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<\/p>\nFor all the alarming seriousness of two South Asian nuclear powers coming to the razor\u2019s edge of a lethal exchange, the 2025 India\u2013Pakistan war could not but contain elements of a Bollywood extravaganza.<\/p>\n
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Frantic dancing indeed, which risked getting out of control pretty fast. Forget dodgy, plodding UN mediation or any serious investigation of the suspicious attack out of the blue on tourists in India-held Kashmir.<\/p>\n
Right off the bat, on May 7, India’s Modi government dramatically launched \u2018Operation Sindoor\u2019 against Pakistan, a missile offensive billed as \u201ccounter-terrorism<\/em>.\u201d Pakistan immediately launched a counterpunch codenamed \u2018Operation Bunyan al-Marsus\u2019 against the \u201cIndian invasion<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Culture is key. Sindoor is classic Hindu culture, referring to the vermillion mark applied on the forehead of married women. No wonder the Chinese immediately translated it as \u2018Operation Vermillion.\u2019<\/p>\n Yet what the whole planet retained from the alarming escalation, irrespective of any attempt at contextualization, not to mention color-coded cultural practices, was the Top Gun<\/em> element with a Bollywood twist: the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) and the Indian Air Force (IAF), on the night of May 7, directly involved in the largest, and most high-tech air battle of the young 21st century, lasting a full hour and featuring scores of 4 and 4.5 generation fighter jets.<\/p>\n Dramatic entertainment value was provided, quirkily enough, not by Indians, but by a Chinese netizen, notorious internet blogger Hao Gege<\/a>, and his hilarious global blockbuster parody video \u201cThe newly bought plane was shot down<\/em>.\u201d He was, of course, referring to the IAF\u2019s French Rafales decimated by Chinese J-10C fighters, which have fully mastered electronic warfare<\/a> and are equipped with cheap, precise, and brutally efficient PL-15 air-to-air missiles.<\/p>\n Add to it Chinese hardware such as the HQ-9 air defense system and ZDK-03 AWACS. A J-10C, which, incidentally, costs only $40 million, roughly six times less than a Rafale.<\/p>\n Inevitably, the whole situation turned into a public relations nightmare, not only for New Delhi, but mostly for the French military-industrial complex, complete with a cornucopia of spin from all sides. Islamabad claimed it destroyed six Indian fighter jets (including as many as three Rafales, with a collective price tag<\/a> of $865 million, plus one Russian Su-30, one MiG-29, and one Israeli Heron UAV); paralyzed 70 percent of India\u2019s power grid; and smashed India\u2019s made-in-Russia S-400 defense system. India, for its part, fiercely denied all of the above over and over again.<\/p>\n Then, after so much sound and fury, Pakistan on May 10 announced it had won the war. Two days later, India announced the same.<\/p>\n The sound and fury though continued unabated, ranging from the J-10C basking in Top Gun<\/em> superstar status and Chinese stocks skyrocketing in a much-vaunted \u201cDeepSeek moment<\/em>\u201d in modern warfare.<\/p>\n Get a Rafale for the price of six J-10Cs<\/strong><\/p>\n The fact is both Islamabad and New Delhi deployed a fast and furious arsenal of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, glide bombs, and suicide drones to attack each other in a series of cross-border strikes, while at the same time confronted with the startling ineffectiveness of a great deal of their own air defense and anti-missile systems. No wonder both needed a ceasefire \u2013 fast.<\/p>\n The predominant interpretation all across the globe does stand on solid facts. And those facts are profoundly game-changing: For the first time ever, made-in-China weapons and equipment defeated similar-grade western weapons and hardware, not in a war gaming scenario, but in high-intensity air battle conditions. No amount of spin and glossy ads can compare with this practical demonstration by the Chinese military-industrial complex.<\/p>\n The J-10C, by the way, is not even a latest generation Chinese fighter; those would be the J-20 and J-35 (both 5th generation stealth fighters); the J-16 and J-15 (4.5 generation multirole fighters); and the 6th generation fighters (J-36 and J-50) still being tested.<\/p>\n
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