The F-16’s and Pakistan’s Military Strategy
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Danville, California

The debate continues to rage on whether a poor nation like Pakistan, where a third of the population lives in extreme poverty and more than half is illiterate, should be spending billions of dollars on sophisticated multi-role fighters like the F-16s. This is a very important debate and should continue not only in the media but also in universities and think tanks and ultimately in the National Assembly. The point that national security depends as much on softer factors such as social, economic and political development as on harder military factors cannot be over-emphasized.
However, there is another debate that needs to be held in parallel. It has to do with the role of F-16s in Pakistan’s military strategy. There are three main schools of thought on this subject.
The first school of thought opines that the weapon will be used in a purely defensive role, to deter an Indian invasion. Should the IAF intrude into Pakistani airspace, the F-16s would be used to intercept and destroy the invading aircraft. Lesser aircraft in the PAF inventory, such as Mirages and F-7s, would be used in a ground attack role to take out units of the Indian army.
The second and more ambitious school of thought holds the opposite position, which is that the weapon will be used in a purely offensive role to carry out a nuclear air strike deep inside India. Presumably, such an air strike would be launched only if India has invaded Pakistan, cut off its main north-south communication arteries and destroyed the bulk of Pakistan’s armored and artillery units. The purpose of the nuclear strike would be to prevent a second and final surrender to India.
A third school of thought holds that the weapon would be used in both roles. But the numbers being provided to the PAF are clearly insufficient to encompass both roles simultaneously with any reasonable probability of success.
Like with anything else related to the F-16 deal, there is controversy about the number of aircraft that would be provided to Pakistan. Initial press reports suggested the number of 25. However, others have argued that there is no limit to the number of aircraft that would be provided to Pakistan. One source suggests that the number is 100 while another suggests 200.
It is unclear who will pay for the purchase of 100, let alone 200 F-16s. At $60 million a copy, a 100-aircraft shopping basket would run up a price tag of $6 billion. This rises to $12 billion for 200 aircraft. The mid-point of this range represents about 10 percent of Pakistan’s entire gross domestic product and is clearly beyond Pakistan’s financial reach, even if the economy continues to grow at the Shaukat Aziz growth projection of 8 percent a year. Phantasmagoric numbers should not underpin Pakistan’s strategic calculations.
A more reasonable shopping basket might be 40-50 aircraft, which when added to the 32 F-16s in the PAF inventory, would be sufficient to equip six squadrons.
The other question is when would the aircraft be delivered. It takes several years to build an F-16 and if new ones would be supplied, late 2008 would be the earliest year of delivery. If more than 25 aircraft are ordered, final shipments may run into 2009-11.
All of this controversy notwithstanding, what is the best military use of the F-16s? The answer depends on what is Pakistan’s military objective vis-à-vis India.
In the IAF, the PAF faces one of the best-equipped air forces in Asia. It outnumbers the PAF by 6:1 in front-line aircraft and is likely to keep at least a 5:1 edge in the years to come. Aircraft in the IAF inventory include the first-rate SU-30 and MiG-29 multi-role fighters that can easily take on the F-16, especially if they are equipped with beyond-visual-range missiles. In addition, India has one of the best air defenses in Asia. The Indian army is much better equipped than the Pakistani army and double the size. The disparity in forces is even more pronounced when comparing the two navies.
The PAF would be foolhardy to assume that its F-16s can penetrate Indian airspace at will. The F-16s would be detected at take-off and face a very high risk of being shot down within seconds of having intruded into India.
There are additional obstacles that would need to be overcome before this scenario would come to pass. Very sophisticated avionics are needed to deliver nuclear warheads from the F-16 and it is unlikely that the US would provide such capability to Pakistan. Of course, Pakistan may be able to “bootstrap” such capability through other means. It used such measures successfully to finesse its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs. But all of this takes carries with it technical risks of equipment malfunction. Finally, it is possible that the F-16s would be destroyed on the ground in Pakistan were India to carry out an Israeli-style pre-emptive air strike.
Knowing this, the war planners in Islamabad embarked on a ballistic missile development program years ago. The solid-fuel Shaheen I and II missiles are capable of delivering nuclear warheads almost anywhere within India. They, rather than the F-16s, would be the preferred weapon in a doomsday scenario. However, like any scenario, this scenario carries its own risks. For Pakistan, the risk would be that India would destroy the missiles and their launchers on the ground.
War games at numerous institutions suggest that Pakistan’s armed forces are not in a position to hold off a full-scale Indian invasion. The IAF has strategic air superiority over the PAF and Indian air defenses are much better than Pakistan’s. This military imbalance cannot be overcome with bravado alone.
If the IAF were prepared to lose several aircraft, it would destroy the PAF within a couple of days. Without air cover, the Pakistani army would fold within seven days. Gwadar may save the Pakistani navy from being bottled up in the harbor, as happened in Karachi in 1971. However, it will not save Pakistan from losing the war on the ground.
Thus, the most valuable use of the F-16s is a purely defensive one, to ward off an Indian invasion by making it prohibitively costly to India. A nuclear war is a journey from which few come home. It is so much better to embark on a journey of peace and friendship. Perhaps the bus journey from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad will transform the relationship between India and Pakistan to the point that war ceases to be an option for settling disputes.

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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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