# Who will win in an India versus Pakistan nuclear and non-nuclear war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 10, 2014, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966 "2014-02-10T12:32:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/41 "2014-02-12T06:20:50Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Gyrate: > I know the Pak Army Staff College ran an exersize to see the longest a war could last without turning nuclear. The longest they got? 11 days. Who’s mashing their paw on the button first? India or Pakistan? ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/42 "2014-02-12T06:27:08Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > Who’s mashing their paw on the button first? India or Pakistan? India has a publicly declared no first use policy on nuclear weapons. Pakistan does not. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/43 "2014-02-12T06:48:55Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Cockroaches. and China ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/44 "2014-02-12T08:20:00Z")
> [@Patch](#): > > Who’s mashing their paw on the button first? India or Pakistan? In this particular senario it was India. NFU declaration are not worth the paper they are written on ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/45 "2014-02-12T08:43:17Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > In this particular senario it was India. NFU declaration are not worth the paper they are written on Could you outline the scenario? ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/46 "2014-02-12T15:47:07Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > I haven’t heard any secessionist noises out of the south in my conscious lifetime, so about two decades now. Much of the early flirtation with secession was a largely language driven affair, and I think now that the ‘imposition’ of Hindi has ceased, indeed the involvement of the state in cultural matters has reduced in general and Indians are a bit more comfortable in our own skins, the secession idea is about as far fetched as the Texas threads that we get on the dope. I wouldn’t disagree with you, and I’m not knowledgeable enough about opinion polls (nor do I know enough Indians) to judge how much secessionist sentiment there might be. I don’t think it’s quite the same situation as those folks in Texas, though. Tamil Nadu, UP and Nagaland are _much_ more different than each other than, say, New Mexico, Alabama and Massachusetts. > [@bldysabba](#): > > Even the militancy in the Northeast has cooled off lately, especially since the Islamist/Pakistan friendly governments have been out of power in Bangladesh for years, and it’s looking like they will continue to be out of power for years to come. Hopefully the Indian state will get its act together and reduce the desire of people there to support any such militancy in the future. I don’t of course support any of the militant movements, but I can’t help but think that India would have been better off if the South, Bengal, and the northeast had become their own countries at independence. The first two would, I think, probably have gone socialist of some variety or another pretty quickly, and that would have made it more likely (I think) for left-wing ideas to spread to the rest of the subcontinent. > [@bldysabba](#): > > On an aside, and I know you probably didn’t put any thought into it, I don’t know that I would necessarily put _any_ of your laundry list into a ‘top 10 problems Indian politicians should do something about’. I didn’t put that much thought into it, you’re right. I’d be interested to hear your list of the top 10 issues though. Thanks for your information about West Bengal. In regards to the DMK and AIADMK, they both have their origins in the Justice Party / original DMK, which I’d call (in a loose sense) a Tamil nationalist party because of their emphasis on caste-based and linguistic-based identity politics. They were _about_ a lot more than secessionism though (though that was an interest of theirs at one point)- linguistic nationalism, caste-based affirmative action, center-left economic and social policies, economic redistribution etc. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/47 "2014-02-12T15:50:28Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > It’s hard to say how reliable they are, but I wouldn’t want to bet against them. The Indian [Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle)hasn’t had a failure since it’s initial test. All in all I’d guess the Indian missiles are broadly as effective as 1960s era US ones. Well, that’s kind of the thing: Polaris and Trident barely worked at all when they were first deployed. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/48 "2014-02-12T16:08:44Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I don’t of course support any of the militant movements, but I can’t help but think that India would have been better off if the South, Bengal, and the northeast had become their own countries at independence. The first two would, I think, probably have gone socialist of some variety or another pretty quickly, and that would have made it more likely (I think) for left-wing ideas to spread to the rest of the subcontinent. Er. Are you implying that India’s problem was that it didn’t have _enough_ left wing ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/49 "2014-02-12T16:17:30Z")
**bldysabba** yes, my politics are pretty far-left. I think India in 1947 was the kind of place that could have benefited from a social revolution. I don’t think it’s an accident that Kerala has the highest HDI in India (and ‘their economy is based on Middle East remittances’ is not a counterargument- they are able to send people to the middle east, to a greater extent than other states, because the state is good at producing healthy, educated productive workers). ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/50 "2014-02-12T16:26:52Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > **bldysabba** yes, my politics are pretty far-left. I think India in 1947 was the kind of place that could have benefited from a social revolution. > > I don’t think it’s an accident that Kerala has the highest HDI in India (and ‘their economy is based on Middle East remittances’ is not a counterargument- they are able to send people to the middle east, to a greater extent than other states, because the state is good at producing healthy, educated productive workers). Your politics are not borne out by empirical evidence unfortunately. India and Indians have suffered tremendously from our early missteps towards socialism. Even an incomplete reversal of those steps in the late 80s and early 90s has unequivocally improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the past two decades, but we’re still suffering from the poor governance that our early focus on private goods(read socialism) has bequeathed. As to Kerala, I’ll quote myself from a response to someone else. > [@](#): > > Kerala owing its ‘success’ to communism/socialism is a fucking terrible example. Unless you’re using it as an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The state owes most of its high social indicators to a head start over other Indian states, and, ironically, private property. This head start was provided by enlightened monarchs(the Travancore family) who encouraged land ownership by peasants and several resulting reform movements(Narayana Guru et al), meant by the time the British left India, indeed by the time socialism was even invented, Kerala already had among the richest peasants and most advanced social structures anywhere in India. In fact, the post-independence turn to communist parties (which btw later alternated quite frequently with India’s big tent party - Congress) meant that it became much more difficult for private enterprise to flourish there, and resulted in a huge displacement of Keralites. The Keralite diaspora is famous and respected throughout India(and also widespread in the middle-eastern oil economies) - but I think it’s a shame that so many of these educated, healthy people were driven from their home state by an ideology that actively hampers economic growth. For a long time, much of Kerala’s economy ran on remittances sent by the diaspora, and things are only now changing. ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/51 "2014-02-13T00:40:09Z")
From what I’ve read India is several generations ahead of Pakistan in military tech. A couple years ago the Indian air force embarrassed a bunch of hotshots in their F-15s so bad we had to go home and rewrite some training manuals. Pak nukes are still pretty primitive and it would take them days to cobble them together into operational state, so the good old devastating 1st strike option doesn’t exist for them. The Pak military is held together with U.S. dollars so they’re not attacking anybody anyway. They don’t have the economic base to sustain conventional force more than a few miles from their border, but then who does? Losing two overseas wars in 10 years has left us limping and we’re exceptional. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/52 "2014-02-13T06:08:48Z")
> [@slowlearner](#): > > From what I’ve read India is several generations ahead of Pakistan in military tech. A couple years ago the Indian air force embarrassed a bunch of hotshots in their F-15s so bad we had to go home and rewrite some training manuals. Pak nukes are still pretty primitive and it would take them days to cobble them together into operational state, so the good old devastating 1st strike option doesn’t exist for them. The Pak military is held together with U.S. dollars so they’re not attacking anybody anyway. They don’t have the economic base to sustain conventional force more than a few miles from their border, but then who does? Losing two overseas wars in 10 years has left us limping and we’re exceptional. I wouldn’t say the imbalance is quite as high as you think. The Indian military is struggling with modernisation programs. It recently put off the multi billion acquisition of new fighter jets. Also, in spite of **AK84** ’s apparent contempt for no first use policies, Pakistani nukes are intended for fast deployment, whereas India is attempting to ensure it has ‘second strike’ capability, including submarine based launch. You are still correct that there’s a pretty large imbalance in terms of conventional forces and the economic base to support them, and that gap is only growing larger. It does worry me that the Pakistan military has proved to be so delusional about the effectiveness of war in the past tthough. It has started a minimum of three wars, and achieved a stalemate, the loss of half their country, and widespread international condemnation respectively. And apparently they’re still of the opinion that in a conventional war India would have to resort to pushing the nuclear button first. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/53 "2014-02-13T06:21:00Z")
**Moderator Action** While this started off as a question that could be answered factually, the thread has since strayed pretty well into debate territory. Moving thread from General Questions to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/54 "2014-02-13T18:33:46Z")
> [@slowlearner](#): > > From what I’ve read India is several generations ahead of Pakistan in military tech. A couple years ago the Indian air force embarrassed a bunch of hotshots in their F-15s so bad we had to go home and rewrite some training manuals. The Indian Air Force doesn’t have F-15s. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/55 "2014-02-13T21:39:17Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The Indian Air Force doesn’t have F-15s. 😕 I think he’s referring to a joint US-India Air Force exercise where the American team were impressed by the Indian performance. > [@](#): > > A study of the “Cope India” air exercise, conducted by the US and Indian air forces in Gwalior, India last February, is secret, said General Hal Hornburg, head of the air force’s Air Combat Command. > > “But we have to learn a lot of things from that,” he told defense reporters here. “We have to learn if we want air superiority it doesn’t come cheap and it’s not automatic.” > > The Russian-made SU-30s are reported to have bested the F-15s in a majority of their engagements, much to the surprise of the organizers. > > It was the first time the two top-of-the-line US and Russian-made fighters have flown against each other in an exercise, an air force spokeswoman said. > > It pitted F-15Cs from the air force’s 3rd Wing out of Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska against a variety of Indian fighters, not just the SU-30s. They included Russian-built MiG-21s, MiG-29s and French-made Mirage 2000s. > > **Although the US fighters flew with certain restrictions** that handicapped their effectiveness, the performance of the Indian fighters exceeded expectations. Not something I’d read too much into personally because of the bold text , but it does indicate some level of competence in the IAF ---
**Author:** ![emeraldeyes26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e36b37/32.png) [@emeraldeyes26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emeraldeyes26)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/56 "2014-02-14T03:15:57Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Nobody wins a nuclear war. Totally agree:) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966/57 "2014-02-14T06:24:39Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Nobody wins a nuclear war. This is, unfortunately, not true. The US already won a nuclear war in 1945. When the size of the nuclear arsenals are those of Russia and the US today, or NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction kicks in and it becomes true that neither side would win a nuclear war; with each side possessing tens of thousands of warheads every major population center on both sides is reduced to ash and both sides effectively cease to exist as nations. The sizes of the Indian and Pakistani arsenals are small enough at ~100 each that “winning”, albeit at a horrendous cost in human lives is still within the realm of possibilities, particularly if one side believes it can destroy a sizable fraction of the other’s arsenal in a first strike. > [@bldysabba](#): > > Also, in spite of **AK84** ’s apparent contempt for no first use policies, Pakistani nukes are intended for fast deployment, whereas India is attempting to ensure it has ‘second strike’ capability, including submarine based launch. It’s not just **AK84** , No First Use policies aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Who will publically announce such a policy is more indicative of which side believes it has such a stronger conventional hand that it thinks it won’t feel the need to reach for its nuclear arsenal first. That still doesn’t mean that it won’t, though. The only nations to have declared a NFU policy are the USSR, China, and India. NATO, which was conventionally weaker than the Warsaw Pact refused to adopt an NFU policy and maintained a doctrine of flexible response with deliberate ambiguity on what would or could trigger a nuclear release. The first Warsaw Pact tank crossing the inter-German border might potentially draw a nuclear response from NATO. As to the USSR’s NFU policy, a look at [Able Archer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83) is instructive. Unbeknownst to NATO at the time, the USSR had become convinced that NATO’s Able Archer '83 exercise, which included a simulated nuclear release, was in fact a cover that was going to be used by NATO to conduct an actual first strike. > [@](#): > > The Soviet Union, believing its only chance of surviving a NATO strike was to preempt it, readied its nuclear arsenal. The CIA reported activity in the Baltic Military District, in Czechoslovakia, and it determined that nuclear-capable aircraft in Poland and East Germany were placed “on high alert status with readying of nuclear strike forces”.[9][35] Former CIA analyst Peter Vincent Pry goes further, saying he suspects that the aircraft were merely the tip of the iceberg. He hypothesizes that—in accordance with Soviet military procedure and history—ICBM silos, easily readied and difficult for the United States to detect, were also prepared for a launch. So much for the USSR’s No First Use policy. I’ve no doubt that India, or any country, would react in a similar manner if they believed a nuclear strike against them was imminent, and wouldn’t even regard it as a violation of NFU since they believed the other side was about to make first use. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-will-win-in-an-india-versus-pakistan-nuclear-and-non-nuclear-war/680966.md?page=2)