Kamal Mustafa
For years, I’ve listened to analysts claim Washington was washing its hands of us. So, honestly? I felt a real sense of vindication when the State Department notified Congress of that $686 million upgrade package. We’re talking 92 Link-16 systems and top-tier avionics that keep our F-16s lethal until 2040. You don’t drop that kind of money on ‘routine maintenance.’ That is a loud, strategic vote of confidence in Pakistan’s air power, plain and simple.
Washington’s timing could not be more telling. It comes just seven months after the events of 6–8 May 2025, when the Pakistan Air Force delivered a clinical, proportionate, and overwhelmingly superior response to India’s attempted strikes in Operation Sindoor. In those seventy-two hours, our pilots, leveraging Chinese-origin J-10C fighters armed with long-range PL-15 air-to-air missiles, neutralised multiple Indian combat aircraft—confirmed losses include at least three Rafales, two Su-30MKIs, one MiG-29UPG, one Mirage 2000, and one Jaguar—while keeping our own material safe. JF-17 Thunder jets, firing hypersonic CM-400AKG missiles, obliterated India’s prized S-400 air defense system at Adampur, a $1.5 billion asset that had been touted as impenetrable but proved woefully vulnerable to our precision strikes. The entire operation was executed with such discipline that India’s political and military leadership hastily sought de-escalation and later described the episode as “mutual restraint.”
The humiliation extended far beyond the skies. Pakistan’s Fateh-I ballistic missiles and drone swarms crippled key Indian airfields, including Sirsa, Bathinda, Halwara, Akhnoor Aviation Base, and Bernala in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)—with Indian media outlets like NDTV and Times Now inadvertently confirming the devastation at Sirsa through leaked satellite imagery and eyewitness reports of smoldering runways. Ground forces decimated India’s forward posts opposite the Neza Pir sector, including Dharam Sal 1, Danna 1, and Table Top, as well as Rabtanwali Post, Danna Post, Khawaja Bhaik Complex, and Ring Contour along the Line of Control in the Phuklian and Sankh sectors. The Indian Military Intelligence training center in Rajouri—a notorious hub for orchestrating cross-border terrorism into Pakistan—was reduced to rubble, along with the Army’s Brigade Headquarters in Bhimber Gali, IIOJK. In total, our armed forces laid waste to eight major air bases: Adampur, Bathinda, Suratgarh, Mamun, Akhnoor, Jammu, Sirsa, and Barnala. These weren’t just tactical setbacks; they were a comprehensive unmasking of India’s overextended ambitions.
If you look across the border, the contrast is actually staggering. The Indian Air Force burns through an $8 billion annual budget, yet they can barely keep their own birds in the sky. In 2025 alone, they’ve lost seven aircraft to non-combat crashes—from a Mirage in MP to that cluster of Jaguar incidents. And frankly, nothing exposes the rot quite like the ‘indigenous’ Tejas crashing and burning in front of the entire world at the Dubai Airshow. It’s a tragedy for the pilots, but it’s a humiliation for their military brand. These accidents, coupled with the combat losses in May—where Pakistan downed over seven Indian jets in a single operation—have shamed the Rafale program, with its vaunted $240 million-per-unit jets grounded by spares shortages and exposed as no match for our networked warfare. Squadron shortages now exceed 30, a glaring indictment of procurement failures and maintenance lapses.
Washington, Beijing, and every serious capital have drawn the obvious conclusion: when push comes to shove in South Asian skies, there is only one air force that has demonstrated real-time mastery under pressure—the Pakistan Air Force.
There is a deeply human element here that moves me. Those F-16s are flown by young men who grew up in Nowshera and Chaklala, maintained by technicians who often work through the night in blistering heat or freezing hangars, and supported by families who pray each time the alert scrambles sound. This American package is, in part, a salute to their professionalism and sacrifice. It tells them the world watched what they achieved in May—downing Rafales with PL-15s, vaporizing S-400s with JF-17s—and decided it wants that steady, capable hand on the controls for many years to come.
For Pakistan, this is far more than new software or radar receivers. It is quiet, unmistakable recognition that we have earned our place at the grown-ups’ table once again. The skies above us are guarded by one of the most professional air forces in Asia, and the international community has chosen to invest in that strength rather than gamble on the alternative.
That, to me, feels not just like a big win—it feels like justice, long overdue.
