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With the PLAAF presence pushed all the way to north to Korla, Golmud, Urumqi, Chengdu and Lanzhou airbases, the skies over southern and central Tibet were in Indian hands. More to the point, given how far these airbases were from the border, there were very few options for striking back in a manner similar to what the Chinese had done.

In order to hit the PLAAF in the way it had hit the IAF, the only options were either to use Su-30s on very deep missions into China with all the risks or conventionally armed ballistic-missiles…

If the Indian government tasked Iyer and his SFC to arm a few precious missiles with conventional warheads for a strike, there were plenty of options across China that could be targeted with precision.

Iyer, Valhotra and the rest of the operations staff at the SFC had spent the day figuring that out. They had also come up with a variety of strike options depending on different scenarios. But the question was whether such a strike would invite the kind of retaliation that Iyer, Valhotra and the rest of the SFC feared.

What was the trigger for the Chinese nuclear option?

Without knowing the answer to that, any ad-hoc response using ballistic systems was premature. Iyer thought about that as he stretched and leaned back into his chair. He checked his wristwatch and realized that he had a long night ahead of him…

OVER NORTHERN BHUTAN

DAY 10 + 2130 HRS

The arrival of a second enemy airborne radar signal over the northern horizon was detected by the sensors on board the CABS AEW aircraft as it patrolled over the Tsenda Kang. The signal was processed and revealed to be that of a KJ-2000 AWACS. The PLAAF were left with four active airframes of this type in their entire force following the successful IAF operations against them in southwestern Tibet. Two of these were based out of Korla and flying patrols in rotation in order to maintain a round-the-clock presence in the skies. The two other KJ-2000s were rotating in a similar manner out of Golmud and patrolling over central Tibet. All remaining KJ-200s were to the east at Chengdu on purely defensive duties as part of an integrated air-ground defense line. As far as the war was concerned, unless the IAF ventured as far out as Chengdu, the KJ-200s operating in rotation there were of no consequence.

The Golmud based aircraft though, were still a concern.

The current pair of KJ-2000s over central Tibet was currently exchanging patrols over the Nam Tso. Additionally, J-11s from the 19TH Fighter Division flying out of Urumqi were keeping a much stronger presence near these aircraft after recent past experience with the IAF. Feng had ordered a virtual wall of J-11s put up around these radar aircraft for protection. But in doing so they were being strictly defensive and using up a large force of J-11s on defensive operations.

It was yet another way of defeating an enemy air force. Why shoot their planes down when they were being forced to do other non-productive work? The point was that the IAF was not looking to defeat the PLAAF by doing a number count on aircraft losses. The idea was to defeat them in the mind and put them in the position where they could not affect IAF operations over the battlefields. That was as good as being defeated, even if they retained hundreds of their fighter aircraft after the war…

But following the attack on Tezpur and Jorhat, both sides were staying on their own sides of the border for now. The IAF Eastern Air Command was still reeling from the losses and had pushed them to defensive operations until those two airbases were made operational again.

So for now both the Indian and Chinese airborne radar crews in the skies above Tibet had to contend themselves with intelligence gathering…

As the second KJ-2000 took over and the first one shut down its radars and retreated back to Golmud, the radar crew on board the Indian AEW aircraft noted the time saved the tracking history.

The electronic-warfare operator on board, sent encrypted data to the operations center at Shillong and leaned into his seat, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. To him this process was as routine as having three meals a day, but somebody a lot senior at Shillong had probably decided that knowing the aircraft schedule for the Chinese 26TH Air Division out of Golmud was interesting. Had he not been so physically exhausted after ten days of continuous operations, he might have had a chance to think this through. They were supposed to have been on rest right now as the second crew for this aircraft took the next shift. But that other crew had been caught on the ground when Tezpur had been hit. There had been many casualties within that team.