 Hello and welcome to NewsCleek. We're going to discuss the latest reports which are coming out. I must confess, they're rather confused on the Balakot air strikes and what were the bombs that were used, what are the satellite imagery that we are seeing. Raghu, you know this has been ongoing, what I would say, in the heat of the war. There were a lot of claims and counter claims. But the fog of war, even if the heat of war has dissipated somewhat, the fog of war still remains. And it will remain until the government releases whatever satellite imagery, aerial photography. The Indian Air Force must have done damage assessment after the strike. Any Air Force would do that and they were bound to have done it. They would have handed over this to the government and Air Force spokespersons have clearly said it's up to the government to release it or not. You know here Chief Marshal Danua made something, made a statement which is very interesting. He said we report on targets, what targets we have hipped. We do not talk about the bodies. So this body talk which started actually by the Foreign Ministry spokespersons, the Secretary in fact Gokhale. He said that we have actually caused damage and we have eliminated. A number of terrorists, handlers, etc., etc., he went into quite lurid details. Now of course at that time the only knowledge we would have had would be the aerial one and again to what extent we would have a real time information of the aerial damage itself is an open question. But certainly this kind of details, who all we have quote unquote eliminated, would have been shall we say rather imaginative rather than based on the factual report. You would for that you would actually require ground intelligence, human intelligence to give you this kind of information and it is very doubtful that at the present state of things that R&AW has that kind of resources on the ground in Balakot. Let us look at what has been the satellite imagery which is in public domain, which is of course commercial satellite imagery as we know today less than a meter resolution satellite image is available, imagery is available from commercial sources of a number of agencies. Reuters has released the Planet Labs satellite imagery about four days back. They have said it's 72 centimeter resolution which means it's a less than a meter resolution and it shows that at least on what it can be seen that there is no significant damage that has that can be seen. Which would seem to indicate the two following things. Either those buildings were not hit, some other targets in the Jabhatop forest area which could have been sheds might have been hit or India made a demonstrative example that we can hit within Pakistan. We can hit a target if we want but we don't want to create loss of lives. These are the two possibilities and it is very difficult to accept that the Madrasa complex which is really a kilometer away from Jabhatop, that from the imagery plus from what we know and we had an earlier Australian imagery which had also come which also gave a very similar picture. It's very difficult to accept that the Madrasa buildings were really hit. Well it looks as if from some of the satellite imagery that if what were used were penetration munitions they seem to have gone through the roof. There is sufficient indication that there is damage to the roof that they have gone through the roof. Now the theory which is being peddled is that these bombs went through the roof, they would have penetrated the building, penetrated the earth and exploded from inside. Even if that were the case unless they were very low yield weapons you would not expect the walls to remain standing. But at least you would have scorched walls, some damage to the walls. Some damage, there is a little evidence of fire scorching that kind of thing which has led to speculation that may have been fuel air explosives inside the weapon. In either case the yields appear to have been small which would lend themselves to the second of your suppositions that the idea was to demonstrate that it could be done without causing overwhelming damage. Now here is the other issue that the Reuters personnel or the reporters were at the site and there is no at least that we can talk about. There does not seem to be indication on the ground from that area nearby, from the villages and others from what they report that there has been substantive dead casualties. So the casualty part is rather difficult to substation. Although the only thing lending some credence to the Indian version of the damage done is the fact that at least still this morning's reporting international correspondence in the press have still been prevented from the hill road that leads up to the Madrasa. So what is the reason for preventing people if as is claimed in a large section of the Pakistani media that only some trees have been damaged and a crow has been killed. Then it would seem to me that even showing that crow would have been of advantage for Pakistani, that is right, to the Pakistani narrative. So something seems to have happened there, we are not certain what but it is not of the magnitude that was being proclaimed here and it is perhaps not as insignificant as is being made out in Pakistan. You know looking at it differently, the government of India has a number of satellite imagery capabilities including as we are aware of what NTRO has launched which has again less than a meter resolution, probably better resolution than what Planet Lab has and it has also a number of other civilian satellite imagery which all of them are jointly done by our space agencies as well as NTRO who are responsible. That part of it has been taken away from raw and it's really the domain of NTRO. None of this has been released which is quite interesting shall we say the dog that didn't bark of Sharma Komsky. Absolutely and I think that is what ultimately is going to swing the narrative shall we say. It looks to me that the overbearing emphasis of the government is on domestic public opinion rather than on international opinion. If they were bothered about international opinion they would have released satellite imagery but they can continue with this harangue in India on domestic public opinion saying, we have done this because who will question it and if you question it they will say you are actually on Pakistan side etc. So I think given that and since elections are now literally around the corner this is a strategy that I think the ruling party would think it goes in their favor irrespective of what international opinion is. Irrespective of what the imagery might show. The second set of questions really is are you already raised it. What are the kind of bombs that were used initially with the reports again all unconfirmed sources. The government seems to be having leaking like the devil but no public attribution has ever been given. It seems to be spice platform or pots as you have discussed earlier and on this bombs initially they were talked of laser guided 1000 kg bombs. Now laser guided 1000 kg bombs would have cost much more damage. Now the figure seems to be even 50 to 70 kgs. It seems after the imagery has been the images have been released that the kg size of the bombs have been brought down. Good well be. Frankly as far as I am concerned I think there is this the story about having taken revenge having eliminated so many terrorists. That was a political narrative which the government wanted to get across. But in military strategic terms I think it does not matter very much how many people were killed what kind of weapon was used. The point is that the Air Force has shown its ability and its capacity the intent to be able to strike inside Pakistan. I think if you just look at it from the strategic point of view that was the message that was sought to be conveyed militarily and strategically. The rest of it I think is governmental embellishment. Part of it as you said is bombing the Indian public opinion. Now leaving that part of it out if we look at the strategic part now it could be argued that if India had actually killed 300 to 400 people in the Madrasas and let's face it Madrasa students are not all terrorists. There also shall be say young people who have come or the parents have sent them and therefore killing 300 to 400 of the Madrasa students would have had a huge political repercussion within Pakistan. Similarly if Pakistan's response was to hit Indian military targets in Kashmir then also we would have seen a huge repercussion here. So shall we say that both sides were interested in demonstrative action that escalation but demonstrative action within shall we say certain red lines and this is roughly what seems to have happened. I think so. Let's look at it this way. India wanted to show that it can strike inside Pakistan and that therefore India is prepared to and has the capacity to shift the normal to move away from strategic restraint and to show this enhanced capability and willingness. Now that was the strategy from the Indian side to establish the new normal. If Pakistan had not hit back then the new normal would have been established and precisely because of that Pakistan had to strike back saying this normal is unacceptable to us this we are not taking as normal. So any further effort along those lines will invite a counter strike along these lines and as you say both sides I think calibrated their strikes in such a way that the demonstration effect was more visible than the actual military impact. So after the surgical strike originally we know that Pakistan did not demonstratively respond. So therefore a quote unquote new normal where we can strike beyond the LOC was sought to be established. This time that is something that has not happened. There has been a response so it would seem to indicate between two nuclear powers this kind of demonstrative strikes. Though India said it didn't cross the LOC it fired from this side. We're not going to get into that debate but nevertheless bombs did cross. That's right. That's a good point. I mean we hit a target well inside Pakistan. It's a good point whether the flight the aircraft went or didn't go. Doesn't matter. That really doesn't matter. It does seem that this so-called controlled escalation that we are talking about in the new normal which a lot of the strategic community have been tom-tombing are actually dangerous given the fact that two nuclear powers with the ability in case it conflagration builds up to the extent of actually endangering life on earth. That's always the case when you have an escalatory action that the escalation does not lead to an escalatory spiral and that's very difficult to prevent in an atmosphere of conflict and retaliatory action. Because they stood for that and they stood for that and then it can keep bouncing along and climb. And also individuals can actually take decisions which are not under your control. That's right. The only thing that I would say at the end of the days this may have focused international attention a little more sharply on the potential dangers not just often. India-Pakistan conflict but on the potential trigger effect for an India-Pakistan conflict of continued cross-border terror activities. And to that extent if it has succeeded in drawing international attention to this they may have been a strategic payoff but with the negative payoff of not having established a new normal. But Raghu that's the other part internationalizing India-Pakistan issue also carries the risks for India of internationalizing Kashmir which Indian government has been refusing to do. So therefore we seem to have got Trump into credit for the de-escalation. We have Saudi Arabia which is actively intervening in India-Pakistan issues. So we are already in fact seeking external shall we say consultations. And you know Raghu the risk that this terror machinery that we are talking about in Pakistan is the terror machinery built by the United States, the western agencies. And it still has a deep connection with Saudi Arabia even today. Absolutely. So this is getting Saudi Arabia and the United States to be your interlocutors with Pakistan will also have the risk of Kashmir. And this is in fact the danger of this escalatory spiral is both India and Pakistan depend on early international intervention to prevent the escalation from going out of control. So it's not between India and Pakistan that the restraint is applied. The restraint is applied by dragging the international community into it which as you rightly pointed out is supposed to be not the Indian position but it is. Today seems to be. It will be and the more you have military action across the border the sooner there will be international intervention. So this Ghuske Marengi kind of statements which the Prime Minister has made actually is good for election speeches but could be dangerous for the peace as well as the risk of internationalizing the Kashmir issue which apparently India is totally against. So that's the counter risk shall we say we carry. Thank you very much for being with us and explaining to us shall we say the ramifications of the satellite imagery to what is it that we really bombed what are the bombs we used. There is the fog of war still seems to continue on these issues. This is all the time we have news click today. Do keep watching news click and our other episodes.