One of the most irritating things about doing any kind of commentary on military matters in South Asia is both sides izzat-driven reluctance to acknowledge the other has any strengths or capabilities at all. Hey guys, news flash. When it comes to air to air combat Pakistan is better, pound for pound, but India is better when it comes to artillery and standoff capabilities. You ever notice you never see Israelis acting like this? After Arab SA-6 air defense batteries caused a nasty surprise in the Yom Kippur war, they didn’t try to deny or hide the ensuing losses. Rather, they went back to the drawing board, fixed their training, procured and developed weapons and systems better suited to that task, and began preparing for the next round. The Syrians, on the other hand, were quite confident in the performance of their air defense, and failed to make necessary preparations. So when that round came in 1982, Israel virtually destroyed the entire Syrian integrated air defense network and half their entire fighter force with minimal losses. After suffering several serious blows from Hezbollah in 2006 they didn’t start saaring out about how they’d taken no damage at all. Rather, they demanded accountability from the leadership, analyzed their comparative strengths and weaknesses vs the enemy, and redid their tactics and training. Hezbollah, meanwhile, flush with pride, failed to prepare. And we all saw the results before our eyes. Their command structure was paralyzed with the exploding pagers. When their commanders gathered in person to plan, their electronics being compromised, they were assassinated from the air. Nasrallahs underground fortress became a necropolis of dead Hezbos and IRGC officers. When the land invasion began, Hezbollahs notorious anti-tank missile tactics that proved so deadly in 2006 were neutralized by a combination of better training, active protection systems, and sensor-shooter integration. They’re definitely not fully defeated, and caution is still warranted, but they are now a measly fraction of their former strength. The site where Nasrallah made his “spiders web” speech is a Merkava motor pool now. If the *other guy* has an honor obsessed mentality, and *you don’t*, you’re going to win, because any tactics that work against you, they’ll see no need to improve, and when they don’t work, they’ll deny the problem exists at all- and thus he is defeated before his soldiers even tie their bootlaces.