Let us think the unthinkable. If India decides to go for a decisive war with Pakistan, what an be realistic outcomes.

Interesting thread. Had good potential of debating escalation management.

My two cents: Given that India (due to whatever reason) commits to crossing Pakistan's red lines, and given that Pakistan retains credible capability to deliver its WMDs across the entire spectrum; the only possible realistic outcome would be a nuclear exchange. The caliber, volume and spread of the exchange would depend a lot of variables, and cannot be stated with certainty.
Best case: TNW exchange on the battlefields.
Worst case: MAD.

This video might help in understanding the Pakistani perspective:

A very insightful read:
https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_273_India_Nuclear_Final.pdf
 
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The Deterrent said:
Worst case: MAD.
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I have been looking more into this. It seems that destruction is not going to be assured or mutual. With 100 nukes of 50 kt yield, India can do much more relative destruction on Pakistan than Pakistan can do with 200 nukes of 50 kt yield. My estimation is 100-200 million people killed at max on each side. Pakistan after losing 100-200 million people will simply cease to exist. India will not. Heck Indian population will not go below 1 billion.

That is assuming, India is "comfortable" losing that many people.

Also this scenario assumes that Pakistan retains its delivery mechanism to fire 100 nukes on India. Which is a weak assumption if India goes for first strike. Pakistan does not have a reliable sea based delivery mechanism. With its air bases gone, it will have practically no other delivery mechanism than land based missiles. And those are limited. Certainly, Pakistan does not have them in 100s. With a first attack, its not sure how many of them will even survive.
 
Saaho said:
I have been looking more into this. It seems that destruction is not going to be assured or mutual. With 100 nukes of 50 kt yield, India can do much more relative destruction on Pakistan than Pakistan can do with 200 nukes of 50 kt yield. My estimation is 100-200 million people killed at max on each side. Pakistan after losing 100-200 million people will simply cease to exist. India will not. Heck Indian population will not go below 1 billion.

That is assuming, India is "comfortable" losing that many people.
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It depends on how you interpret MAD, or what destruction means to you. As I see it, there are two ways it can be interpreted:
A. Total annihilation of the general populace and the infrastructure contributing to the economy of the said country, or simply cease to exist.
B. Inflicting more destruction on the foe, than the foe can deliver onto you. This was stated by the French President Charles de Gaulle, on dissuasion du faible au fort:
"Within ten years, we shall have the means to kill 80 million Russians. I truly believe that one does not light-heartedly attack people who are able to kill 80 million Russians, even if one can kill 800 million French, that is IF there were 800 million French."

Similarly, it also depends on how you define cease to exist. For sure, most of the population will continue to live, on both sides of the border (despite the fear-mongering often heard regarding nuclear exchanges). But does a third-world country continue to exist, with most of its major population centers nuked, when countries and empires have collapsed for much less? Is it considered a win, if ~5-10% of the general population are injured or killed, and the remaining struggle for decades to come?

Exactly, its all about who's "comfortable" with losing everything.
 
The Deterrent said:
Similarly, it also depends on how you define cease to exist. For sure, most of the population will continue to live, on both sides of the border (despite the fear-mongering often heard regarding nuclear exchanges). But does a third-world country continue to exist, with most of its major population centers nuked, when countries and empires have collapsed for much less? Is it considered a win, if ~5-10% of the general population are injured or killed, and the remaining struggle for decades to come?
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There is a difference. With 100-200 million lost, Pakistan will simply be no more. With even 200-300 million lost, India will be back to population count of 1990 and economic state of 1960. But then, Pakistan will no longer and can never be a challenge for India.

Post war recovery can be fast.. infact really fast IF the country is still existing that is.
 
The Deterrent said:
B. Inflicting more destruction on the foe, than the foe can deliver onto you. This was stated by the French President Charles de Gaulle, on dissuasion du faible au fort:
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This is why the scenario is called unthinkable. But then, Pakistan has always been an existential threat to India. This is unlike Russia, which presently is a threat but is not hellbent on attacking western europe. The difference between Russia/USSR - Western Europe is that of ideology but then Pakistan - India were created as mortal enemies of each other. The religious divison ensured that we can never live in peace.
 
Saaho said:
There is a difference. With 100-200 million lost, Pakistan will simply be no more. With even 200-300 million lost, India will be back to population count of 1990 and economic state of 1960. But then, Pakistan will no longer and can never be a challenge for India.

Post war recovery can be fast.. infact really fast IF the country is still existing that is.
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I have already agreed that in case of such an eventuality that leads to an all-out exchange, Pakistan will cease to exist. That is not the point here.
The point is risk assessment; is it worth it? Is Pakistan's existence and its past, present and future "pokes" worth losing 100-200 million people? Will it be as simple as going back in time?

For the "fast" post-war "recovery", kindly compare the aftermath of WW2 (specific to Europe), which was an order of magnitude smaller in scale and involved the first world.

Saaho said:
This is why the scenario is called unthinkable. But then, Pakistan has always been an existential threat to India. This is unlike Russia, which presently is a threat but is not hellbent on attacking western europe. The difference between Russia/USSR - Western Europe is that of ideology but then Pakistan - India were created as mortal enemies of each other. The religious divison ensured that we can never live in peace.
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Pakistan is an "existential" threat to India? That is news to me.
 
The Deterrent said:
I have already agreed that in case of such an eventuality that leads to an all-out exchange, Pakistan will cease to exist. That is not the point here.
The point is risk assessment; is it worth it? Is Pakistan's existence and its past, present and future "pokes" worth losing 100-200 million people? Will it be as simple as going back in time?

For the "fast" post-war "recovery", kindly compare the aftermath of WW2 (specific to Europe), which was an order of magnitude smaller in scale and involved the first world.


Pakistan is an "existential" threat to India? That is news to me.
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Your country was created for a reason...... Your lot killed more than 100k Indian in last 4 decade alone in India directly & by your proxies.....& We will come for you...whether you have nuclear weapons or not.....we have adopted wait & long haul approach just like your military....we will be closing gap in technology in many fields with our western counterparts in coming decades.... Chinese ain't saving your butt.
 
Nikhil said:
Your country was created for a reason...... Your lot killed more than 100k Indian in last 4 decade alone in India directly & by your proxies.....& We will come for you...whether you have nuclear weapons or not.....we have adopted wait & long haul approach just like your military....we will be closing gap in technology in many fields with our western counterparts in coming decades.... Chinese ain't saving your butt.
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God speed and good luck to you, Sir. I sincerely hope that you find the peace that you're looking for.
 
IF India goes to war India will win it.
This IF is is very tough to achieve. And is the deciding factor. As we say this IF made us lose 1962.
 
The Deterrent said:
Pakistan is an "existential" threat to India? That is news to me.
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It is indeed. The fact that Pakistan possesses ability to kill 200-300 million Indians makes it an existential threat. The fact the Pakistan choose to keep the first use option makes it an existential threat. The fact that Pakistan chooses to employ asymmetrical warfare based on support for militants ( we call them terrorists, you call them freedom fighters ) makes it an existential threat.

At the very least, Pakistan is India's hypertension, Pakistan is India's diabetes. As such it wont immediately kill India but the fact it can do a silent and long term damage to India makes Pakistan lethal.

Compare this to China. We have land related conflicts with China too but they never grow to the level of militancy that Kashmir supported by Pakistan shows. Infact, for quite sometime, north east in India is at peace. Only after recent policy change from India there were some protests in Assam. That too will die out.
 
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screambowl said:
IF India goes to war India will win it.
This IF is is very tough to achieve. And is the deciding factor. As we say this IF made us lose 1962.
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India will 'win' with 200-300 million Indians dead and most like Indian economy pushed back to 1960s level for sometime. If we are wise we should work to minimize this loss and then fight the all out and hold no bar war.

You don't want India Pakistan war to become third battle of Panipath. Even though Durrani won, he never recovered from losses of this battle. What you want is either :
1. Ensure that losses to India are limited. This can be done by employing more sophisticated missile defence and going big in the first place.
AND/OR
2. Re-structuring India such that it can rise up from an all out nuclear war. This means you need to make India more "distributed". You need to ensure that instead of one Bangalore or one Mumbai there are 10s of thousands of Pune and Gurgaons and Chandigarhs in India. All our Jhansis need to become Pune even at the cost of Mumbai and Bangalore 'downgrading' to say Jaipur. Indian economy need to become a sprawling sub-urbia from a few downtowns.

If you do the above two then you never need to worry about nuclear war. It cann't kill or damage India at any strategic level. Basically you become a starfish. Even if one arm remains, you will grow back.
 
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The Deterrent said:
For the "fast" post-war "recovery", kindly compare the aftermath of WW2 (specific to Europe), which was an order of magnitude smaller in scale and involved the first world.
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I will rather compare with Korea and Japan and Vietnam. All of them recovered pretty fast. Leaving Japan the other two were not exactly a first world nation.

Though I will like to make India in a country that is immune to a strategic damage by restructuring it into a distributed civilization where destroying mumbai only destroys mumbai and nothing more and remaining part can grow 10s of mumbais. Meaning, mumbai need to be smaller and rest of India needs 100s of such smaller mumbais capable of spawning 10s of mumbais. That will make me personally totally comfortable to fight a nuclear war with even China or USA for that matter.
 
India-Pak is the same as North-South Korea - A perpetual problem with no solution. A stopgap measure is to heavily fortify Kashmir, use it as a platform to develop military technology and leave Pakistan the dust.
 
Noodler said:
India-Pak is the same as North-South Korea - A perpetual problem with no solution. A stopgap measure is to heavily fortify Kashmir, use it as a platform to develop military technology and leave Pakistan the dust.
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I will argue its more like Russia-Crimea with Crimea having nuclear weapons.
 
Lt Gen Kidwai forgets that if nukes are used , Punjabi army will loose its cornflakes factory and DHA corner plots.
 
vstol Jockey said:
Our stated policy on nukes is that if we are attacked anywhere by any of our enemy, we will launch debilitating strikes. Our response will be massive to the extent of destroying a full country. So if Pakistan uses nukes, irrespective of what happens to us, we will destroy whole of Pakistan. Now is there anyone in Pakistan willing to die in a war which they can't win? No Muslim army anywhere in the world has ever fought till last men. They prefer to run away like cowards and come back again but never have they fought till last men standing.
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Not true. They have instances of fighting until the last man, but only when all escape routes have been cut off and their enemy has no interest in taking PoWs.
 
The Deterrent said:
Interesting thread. Had good potential of debating escalation management.

My two cents: Given that India (due to whatever reason) commits to crossing Pakistan's red lines, and given that Pakistan retains credible capability to deliver its WMDs across the entire spectrum; the only possible realistic outcome would be a nuclear exchange. The caliber, volume and spread of the exchange would depend a lot of variables, and cannot be stated with certainty.
Best case: TNW exchange on the battlefields.
Worst case: MAD.

This video might help in understanding the Pakistani perspective:

A very insightful read:
https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_273_India_Nuclear_Final.pdf
Click to expand...

Have you ever considered the possibility that the PA will never use nukes?

Nuclear weapons only serve as a deterrence between unequal powers. Only equal powers can use it for warfighting.

So the question is how much will the Pak Army general sell for?
 
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