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Could Pakistan Use Nuclear Weapons in a Future Conflict with Afghanistan? | Small Wars Journal
A possible scenario: The first use of a nuclear weapon since World War 2, happened in Afghanistan, where Pakistan used a tactical nuclear weapon on the plains just north of Kandahar"¦
It was early May, and the Pakistani advance into Afghanistan was stalled slightly north of Kandahar, on the road to Kabul. The terrain favoured the defender, and the Afghan National Army had been fighting well, against a hesitant Pakistani offensive. It was slightly more than a year ago Pakistan had begun the first larger scale ground incursions into Afghanistan, trying to quell the Pashtun terror and rebellion on the Pakistan side of the border. The safe havens in Afghanistan had to be eliminated, less the terror may destabilize Pakistan itself, was the rationale in Islamabad. With a stalled offensive on its hands, and the prospect of an endless counter insurgency engagement in Afghanistan, a long time enemy, the political and military top in Pakistan was increasingly tempted to use the Pakistan military trump card; nuclear weapons.
On the 21st of May, the Afghan National Army had massed forces for a counteroffensive in the arid rocky desert, against a weaker Pakistan contingent. Pakistan feared, that a tactical defeat here, would both turn the public opinion inside Pakistan itself, but also give the Kabul government the will to continue the struggle indefinitely. It was now or never, that Pakistan should assert its supremacy over Afghanistan as a country, and the Pashtun terrorists. The decision was made in Islamabad to use a tactical nuclear weapon against the massing Afghan Army.
This article explores the future of Afghanistan, post-ISAF, and speculates into the developments of the existing conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The origins behind this conflict promises it to be the dominant conflict following the ISAF withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it is likely to determine the future for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Particularly developments in Pakistan can affect the development, not less because the two countries may consider each other equals, save the fact that Pakistan possesses a nuclear arsenal.
I will argue, that the nature of this conflict, between two Muslim states, equal in perceived size and righteousness of cause, but with one state possessing nuclear weapons, may escalate into the first instance of use of a nuclear weapon since 1945. Dreadful and speculative as it may sound, and luckily is, I will argue that all the necessary conditions are met, for it to realistically occur. Let us hope, it does not.
