India on high alert on land, air & sea

NEW DELHI: With a retaliation by Pakistan being considered likely, India has shored up its defences across the land, air and sea domains. The multi-layered air defence network is fully activated, several frontline warships are deployed in the Arabian Sea, and infantry units along the frontier are fully stocked and prepared to deal with any contingency.

Amid combat air patrols being flown by IAF fighter jets, even the tri-Service Strategic Forces Command, which handles the country's nuclear arsenal, has been put on a high alert as a measure of abundant precaution.

"India has demonstrated considerable restraint in its response. However, it must be said that Indian armed forces are fully prepared to respond to Pakistani misadventures, if any, that will escalate the situation," warned Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, a helicopter pilot, at the briefing by foreign secretary Vikram Misri.

The feeling in military-diplomatic circles here, however, is that Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir, who just a few days ago warned that any Indian "military misadventure" would be met with a "swift and notched-up response", has no option but to militarily respond to rally everyone around him in his beleaguered country. "There will be great pressure on him to authorise some kind of a response," a senior officer said.

Pakistan had managed to surprise India with its ' Operation Swift Retort ' a day after the IAF conducted the Balakot pre-dawn air strikes on Feb 26, 2019, in response to the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed earlier that month.

"Lessons have been learnt. It will not be so easy this time. The armed forces have been preparing for the last 15 days and will not let their guard down," another officer said, while acknowledging that a large country like India simply cannot make its airspace totally impregnable.

The armed forces, on their part, have inducted several new weapon systems since Balakot in 2019. The Russian-origin S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, which can detect and destroy hostile strategic bombers, fighters, missiles and drones at a range of 380-km, for instance, are now part of the IAF's integrated air command and control system (IACCS).

At the other end of the spectrum, there are the older Igla-1M air defence systems and the newer shoulder-fired Igla-S missiles with an interception range of up to 6km.

In between, there are the Israeli-origin Barak-8 medium range surface-to-air missile systems (70-km range), the indigenous Akash air defence missile systems (25-km) and the Israeli low-level Spyder quick-reaction anti-aircraft missiles (15-km).

Many of these systems are plugged into the fully-automated IACCS network that combines a wide array of sensors and weapons. IACCS has been progressively expanded over the years to integrate the wide array of military radars with civilian radars. Apart from ground-based radars, the existing Netra and Phalcon airborne early-warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft are also part of this network.