ICYMI: India-Pakistan Head for Nuke War

[Zebra]

ICYMI: India-Pakistan Head for Nuke War - The Daily Beast

10.19.14
Bruce Riedel

A crisis is brewing between nuclear armed India and Pakistan that could be their most dangerous ever.

India and Pakistan have fought four wars since 1947 and had several crises that went to the brink of war. Both tested nuclear weapons in 1998. Now tensions are escalating between the two again.

It began in May, when a heavily armed squad of Pakistani terrorists from Lashkar e Tayyiba (Army of the Pure) attacked India's consulate in Herat, in western Afghanistan. They planned to massacre Indian diplomats on the eve of the inauguration of India's new Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi. The consulate's security forces killed the LeT terrorists first, preventing a crisis.

Since LeT is a proxy of Pakistan's military intelligence service known as the ISI, Indian intelligence officials assume the Herat attack was coordinated with higher-ups in Pakistan. They assume another LeT attack is only a matter of time. They are probably right on both counts.

This summer, clashes between Indian and Pakistani troops have escalated along the ceasefire line in Kashmir. Called "the Line of Control," the Kashmiri front line has witnessed the worst exchanges of artillery and small arms fire in a decade this year, displacing hundreds of civilians on both sides. Over 20 have died in the crossfire already this month. Modi has ordered his army commanders to strike back hard at the Line of Control to demonstrate Indian resolve.

Although Modi made a big gesture in May when he invited his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, to his inauguration, since then Modi has cancelled routine diplomatic talks with Pakistan on Kashmir and signaled a tough line toward terrorism. He also appointed a very experienced intelligence chief, Ajit Doval as his National Security Adviser. Doval is known as a hard liner on terrorism—and on Pakistan......

 

[Zebra]

^^

I wonder what will happen if India pull the plug and announce if Pakistan is not happy to return entire Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and other disputed areas back to India, then India will use nukes first.

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

if india goes first strike of nukes i dont think pakistan will be left with many warheads to retaliate as mojar nuke arsenal will be destroyed.

 

[Dharmateja]

What are BS article/conclusion.. i expected better from Bruce Riedel.

 

[BangersAndMash]

if india goes first strike of nukes i dont think pakistan will be left with many warheads to retaliate as mojar nuke arsenal will be destroyed.

pakistan probably only has a handful of sub-kiloton warheads to begin with, all else is probably a bluff!

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

pakistan probably only has a handful of sub-kiloton warheads to begin with, all else is probably a bluff!

hope thats true. but there are also rumours and claims that its the fastest nuclear arsenal growing country in the WORLD.

 

[ladder]

hope thats true. but there are also rumours and claims that its the fastest nuclear arsenal growing country in the WORLD.

Numbers vs yield.

The reports/rumours generally talks of number and not yield.

 

[BangersAndMash]

hope thats true. but there are also rumours and claims that its the fastest nuclear arsenal growing country in the WORLD.

I don't believe a word of it! Look at the state of their economy, the size of their defence budget and the condition of their country, how can they afford to build and maintain "the fastest nuclear arsenal growing country in the WORLD" ?

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

Numbers vs yield.

The reports/rumours generally talks of number and not yield.

20 50kt warheads is better than 1mt warhead.

 

[Yusuf]

I gave a piece if my mind to Riedel on twitter. Alarmist headline that helps Pak

 

[ladder]

20 50kt warheads is better than 1mt warhead.

The report/ rumour mentions 90-110 warheads for Pakistan and is generally silent on total yield. Find out how much fissile material is available to Pakistan or how much is made available every year.

From that you will know whether Pakistan has 50x1 KT or 50x20 KT or 50x 1 MT warheads in her stock.

I should have written Total Number vs Total Yield. This discussion is not about finding the advantage/disadvantage of 50x20 KT vs 1MT warhead.

India OTH is rumoured to have 80 warheads.

You cannot compare the two countries without knowing the total yield and configuration.

Example ( a very simple one)

110x 20 KT vs 80x 50 KT, pick your choice.

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

I gave a piece if my mind to Riedel on twitter. Alarmist headline that helps Pak

plz post here. ty.

 

[Yusuf]

[TWEET] 524162163133259776 [/TWEET]

This and many in the thread plus some more on my TL on twitter

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

The report/ rumour mentions 90-110 warheads for Pakistan and is generally silent on total yield. Find out how much fissile material is available to Pakistan or how much is made available every year.

From that you will know whether Pakistan has 50x1 KT or 50x20 KT or 50x 1 MT warheads in her stock.

I should have written Total Number vs Total Yield. This discussion is not about finding the advantage/disadvantage of 50x20 KT vs 1MT warhead.

ya but theres also a possibilty that china,NK and some other countries might supply pak unofficially.
which can make them able to produce the needed fissile material to make bombs.

 

[ladder]

ya but theres also a possibilty that china,NK and some other countries might supply pak unofficially.
which can make them able to produce the needed fissile material to make bombs.

Without payment? ( Cash or Kind) I don't think China would provide Pak even her discarded underwear.

China has provided enough to Pak to be pain in the ass of Ind. which is China's aim. The active total yield is least important for that. The need to be PiA is that you have active warhead as bargain chip. Which Pakistan has.

The growth of Nuke arsenal of pak is her self serving doctrine, that hardly helps China.

NK isn't cash surplus or fissile material surplus and so is Pakistan.

As I am not actively following these things I have limited knowledge. @Yusuf sir can comment in details.

 

[Ashutosh Lokhande]

Without payment? ( Cash or Kind) I don't think China would provide Pak even her discarded underwear.

China has provided enough to Pak to be pain in the ass of Ind. which is China's aim. The active total yield is least important for that. The need to be PiA is that you have active warhead as bargain chip. Which Pakistan has.

The growth of Nuke arsenal of pak is her self serving doctrine, that hardly helps China.

NK isn't cash surplus or fissile material surplus and so is Pakistan.

As I am not actively following these things I have limited knowledge. @Yusuf sir can comment in details.

ya same here am no expert in these things either. hope what you are saying is really the case.


@Yusuf if possible plz post here as not everyone is on twitter. or just post a link here. ty.

 

[Yusuf]

Pak has Uranium based weapons of early Chinese designs. Yield of 10-12kt. It claims larger yield.

Its moving to Pu designs which are compact but without testing and access to sophisticated machining tech and simulation I don't think they can make newer, smaller and powerful weapons that can fit into the Nasr. Also add more quantities of fissile material required to make smaller nukes.

Anyways a nuke is a nuke. A 10kt Hiroshima bomb killed 70,000 at one go. Nukes are not weapons of war. Pak is bluffing with its nukes. I always say this. It would have being mailed badly to use nukes which means it lost the war! Would have lost its ability to fight India & in total ruin. I don't see Pak using nukes just like that in a first strike as soon as our tanks cross the border. Its a bluff they present to deter and have been successful.

India can't keep bearing Pak terror under nuclear blackmail forever. What India needs to do is proactively try to degrade, defang Pakistani nukes.
I don't know if we have tried to on our own or in collaboration with Israel tried to mess up Pak nuke program. We need to degrade their ability to produce more fissile material. Second, target their missile program. Example find the source of their guidance systems and see if we can rig it etc.

Also go on a diplomatic overdrive internationally to discredit Pak and establish a coalition of the willing to by sanctions, covert/overt action tries to defang Pak.

Only if we proactively take on Pak can we secure ourselves. Otherwise be subjected to their blackmail and bear their terrorist attacks.

 

[ladder]

May be he assumed if another 26/11 like incident (some 100+ Indians died),Modi will go for war leads to Nuke exchange.

@ladder if i'm a CCP member i'm 100% shore i will provide nukes to Pak,because everyone know Pak uses nukes only on India
2. With nuke umbrella they continue their IT export to India and it stalls India's growth

Who provided ( recorded and sent) evidence of Pak army involvement in Kargil by intercepting telephonic conversation of Gen. Mush to his commanders from a Chinese hotel and why?

 

[ninja85]

if india goes first strike of nukes i dont think pakistan will be left with many warheads to retaliate as mojar nuke arsenal will be destroyed.

hard to say their nukes are highly mobile.

 

[Yusuf]

if india goes first strike of nukes i dont think pakistan will be left with many warheads to retaliate as mojar nuke arsenal will be destroyed.

India's is not a first strike arsenal. We will not go for it. Secondly, we will be targeting counter value targets not counter force. Mean all their major population centers.

Let's not apply first strike in the super power context to us. We don't have their kind of arsenal. For Pak a first strike will be against a city of India. Tactical nukes aside and not considered. If Pak attacks our cities, we will return the favor and glass Labore,Karachi,Islamabad,Pindi etc.

Also Pak nukes are not assembled and kept mated with missiles. So if we were to take out their nukes, we will have to hunt and destroy components of their nukes, missiles. Nukes won't help as they can be anywhere. If we knew where they were, we could destroy even by conventional weapons.

The Super powers made first strike arsenal because many nukes were in underground hardened silos. To destroy them & also account for inaccurate missiles they made Megaton warheads. We are not chasing such silos. Pak missiles are mobile just like ours.