The Aerial attack carried out by two drones at the IAF base in Jammu recently, did not come as a surprise to many of us as the Indian armed forces were alive to this threat. But what was disappointing was that those drones were able to carry out the attack and could escape. Being alive to this threat is not enough, what was important was What did you do to face this threat, which you had already anticipated.
Drones are being used today by even local photographers to cover wedding ceremonies and many such events, by courier services and more over several such drone incidents in Jammu and Kashmir have been reported in past wherein drones were used to drop weapons, drugs, ammunition, arms and Hawala money to fuel terrorism in the Union territory, so it was just a matter of time when this delivery system be used to drop bombs at important military bases in India.
So in that sense it was not a surprise.
Yes, we were caught napping and so the Drones were able to drop the payload and escaped. Fortunately, there was no major damage reported in terms of manpower and equipment as the bombs landed away from the targets, not because of our counter action but because of the error committed by the enemy in not taking the wind speed into account.
However, notwithstanding the above, Pakis once again have caught us sleeping.
Its for sure that We will hence forth be alert but the moot point is How is it possible that the enemy is able to surprise us again and again.
"There is no other Nation in the history of human civilization which has been taken by surprise by its adversaries so often & with such remarkable regularity. We were taken by surprise in 1947 by the tribals from Pakistan & lost half of Kashmir, thereafter the Chinese surprised us in 1962 & took away Aksai Chin. In 1965, the Pakis once again surprised us, In 1989-90 we were surprised by the uprising in Kashmir by the indoctrinated Jehadis trained by Pakis in our Madrasas and then started the long saga of surprises; the Kargil intrusion, highjack, bomb explosions and fidayeens. This is not ancient or medieval history but recent history.
This saga is still continuing and is likely to continue, till we learn to seize initiative and retain it and compel enemy to react each and every time. By now we must be convinced, and if we are not, then we must be really dumb, that Pakistan will continue to remain inimical to our interests. It is because of this attitude towards us that Pakistan will keep inventing newer methods to target us. In 1948 it used Tribals from NWFP, in 1965 it used its special forces to infilterate and seize important features to block our communications with forward areas, has been using the indoctrinated Jehadis to bleed us, uses counterfeit currency notes, hawala market to damage our economy , uses drugs to destroy our youth and so on. The use of Drones is also one such endeavor to harm India.
Pakistan by using this delivery system has rather, in my opinion paved a way, may be inadvertently, to take this conflict to a level, which will only help India and am sure that Indian armed forces will never miss this God sent opportunity offered by Pakistan. And if we miss it we must be really dumb.
India can do well if it also starts thinking the same way as Pakistan thinks.
Lets also invent newer ways of harming Pakistan ; Use this God sent opportunity to seize the initiative and retain it for all times to come. Use of armed Drones can solve lot of our problems while dealing with Paksitan and particularly the terrorism emanating from Pakistan's soil.
Ideally speaking we should have dealt with firmly when Pakistan used these drones to drop weapons in Punjab, but if we did not do it then, we can surely do it now.