 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us a former Air Force pilot Rajiv Tyagi with us. You were in NDA, you passed out in 1977 and you flew a MiG aircraft. Yes, I have flown MiG-21 aircraft. See, there is not only a war frenzy but there is also this belief that air arm is going to solve the problem of various kinds. And this seems to have been the reason of claiming this major strike that we have done in Balakot. So, what do you think? Can this kind of air operation really control terrorism? See, as far as the issue of the Armed Forces is concerned, whether it is Army, Navy or Air Force, all three are at the command of the political establishment. And as the political establishment wants, Armed Forces of the Union will perform according to that. Now we come to tackling terrorism, for example. Tackling terrorism is not something, it is an asymmetric war. Terrorism, using terrorism as an instrument of state policy is an asymmetric war. And we have seen that Pakistan has stopped using conventional warfare after 1971. After 1971, their deep state, I would say the ISI, uses terror as an instrument of state policy because this is a very cheap army to maintain. You don't have to train them, you don't have to give them a good salary, you don't have to maintain their uniforms, you don't have to pay them a pension. So, using terror as an instrument of state policy is probably the cheapest kind of armed force that you can use. And I would say terror by virtue of the fear that it instills in humans and the disruption it causes in civil society. Has a disproportionate claim over our consciousness. Politically impact is much higher than the amount of people, number of people killed. And that we know even on the United States, so-called war on terror. In fact, the number of people killed, as you said, in road accidents is far higher than was killed by or has been killed by any acts of terror. So now we come to how do we tackle terror. Now, terror organizations are run by individuals, they are run by a clique, they are run by a small group of people whose business is basically to brainwash a whole lot of young people using religion, using ideology, using various other techniques into giving up their lives. Now, how do we deal with this? As we know, Pakistan consists of actually three states within one. We have the civilian establishment, just like ours, we have an elected government, we have parliament, we have legislation going on through the, and we have elections. They have the same. That is one establishment. The second establishment there is the army. The army claims disproportionate part of Pakistan's existence, its daily life, its budgets, and even runs a lot of the industry. It even runs industry. Whereas in India, the armed forces are completely subservient to the government of the day. The third establishment in Pakistan is the deep state engaged with the terror framework. Now, the terror framework, I don't think the way we are going about it, there is a frenzy of war. If we want to tackle the terror framework, we must have the wherewithal to do it. We have to create a three-dimensional force that is able to address those individuals who are running these terror networks. Russia has turned this into a fine art. They're able to target individuals anywhere across the planet. And execute them. Let us say Pakistan carried out Pulwama. Let us say the Pakistan State carried out Pulwama. But remember, they still have deniability. They still carry plausible deniability by saying that, no, we didn't carry this out. But then we went in all guns blazing and we have, every member of the government is giving statements. There is a frenzy of war on television channels. So ultimately, we ourselves have denied ourselves plausible deniability. As you said, this asymmetric war. So we have responded asymmetrically by using our air force in a war in which the air force does it have that kind of role? That is really the question we need to address. But to come to whether the air force can actually tackle this kind of situation, we need to understand the roles of all these simple parts. Now, what is a terror organization? I mean, it's not something like our air headquarters or army headquarters or naval headquarters. There's no building there. There's no office bearers. There are no people who are in uniform walking in and out of that place that you can go and bomb that with precision targeting. It could just be a rundown tin shed somewhere in the forests. It could be a tent and there might be three or four people who are under training and after the training is over, somebody just uproots the tent and walks away. So how do we target, how do we target terrorists? We certainly cannot target terrorists with a bomb run. Now, why did we do it? I'm certain that this has been done with an eye to publicity. And it is feeding a frenzy that is already present in the public. I don't know where the figures of 300 or 350 terrorists killed came from. Where do you think those 350 terrorists were hiding? Would there be 350 terrorists? Is terrorist a profession? It's not. You could find 350 officers of the armed forces in one location. What is the meaning of finding 350 terrorists in one location? But assuming, supposing the 350 people were there, we don't know whether they're really terrorists or not. Assuming there's a Jaisa Muhammad camp over there, even with all these assumptions, is it possible in a bombing run of this type to know what the actual damage or the casualties have been? Well, let's say the attack was in the daytime. It was in daylight. We can think of a reconnaissance aircraft following the strike, actually taking photographs of the damage and assessing, being able to assess the damage later. But if we say that the raid took place at 3.45 am, then certainly there's no way of even reconnaissance or photo reconnaissance of the area to establish how much of damage has taken place. So these figures would be, in that sense, which are being bandied about, really have no basis, shall we say, on evidence that we could have seen from? Yes, I mean at least I cannot think how this evidence could be collected. If there is a method and if there is a way in which this was done, I'm sure everybody would like to know how this was done. How this estimate of 300 or 350 came about? Of course, let's not get into what Pakistan is saying, that they said that one, somebody injured, a few structures damaged, trees fell and so on. Assuming that we cannot, as sitting here, verify either set of claims, let's look at the other issue. There has also been this argument that, hey, we showed our promise by getting 80 kilometers and doing an action. How easy or difficult is it for aircraft with either side to go and do this kind of action? Because today Pakistan claims it has done some action. We have claimed that this didn't happen. We chased them away. And yes, one aircraft has landed or crashed in Pakistan. But leaving that aside, the facts of the case may be, leaving that aside, how easy or difficult is it for each other's air force, the kind of aircraft you have to penetrate each other's airspace. See, increasingly over the years, both sides have upgraded their air defense systems. We have better and better air defense systems. We have airborne warning and control systems, which consists of radar systems mounted on aircraft and these aircraft patrol along the border. So with AWACS kind of aircraft, we are able to administer and control a very vast area, vast geographical area, in the sense of being able to see the theater. Be able to watch the theater and see threats coming in. That having been said, it is very difficult because fighters that are coming in to attack, attack it, would be coming in at 30 to 50 meters above the ground, at something close to 900 to 1000 kilometers an hour. And actually locking onto a target at that altitude, at that height above the ground and tracking it and then launching a weapon to destroy that target is a very, very difficult thing and it's a lot of it's just luck. I mean, your air defense system has to be within a certain cone of operation for it to be effective with a target that's moving at such high speed and so close to the ground. In most cases, we assume that anyone that's taken off to hit a target is certainly going to reach the target. And doctrinaire, one can only hope to enforce a regime of such high attrition that we ensure that an attacker never goes back, thereby imposing a very high cost to adventure. But to say that we can create such an environment that nobody will be able to enter our airspace or to offer the other side to claim a similar thing, I think is just a little over the top. You know, the other issue that comes up, both sides are nuclear pass. Both sides have the capability to fight a limited war. It's not, it's going to be a long drawn out war in which India shall be a strategic strength will then be proved over Pakistan. We are talking about one week, two weeks even that's very dangerous given nuclear weapons. Do you think this kind of saber rattling, this kind of war history and you've talked about it earlier, makes any sense or it is actually there is a necessity to bring down the temperature and talk diplomacy? I think it's the prime responsibility of a government, of a responsible government is to calm down public tenure. Today we are seeing, very unfortunately, we are seeing retired generals being for blood and for war. I think a soldier is a professional, is a professional and it's strange to see soldiers being for war, all of us as a nation, not as you and me or followers of any particular ideology. But as Indians, I think we need to be more mature, we need to see what damage we're going to do to ourselves. Forget the damage you're going to do to anyone else. Let's say you even finish them off completely from the face of the earth. What damage are you going to do to yourself? Worry about yourself first. Yes, it's a very, very unfortunate scenario. We who are supposed to have given the message of peace to the world how to conduct politics including independence struggle peacefully and now thinking of converting everything to war and force. That's only language you seem to receive. I read an interesting quote, someone said on social media that throughout world history humans have celebrated the end of war. This is perhaps the first time we are celebrating the start of a war. This is, shall we say, coming from an ex-soldier and I think this is what most soldiers who have seen war would say, that war is not what is desirable. It is when everything else fails that nations go to war and in this particular case we seem to be trying to find solutions militarily which are really political issues. Yes, to my thinking, if a nation goes to war it means its entire edifice of politics and legislation and parliament and elections and everything, the entire structure of the state has completely failed. Only then you go to war. Of course in this case there is also the proximity of the elections unfortunately because a lot of the leaders are linking military action to the results of the elections and who people should vote for. So the game is obvious but that is a small game compared to the much bigger one of war between two nuclear powers. Yes, that is true. A lot of people on social media are commenting including me who are commenting on the possibility that this war mongering may be connected to the coming elections. And all the more reason why the government needs to exercise restraint and needs to calm down the frenzy for war that we are seeing on television channels or very soon we might turn into the first nation that was driven to war by television. And social media. And social media. Thank you very much before being with us and we hope we will be able to get you to discuss this and other issues. This all the time we have the news click today. Do keep watching news click and other discussions.