Any Nuclear Attack on India will lead to total Termination

of Pak from Planet Earth

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Saturday, October 01, 2016

By: DailyO

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Nuclear sabre-rattling is the favourite pastime of Pakistan’s political and military leaders.
Defence minister Khawaja Asif has once again held out a nuclear threat to India.

He said, “Islamabad is open to using tactical (nuclear) devices against India if it feels its safety is
threatened.”

The story of Pakistan’s tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) goes back several years. Pakistan’s
Strategic Forces Command tested the 60km range Hatf-9 (Nasr) short-range ballistic missile
(SRBM) in April 2011, May 2012 and February 2013. It is claimed to be nuclear-tipped and is
reported to be a replica of the Chinese M-20 missile.

Dr Shireen Mazari, chief executive officer, Strategic Technology Resources, had said after the
first test that the Nasr missile was a technology demonstrator and had not been inducted into the
nuclear arsenal.

"We are signalling our acquisition of tactical missile capability and miniaturisation technology.
This will allow our already developed cruise missiles - the Hatf-VIII (Ra'ad), which is an air-
launched cruise missile (ALCM) and Hatf-VII (Babur), which is a ground-launched cruise
missile (GLCM) – to be miniaturised for sea-launched submarine capability in order to move on
to a second-strike capability."

Since then, it may have been operationalised.

Short-range missiles like the Nasr armed with TNWs are inherently destabilising and there are
several compelling reasons for leaving these out of the nuclear arsenal. Firstly, these are
extremely complex weapons (particularly sub-kiloton mini-nukes, because of the precision
required in engineering) and are difficult and expensive to manufacture and support technically.

Inducting them into service even in small numbers is a drag on the budget of the strategic forces.

Secondly, the command and control of TNWs needs to be decentralised at some point during war
to enable their timely employment. Extremely tight control would make their possession
redundant and degrade their deterrence value. Decentralised control would run the risk of their
premature and even unauthorised use – Kissinger’s "mad major syndrome".

Thirdly, since the launchers must move frequently to avoid being targeted, dispersed storage and
frequent transportation of TNWs under field conditions, increases the risk of accidents. Lastly,
the employment of conventional artillery and air-to-ground precision weapons by the enemy may
damage or destroy forward stored nuclear warheads.

It was for many good reasons that the US and its NATO allies and the Soviet Union and Warsaw
Pact forces developed, produced, stockpiled in large numbers and planned to use TNWs as
weapons of war. Even the mini-nukes and the so-called "clean" enhanced radiation neutron
bombs would have, if used in substantial numbers in a European war, afflicted a few hundred
million civilians, including future generations, with long-term radiation sickness of incalculable
magnitudes.

The professed military utility of blunting a major armoured offensive is debatable as the attacker
would ensure that he does not present a concentrated target before the bulk of tactical nuclear
weapons, or at least their delivery systems, have been destroyed in an initial phase that itself
would turn out to be apocalyptic.

Even then, the attacker would concentrate rapidly for short durations only at the point of decision
and then disperse quickly. In the well-developed, semi-urban terrain of Punjab on both the sides
of the India-Pakistan boundary, collateral damage would be unavoidable. Hundreds of thousands
of civilian casualties would be politically unacceptable and unmanageable for an army fighting a
war.
Political and diplomatic reasons also militate against the use of tactical nuclear weapons. A
nuclear posture with a first use option – NATO’s in Europe and Pakistan’s current nuclear policy
– is both repugnant and dangerous. It is also destabilising and naturally escalatory in nature.
With the ongoing megamedia revolution public opinion is bound to undermine the credibility of
the use of TNWs and, as deterrence is more than anything else a mind game, the lack of
credibility does nothing for enhancing deterrence.

The command and control of tactical nuclear weapons has naturally to be decentralised during
war to enable their timely employment. Extremely tight control would make their possession
redundant and degrade their deterrence value by several orders of magnitude. Decentralised
control would run the risk of their premature and even unauthorised use based on the discretion
of field commanders, however discerning and conscientious they may be.

Dispersed storage and frequent transportation under field conditions, since the launchers must
move from hide to hide to avoid being easily targeted by the adversary, increases the risk of
accidents as well as complicates nuclear security. The employment of conventional artillery and
air-to-ground precision weapons by the adversary may damage or destroy forward stored nuclear
warheads and, though the probability is low, may even set off a nuclear explosion.

Also, widely dispersed nuclear warheads are difficult to guard effectively and may fall into jihadi
hands – a fear that cannot be taken lightly in the epicentre of Islamist fundamentalist terrorism.

Even though Pakistan has chosen to acquire these dangerous weapons, India has wisely opted not
to go down the TNW route.

The Nasr missile is said to be Pakistan’s answer to India’s Cold Start doctrine. The Pakistan
army proposes to use the Nasr missile to drop a low-yield nuclear warhead on Indian mechanised
forces that have entered Pakistani territory with a view to stopping the Indian offensive in its
tracks.

It is a patently flawed approach as, in response to a nuclear attack on its forces, India will
execute its doctrine of massive retaliation and Pakistan will cease to exist as a functional nation
state.

Surely, that is not the end state that the Pakistan army is prepared to accept. Hence, Pakistan’s
TNWs are a bluff that India can call.
The Global Cost Of India-Pak Nuclear War
Abheet Singh Sethi, September 29, 2016

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The Agni-V Missile in a dress rehearsal for the Republic Day Parade in January 2013. After a terrorist attack on an army
garrison in the Kashmir town of Uri claimed the lives of 18 Indian soldiers, as the Indian Army considers armed options, and
a member of Parliament of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party urges a nuclear attack, projections made by researchers from
three US universities in 2007 are a reminder of the costs of nuclear war.

If India and Pakistan fought a war detonating 100 nuclear warheads (around half of their
combined arsenal), each equivalent to a 15-kiloton Hiroshima bomb, more than 21 million
people will be directly killed, about half the world’s protective ozone layer would be destroyed,
and a “nuclear winter” would cripple the monsoons and agriculture worldwide.

As the Indian Army reports striking terrorist camps across the border, and a member of
Parliament (MP) of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urges a nuclear attack and the
Pakistan defence minister threatens to “annihilate” India in return, these projections, made by
researchers from three US universities in 2007, are a reminder of the costs of nuclear war.
Visualisation by nucleardarkness.org based on study by researchers from Rutgers University, University of Colorado-
Boulder and University of California, Los Angeles

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy said, on 23 September, 2016, that if 100 million
Indians died in a Pakistani nuclear attack, India’s retaliation would wipe out Pakistan.

But the real costs would be higher and not just in India and Pakistan, where the first 21 million
people–half the death toll of World War II–would perish within the first week from blast effects,
burns and acute radiation, according to the 2007 study by researchers from Rutgers University,
University of Colorado-Boulder and University of California, Los Angeles, all in the USA.

This death toll would be 2,221 times the number of civilians and security forces killed by
terrorists in India over nine years to 2015, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of South Asia
Terrorism Portal data.

Another two billion people worldwide would face risks of severe starvation due to the climatic
effects of the nuclear-weapon use in the subcontinent, according to this 2013 assessment by the
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a global federation of physicians.
Pakistan has an estimated 110 to 130 nuclear warheads as of 2015–an increase from an estimated
90 to 110 warheads in 2011–according to this report from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a
global disarmament advocacy. India is estimated to have 110 to 120 nuclear warheads.

Talk of war began after a terrorist attack on an army garrison in the Kashmir town of Uri claimed
the lives of 18 Indian soldiers. The Indian Army said the attack was carried out by four terrorists
from the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) group, based in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja M Asif responded to threats from India by saying, “If
Pakistan’s security is threatened, we will not hesitate in using tactical (nuclear) weapons.”

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability has previously deterred India from responding to previous
attacks.

“At the end of the day, India has to ensure that the options it exercises–particularly the military
ones–do not leave it worse off than before in terms of casualties and costs,” wrote analyst Manoj
Joshi in The Wire.

It does not really matter if India has fewer nuclear weapons than Pakistan, IndiaSpend reported
in April, 2015, primarily because of the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction”, or MAD, as
it is commonly known (See this IndiaSpend report for more about India’s nuclear weapons
program).

66% Pakistan’s nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles

As many as 66% Pakistani nuclear warheads are mounted on 86 land-based ballistic missiles,
according to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists data estimates.
Pakistan’s Hatf (named after the sword of Prophet Muhammad) series of ballistic missiles has
been developed–and is still under development–keeping India in mind.

A major attack by Pakistan’s nuclear-tipped medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) would

likely target India’s four major metropolitan cities–New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai
(depending on where the missile is fired from), according to Sameer Patil, fellow, national
security, ethnic conflict and terrorism at Gateway House, a think tank in Mumbai.

The MRBMs would also target “the major commands of the Indian Army”, Patil told
IndiaSpend.

Nearly half (40) of Pakistan’s ballistic missile warheads could be mated to Ghauri (named after
12th-century Afghan king Shahbuddin Ghauri, also known as Muhammad of Ghauri) MRBMs.
The missile has a claimed range of 1,300 km and can target Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai,
Pune, Nagpur, Bhopal and Lucknow, according to this 2006 report on Pakistan’s ballistic missile
programme by the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru.

Pakistan has an estimated eight warheads which could be mated to the Shaheen (Falcon) II. This
MRBM has a range of 2,500 km and can target most major Indian cities, including Kolkata on
the east coast.
 Source: Pakistani Nuclear Forces, 2015; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

An estimated 16 warheads could be fired atop the short-range Ghaznavi (named after the 11th-
century Afghan invader Mahmud Ghazni) ballistic missile. With a range of 270 km to 350 km, it
can target Ludhiana, Ahmedabad and the outer perimeter of Delhi.

Pakistan has an estimated 16 nuclear-tipped Shaheen1 (falcon), short-range ballistic missiles

(IRBM), having a 750 km range which can reach Ludhiana, Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad.

Pakistan has an estimated six 60-km range Nasr missiles, which could be mated to nuclear
weapons. These tactical nuclear missiles could target “advancing battle formations of the Indian
Army”, according to Patil. These missiles could be what Asif referred to.
Pakistan also has eight nuclear-tipped 350-km Babur cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

An estimated 36 nuclear warheads, accounting for 28% of Pakistan’s total, can be delivered
using aircraft. US-made F-16 A/B aircraft can deliver 24 nuclear bombs while the French-made
Mirage III/V can deliver 12.

India’s triad: Submarine, missile and aircraft

India has deployed 56 Prithvi (earth) and Agni (fire) series of surface-to-surface ballistic
missiles, which carry 53% of India’s 106 estimated warheads, according to the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists.

This doesn’t take into account the estimated 12 warheads for the K-15 Sagarika submarine-
launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), which India has possibly produced for the nuclear-powered
ballistic missile submarine INS Arihant.

Once commissioned, Arihant would give India a strategic nuclear triad and second strike
capability, as this July 2015 IndiaSpend report notes.

“Given the smaller geographical size of Pakistan,” said Patil, India would likely target
“Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi and the Pakistani Army Armed Corps headquarters
at Nowshera”.

However, he cautioned: “The fallout of the nuclear attacks on Lahore and Karachi, for instance,
would not just be restricted to the Pakistani territory, and depending on the wind directions, can
affect both Indian and Afghan border territories.”
 Source: Indian Nuclear Forces, 2015; Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

The 250 km-range Prithvi SRBM acts as a delivery system for 24 of India’s warheads. These are
capable of hitting major Pakistani cities, such as Lahore, Sialkot, the capital Islamabad, and
Rawalpindi, according to this May 2015 IndiaSpend analysis.

India has 20 nuclear-tipped Agni I SRBM and eight Agni II intermediate range ballistic missiles
(IRBMs), with ranges of 700 km and 2,000 km, respectively. These are capable of covering
almost all Pakistani cities, including Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Peshawar, Karachi,
Quetta and Gwadar.

Agni III, IV and V, with their longer ranges, might be able to reach all of Pakistan, but it can be
safely said that they are directed more towards China.
India also possesses an estimated two ship-launched 350-km range Dhanush SRBM, which
could be fitted with nuclear warheads.

India’s aircraft can deliver an estimated 45% of 106 warheads. The Indian Air Force’s Jaguar
fighter bombers can deliver about 16 nuclear warheads, while the French-built Mirage-2000 fleet
can deliver 32.

Update: This story has been updated to reflect news of Indian strikes in Pakistan.

Why China will not dare enter a full blown Indo-Pak War
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Monday, September 26, 2016

By: Meri News

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By :: Biranchi Narayan Acharya

Amid tensions between India and Pakistan post the Uri attack, a majority of Indians are
demanding punitive action against Pakistan. The Indian government has too expressed its intent
to retaliate against Pakistan militarily, although at a small scale.

Expecting Indian action, Pakistan has too started preparations for a possible war to thwart away
any aggression from India. Yesterday, on September, 22, 2016 F-16 jets were seen flying over
Islamabad at around 10.20 pm (PST), as Pakistan's war preparation exercise and for sending a
confidence building message to Pakistani people that the army was ready to take care of a
possible Indian attack. Some experts predict that even if India attacks Pakistan at a small scale,
Pakistan will ensure that it escalates into a full blown war that may result into a nuclear
holocaust.

I have written many articles on this platform explaining as to why there will never be a nuclear
war between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani military is not so foolish that it will trigger a
nuclear war only to see Pakistan being wiped out of the world map. Further, India's cold war
doctrine is also highly feared by Pakistani war experts. Hence, I feel that even Pakistan will not
escalate it into a full blown war at all.

However, some other experts have argued that China will join Pakistan in case there is an Indo-
Pak war. These experts have also raised doubts on whether India can fight at two fronts with two
enemies simultaneously? Former Indian army chief has rightly said that China will not declare a
war in support of Pakistan, however, still if China does attack India during an eventual Indo-Pak
war, India is prepared to tackle them both.

Many articles written by me and others on this platform explain in detail why China will not
engage in war with India in support of Pakistan from international, economic and diplomatic
point of view. Now, I also explain below how China is also no match to India, militarily.

Many people might start mocking at me for my above statement, remembering India's defeat to
China in the 1962 war. Moreover, India trails way behind China in military strength where
numbers are concerned in each category (such as number of soldiers, fighter planes, tanks,
submarines, warships etc). But be patient, I am presenting logic supported with facts.

First, let's see why India lost the 1962 war. Nehru had shown aggression in deploying Indian
soldiers at advanced borders in disputed areas to test China's patience. This was a period when
there was an uprising going on in Tibet and India had lent support to Tibet against China. Also,
the Dalai Lama was given asylum by India, which further irked China.

The Chinese in fact, didn't react to all these Indian moves, initially. However, on October 20,
1962, China started its offensive against Indian with provocative army deployment. The Indian
Army had to retreat because Nehru had deployed them in advance areas but didn't arrange a
backup support system. Thus, without getting support, the Indian soldiers suffered a lot of
causalities and China advanced almost unopposed, capturing vast areas of India, both in the
Northeast and Ladakh regions.

On October 24, 1962, China declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew from the occupied
areas during the three day offensive.

During the Chinese offensive, the two dominant super powers, USA and USSR were engaged
with each other during the Cuban Missile Crisis, hence both weren't available to intervene in this
Sino-Indian war. On October 28, 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved and the Chinese
offensive against India also ended. Many argue that China had attacked India taking advantage
of the Cuban Missile Crisis but then had to withdraw as intervention from the superpowers was
imminent.

But I beg to differ here. Chinese soldiers had managed to surge inside India when unopposed, but
stopped the moment they realised that further advancement could mean engaging with well
placed Indian soldiers with proper backup. Chinese army had to withdraw also because they
knew that organised Indian soldiers would finally push them back.

To prove my analysis, let me give the example of the 1967 Indo-China war. Many perhaps never
refer to this war because their theory of Chinese superiority over the Indian army might get
punctured. On October 1, 1967, the Chinese army infiltrated into the 'Kingdom of Sikkim', a free
monarchical state which was India's protectorate as per the 1950 Indo-Sikkimese Treaty.

The Indian army retaliated and by October 10, 1967 cleared the infiltrated area by pushing back
the Chinese army beyond the borders of Sikkim (Nathu la and Chol la). By the end of this war,
while 88 Indian soldiers were killed and another 163 wounded, China lost 340 soldiers and 450
of their soldiers got wounded. That speaks of the superiority of Indian soldiers over Chinese
soldiers. India not only rescued the Kingdom of Sikkim from Chinese aggression but also
merged Sikkim as a state into the Indian Union in 1975 despite China's strong objection. China
couldn't dare to fight against India in the Sikkim sector. China didn't recognise Sikkim as an
Indian state until 2003. In 2003, China recognised Sikkim as an integral part of Indian territory in
return of India's agreement that Tibet was an integral part of China.

Then, in 1986, India accorded full statehood to Arunachal Pradesh to which China objected.
According to China, Arunachal Pradesh belongs to it (as part of greater Tibet). Thus, in 1987
both India and China again stood face to face in a near possible war. But, somehow after some
heated exchange of claims and counter claims the Chinese army withdrew their massive
deployment, however, registering their objections in diplomatic circles which continue till now.
Since then, there have been a number of confrontations between India and China on boundary
disputes but never resulted in to a bloody conflict.

How is Indian military superior to Chinese militarily?

There are two reasons. Firstly, although China and India share a very long boundary, nearly 80
per cent of the border between both countries is inhabitable and unfit for human survival. Thus,
the corridor of confrontation between India and China is very small (only restricted to the
Northeast and Ladakh). Thus, Chinese military's size becomes irrelevant due to this narrow
corridor.

Secondly, the available narrow corridor too is a challenging terrain where sustaining life is
extremely difficult, forget about fighting wars. This becomes advantageous to the Indian army
because due to experience, Indian army is always battle ready even in these hostile climatic
conditions. Although, the Chinese army may be very large, it lacks actual war experience
(present China hasn't engaged in war against any country except for the three days of 1962 war
against retreating Indian soldiers). In such hostile terrains, wars are decided on the basis of battle
readiness of the army rather than size. Hence, China is no match to India, courtesy the difficult
border topography and the battle readiness of the Indian army.

That proves why China will not dare to attack India under any circumstances particularly when
deployment of Indian soldiers is now very robust at the borders.
China's Air Force is no where close to the sophistication of
the USAF
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Tuesday, September 27, 2016

By: National Interest

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China has the third largest air force in the world and may surpass the United States within the
next 15 years. But in an aerial shooting war with the U.S. Air Force, Beijing will need more than
aircraft — but fighter pilots with well-honed skills capable of facing off with some of the best
jocks in the world.

But right now, Chinese pilots struggle. Underdeveloped tactics and training regimens which
discourage initiative — among other problems — means that, as a whole, China’s top guns are less
proficient than they could be.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force is also well aware of this, and is changing the way it
trains pilots, according to a recent report by the RAND Corporation, a think tank with close ties
to the U.S. Air Force. These changes, over time, could do much to reduce the skill gap between
the Chinese and American air forces.

China’s air force doesn’t match the United States, because for most of recent history, it didn’t
need to.

The traumatic experience of World War II, when 14 million Chinese lost their lives in a Japanese
invasion and occupation, shaped Chinese strategy to favor large ground forces. For much of the
Cold War, Beijing’s leaders viewed the risk of another invasion, particularly from the Soviet
Union, as their number one military threat.

To be sure, China has undertaken major military reforms since the 1980s aimed at extending
presence into the South and East China Seas, thereby forcing the naval and air forces of an
opponent — namely the United States — to operate from farther away. China is also shrinking its
army but expanding its air force and navy, and rethinking how to fight war on different terms.

But the PLA’s highly centralized, top-down structure remains in place and stifles the skills of its
fighter jocks. Unrealistic plans and by-the-book training regimens don’t translate well in combat,
when those plans can be blown away the moment they meet enemy contact.

Training pilots to adapt to changing conditions — and to make decisions on the spot — “remains

new to many pilots accustomed to having most, if not all, of their tactical maneuvers dictated to
them by PLAAF unit commanders in the control tower,” the report stated.

Take, for instance, the most important aircraft in a fighter formation — the lead plane. Basically,
the plane in front, manned by an experienced pilot responsible for commanding the formation
and (usually) leading dogfights.

Chinese lead pilots often lack tactical skills, aerial maneuvers and changing flight plans without
instructions from the ground. To make matters worse, they often defer to “ground command and
guidance personnel during confrontations,” the RAND report quoted the Chinese air force
newspaperKongjun Bao.

“As such, there were many unfavorable factors that come about during air combat [training]. For
example, ground commands often are not able to keep up with the complex and changeable air
situation,” Kongjun Bao added.

“Pilots relied too much on the commands and guidance from the ground, which was not
conducive to enhancing the enthusiasm and initiative of airborne combatants.”

The same problems crop up during mock attacks on ground targets. In one exercise, commanders
tested pilots by changing their targets on an “ad-hoc” basis, but the nervous aviators choked,
flew too low and missed.

Of course, the reason we know this is because China is deliberately pushing its pilots into
unfamiliar territory and, in PLAAF terminology, forcing them to “fight and win” in “actual
combat conditions.”
Details are few, but RAND notes that the Chinese air force is making its pilots develop their own
flight plans while giving them “full autonomy over their sorties, from starting their engines to
changing navigation routes and flying tactics in the air,” RAND noted.

Beijing is even shuffling pilots between different air bases to mix up the terrain. During mock air
battles, commanders have restricted the amount of information shared between formations before
they wage simulated duels.

The PLAAF will even “frequently remove safety restrictions,” the report added.

But even better pilots might not matter much, in the end. Beijing anticipates a potential conflict
with the United States to take place in the Western Pacific, where China enjoys a numerical
advantage.

Over Taiwan, that advantage could be 3:1 just in aircraft, according to a separate RAND study
published in 2008. The odds get even worse for the Pentagon if China can successfully knock out
America’s nearest air bases, such as Kadena in Japan, with an onslaught of ballistic missiles.