SOURCE: AFI
Following India’s suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) on April 24, 2025, in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, some Pakistani politicians and commentators have issued bold threats to target Indian dams and water infrastructure to prevent the diversion of water from the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab rivers.
These statements, often amplified on platforms like X, reflect a bravado that grossly overestimates Pakistan’s military capabilities and underestimates the complexity of destroying modern dams. This article dissects the impracticality of such threats, calculates the immense challenges involved in targeting dams, and underscores why this rhetoric is a strategic misstep for Pakistan.
The IWT, signed in 1960, allocated the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan and the eastern rivers (Sutlej, Beas, Ravi) to India, with limited provisions for India to build run-of-the-river hydroelectric projects. India’s decision to suspend the treaty, announced after the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 people, allows New Delhi to fast-track dam construction and potentially divert water for irrigation in Jammu and Kashmir or Punjab. Projects like the Kishanganga (operational), Ratle, Pakal Dul (under construction), and the proposed Indus Mega-Reservoir could reduce Pakistan’s water share by 5–20% in the coming years, threatening its agriculture-dependent economy, which relies on the Indus system for 80% of its irrigation.
In response, Pakistani politicians, including former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, have warned that any water diversion would be treated as an “act of war,” with some suggesting military strikes on Indian dams. Social media posts on X, such as those by @afnanullahkh on April 25, 2025, claim Pakistan could “destroy all Indian dams in Kashmir in minutes” using ballistic missiles. These assertions, however, are rooted more in political posturing than in a realistic assessment of Pakistan’s military capabilities or the structural resilience of modern dams.
Destroying a dam is one of the most challenging military objectives, requiring precise, high-yield, and repeated strikes against heavily fortified structures. Modern dams, like those India operates or is building on the western rivers, are engineered to withstand natural disasters, including earthquakes, and are designed with robust materials like reinforced concrete and roller-compacted concrete. Below, we analyze the key factors that make targeting dams a near-impossible feat for Pakistan’s military.
- Structural Resilience of Dams : Dams such as the Kishanganga (330 MW, Jhelum River) and the under-construction Ratle (850 MW, Chenab River) are built with millions of cubic meters of concrete, often embedded in narrow Himalayan gorges, which provide natural protection. For example, the Kishanganga dam, operational since 2018, is a concrete-faced rock-fill structure, while Ratle is a gravity dam, both designed to endure seismic activity in a high-risk zone.To destroy a dam, an attack must breach its core structure, causing a catastrophic failure that releases stored water. Historical examples, like the WWII “Dambusters” raid by the RAF in 1943, illustrate the difficulty: the operation required specialized “bouncing bombs” (4.2-ton Upkeep bombs), ultra-low-altitude delivery by Lancaster bombers, and multiple strikes to breach Germany’s Möhne and Eder dams, which were smaller and less fortified than modern structures. Even then, only two of five targeted dams were breached, with eight of 19 aircraft lost.
- Modern dams require even greater force. A single ballistic missile with a conventional payload (e.g., 500–1,000 kg of high explosives, typical for Pakistan’s Shaheen-II or Ghauri missiles) lacks the destructive power to penetrate meters-thick concrete. To achieve a breach, dozens of missiles would need to strike the same point with pinpoint accuracy, a feat beyond Pakistan’s current missile technology, which has Circular Error Probables (CEPs) of 50–100 meters.
- Payload and Precision Requirements Pakistan’s missile arsenal includes ballistic missiles like the Shaheen-III (2,750 km range, 700–1,000 kg payload) and cruise missiles like the Babur (700 km range, 450 kg payload). While these can target strategic sites, their conventional warheads are insufficient for dam destruction. For comparison, the WWII Upkeep bomb carried 2,998 kg of Torpex explosive, delivering a focused shockwave to exploit dam vulnerabilities. Pakistan’s missiles, with smaller warheads, would need multiple direct hits—potentially 20–50 per dam—to cause significant damage, assuming no interception.
Precision is another hurdle. Dams present a small, hardened target, often less than 100 meters wide at the crest. Pakistan’s missiles, while improved, lack the sub-10-meter accuracy of advanced systems like the U.S. Tomahawk or Russia’s Kalibr. Even a near-miss would dissipate energy into surrounding rock or water, leaving the dam intact. The 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict showed that drones and missiles struggled to destroy smaller infrastructure, with Azerbaijan’s TB2 drones requiring multiple strikes against less robust targets. - India’s Air Defense Network
Any attempt to strike Indian dams would face India’s layered air defense systems, including the S-400 (400 km range), Akash SAM (30–45 km range), and Barak-8 (70–100 km), deployed in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Air Force’s Rafale jets, equipped with Meteor BVR missiles, and the newly inducted MBDA Starstreak VSHORAD (7 km range, Mach 3.0), delivered in April 2025, further bolster defenses against low-flying threats like cruise missiles or drones.
Pakistan’s air force, reliant on JF-17 Thunders and aging F-16s, lacks the stealth or electronic warfare capabilities to penetrate India’s air defenses. A 2019 Balakot airstrike attempt by Pakistan was thwarted by IAF Su-30MKIs, demonstrating India’s superiority in air-to-air combat. Drone swarms, like Pakistan’s TB2s or Chinese CH-4 UCAVs, would be vulnerable to Starstreak’s laser-guided hittiles, which downed Russian UAVs in Ukraine. Posts on X by @grok on April 24, 2025, note that Pakistan’s missile strikes would be “highly escalatory” and likely intercepted, risking catastrophic retaliation.
- Logistical and Strategic Constraints : Targeting multiple dams simultaneously, as some Pakistani claims suggest, would require a massive salvo of missiles—hundreds, if not thousands—exceeding Pakistan’s estimated arsenal of 170 ballistic and cruise missiles (SIPRI, 2024). Coordinating such an attack would strain Pakistan’s command-and-control systems, leaving it vulnerable to Indian counterstrikes. India’s Rafale fleet, armed with SCALP missiles, could target Pakistani military infrastructure, while INS Vikrant’s naval dominance in the Arabian Sea threatens Pakistan’s ports.
Moreover, dams are not isolated targets. The Kishanganga and Ratle projects are deep in Indian territory, 50–100 km from the LoC, requiring Pakistan to breach heavily militarized airspace. The terrain—steep Himalayan gorges—complicates targeting, as missiles or aircraft must navigate radar shadows and natural barriers. Even if a dam were hit, partial damage would not stop water flow significantly, as India’s run-of-the-river projects have limited storage (e.g., Kishanganga stores <1 MAF).
- Escalation and International Fallout
Attacking Indian dams would be an act of war, triggering severe consequences. India’s nuclear doctrine permits retaliation for attacks on critical infrastructure, and Pakistan’s smaller nuclear arsenal (165 warheads vs. India’s 180, per SIPRI 2024) risks annihilation in a second strike. The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty and UN conventions classify attacks on dams as war crimes if they cause civilian harm, such as flooding downstream areas like Kashmir, which would also affect India.
Pakistan’s allies, like China, are unlikely to support such an escalatory move. China, upstream on the Brahmaputra, has its own water disputes with India and would avoid endorsing actions that could justify Indian retaliation against Chinese dams. The World Bank, a facilitator of the IWT, would likely condemn attacks, isolating Pakistan diplomatically. Posts on X by @isthataplanet
on April 27, 2025, argue that dam attacks would invite U.S. involvement, given America’s strategic partnership with India.
Calculating the Difficulty: A Quantitative Perspective
To quantify the challenge, consider the Kishanganga dam:
Structure: 37 meters high, 314 meters long, with 1.5 million cubic meters of concrete/rock-fill.
Required Explosive Yield: Breaching requires ~10–20 tons of TNT-equivalent focused on a single point, equivalent to 20–40 Shaheen-II warheads (500 kg each).
Missile Accuracy: Shaheen-II’s 50-meter CEP means only 50% of missiles land within 50 meters, requiring 80–100 launches for 20 direct hits, assuming no interception.
Interception Probability: India’s S-400 and Akash systems have 90% intercept rates, reducing successful hits to 8–10 missiles, insufficient for a breach.
Cost: Each Shaheen-II costs ~$5 million; 100 launches = $500 million, depleting Pakistan’s defense budget (2024: $7.3 billion).
For multiple dams (e.g., Ratle, Pakal Dul), the missile requirement scales to 500–1,000, far exceeding Pakistan’s arsenal. Airstrikes are equally infeasible, as Pakistan’s 400 combat aircraft face 600 IAF jets, including 36 Rafales and 270 Su-30MKIs, with superior radar and missiles.
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