Pakistan vs India
Context and Precedent
Pakistani F-16 Fighting Falcon
It’s tough to tell the players without a program. So a little background. The Pakistan Air Force has 45 American made F-16’s in inventory. It also has 100 PAC JF-17 Thunder, or CAC FC-1 Xiaolong, is a lightweight, single-engine, multi-role combat aircraft developed jointly by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation of China.
China helped Pakistan develop its nuclear energy and weapons program and has had a long relationship with them. Russia has been a military equipment supplier to India and has helped the Indians keep their sixty year-old MiGs in the air.
Pakistani/Chinese JF-17
On 27 February, Pakistan announced that it downed two Indian Air Force fighter jets. India claimed it downed a Pakistani F-16 fighter and said eyewitnesses watched it crash in Pakistani Kashmir. Pakistan denied that any of its F-16s participated in the air attack on the 27th.
On 28 February, Pakistani Prime Minister Khan confirmed that only one aircraft, an Indian MiG 21 was downed, and its pilot taken into custody. Pakistani air crews celebrated the first air-to-air kill by a Chinese-designed, Pakistani-assembled JF-17 Thunder fighter jet. The unit, based at Kamra air force base, posted images of their celebration to the web. 
Indian MiG 21
The Fly in the Ointment
On 28 February, Indian authorities recovered in Indian Kashmir and displayed for the media the identification plate of a US-made AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-Air Missile (AMRAAM). Only Pakistani F-16s supposedly are fitted for those missiles.
On 1 March, the Indians presented the missile information to the US Embassy and asked for an investigation.
On 3 March, the US requested Pakistan to explain the AIM-120 AMRAAM found in India. The US sold F-16s and their weapons to Pakistan with the understanding they would not be transferred and would be used only to defend Pakistan. The action on the 27th was a Pakistani air attack.
The Pakistanis continue to deny that an F-16 was involved. They claim a Chinese JF-17 made its first kill. They have not said what weapon downed the Indian MiG-21 Bison.
If the Pakistani claims are accurate, then Pakistan has outfitted a JF-17 with the US AIM-120 AMRAAM. That means that Pakistan has transferred to China the technology for the US AMRAAM in violation of its end use certificate.
A Few More Details
China has developed its own version of a medium range, beyond-visual-range missile which is reputed to be comparable to the AIM-120. With the US technology, it also has the means to improve its missile and to develop countermeasures to US missiles. This can alter any air encounter between Chinese and US and Allied aircraft, such as in defense of Taiwan. It also alters Indian air force calculations.
The Indian government and army still claim that the AIM-120 fragment means that Pakistani F-16s participated in the fight. Such use would violate the terms of sale because this was an offensive Pakistani air operation.
On 4 March, Indian press also still makes sensational claims that India downed an F-16. Expert analysis of the imagery posted by Indian press confirms that the aircraft the Indian eyewitnesses saw crash was their own MiG-21 Bison. The Indian press concocted a completely fraudulent biography of a Pakistani pilot who was supposedly mistaken for an Indian and beaten to death by Pakistanis. The name and the entire narrative are fake.
Prime Minister Modi lamented the poor performance by the Indian Air Force, both in the airstrike against Pakistan and in defending Indian air space.

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19 COMMENTS

  2. What??? Pakistan has transferred US technology to China when they promised to only use it for defense?

    Refresh my memory, where did the SEAL team kill Bin Laden?

  7. There are a lot of cynics on this blog where Pakistan is concerned. Weren't they our staunch ally for the past nearly twenty years in Afghanistan?

  8. Kipling: ‘A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.’

    Today he might say: 'A fool who trusts the East.'

  9. Pakistan is vastly untrustworthy, and becoming more so by the day. The old Musharrif days of "partially trustworthy" are long gone.

    OTOH, there is so much propaganda spin going on from both sides that it's awful hard to figure out WTH is actually going on.

    I'm also not sure that the PRC would give their game away by actually integrating AMRAAM on the Thunder for Pakistan, and I strongly disbelieve that Pakistan could do it themselves.

    If the PRC actually did do it, and Pakistan was supposed to keep it on the down-low and failed, then there are going to be consequences for the PRC's biggest near-future colony.

    Thanks for the info!
    -Kle.

  11. China is trying to take over Pakistan by peaceful means. If they are successful it would be like a python trying to digest an elephant. I'm sure that they'll be just as happy having Pakistan as part of the Middle Kingdom as they are having Western China (Muslim China) onboard. The more likely scenario is having Pakistan as a satrap the way they sort of are now.

    As to integration of an AMRAAM onto a JF-17, I can't say. I'm sure that the Chinese would be all over that sort of hybrid.

  12. They were our allies taxing every container that was hauled overland through the Khyber pass into Afghanistan. They were our allies allowing Talibs refuge on their porous border.

    The Pakistani tell us they are our allies. This is a prime example of al Taqiyya.

  13. Pakistan is a GOOD friend and ally. But they'd have to supply 79% of the terrorists on the most high-profile op ever; or strafe, napalm and torpedo one of our warships, killing 34 sailors and Marines, to rise to the ranks of our BESTEST friends and allies.

  14. They are merely trying to support the VAST US Military Industrial Complex by providing a need – to thwart all of those terrorists that they produce.

  15. Pakis gotta eat. They taxed us because of desperate need.

    Gullible Americans bribed them for so many years that they now feel that it is their due. Thank God for President Trump and his administration.

  16. Why would the ChiComms mount an American missile (nameplate) on their fighters if they were knocking it off?

  17. Depending on the amount of info remaining on that "data plate", they can look up when that missile was made, and who it originally went to…

  18. I think that they already knocked it off, but maybe the knock-offs don't work so well? The missile flew from a Pakistani built to Chinese plans (heavy with US tech) airplane — apparently. I don't have much more information than that. There is a lot of scrambling to explain this on the part of the Paks.

  19. I think that there is a significant portion of the missile remaining, and that it went to the Paks, which is consistent with its use. And they've promised not to use US technology against India.

    Obama would have shucked it off, but he's out sailing on somebody's yacht or doing what he does these days. Trump is the man and I don't think that it will be written off as easily. Pakistan is on the US shit list these days.

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