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My reply assumes that I have understood your post.Sir. I guess you may have read some of OOE's posts in DFI. He particular believes the Nuclear Option in the subcontinent isn't what it is assumed to be. Neither country can destroy "everything."
Also he was of the opinion that tactical conventional weapons have reached a point where objectives can be achieved more readily compared to nukes. Blowing up a city's water and electricity supply from the air can have an equivalent effect as multiple 20KT nuke attacks on the city.
Whatever the Pakistanis can throw at us in a tactical level cannot be compared to our conventional weapons superiority. Also their ability to rain down tactical nuclear weapons does not mean we have to stoop to their level when the effect is greater with conventional weapons.
The onus is on us to retaliate and we may not have to. Also how much pressure do you think Pakistan will face if they use TNWs while we never do?
They have very little second strike capability. If we escalate using our strategic weapons what little weapons they will have left after our first strike will or may be eaten by our ABM system.
They are at a disadvantage in both parameters.
Note a 1KT Nukkad will only be able to level a tiny area with a crater of probably 30x30m dimensions(maybe lesser) and a radiation cloud measuring, maybe, 1KM in diameter. They will be going the Plutonium route of course.
You must also forgive me since in a post in reply, it is immensely difficult to explain issues since the subject is vast and the scenarios many.
OoE has does not know the environment of warfare in the subcontinent or the rationale behind selection of objectives. He postulations are based on the European context of the Cold War days and the Iraq War.
If one observes the various wars fought in the subcontinent, one will observe the window of the war is very limited. Therefore, would any country go for towns/ cities which are urban in nature and with very few avenues and instead have small lanes and bylanes? Imagine the colossal effort and time that will be taken to clear such cities/ town. By the time a city or town is addressed for some realistic result, the war would be over, the international powerbrokers having intervened as usual. And what would be our gain to show after the war is halted? One city? It would not be cost productive in the subcontinental context.
While I would be surprised if Pakistan 'rains down' tack nukes, yet a tac nuke with some yield can be assumed to have some stopping power to an advance compared to conventional weaponry.
In the Cold Start we would have seized the initiative and would be on the roll with our conventional weaponry and platforms. Therefore, there should be no reason for us to use tac nukes, unless Pakistan uses it. Then it would be retaliatory, the world having known that Pakistan used it first.
I am not talking of the strategic nuclear realm since that would mean a totally different scenario.
If I may add, tac nukes are designed for the tactical battlefield.
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