their nation in this regard .
They of course will never agree with my opinion. They do not report to anyone and no one dares to question their actions. This unfettered independence has given them a false sense of invincibility. They actually believe in their own lies and unfortunately Pakistan's public has followed the Pied Piper of Pindi! They have always over reached beyond their capabilities and under estimated their opponents to the detriment of Pakistani nation. A total absence of a national identity has not helped any. They had to invent one and in one word it is called ' Not Indian'! This sick obsession with India has informed everything they do and don't do. It has also led them into several lost wars, mostly with India. Although their fighter pilots flying for Arab armies against Israel and their role in the Afghan war is well documented.
Right after partition of India on religious grounds, the newly carved Islamic Pakistan invaded India in order to annex Kashmir. They laid siege to Srinagar, but true to form never expected India to airlift troops to the besieged Kashmir valley. In a swift operation India crushed the invasion. Pakistani raiders were soon running with their tail between their legs. Of course India made a strategic error in going to the toothless UN. They never completed the task of throwing Pakistan out of the entire region and this blunder has shaped all the troubles since. India has repeatedly let go too soon, and has not learned any lesson from history till date.
Pakistan tried again in 1965. Bubbling with confidence stemming from an infusion of the latest western arms and artillery like Patton Tanks and Sabre jets.Bolstered by a misplaced belief in themselves as a superior martial race compared to a weak Hindu they launched operation Gibraltar. Plan was to begin at breakfast time and have high tea in Delhi's red fort! Overconfidence is a very mild word for it! They miscalculated big time because India advanced on several fronts simultaneously rather than fight only in the Kashmir region. Forward units of the Indian army reached the outskirts of Lahore. All fight went out of Pakistan in 17 days and they had to sue for peace. Without batting an eyelid they marketed this campaign as a great win to their population although they do not have an inch of territory to show for it. Just Because Lahore did not get over run! You would be hard put to find a Pakistani who does not believe in this fable without questioning How Lahore got threatened in the first place.
Come 1971 Pakistan army tried again and as we saw earlier had to surrender; losing the entire eastern Pakistan, now called Bangladesh. Pakistan's narrative however would have you believe that they would have won but for the treachery of the Bengali's. Cleverly shifting the onus of defeat and demonize their own non Punjabi population. They grossly oversold their own capabilities and papered over their abject ineptness. Very few dare to question this narrative in Pakistan; millions believe in it !
Afghan war and US creation of Taliban provided a golden opportunity for them to siphon billions of western dollars in the name of checking Soviet Russia. They however used this free money to fortify against India. When the war ended and Russia left Afghanistan; Pakistan's army announced that as their own win over a major super power. They created an larger than life aura of invincibility for themselves. As usual public was totally convinced but more importantly they themselves were convinced of their astounding greatness. Add to it their success in making a complete monkey out of USA by bilking mega dollars to hunt bin laden; while he was living under their protection all that time; few yards from their military compound in Abbotabad.
They made their move on Kashmir again in 1999. The Kargil war was supposed to be a master class in military tactics. Occupy high positions and cut the Srinagar - Leh Highway! India was supposed to come to knees in quick time. They estimated that before the week is out Pakistan army generals would be playing a round at Royal Spring Golf Course in Srinagar, with waiters holding trays of tall drinks in the background!
Amazingly they never even considered the full spectrum of retaliatory measures at India's disposal. India in fact deployed their Air Force; 155 mm long range heavy artillery and elite special forces trained for mountain warfare. Famed Pakistan army; slayer of the Soviet Russia and conqueror of the three realms had not planned for this! I am not even joking! Every single position Pakistan had was abandoned hastily or was lost with catastrophically heavy casualties. Entire Northern Light Infantry was virtually wiped out by the Indian assault. Their then prime minister Nawaz Sharif admitted to 4,000 deaths in this lost war. Real numbers are not known. Any half decent nation would be conducting a court martial at this point; Not Pakistan!
Pakistan needed an atom bomb against India and they managed to get it. 'How' is another story. This they thought would give them ascendancy in the battlefield and India would not dare - period! Pakistan army successfully used the jihadist infrastructure left over from the Afghan war; radicalized their own society at every level; created layers upon layers of inter woven Islamic terrorist groups and pushed them across to bleed India with a thousand cuts. Terrorism as a state policy went main stream. They nearly got away with it for a long time.
They perpetrated a little operation and India retaliated a little bit. Pakistan's costs were insignificant. A few expendable human cannon fodder, some of which were sourced from within India itself! Losses for India however kept mounting. Apart from physical human and material loss there was this hugely negative impact on the society that no government can continue to ignore. Pakistan's Terrorists hit Indian security personnel at Pulwama and 40 odd personnel perished in the attack. Resultant skirmishes had India Bombing a single terrorist camp in Pakistan. Aerial battles occurred between two air forces. An Indian MIG 21 was downed by a PAF F16 and Its Pilot captured by Pakistan. India threatened a missile strike. Right away Pakistan blinked & let go of the pilot. That event had lessons for both the nations. India started upgrading its defensive and offensive capabilities. 4.5 generation fighters, S400 air defence systems, new missiles; drones etc.were inducted into service in a very short period but clearly Indian thought process changed. Pakistan too got new equipment mostly from china but more importantly decided to double down on terrorism as its state policy. It was only a matter of time before they would over reach and underestimate the enemy again.
True to form they over played their hand and orchestrated a wanton killing of civilian holiday makers in a picturesque tourist spot in Pahalgam, India in April 2025. They shot dead 26 innocent lives by selectively targeting non Muslim tourists. Husband of a honeymooning couple among them. That one picture of the distraught young wife crying over the dead body of her week old husband put the usually flaccid Indian responses on steroids. Pakistan's army could never gauge the tornado that was about to hit them. After all they had a bomb that India needed to be afraid of. It was a patently poor read of the enemy mind as usual by the Pakistan's Army.
First time in 78 years in may 2025 India initiated a sizable strike after prepping for about two weeks post Pakistan's terrorist act. 23 minutes is all it took for Pakistan army to fold this time. Although it manifested fully in about 4 days. Indian electronic warfare successfully jammed Pakistan air defences in those 23 minutes and then proceeded to rain missiles, drones and other unspecified munition to destroy several terrorist sites deep inside Pakistan. Pakistan army had a choice to stay out of this but they did not since these very terrorists are their own proxies. They mounted a retaliatory 400 drone swarm attack on India; which reports suggest were donated and operated by Turkish operators. Although the raid was aided by the Chinese satellite feed; it proved quite ineffective and Indian air defences made light work of thwarting these drones with minimal impact on ground. India in turn fired Brahmos missiles on a dozen Pakistan air bases and inflicted serious damage. Pakistan's forces could not stop a single missile attack; even Indian drones were a handful for their air defence. Independent Satellite imagery bears this out.
Pakistan's own missile attacks on the Indian targets were all intercepted and destroyed midair by a superior Indian air defence. Pakistan army watched helplessly as they had not planned for this kind of hit back by India! So what's new?
Of course Their army needs to show a victory to their population. Initially they claimed they have hit back at Indian air bases - immediately proven false. Then they claimed a missile attack on Delhi - intercepted and destroyed hundreds of miles from target. The star of their claim is downing of 5 Indian fighter jets including Rafael aircraft. This number swiftly got updated to 6 and then to 6+1. Do not ask them for any proof please! The proof as their defence minister told the world is on social media! Look it up yourself! Pakistan is a bad joke!
This story initially got some purchase worldwide as it was released by Reuters. Written by two part time pretend journos Saeed Shah and Idris Ali quoting an unnamed American official. You got it , they are Pakistanis!
This story was vigorously pushed online and amplified by Pakistan and Chinese handles to serve their own ends. One needs to fool their public and other needs to sell their first copy arms.
There is no proof as of now. Indian Air Force has confirmed that all of their pilots are home safe. In a democracy they can not lie about it unlike Pakistan. If they say no pilot is harmed then no pilot is harmed. Some Chinese PL 15 BVR missiles that Pakistan claims to have used to hit Indian aircraft were found destroyed on ground by India . At least one is nearly intact. Apparently this poor thing works once in a while!
The story maybe true , maybe not but Pakistan has not found any debris of the planes or any pilot, dead or alive. No Rafael debris was found in India either. An external fuel tank debris was found in Srinagar which most defence experts agree matches a Mirage. It is not an aircraft and definitely not a Rafael. More and more independent experts now believe that this story by Pakistan's army is highly exaggerated, if not entirely a figment of their feverish mind.
Seems India had sent in, ahead of their main attack on Pakistan, few advanced decoy drones that had electronic signatures of a front line fighter.
Pakistan's Chinese made J10 actually engaged, taking them for the real thing and fired their beyond visual range PL15E missiles from as far away as they could. Chinese military commentators estimate that PL15 E flopped mostly because Pakistan's pilots, scared to go closer fired at D-Max. That's from 145 km away. Few reached the target; others got their navigation jammed by Indian Electronic Warfare Measures and fell to ground - spent. Some others got intercepted and shot by Indian Air Defence. Few Drones got hit and went down after revealing Pakistan air defence locations to the Indian Air Force. This was the purpose of sending them on anyway. A thoroughly fooled Pakistan started claiming 5 successful hits on Indian Fighters - aircraft that were never there to be hit in the first place.
Truth as they say is the first casualty of war. This story also might be true or not. However it does explain Pakistan's bogus claims; lack of any aircraft debris either in Pakistan or India and the strange case of vanishing pilots. There are unconfirmed reports of one Indian Rafael damaged with no harm to the Pilot. The cause will be known in time.There is however nothing to gloat for Pakistan even in case of India loosing a few machines in action. It is an inconsequential fig leaf to hide Pakistan Army's major miscalculation in launching a terrorist strike inside India. A strike that has resulted in a massive blow back on Pakistan. Thanks to their army Pakistan has jeopardized their long term access to water since India has suspended Indus Water treaty. For an agrarian nation like Pakistan that is literally the last nail in the coffin. They have also lost hundred's of lives and billions in damages to property and infrastructure. They have earned another black spot on their reputation as insincere partners against terrorism. They of course do not care about their reputation a lot. Their image as the International begging bowl that needs a loan to pay interest on a previous loan is unenviable! Only silver lining is as on the date of writing a truce has been called in this war and it is holding!
If their army is not treacherous, I do not know what is ? Some of the most liked people on my list happen to be from Pakistan; but that will be day when Pakistan's citizens realize that their greatest enemy is in-house - their own army ! An army that is totally power hungry and has radicalized the society to serve their own political and pecuniary goals. Army that has lied blatantly to its own country men for 78 years and is not accountable for all the muck it is dragging the nation through. It is the main reason democracy never took roots in Pakistan. It is reckless, plans poorly and executes shoddily. Historically its only limited success has been against their own - Bloch,Bengali, Pathan and those makers of Pakistan - the Mohajir.
Their nuclear bluff has gotten called. Their elite strike corps did not leave barracks. Their top guns never dared to fly across; their missiles got blown up before reaching target; their drones got toyed with; their navy kept cowering for safety in the harbour and their generals were hiding in deep bunkers. All this while India was raining missiles and bombing at will; wherever it wanted. But of course Pakistan Army has won; like it wins every time! Give them some medals!
23 minutes is what it took this time round to uncloak them. Next time...... Let us hope and pray that there is no next time! Next Time time might contract to a few seconds and there wont be any coming back from it!
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