02-07-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
China's war lessons after India-Pakistan conflict prioritise integrated systems
Systemic warfare and surprise attacks will be key to winning future wars, according to a Study Times commentary published this week that appeared to be based on lessons drawn from the
India-Pakistan conflict of early May.
'Recent real-world combat experience from regional conflicts has profoundly revealed the core logic of modern warfare: the contest of individual weapon performance has been replaced by systemic operations,' it said.
While the article – which appeared on Monday in the Central Party School-affiliated newspaper – did not explicitly refer to the conflict, it contained descriptions that closely mirrored what is reported to have occurred on the battlefield.
According to the commentary, a seemingly weaker force leveraged an imported combat system – 'combining data links, early warning aircraft, air defence systems, and coordinated fighter jets' – to overwhelm its opponent's mishmash of weapons from different countries.
During the four-day skirmish, which began on May 7, Pakistan deployed a combination of
Chinese-made weapons against Indian forces equipped with arms from Russia and several Western countries.
