Is the number of fighter aircraft lost in a war or armed clashes the criterion in determining the victor?
If the Pakistani authorities and some quarters in the western media are to be believed, Pakistan emerged as the clear winner in the “Operation Sindoor” that India had launched because “India’s air bases and at least six fighter aircraft were destroyed by the Pakistani Air Force”.
Incidentally, one of the Western journalists writing in a British paper made some big claims in favor of Pakistan. He appears to have built close relations with the Pakistani establishment, as he was based in Islamabad for years. But that is a different story.
And then we have a few American publications publishing quite a few articles saying how as many as four IAF aircraft, including French-made Dassault Rafale fighters, were shot down, resulting in “a stunning and even unexpected victory for the PAF, the biggest winner following last week’s aerial dogfight”.
One does not discuss the merits of such arguments, which are literally ludicrous in the absence of verifiable facts. Their writings seemed more like orchestrated propaganda that suited the Chinese-Pakistani narrative of technological superiority.
The point to ponder over is this – assuming India lost some fighter planes, does that deny India achieving its intended goal of teaching the Pakistan-based terrorists and their military backers a salutary lesson?
Whose DGMO first picked up the phone to talk to his counterpart to stop the aerial war? The answer is too obvious to be elaborated on.
That a real winner in a war has to be the party that does not incur any loss is something that even any fiction writer or a writer on comics on war will not venture. However, the fact that some Western journalists have done so to gladden the hearts of Pakistan and China reflects on the credibility of the publications concerned.
Let us see some concrete, hard facts that are easily available on open sources.
Records from the now-defunct U.S. Army Air Forces indicate that at least 100,000 planes were destroyed during World War II. The U.S. is said to have lost 65,164 airplanes in combat, training accidents, and other incidents between December 1941 and August 1945 while destroying 40,259 enemy aircraft during the war.
In other words, in World War II, Americans lost more planes than they destroyed of the enemy. But ultimately, it is they who won, not America’s enemies.
One may overlook losses of American fighter planes during the war in Vietnam, since it was a war the U.S. lost.
However, during the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. lost 28 fixed-wing aircraft in combat and 12 in non-combat situations. Additionally, 23 U.S. helicopters were lost, with 5 in combat and 18 in non-combat situations. In total, the US was reported to have lost 75 aircraft, with 63 U.S. aircraft and 12 allied aircraft.
During the 1999 air campaign over Serbia, the US and NATO forces lost two fighter planes. One was a USAF F-16C fighter jet, and the other was a cutting-edge F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft. Both were shot down by the Serbian air defense systems.
Apparently, after the gruesome attack on New York on September 11, 2001, in its decade-long fights against “global terror”, including that in Afghanistan during “Operation Enduring Freedom”, the U.S. Air Force lost more than 160 aircraft to accidents and enemy action. And overall, 103 Air Force personnel had died supporting the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan by December 2009, more than half of them on the ground.
Similarly, in the last 10 years, there have been several instances of U.S. fighter jets lost in the Middle East, including at least three F/A-18 Super Hornets in the last six months. There have been multiple instances of US drones (including MQ-1 Predators, ScanEagles, and RQ-21s) being shot down by Houthi forces in Yemen.
So, should we, going by the yardstick cited by the Western journalists in the “Operation Sindoor”, say that America lost in fighting the terror?
One may also cite the British example during the Falklands War in 1982. The British lost nine aircraft, including two Sea Harrier FRS.1 and three Harrier GR.3.
As many as 255 British personnel lost their lives defending the Falklands, of whom 86 were Royal Navy, 124 Army, 27 Royal Marines, six Merchant Navy, four Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and eight Hong Kong sailors. Seven ships were also lost to enemy action.
Given this fact, can we say that the British lost and Argentina won?
Against this background, Professor Amit Gupta, Senior Fellow at the National Institute of Deterrence Studies, USA, suggests that India needs to forcefully challenge Pakistan’s information war, helped by a few foreign journalists.
“Islamabad got al-Jazeera to announce that an Indian woman pilot had been shot down and captured, and this forced India to ask for a ceasefire. How difficult is it to put this officer on TV and to then tell Al-Jazeera that they are a totally incompetent and biased news outlet?”.
However, Gupta does not find anything wrong with the IAF not clarifying whether India has lost fighter aircraft and, if so, how many.
“It has done the right thing to not bring up losses during the air campaign,” he says, adding, “It is unrealistic to expect that no aircraft can or should be lost in a military campaign. Militaries accept that in waging a war, there will be casualties and loss of equipment.”
Other experts, however, say that there is nothing wrong with disclosing the truth for transparency and public trust. In the Kargil war in 1999, India lost two aircraft, but won decisively over Pakistan.
And the same is the case this time. Indian missiles did hit almost all the major cities and air bases of Pakistan, something the satellites have clearly proved. One of the principal centres of global terror has been demolished, with a globally designated terrorist admitting that 12 of his family members died in the process.
Had India not achieved victory in this limited war, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not have asserted that for India, there is no difference now between terrorists and those who patronise them, and they will be hit, whoever they are and wherever they are.
And if (and it is a big if) some aircraft have been lost in the process, let it be.
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- VIEWS PERSONAL OF THE AUTHOR
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
