Force structuring an air force is always a challenge for military planners, as they must endeavour to build the right mix of capabilities to address the myriad challenges of a future battlespace. In our context, the challenge gets further complicated by the growing prospect of a two-front war by Pakistan and China, which is progressively advancing after the Ladakh imbroglio.

Owing to territorial disputes with India, both China and Pakistan have metamorphosed into strategic partners that lends itself to the possibility of collusion between them. In July 2018, General Bipin Rawat, the then Chief of Army Staff and now CDS had stated, ‘A two-front war is a real scenario’. Analysts believe that the most probable plot could be where Pakistan takes advantage of an India-China conflict in a collusive or an opportunistic move. Be that as it may, a collaborative threat would pose a formidable challenge that mandates proper force structuring to contain a combined threat.

IAF would have to win the air war for the army and navy to win the surface war, for which its employment would stretch from the plains of Pakistan to the mountainous regions of J&K, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. Structuring would have to cater not only to counter the combined strength of opposing air forces but also make it effective both in the plains and the torturous terrain of the Himalayan, Zanskar and Karakoram ranges. Warfare in the mountains is a different ball game, and nations call upon air power to overcome the retardation imposed on land forces and neutralise military targets that tend to be small, dispersed, and blended well with the terrain. Increasing air power efficacy and lethality would depend a lot on technology, hence ramifications of equipment and doctrine would have to be borne in mind.

Key elements for structuring are identified based on the strategic and operational construct for fighting a war. For a two-front war the debate would be on how many platforms or squadrons would be necessary to meet the security challenge and what technologies would enhance war fighting efficacy. With a 30-squadron fleet, the IAF is clearly short of the desired numbers. In a rare public admission in 2018, Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa, while briefing the media on the eve of Exercise Iron Fist, a fire power demonstration of the IAF, had stated that the ‘numbers were not adequate to execute a full air campaign in a two-front scenario’.

The IAF has a Plan B, of multiplexing the use of its 30 squadrons on both fronts by centrally orchestrating the air campaign. This could, however, get into jeopardy if it gets divided and allotted to theatres structures, being envisaged by the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). This quagmire of piecemeal fragmentation, in a situation of quantitative and qualitative asymmetry is disquieting and will have to be factored in, since both China and Pakistan, have made concerted efforts to ensure that their air power poses a formidable challenge.

The Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) has transformed itself into a highly trained modern force with high-tech 4th and 5th generation aircraft comprising 40 to 50 squadrons of the 4-4.5 generation Su-30, Su-35, J-10Cs, J-11 (licenced version Su-27), J-16 (licenced version of Su-30) and 5th generation J-20B and J-31 along with advanced precision-guided munitions, force multipliers and a networked command and control system. With the induction of the 5th generation J-20 which began in February 2018 and J-31 which is likely to enter in 2021, China will be the second country in the world, after the US, to field an operational fifth-generation stealth aircraft. China has taken a leaf from the book of the American strategic thought and is concentrating power build-up based on aerospace technologies. It is making huge investments in technologies and capabilities related to space, hypersonic flight, stealth aircraft, strategic bombers, long range missiles, unmanned systems and Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems. Our force structuring would have to match the operational consequence of ingestion of such platforms and technologies in to the PLAAF.