India and Pakistan recently engaged in one of the largest dogfights in recent history, with around 125 fighter jets clashing over their shared border. According to reports, the aerial battle lasted over an hour, with both sides exchanging long-range missiles from distances exceeding 100 miles.
*Claim and Losses*
- *Pakistan's Claim*: Pakistani officials claim to have shot down five Indian planes, although these claims have not been corroborated by independent sources.
- *Indian Response*: India has not officially commented on the incident, but has previously accused Pakistan of spreading misinformation.
*International Reaction:*
- *Global Concerns*: The international community is urging restraint and diplomatic de-escalation to prevent further escalation.
- *US and World Powers*: The US and other world powers are calling for both sides to exercise restraint and pursue diplomatic efforts to ease tensions ².
*Why It Matters
The scale of the dogfight on Wednesday underscores the intensity of the conflict between the two nuclear-armed rivals—both of which possess some of the world's largest conventional military forces—and highlights the implications of any further escalation should diplomatic efforts fail to ease tensions that erupted after an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.
*A CLASH OF TWO WAR TECH - CHINESE AND THE WEST
With Pakistan armed largely by China and India sourcing more than half of its weapons from the US and its allies, any conflict between the two neighbors could effectively be a showdown between Chinese and Western military technologies.
China supplies 81% of Pakistan military equipment and weapons, including fighter jets. The escalating conflict between India and Pakistan could be offering the world a first real glimpse into how advanced Chinese military technology performs against proven Western hardware – and Chinese defense stocks are already surging.
Many analysts believe the missiles and other munitions were fired by India’s French-made Rafale and Russian-made Su-30 fighter jets.
Pakistan, meanwhile, touted a great victory by its air force, claiming that five Indian fighter jets – three Rafales, a MiG-29 and a Su-30 fighter – were shot down by its J-10C fighters during an hour-long battle it claimed was fought by 125 aircraft at ranges over 160 kilometers (100 miles).
(It) is now being characterized as the most intense air-to-air combat engagement between two nuclear-armed nations,” said Salman Ali Bettani, an international relations scholar at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. “The engagement represented a milestone in the operational use of advanced Chinese-origin systems.
