The Kashmir conflict 2025.

Neurosmith said:

India could sustain a conflict for much longer than Pakistan could and a much broader conflict at that.

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Yes. Like a smaller boxer taking on a bigger but heavier/slower opponent. You can get in a few quick jabs and knock them off balance, but in a sustained fight your odds become poor. In every full-scale war these two nations have fought in recent memory, India came out victorious.

The IAF is the Indian army's achilles heel - whereas PAF gets much more funding than the Pak navy. So there is an asymmetry in priorities which allows PAF to come out better than a full-scale army confrontation between the two nations would indicate.

Also, while Pak's economy has stabilised in recent years, but it's still fragile. Pak needs IMF loans, which are tied to the US. And the US clearly does not want an escalation. So there are limits on Pak's manouver room here, even outside the military arena.

tamsen_ikard said:

Then there is Su-57, which is not considered a good plane by pretty much the whole world. Since India was involved with Su-57 from the beginning, they know pretty much everything about it and they did not like it. I don't think things have changed enough on the Su-57 to change their minds.

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Su-57 is target of arguably loudest smearing campaign in modern aviation community. Most people doing that, on the check, don't know anything on subject matter. Like what's the point of pointing fingers at average quora aviation specialist, if someone like J. Bronk only discovered that su-57 doesn't have exposed rivets (unlike early prototypes) this winter. If actually informed speaking heads are this bad, what to expect from "pretty much the whole world".

J-10 wasn't really seen seriously until this week by "pretty much the whole world" - you can see it simply from its orders log.
Result is impressive national humilation for the largest nation on Earth, and it still echoes throughout the world. Maybe that's for the better. The louder the shell cracks, the better the result - you may want to check how some indian users here were quite adamant: beliefs of much of the world define quality of platform in aerial warfare. Result, of course, was national belief in invincibility of 25-year old aircraft, with design from the mid-1980s (Rafale A demonstrator).

Bayraktars did great to show that you don't only buy reapers for your whole air force budget back in 2010s. Now it's J-10C, with way more bang. It's quite refreshing and satisfying when such ignorance breaks.

Su-57 has the best real combat record of any fifth gen but has been smeared to hell and back. The fact that Russians refuse to clearly acknowledge the kills is also hurting it.

siegecrossbow said:

Military has the final say I think. Imran Khan was pretty much couped because he didn’t have military support.

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It is not quite so simple. I thought if I should make a comment, but this is too important to pass up. This also ties up with the Kashmir conflict.

First, the civ-mil issue is complicated. Both have to ensure that the public is on board. At this time the system is in sync.

Second, the system was in sync with Imran too because generals manipulated elections in various ways to ensure that Imran comes to power. However, his lack of interest in practical details of running the government, superstitions, & lack of foresight soured relations. After Feb 19 action, he famously said in national assembly something like: Do you want me to declare war on India? Is that what you want? Once Taliban controlled Kabul, he was not needed any more. The signal went to Opposition that army will be neutral. And then the vote of no confidence happened & Imran was out. It was not a coup. This was a fiction.

How does this tie with Kashmir conflict? Imran's incompetence would have impacted the country really badly, had he stayed. He already damaged Kashmir cause due to his incompetence in 2019. The tanking of economy in 2021-22 would have led to a default & Pakistan would not be able to do anything at all for Kashmir. This present clash would have been something else had Imran completed his term.

Gloire_bb said:

Su-57 is target of arguably loudest smearing campaign in modern aviation community. Most people doing that, on the check, don't know anything on subject matter. Like what's the point of pointing fingers at average quora aviation specialist, if someone like J. Bronk only discovered that su-57 doesn't have exposed rivets (unlike early prototypes) this winter. If actually informed speaking heads are this bad, what to expect from "pretty much the whole world".

J-10 wasn't really seen seriously until this week by "pretty much the whole world" - you can see it simply from its orders log.
Result is impressive national humilation for the largest nation on Earth, and it still echoes throughout the world. Maybe that's for the better, the louder the shell cracks, the better the result - you may want to check how some indian users were adamant in their belief in how beliefs of much of the world define quality of platform in aerial warfare. Result, of course, was national belief in invincibility of 20-year old aircraft, with design from the mid-1980s (Rafale A demonstrator).

Bayraktars did great to show that you don't only buy reapers for your whole air force budget back in 2010s. Now it's J-10C, with way more bang. It's quite refreshing and satisfying when such ignorance breaks.

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The funny thing is the biggest beneficiary of the J-10C's debut will be the J-35. The list of J-10C customers is relatively small and shrinking, while the market for a 75M USD 5th-gen with permissive end user licensing is very, very large. Chinese military tech is also now seen as "credible" across the board. And since the J-35 will come with the PL-15 as well, the value proposition of a J-35 will be much greater than that of the J-10C.

I told a Chinese equity analyst to buy more Shenyang and short Chengdu, FYI...

leibowitz said:

The funny thing is the biggest beneficiary of the J-10C's debut will be the J-35. The list of J-10C customers is relatively small and shrinking, while the market for a 75M USD 5th-gen with permissive end user licensing is very, very large. Chinese military tech is also now seen as "credible" across the board. And since the J-35 will come with the PL-15 as well, the value proposition of a J-35 will be much greater than that of the J-10C.

I told a Chinese equity analyst to buy more Shenyang and short Chengdu, FYI...

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Don’t let rabid CAC fanboys in China find out…

siegecrossbow said:

Don’t let rabid CAC fanboys in China find out…

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I asked Perplexity how many 3rd and 4th-gen fighters were in inventory across Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, South Africa, Kuwait, Iraq, and Serbia, and their total military budget.

Answer is ~1,600 fighter aircraft, and a budget of ~194 billion USD. Assuming annual procurement of 25% (~48 billion USD), with 1/2 dedicated to aircraft procurement, then these countries could, in aggregate, purchase 320 J-35s (at 75M USD each) or 600 J-10Cs (at 40M USD each) every year. Even assuming a foreign buyer markup + service costs and other items, an incremental 200 J-35 or 300-400 J-10C orders is possible. This would match the TACAIR build rate of the entire Western world, and would let the Global South match the West in terms of aircraft quantity/quality within 7 to 9 years.

In either case, Chengdu and Shenyang are about to get a huge bump in orders in the years to come.

leibowitz said:

The funny thing is the biggest beneficiary of the J-10C's debut will be the J-35. The list of J-10C customers is relatively small and shrinking, while the market for a 75M USD 5th-gen with permissive end user licensing is very, very large. Chinese military tech is also now seen as "credible" across the board. And since the J-35 will come with the PL-15 as well, the value proposition of a J-35 will be much greater than that of the J-10C.

I told a Chinese equity analyst to buy more Shenyang and short Chengdu, FYI...

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Here is the problem with your argument. The reason China's arms don't sell is because of politics, not because other countries think China's arms are not good.

Buying Fighter jets are a huge political statement. If we look at countries with decent GDP and military budget, then who will actually be willing to buy fighter jets from China?

Gulf Arabs? No way US will tolerate it, and gulf are too much dependent on west politically to get into China camp that much.

Iran? China won't sell to appease gulf Arabs.

Latin America? Again can't afford to offend US and lacks sufficient military budget to operate 5th gen.

Europe is out, India out, Russia also out. West pacific US vassals also out.

Asean? Thailand and singapore are still too much in US camp to offend them by buying fighter jets from China.

Vietnam and Philippines hates China and still too low budget.

Indonesia again too low budget and would rather buy western to improve relationship.

So the only left are pakistan, bangladesh and poor African countries.

Egypt also too dependent on US. Algeria may not have enough budget.


Once you actually look at it strategically, J35 will have very hard time selling much. US vasaals are still too rich, and the global south still too poor.

J-10 has more chances selling to very poor countries looking to upgrade.

So no, don't short chengdu yet.

tamsen_ikard said:

Here is the problem with your argument. The reason China's arms don't sell is because of politics, not because other countries think China's arms are not good.

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You underestimate inertia.

Like, in principle, there's little reason to buy mig-29m2 over J-10C, unless you're already an operator. J-10C is more advanced, yet it is almost certainly cheaper to operate (and more or less the same to procure). Yes, mig is probably better as a medium fighter-bomber, but...

...but Mig sold almost land-based 100 airframes (Syrian deal collapsed, but still) to new operators(market accessible to China), before Chengdu got its first order (from Pakistan). It's telling that no one even considered Chinese aircraft seriously - when resistance to it after 2014s would've been much lesser than resistance to a Russian bird.
Yes, part of it is Russian military prersense in Mediterranean. But another part is that until last few years, countries didn't even consider chinese aircraft seriously.

Not as bad as current Indian attempts to sell Tejas, but you see the analogy. For Chinese air export, those explosions over Kashmir will almost certainly be the breakaway event.

tamsen_ikard said:

Egypt also too dependent on US. Algeria may not have enough budget.

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Egypt bought mig-29m2s, and tried to buy su-35s; only unbearable direct pressure stopped them.
Algeria has enough budget to buy mig-29m2s(again, direct J-10c counterpart), su-35s, and now, first in region, su-57s. It's anything but a poor country.

tamsen_ikard said:

Here is the problem with your argument. The reason China's arms don't sell is because of politics, not because other countries think China's arms are not good.

Buying Fighter jets are a huge political statement. If we look at countries with decent GDP and military budget, then who will actually be willing to buy fighter jets from China?

Gulf Arabs? No way US will tolerate it, and gulf are too much dependent on west politically to get into China camp that much.

Iran? China won't sell to appease gulf Arabs.

Latin America? Again can't afford to offend US and lacks sufficient military budget to operate 5th gen.

Europe is out, India out, Russia also out. West pacific US vassals also out.

Asean? Thailand and singapore are still too much in US camp to offend them by buying fighter jets from China.

Vietnam and Philippines hates China and still too low budget.

Indonesia again too low budget and would rather buy western to improve relationship.

So the only left are pakistan, bangladesh and poor African countries.

Egypt also too dependent on US. Algeria may not have enough budget.


Once you actually look at it strategically, J35 will have very hard time selling much. US vasaals are still too rich, and the global south still too poor.

J-10 has more chances selling to very poor countries looking to upgrade.

So no, don't short chengdu yet.

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I think you are pretty on point but I would argue that for Gulf Arabs, Latin America and ASEAN, there are perhaps still room to manoeuvre.

Considering some gulf Arabs states has purchased Chinese drones before, I would say that the possibility is not necessarily zero. I would give it a 50/50 for a somewhat affordable 5-gen.

Latin America, while budgets will definitely be small but there is still potential there, and the whole not pissing off the US is highly dependent on the nation and not Latin America as a whole.

ASEAN, again budgets will be small, but there are a few with potential. Thailand operates quite a few Chinese land systems already so I think there might be potential. Singapore have always played in the middle so not as ridiculous as one might think. With the others I think you are probably correct tho.

I think the bigger problem might be legacy systems and munitions. The new system will have to play nice with what they already operate, and if the target countries primarily operated western systems, then how J-35 or even the J-10 will be integrated into the existing ecosystem, with it highly integrated nature, would be the problem instead.

After all, no countries are going to replace everything from the ground up. How willing the manufacturers of the legacy systems to work with the Chinese manufacturers to integrate the new system into the existing ecosystem of the target countries would be a problem.