The missing Rafales. Photo: Social media.
By Indrajit Samarajiva – May 15, 2025
What India called the Battle of Sindoor quickly turned into a tandoor. Indian and Pakistani jets played a game of chicken across the border and India got plucked, roasted, and stuck to the wall. At least six Indian jets were shot down and Pakistan played intercepted cockpit audio of Indian pilots screaming about it. It was really the Battle of Tandoori Chicken, and India got served in front of the whole world.
More importantly, for the World War III currently going on, the entire White Empire got served notice. This was the first time Chinese weapons were tested in battle and they look sharp. It looks like China is not just a peer military but superior to the western model. After NATO’s loss in the Battle of the Borscht, the US Navy Falafelling Of A Boat in the Red Sea, and now India losing the Battle of Tandoori Chicken, the entire White Empire looks cooked.
In this piece, we’ll look at the battle lines of World War III, more closely at the Battle Of Tandoori Chicken, and discuss how this reshapes the new world order going forward.
The Battle Lines
You can see the battle lines in World War III most clearly by what weapons have been drawn. In the Battle of Tandoori Chicken, India drew from the White Empire (France, ‘Israel’, and America) and Pakistan drew from China.
India
Like a brown nerd trying to sidle up to the popular kids (me), India tried sidling up to the White Empire and lost their real friends in the process (also me). I have receipts.
India’s new ‘friends’ are the worst people on earth, historical bullies and losers. ‘Israel’, the UK, France, and America. For this latest debacle, India paid billions of dollars to the biggest losers in history (France) and unsurprisingly find themselves at a loss.
If we look more closely at the evolution of Indian arms, they weren’t always this wrong. During the Cold War, India was non-aligned but largely Soviet armed. India made (and makes) its own nukes, missiles, et cetera, and imported jets (MiGs, then Sukhois) and other essentials from the USSR and then Russia.
Over time, however, India’s arms became less ‘red’ as they applied more whitening cream from France, the US, and ‘Israel’. Russia is just 36% of India’s arms imports now, compared to 73% at the turn of the century. India proudly flexed its new, whiter arms in joint exercises with America since 2002, despite America losing every war and destroying every ally, hitherto. India also went from a stalwart supporter of Palestine to ‘Israel’s’ #1 customer for Muslim-murder-tools. India (as lobotomized by North India) is now super racist against its own citizens and neighbors (Muslims) and wealth inequality is back to a colonial levels. Never in the history of the world has anyone been divided and conquered as hard as India.
India thought they were moving inside the White Empire’s camp but they weren’t, they were just kept outside as cannon fodder. Now the cannons have gone off and White Empire isn’t even bothered. India was never their friend, just someone sucking up to them. India made the mistake of decoupling from rising Asia and cozying up to a declining hegemon, just in time to get left behind. Like in my case, when the nerd friend I ditched became prom king.
Pakistan
On the other hand, we have Pakistan. Pakistan’s imported weapons are 81% from one source, China, which is quite unusual. At the same time, Pakistan accounts for a whopping 63% of China’s arms exports, which is unusual also. This is an exceptionally tight relationship, you could say it’s one weapons system. China is the supplier for Pakistan and Pakistan is the customer for China.
Pakistan and China do not just exercise together, they use the same military systems and are tightly integrated at the operations level. The nations also have shared strategic interests in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which, for China, gives them an alternate route to the oil if the Strait of Malacca gets blocked. Pakistan is an existential ally for China, and armed and trained accordingly.
There is a bit of a paradox here, which is that Pakistan maintains Chinese arms while getting constantly couped and corrupted by the White Empire politically. Pakistan’s legitimate ruler Imran Khan has been jailed under obvious western influence and his party cheated and subdued. When asked about Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism, the current Defense Minister honestly said, “Well, we have been doing this dirty work for United States for about 3 decades. And West. Including Britain.”
Besides showing why I use White Empire as shorthand, this shows the many hands stirring Pakistan’s pot. Pakistan is a failed state with a successful military. It’s not clear who is in charge politically, but it is at least clear what the military is. It’s made in China, and cannot decouple from China without falling apart (I’m sure someone is trying).
These are the battle lines that have been drawn, an India loosely integrated into what I call White Empire and Pakistani military tightly coupled with China. And now the battle has been joined and blood has been drawn. As Pakistan’s Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed said, “I will pick up from where I left, day before yesterday, PAF vs IAF, 6-nil,”
The Battle Of Tandoori Chicken
From May 7-10, Indian and Pakistani jets lined up in a very dangerous game of chicken, over a very hot nuclear tandoor. India blinked first when Pakistan shot down at least six of its jets and broadcast its pilots obviously not encrypted communications. It was a complete tactical and strategic defeat and India had to retreat its air forces before losing more. Despite censorship and just making shit up on the Indian media, this defeat was broadcast globally, most notably through Vice Marshal Aurangzeb’s press conferences.
You can watch the corresponding Indian press conferences, but they don’t have much to say, just, “you know we are in a combat scenario and losses are a part of combat.” I mean, OK, but if you decimate (3/36) your fancy new Rafale fleet, blow $244 million each, and your enemy releases audio of your pilots screaming, you’re not really in a combat scenario, you’re strategically defeated. What followed wasn’t so much a ceasefire as ‘shit’s on fire’ and we’re shutting this down until we figure out what’s going on.
Indians are not all insane (though they’re not sending their best on TV) and Pravin Sawhney (a former Indian officer) has an erudite take on all this. He said, “India has now to contend not just with Pakistan. A war with its traditional rival Pakistan now also involves China, because China and Pakistan have developed a strong military relationship, including significant defence interoperability.” Sawhney calls what’s happening a ‘one front reinforced war’. That is, India is not fighting a two-front war with Pakistan and China, but on one front with a Pakistan reinforced by China.
Sahney expands on the one-front reinforced concept, which is important, I reproduce him at length. What it broadly means is that India is fighting China pretty damn directly, and they’re not ready for that smoke.
None of this is to lessen what the Pakistani military has done. In addition to completely fucking up their country, they seem quite capable of fucking India up. But if you look at it geopolitically, Pakistan is not alone. They’re in a very tight alliance with China, likely down to the kill-chain (ie, ready, aim, fire)
In a remarkably prescient video posted before the battle, New Horizon TV predicted the order of battle and the dishooms that would be served, specifically the Chinese PL-15 missile that proved to be the difference engine.
In the actual Battle of Tandoori Chicken, Pakistan really did have the unlocked PL-15s and seemed to be getting direct intelligence from China’s satellites (which are the best in the world) about where to put them. This is very, very bad for India. India is bigger than Pakistan, but China towers over India industrially and physically (via Tibet). Through China, Pakistan has complete battlefield visibility and, also through China, they have stand-off, fuck-off weaponry. India tried giving little brother a slap, but then big brother came running.
This is not to say that India can’t cause significant damage to Pakistan, but in these conditions they cannot achieve air superiority, which is the only context imperial weapons systems are designed for. As Laurie Buckhout, former chief of the US Army’s electronic warfare division, said “Our biggest problem is we have not fought in a comms-degraded environment for decades, so we don’t know how to do it. We lack not only tactics, techniques and procedures but the training to fight in a comms-degraded environment.”
The White Empire cannot train or equip anyone for situations they themselves are not trained or equipped for. For decades they’ve grown fat bombing hospitals and looting their own allies and cannot move under actual fire. All of these fancy, interconnected systems are designed for bombing people without air defenses, not people with functional air defenses and, God-forbid, offenses of their own. Which is what Pakistan has, in droves. Thus the fancy French planes India imported folded like a croissant, the ‘Israeli’ drones made little difference against adults, and American intelligence didn’t even show up.
With Yemen Attack, US Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals
To add insult to injury, America did not extend intelligence sharing or material support to India at all. While China was rushing brand-new J-35s to Pakistan, America was like fuck off and die. America historically has no allies, only interests, and it’s not even interested in India. Instead, Trump said he put trade pressure on India to stand-down, hyphenated India-Pakistan together (which is apparently a great offense), and the IMF gave Pakistan money.
Now India is stuck with some Frankenstein cobbled together from the butt-end of White Empire (‘Israel’ and France, mainly) and no tech support. India has a multivendor nightmare, spread across backwards countries that don’t have their back at all. Indeed, the only country that expressed support for India was ‘Israel’, and they can’t even defeat Hamas. India was completely isolated. Meanwhile Pakistan had ‘multi-domain operations’ tightly integrated with China, and those weapons work. Just look at the burning jet engines in the dirt.
What no one seems ready to admit is that the Chinese military is now the best in the world. This is hard to say because it’s basically never been tested. The Battle of Tandoori Chicken was the first time the J-10 and PL-15 had been fired in anger, but what was briefly unsheathed looked plenty sharp. Remember that these platforms are not even cutting edge. Just look at how the J-10 is portrayed on Chinese social media, it’s considered the ‘little engine that could’ not some wunderwaffen.
China has not even begun to show their good stuff (though J-35s are en route). It may seem a stretch to call China’s military the best based on one battle, but I think the burden of proof should be in the opposite direction. Given that China is undoubtably the world’s manufacturing powerhouse, why would their military manufacturing be any different? You don’t need to be a serial killer (like America) to be a good fighter, and China has a fighting force which is technically superior to anyone. We’ve seen, indirectly, what they can do via Pakistan and it’s hot stuff.
Also remember that quantity is its own quality, and China has both. In light drones, for example, China produces the best and the most, though they only show them for light shows. Imagine a Chinese drone swarm, it would be terrifying. Or look at the production process of the PL-15 missile, it’s almost completely automated and can run 24 hours. This is unstoppable.
What are we even talking about? Given that White Empire cannot fight off Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, I think they’re severely overestimated what their depreciated, depleted arsenals can do against China, the richest and most productive country in the world (PPP FTW). The only department that still works is the propaganda department. America is still advertised as a competitor to China, while getting beat by Yemen.
India is the canary in the coal mine, and the lesson isn’t that India isn’t a great power, it’s that White Empire isn’t either! All the Empire’s horsepower and all the Empire’s men can’t put that dump together again. They’re only good for killing children, but they can’t bomb the future out of existence. Their bombs suck and they simply don’t have enough of them.
Forget India, which is a failed state, divided and conquered by racism, and even forget Pakistan, a failed state with a successful military. What happened in the Battle of Tandoori Chicken is that China tested a fraction of their military technology, and bested theoretically comparable western technology.
In truth, there was no comparison. Western planes got blown out of the sky and their comms got played at enemy press conferences, quite embarrassingly. China has obviously superior technology, Russia has obviously superior operations, and Muslims have an obviously superior God. The White Empire worships only money, and in the end, that’s all they’ve got. Suckers like India to pay them for weapons that don’t work, to start fights that should never be fought.
(indi.ca)