The Balakot air strikes that New Delhi carried out against a Pakistan-based terror sanctuary in 2019 have showcased that air power can be effective in a "no war no peace situation" even if the adversary has nuclear weapons, Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief Air Chief Marshal (ACM) V. R. Chaudhari said on Tuesday.
India's Chief of Air Staff added that operations like Balakot demonstrated that if the political leadership had the will, the Air Force could limit the scope of the campaign to a particular area, without blowing it into a full-scale war.
"This is very important given the nature of our adversaries. The response options available to the leadership have suddenly increased, and increasingly, air power has become an option of choice due to inherent flexibility and unmatched precision strike capability," Chaudhari said while addressing the Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh Memorial seminar in New Delhi.
2019 Balakot Airstrike
Indian Air Force launched air strikes against a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)* terror camp in Balakot as a retaliatory measure, after 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir Union territory on 14 February 2019.
On 26 February 2019, the IAF used French-made Mirage aircraft and Israel-manufactured Spice 2000 bombs to hit the terror base in Balakot.
Though Islamabad denied that the bombings caused extensive damage to the terror facility, the then-IAF chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa said the force accomplished its objective through the air strikes.
"We hit a non-military target to tell terrorist organisations that if you perpetuate terrorist attacks in our country, no matter where you are, whether you are in PoK or you are in Pakistan proper, we will come and get you and I think that is exactly what we did," Dhanoa said at the time.
*a terror group banned in Russia