New Delhi: When Pakistani fighter pilots scrambled into action during their counteroffensive against Indias Operation Sindoor, they were not following a playbook of their own.
The mission unfolding in the skies was scripted long before the first missile was fired, designed not in Islamabad, but across NATOs high-security airbases, inside Chinas military classrooms and deep within war-gaming simulators thousands of miles from South Asia.
It was choreography. Not battlefield improvisation, but a calculated drill. A combat blueprint borrowed from the West, translated into Mandarin and flown under a Pakistani flag.
According to a report by The Print, Pakistan had been trained by China in an advanced air warfare tactic that traces its roots to NATO doctrine.
The disclosure has sparked unease in Indias security circles as well as military headquarters across Europe and North America. At the centre of this alarm lies an unsettling realization that China may now hold the keys to the Wests most prized aerial strategies.
A NATO Trick, Reborn in Enemy Hands
The technique has a name in modern air combat Launch-and-Leave. It is a lethal maneuver designed to deceive and survive while still hitting its mark. In this tactic, the attacking fighter does not wait around to guide its missile. It fires and vanishes, leaving the missile in flight.
Then, a second aircraft with superior radar takes over, guiding the missile all the way to the kill.
Western pilots developed this for hostile skies, where hanging around a few seconds too long meant certain death. NATO has drilled this maneuver into its elite squadrons for decades.
Now, Pakistani jets are flying it.
Who Gave China the Manual?
This is where the story darkens. China did not invent this method. It learned it by recruiting former pilots from the very countries now watching in horror. For years, Beijing has lured ex-fighter pilots from elite NATO air forces, especially from the Five Eyes alliance that comprises of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Insiders say China offered enormous payouts to retired pilots, particularly from Britain. Some accepted. In 2022, the U.K. Ministry of Defence admitted publicly that around 30 former Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots had gone to China to train the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). They were veterans entrusted with NATOs most sensitive combat doctrine.
And now, that doctrine is taking flight over South Asia.
China Trained, Pakistan Executed
The report suggests that during Operation Sindoor, Pakistan used a combination of Chinese-made J-10 fighter jets and Swedish Saab 2000 AEW&C surveillance aircraft to execute coordinated attacks using this very tactic. While the J-10s fired, the Saab aircraft, with its advanced radar suite, likely played the hidden guiding role in the launch-and-leave sequence.
Experts believe this was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was practiced, rehearsed and perfected, not in Pakistans tribal regions or under its own command, but in Chinese war rooms, with manuals printed in Mandarin and simulators tailored to mimic South Asian terrain.
China did not only pass on the hardware. It also trained the reflexes. It embedded the instincts.
The West es, Uneasy
What now worries intelligence agencies is that Beijing appears to have amassed an internal archive of NATO strategies. And it has done so not by hacking, but by hiring. If a conflict breaks out in the Indo-Pacific or even on another continent, China could predict the Wests moves before they happen. It has studied their patterns, their decision-making and their kill signatures.
And now, in some high-altitude outpost or desert runway, Pakistani pilots, wired with Chinese muscle memory, have flown that same script against India.
A doctrine once born in Western skies may now return, weaponised and aimed right back at its creators.