India's stated nuclear doctrine is that it's "deterrent" is a no first use and for inflicting unacceptable damage in retaliatory strikes.
I have a different take on how India should respond to a Pakistani first strike.
India does not have to respond with nuclear weapons to a Pakistani nuke strike.
Pakistans doctrine calls for use of nuclear weapons when
1) it looses a major chunk of its territory.
2) it looses a major chunk of its armed forces
3) there is severe economic and political hardship caused by ways of blockade.
Consider an all out war between India and Pakistan. Considering the above, it's most likely to use nuclear weapons when Indian armed forces capture cities like Lahore, destroy a major portion of the Pakistani fighting force.
In this scenario, pakistan has lost already lost the war and our troops are already in control of a lot of Pakistani territory. We cannot nuke our own forces.
In the scenario that Paksitan goes in for a first strike without any provocation or way below its threshold, India should still not retaliate with nuclear weapons.
India should come out with political and military goals for the next war which is likely to happen in the future.
Political goals.
India has to dismember Pakistan. We know of Sindh, Baloch, Pakhtun and Balwaristan movements.
If Pakistan has already gone nuclear and say destroyed Delhi and mumbai, it gives Indian forces free license to use disproportionate fire power to subdue, kill any opposition that comes in its way and together with local sympathetic forces, help them break away from the current republic of Pakistan as it stands. It should install regimes inimical to it and act as guarantor of future security. This means cities like Karachi, Hyderabad, Quetta cannot be nuked as it has people ready to break away from Pakistan and Indian forces will eventually be there. Again any opposition can be brutally suppressed as we have already suffered population losses due to Paki strike.
Military Objective.
Complete destruction of Paksitans war fighting capabilities. We capture/destroy their air assets and naval assets. With the break up of Sindh and Balocbistan, these assets can be provided to the new states under Indian protection.
There is the china factor in all this India clearly has to use the nuclear first strike threat against china for any interference and since we have already suffered a nuclear strike, it will not be prudent for china to interfere as it will have more to lose than India.
India retaliating in a "glass making" contest in a tit for tat attack will not help long term goals. We can kill those against us with guns and with all the brutality without bothering about human rights as we have already suffered population losses.
An Indian response to Paki nuke attack really does not have to be nuclear.
respectfully i disagree
Consider an all out war between India and Pakistan. Considering the above, it's most likely to use nuclear weapons when Indian armed forces capture cities like Lahore, destroy a major portion of the Pakistani fighting force.
as strong as powerful Indian army might be i don't think it will be easy capturing cities like Lahore etc.actually it would be foolhardy to even think of it.
why ?
given the highly effective modern day asymmetrical war-fighting techniques , a conventional military thrust into a major urban area will be suicidal which i don't think the Indian army would attempt to do in the first place.
it would end up in a Stalingrad like situation something which would be advantageous to porky military a to would slow down Indian army thrust and tie down its resources.
local civilians hidden inside buildings and armed with ATGMs, RPGs, mines, IEDs etc would make mince meat of our ingress-sing Armour and troops quite easily within the cities urban zone , forget the regular porky troops.
how long would it take to sanitize a major city with all the inhabitants hostile weeks, months, years ?
what military purpose it would serve in the longer run and at what cost?
me thinks the Indian army will simply cut off and mine the entry and exit routes leading into a city and deploy a few long distance firepower to keep porky elements contained and subdued until the overall final military objectives regarding porkistan are met, all this while the main force would proceed to its next military objective.
also it is highly possible Indian military columns would not engage civilian population in large urban centers. This to keep a moral pressure on porkistan to keep fighting a conventional war despite having non-conventional capability ( a sort of fake incentive maybe ), simply said Indian army would out flank heavily guarded cities like Lahore, Sialkot , Islamabad etc.
also the main objective of Indian army will be to destroy the military command and control infrastructure as quickly as possible in a blitzkrieg type operation.
In this scenario, pakistan has lost already lost the war and our troops are already in control of a lot of Pakistani territory. We cannot nuke our own forces.
the scenario is highly unlikely
if you look at the map of porkistan you will realize many of its cities , military bases are close to within 100-150 km of Indian border, especially the Ravi-Chenab corridor Reti- Rahim yar Khan-Kashmir corridor through which our military units might roll down towards their objective.
unfortunately the linear geography and shallow depth of porkistan allows them to concentrate and maneuver their troops at their place of choosing with relative ease . and not to forget porky army has its own operational doctrine of offensive defense
recent news/photos revealed that Rahwali Cantonment near Gujranwala in porkistan has TNW armed nasr missile TELs , this cantonment is barely 70 km from international boundary , the moment Indian army threatens this base chances are it will get hit by TNWs, and unfortunately this will happen when Indian army is still not in possession of even 5-10 % of porky landmass as i said before porky bases and cities are relately close to international border which means the moment Indian army threatens one them them it will get hit my TNW.
at times of war command and control of porky nuclear assets will be in the hands of relatively junior officers who are lets say MAD in their hatred towards India , it is their driving force.
me thinks Indian army would strive for shallow territorial gains by invading at-most 50-70 km deep inside porkistan, while steering clear of the heavily guarded cities, bases etc
the porky military bases would be subjected to decapitating strikes from air in order to take out their offensive equipment's , but again 100% success is not guaranteed which unfortunately would lead to a enemy counter strike against us via TNWs.
so i fail to see how India will occupy large portions of porkistan without getting hit by TNWs , even one will cause considerable damage and bring second thoughts into the minds of the commanders and not so say anything about the impact on the moral of the army as a whole.
one single TNW strike will take out anywhere between 100- 200 tanks depending on their concentration , 5000-8000 troops depending on their concentration . are we ready to sacrifice them ?
and can our nuclear restrain prevent repetitive multiple TNW strikes from the porkis ?
i dont think so
international pressure will mount and if we don't do a retaliatory strike by then we will end up with 1000 times more body bags of dead Indian soldiers than the porkies.
India has to dismember Pakistan. We know of Sindh, Baloch, Pakhtun and Balwaristan movements.
If Pakistan has already gone nuclear and say destroyed Delhi and mumbai, it gives Indian forces free license to use disproportionate fire power to subdue, kill any opposition that comes in its way and together with local sympathetic forces, help them break away from the current republic of Pakistan as it stands. It should install regimes inimical to it and act as guarantor of future security. This means cities like Karachi, Hyderabad, Quetta cannot be nuked as it has people ready to break away from Pakistan and Indian forces will eventually be there. Again any opposition can be brutally suppressed as we have already suffered population losses due to Paki strike.
lol
balkanization is never a good idea , religious ideology is the root cause of porkistan hatred towards us.
will balkanization stop that ?
history is full of examples
even after break up majority of them will find excuses to continue hurting us because their mental makeup will remain same ,their twisted concept of religious interpretations will not go out even in 100 years .
Indians residing in other parts of the country will do good to be reminded of something like the PEACEFUL demographic attacks from Bangladesh as witnessed in north east India after 1971 war till now . you have to live in north east to understand the serious implications of demographic attack.
after what we did for Bangladesh how many of them like India? 10% 20% 30% not more.
also the human lives lost to nuclear strikes on delhi and mumbai will be 10000 times more, than those killed by Indian forces using disproportionate conventional fire power , it will take 6 months or 1 years or 2 years provided we dont run out of ammo or money to cause even a fraction of the damage .
also will the international community take that standing down?
you said Karachi, Hyderabad, Quetta cannot be nuked as its people are ready to break away from Pakistan.
how many of them 5% 10% 30% franly nobody will ever know
if u look at the demographic distribution of the various metro cities (used the word metro for a reason) people are living there from all over the place .
also if Sindh, Baloch, Pakhtun and Balwaristan etc are so friendly to us that because of them we are ready to destroy our cities.
THEN MY MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IS WHO THE HECK ARE WE FIGHTING AGAINST?
(by this logic 50 percent of porkistan is friendly to us then)
remember prithvi raj and his 13 times stupidity
compare it to modern India and its 4 times stupidity
and i am counting.......................
the wise say HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF and maybe the porkies know this...........
my idea of dealing with porkistan is that the first time we are hit with TNWs , carpet nuke porkistan to take out 80% of their population and then balkanize all you want.
believe me whole humanity in the future will thank us for that
lol it will be a shame to get banned for this