On the Use of Punitive Air Strikes

Yes, Pakistan's Army especially its senior leadership needs to be punished. Severely.

It is my ardent belief that our military leadership and our rank and file have always understood this. My first few years in the IAF coincided with the commencement of the ‘War of a Thousand Cuts' (WOATC). My CO was a well-read, articulate officer and an exceptional professional. The Boss had been through a unique career. As No 1 on the list of ETPs to become an astronaut, an ECG abnormality detected in Russia during the training, moved him out of fighters. He then proceeded to command two helicopter units, an Airborne FAC Flight and IAF’s sole Mi-35 Sqn.  He was very Catholic about the need for young officers to develop an understanding of the macro picture. Ruthless about the need for us young ‘Piloos’ to read, discussion on the strategy to counter this WOATC that we faced daily in the valley, was a daily affair. But more about Chakku Mulay some other time.


Our Helicopter Flight subscribed to IDSA and Vayu. Late Air Cmde Jasjit Singh’s books and articles were discussed in great detail and reviews and ppts (the Blackboard Versions) were mandatory. One book that I read was Ravi Rikhye's ‘The War that Never Was’. While I have nothing complimentary to say about that book, the starting few pages made a lasting impression. He wrote an imaginary account of a Mi-25, cutting into Pakistan through Rajauri, with an SF team on board; the target being the Kahuta Nuclear Complex. 

While the fictional strike was a success, in reality, we lost a huge opportunity. Imagine!

This was the time when Col John A Warden published his seminal book ‘The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat’. While seldom acknowledged, this classic treatise on Air War Strategy laid the foundation for the USAF’s Shock and Awe campaign of Desert Storm.

I remember coming across the term Punitive Air Strikes around that time. It has taken us 30 years to use this. Despite seeing the first-hand result of a similar strike of 128 rockets on Government House in Dhaka in 1971.

The problem perhaps lies in our inability to convince the political leadership that the Indian military capability needs to be developed and utilised as an instrument of state policy. The bureaucracy that assists our polity in its constant ‘Election Mode Governance’ is perhaps the most sinister evil.

We too are blameworthy. Our legendary turf wars between the Army and the Air Force are responsible for a great deal of this. And these two squabbling siblings rarely acknowledge the Navy.

If we look into ourselves, we will find that we have always been reactionary to the Pak military’s upgradation programmes.

The MiG 29 and Mirage 2000 came after PAF acquired F-16.

When the Pakis acquired the AH-1 S, we got 2 x sqns of Attack Helicopters. We need perhaps 10 squadrons and we still have only two (even with the induction of the Apaches). The LCH equipped 116 HU is yet to be weaponised.

I remember Air Cmde Jasjit Singh advocating that the first use of heavy artillery by the Pakis should have been replied to by air strikes. This was way back in the early 90s.

This then is our tragedy.

And so we continue to lose young men, especially officers, who are forced to take unacceptable risks in order to keep our land free and our people secure.

That said, there is an increasingly distasteful trend of veterans foolishly succumbing to either a sickening so-called liberal thought or a distasteful anti-Muslim/Christian view. 

The bureaucracy is very quick to quote Georges Clemenceau saying war is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers. I have always countered with Gen Charles de Gaulle's quote saying politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

As serving officers, we were advised to always remain politically inactive but to be acutely politically aware. And the way to do that is by good staff work. Read the background on all these issues. Do not blindly believe in Mass Media. Research the issue. Social Media is another demon that needs to be tamed. Fake news is often spread like wildfire.

My request to all of us is to deliberately keep ourselves neutral. Avoid these smart quips. And do not label your brother offrs as Sanghis or bhakts or sickulars or CONgressis.

Jai Hind ki Sena

Grace and Supercession

 If you notice, I have opted for an older version of the spelling. This version is what has been most in vogue, at least in our part of the world. My research reveals that the reason for using this spelling is due to the association with similar words such as intercede or accede.

         If even the spelling of this word has so much of baggage and difference of acceptance, small wonder that supercession has a huge impact on the military. I have known about officers contemplating if not attempting suicide. I have seen Commanding Officers break down in the open. I have witnessed brave gallantry award winners look shell-shocked and lose all sense of purpose.

So have each one of you, those in the military.

         It is difficult for those not in the profession of arms to understand it. Let me try and put it across as simply as I can.

As soldiers, you are taught from the first day that we live, breathe and fight as a team; but always with a leader. You must be that leader. You want to become the Division Cadet Corporal in your first term in NDA Wing. You must become the Squadron Sergeant and you are God if you lead the Passing out Parade as Wing Cadet Captain as a callow lad, all of seventeen.

At the lowest end of the combat chain is the single aircraft multi-crew team, with the captain as the leader. Like the two-man sniper team, with the senior as the leader. All throughout fighting formations and peace establishments right to the Fifth Floor Corner Room with a view of the Rajpath at Vayu Bhawan, there is a team at each stage and there is a leader. You as an officer have to be that leader. At every stage, as you go through your life, you will be a leader.

As you go through your career, the fauj gives you several chances. You make it to a Coy cdr, you get four-ac lead, and you command that patrol boat. Then comes the big daddy of all these jumps. Command of a Combat Unit!

It differs across the three services. For the Army, the cliff edge is the Select Colonel Rank, which will give you command of your battalion. In the Air Force, you have a Command Board as a Wing Commander, and you will be selected to that cherished command of that Mirage Squadron. In the Navy, your superior performance amongst your peers will give you ‘sea-time’ that will pave the way to command a fighting ship. Heady stuff!

But there are limited seats on this bus. If you don’t make it to the next stage, you will not be a leader. That doesn’t mean that you are not good enough. It just means that there was only one gold medal and you didn’t get it. Now you will get a few more chances but the gold medal is not for you. Unfortunately, it also means that you lose the respect associated with being a leader. Passed-over officers get staff jobs, and they do not bring you the respect that is your life breath. It is a curious thing; this respect. It translates into everything in your military life. The jobs you will be entrusted with, the ranks you wear, where you sit, what orders you pass, and most importantly how your juniors look at you.

         In the olden days, once you got superceded, you put in your papers and went home. You walked your dog and if your parents had left you an inheritance, you tilled that land and managed to make ends meet. When you returned for the Battalion Battle Honours Day, the youngsters greeted you with respect. You had left with your honour intact.

However, as life got increasingly complex and expensive, once you got superceded, you continued till you got a pension and then you went home. It was still okay at the Annual Dinner on Air Force Day. After all, you needed that pension.

It wasn’t greener pastures, and it will rarely be greener.

Ask any of the guys who quit early in service, even without a pension. They are the most active in our course groups. They pitch in the maximum for OROP and Veteran Welfare and know that they won’t gain a naya paisa. Several of my coursemates are dollar millionaires, one counts his millions in pounds sterling. They are winners and not sorry losers. They commanded repect for hanging up their boots when they got disillusioned.

You leave the fauj because you can’t bear being treated as an also-ran. Ask an officer the difference of pay between a Flt Lt or a Sqn Ldr, or a Colonel and a Brigadier, or a Rear Admiral and a Vice Admiral. Most officers don’t know their basic pay. Okay, ask an officer’s spouse. He or she wouldn’t know it at all, they just know the amount that gets credited each month's end.  Ask her about the difference in rank and privileges, and she may tell you about the difference in Aiguillettes also. That is because the fauj is all about rank and appointment and honour and responsibility and leadership.

It was not and never will be about pay.

         I admit that there was a period, especially during the end 90s. That was the time when there was an aviation boom in the country when a reasonable number of transport and fighter pilots contemplated Premature Separation from Service. (Yes ma’am, that is the correct nomenclature, not VRS and not PMR) Statistics exist to show that those who left were again, officers who knew they were not making it due to a variety of factors. Rare was the High Alpha Shooting Star Fighter Pilot who quit command of a Mirage Squadron and went off to fly an ATF for Kingfisher. The larger numbers were transport and helicopter pilots who had not been cleared for command and who were not going to become Group Captains.

So if you got superceded, you quit and it was the deep hurt of not being able to put on your next rank or get your next command- and not then, not now not ever, about your paygrade.

         And if you left, it was to bow out gracefully, almost always.

         That brings me to the vexing question. Surely you don’t want a substantially large number of passed-over, demotivated officers holding onto ranks till they superannuate. Then do you not want them to retire gracefully? Or would you rather that they hold onto the rank of a select Colonel or Gp Capt for another seven years after being superceded.

         Faced with seven years more to superannuation to get that elusive OROP, to me his decision is a given. I am certain he will doff his hat and bid adieu to the OROP that he may get on superannuation, hang up his uniform and fade away. The only issue is, that you, in the service and you in the government took unfair advantage of his state of despair.

Let them retire gracefully and with OROP.