Its a long saga but this week after the death of 18 Indian soldiers following a terrorist attack, it all looks a bit shaky. They are bith nuclear powers.
India has a no first use policy on nuclear. But Pakstan foreign minister has been reported as saying today that they will not rule out a nuclear attack.
This is frightening prospect as Pakistan can be an unstable country in the best of times. If they do go nuclear what realistically can India do. Assuming Delhi is nuked will nternational community stop India from retaliating? What is protocol in such a situation? Do western nations just allow them to annhilate each other. The radioactive fallout could reach europe couldnt it?
How, exactly, would the “international community” stop India from turning Pakistan into a parking lot? Or vice versa? If Pakistan launched I don’t see them just tossing one warhead out there. That’s the big sticking point with nukes - you can’t realistically stop a country from using them.
Based on prevailing winds, any fallout from such an exchange would land in Africa, not Europe. Iran and the Saudis would be none too happy either.
Mutually assured destruction is still a pretty good keeper of the peace. Unless Pakastan’s government falls to a suicidal death cult like Isis, I don’t think that minor insurgent attacks that may or may not be sponsored by the governments involved are going to reach the point where all out total war is declared.
The Indians are really really shooting themselves in the foot in Kashmir. Strategically, their position there has never been better, and the current “uprising” there has been caused by unnecessarily nearby handed tactics.
Oh well, Modi is an ideologue at the end of the day.
I doubt there will be any war, its in no ones interests.
And no, Pakistan’s is not going to drop just one or two, there will be dozens on Indian political and economic targets, with the aim of destroying India as a functioning country/society. And the reverse is also true. If there is a nuclear war, it will be all out, the international community (if there is still such a thing as an international community, since a nuclear war could very well suck in China, and then everyone else) will have far more pressing concerns then.
I’m ignorant on the strategic and logistic situation of the subcontinent. If Pakistan launched a first strike how much time would India have to react? Minutes? From a quick search it seems like India has a tenuous triad at best, limited air and sea capabilities (one ballistic missiles sub?). Could planners in Pakistan think they could win a first strike? Or ya know, just get their hair mussed?
MAD works unless one side becomes convinced the other side is going to launch, then you have to launch first. Especially if a first strike would render the other side almost impotent. You need planes in the air at all times.
They have had very serious reliability and quality control problems with their missile forces and the operational availability of these systems is questionable. The brunt of their nuclear is carried out by their airforce.
From the structure of Pakistani forces, with a heavy emphasis on accurate missiles like the Shaheen 2 and 3, which are designed for counter force mission almost requires first strike policy.
As for “winning”, I don’t think they are under any illusions that they can “win”, the aim would be to cause such degradation of Indian arsenal as to lessen the impact of any retaliation. I am (obviously) not privy to the internal estimates, but I suspect that they are aware that even a “best case” scenario ends in millions of casualties.
With nuclear war the best you can hope for is not to be hurt too badly.
India, like China, has a big overpopulation problem. They could lose several hundred million people and just shrug it off. Do Pakistan’s weapons have sufficient range to inflict that level of casualties?
Longest range weapon in the Pakistani arsenal is the Shaheen 3, which has a range of about 3000 Km, enough to cover all of India.
As it is, lose several hundred million people; they (or anyone else) will not be shrugging it off; it will come with a destruction of industrial and transport infrastructure which means that the survivors are well and truly fucked.
I disagree: destruction will be extremely localised. India’s sheer size will mitigate the effects. Even if you destroy a city, 100 square miles, it’s still a pin-prick. Destroy one port city and there are a hundred more.
In a nuclear war, they are not going to just go after cities. They are going to go after transports hubs, oil depots, port, power stations and distribution nodes. Those are easy to destroy.
The modern population boom in the sub=continent (and elsewhere) is predicated upon modern agricultural, industrial, electric and transport infrastructure and cannot be sustained long without.
It does not help you if your city/town is spared if you are going to get no more food from since they are no longer any oil depots for trucks toto fuel from truck, electricity like most sub continental infrastructure is based upon few very large power plants as opposed to small many ones), meaning you cannot store food, run a hospital, actually do anything which requires electricity.
How are they going to grow and provide food when they main engines of agriculture in the subcontinent, electric tubewells no longer work, vehicles no longer come to get food to take from farm to the markets, when the irrigation canal and dams and bulk cargo ports are destroyed and the people trained to run them are dead too?
India has 13 major ports (Pakistan has 4), which handle 90% of all cargo by volume. There is no way the smaller harbours will have the ability to carry even a fraction of that.
They have about 40 large power stations providing 60% of their electricity.
