How the India-Pakistan conflict can change the arms trade industry’s future; that has implications on the Taiwan issue as well!
I am writing this at 1:00 AM GMT. I did not intend to write blogs on ongoing current issues, but some thoughts really started to form in my mind that I thought I might upload to the Internet. So anyways, as the title suggests, “How the India Pakistan conflict can change the arms trade industry for the future that has implications on the Taiwan issue, I am going to talk about just that! First I will talk about the Indian attack on Pakistan after the terrorist attack . I will get to the Taiwan part in a bit, but before that I should describe what reports have been coming out of the Ind-Pak conflict.
As I've said before, I'm a nobody. I don't have any sources or anything. I only look at news reports and try to know and figure out things myself. So as of now Pakistan claims that it has shot down 6 Indian aircrafts, and within those, they claim that there were three Rafales shot down. Now of course India does not agree with that claim and we have no reason to believe those claims blindly either. That's a different issue altogether. But now CNN has published an article, or more like a report where they quote a French high ranked intelligence officer who says that a Rafale was shot down by Pakistan. This is what I want to discuss here now from here onwards. Let's say the Rafale was shot down with a surface-to-air missile or an air-to-air missile. It's highly likely that the SAM system or the air-to-air was a Chinese one, in that case the PL-15. This is a big assumption I am making here, and we will found out in a few days or months anyways. If that is the case, a Chinese system was able to shoot down a fifth generation western fighter jet!! So we, as a bunch of nobodies of this world, for the first time in history, see Chinese weapons being used against western weapon system!! This is not a war between India and Pakistan only! This is Chinese weapon system VS western weapon system! Do we understand the implications of China getting into the high tech game! But some may argue that the jet was not shot down with a SAM. I don't think there was a dogfight as no party said that any of their aircrafts violated airspaces . I could be totally wrong, but that is what I know. So it's more than likely that it was the SAM system or the Chinese PL-15 that downed the Rafale jet!
Now what does it imply for the future? The whole world has a opinion that Chinese weapon system are not that effective. But the fact that a fifth generation western made, that to of Dassault Aviations, Rafale was a shot down by their systems, means China's weapon systems are not a joke anymore and not to be taken lightly. And what does this imply for the future? O fcourse in the weapons industry is dominated by the US and Russia. China was is usually the third largest weapons exporter but China is not known to export high tech weapons like surface to air missile defence system. We know about the S400 we know about the Iron Dome or the Patriot, but we don't know anything about the Chinese system. Same with missiles like PL-15! Because they don't have that export base, this could be an opportunity for China. Maybe they are seeing it like this that this as an opportunity for them to start expanding export base. Now that Chinese weapon system are battle tested for the first time against western equipment, we will see that the western world would be a bit more careful in confronting China. But why do I think that?
Since the 2nd World War, two nations who fought each other mostly used weapons made by either the Soviets or the Americans. That has continued with the extension of European industry. Even the previous Ind-Pak wars were based on Soviet VS US weapons. But now that China has entered the arena with more high-tech equipment, the west obviously has taken into account their capabilities while making a jet or a defence system. Of course, one can argue that the Western countries have Intel and know how good their systems are, but then again, think about this, the intel they used to build equipment like the Rafale did not work! This means the Chinese has advanced beyond expectations! If this is the case, then we will see a lot more countries that are non aligned to any pole take interest into Chinese weapons. This will give China a lot more influence, as we all know, selling weapons also means you get the countries favour in a few things or two. What could that mean for Taiwan? First of all, the influence China will have will give it an edge, but that’s not what matters. What matters is the fact that the US will atleast think a bit more before going to Taiwan’s aide in case China launches it’s operation. This simple Rafale shootdown could be the ripple effect into a lot of things!
Ok so, maybe all that I have mentioned before is just pure bullshit. Maybe the pilots weren't good enough. It could definitely be! Or it was just pure luck that the Rafale got shot down! And here I am thinking about the China-US standoff haha! But yeah, I might write about it in another blog in maybe 6 months or like a year or so. Stay tuned!
