This isn't posturing - we're on the brink of a nuclear war

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 05/31/2002 | Ahmed Rashid

[WyCoKsRepublican]

Ref: Post 31, Amen...........and I second that!

[Kermit]

There's one sure way to end the trivialization of nuclear weapons.

Hey, perhaps the US should trade one Daisycutter for every nuke they give us. You get a big bang without the bad aftertaste.;^)

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Yeah, what the heck is up with that? How is it that China claimed something that was a dispute between India and Pakistan, and nobody really cares?

Because they could... and nobody (besides India) cared.

So, they did. China annexed the Aksai Chin, because they could get away with it, and they knew it.

Is it basically uninhabited but useful as a defensive boundary for China?

Defensive?
I would not regard China's seizure of the Himalayan high-ground overlooking Indian Kashmir as necessarily being defensive in character.

CHINA

• Military Budget: $36.709 Billion
• Army Strength: 1,830,000
• Heavy Armor: 8,300
• Combat Aircraft: 3,520
• Nuclear Warheads: 410

INDIA

• Military Budget: $13.780 Billion
• Army Strength: 980,000
• Heavy Armor: 3,414
• Combat Aircraft: 774
• Nuclear Warheads: 60

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Chinese Kashmir was the part of Kashmir the Pakistanis had taken right before the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession to join India back in '47. The Pakistanis awarded that piece of Kashmir to the Chinese later, as a gesture of friendship. India doesn't care because they don't want to take on China yet. They need to fry the smaller fish in their neighborhood first.

This is not strictly true. The portion of "Chinese Kashmir" which Pakistan ceded to China is only a tiny sliver along the extreme northern border of Paki control. China's seizure of the Aksai Chin, a Switzerland-sized chunk of Indian Kashmir (basically the entire Eastern quarter), was an act of naked aggression against India.

[AM2000]

Thanks for the info.

[Jim Noble]

>>Many Pakistanis think a nuclear bomb just makes a bigger bang than an ordinary one<<

How many jihadis can one H-bomb vaporize?

[Jim Noble]

>>This could be like the opening of World War One<<

Yeah, if the jihadis fought like Germans.

Too bad they fight like Italians.

[PsyOp]

Ping!

[spetznaz]

For one the Pakistanis would never agree to that. Why? Simply because they know that in the eventuality of a confrontation with India the Indians would decisively win a conventional confrontation. Hence the Pakistanis believe they need a nuclear 'deterrent,' although IMHO i doubt they see it as a deterrent the way the Russians and US saw it.

The Pakistanis would not hesistae to launch against Delhi. Actually there is a much touted interview with a Pakistani general where he says that he would be willing to see India destroy all of Pakistan if it meant just destroying a couple of India's bigger cities!

We are not talking about a sane confrontation here. After all, the Russians cared for their own as did the Americans. They would not have foolsihly launched at each other since they both knew no one won a nuke exchange.

However to some of the more radical Pakistanis the nuke is simply a huge semtex strap on explosive for a suicide attack..... although instead of plastique it has fissible material, and instead of a Jihadi mule to strap it and carry it they have IRBMs.

Think of it as a suicide attack on India, although packing alpha particles, beta radiation and gamma rays this time.... and a whole lot of heat and PSI impact. But still basically a suicide bomb.

And that is the danger. Dealing with people who are intelligent to build WMD but foolish enough to use them.

[swarthyguy]

Actually, the Aksai Chin is a high plateau overlooking Kashmir. Good high ground. Closest thing in comparison to Kashmir in the US is Colorado style geography with Ladakh being like a high desert area. OrthodoxPresby makes the correct differentiation between Aksai Chin and the part ceded to China. The latter is on the NE KAshmir border. Let's not even go the DurandLine; the socalled border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and how it bifurcates Pashtunistan in two.

[AM2000]

Let's not even go the DurandLine; the socalled border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and how it bifurcates Pashtunistan in two.

All I got to say to that is God Bless The Queen.

[TLBSHOW]

We have had since sept 12 to build them. They should be high on everyones list of things to do NOW!

[spetznaz]

What's the chance of China using the turmoil of an Indo-Pakistani war to attack Taiwan?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

If they decide to go with launch, we'll detect it and put mushrooms all over their front lawn, but we'll have enough in reserve to level anybody else who would take advantage of the situation. If it was China that launched against us, it is likely that we would have enough anti-missle, missles to bring down more than half of their 1st strike (they probably don't have a second strike scenerio due to a lack of warheads and vehicles. This is why I don't think that they would launch in the first place). This means we would suffer some "hits" on the west coast. Russia would stay out of this, because they could not benefit from the outcome. Any incoming warheads from anywhere would get a full retaliatory response, and then a second hit, just to make sure.

"Anti-Missile Missiles"? What are you talking about?

I know that Russia still has her "Galosh" Anti-Ballistic Missile defenses in operation around Moscow, but "Safeguard" (the US Anti-Ballistic Missile interceptor launch site) was shut down by Carter and the Democrats in 1978. (Besides which, the system was only designed to protect the US ICBM arsenal in Grand Forks, North Dakota -- it never had the range-capacity to knock down a Chinese nuke over LA or Seattle, anyway). The United States currently has zero capacity to knock down a nuclear-tipped Intercontinental Ballistic Missile -- not even one.

We have Patriots that can knock down a short-range SCUD moving at 3,000 miles per hour, but nothing that can even touch a Chinese ICBM moving at 16,000 miles per hour. If China launched all 20 of her ICBMs... all 20 would hit.

We're working on it, and we've got some good stuff going, but nothing dependably proven and deployed -- yet.
For now, we are still dependent upon MAD deterrence.

[foreverfree]

I have noticed that the UN is very quiet, in their caves, about this.

So did Hal Lindsey on "International Intelligence Briefing" tonight on TBN.

As a matter of fact, I see only one nation trying to drench the fire....that would be the good old United States of America. Big surprize, huh? The UN is worthless!

That's about Lindsey's sentiment. And mine. FWIW I visited the UN on a day bus trip to NYC in 1999, just to see the place.

foreverfree

[spetznaz]

I know for a fact that Russia 'sold' one of its Galosh perimeter defence ABM missiles to the US so that they could derive some accelerated development from it. However the ABM missile the Russians sent over was a 'monkey model' since some of the more complex equipment had been removed, eg the mechanism to guide the kill vehicle to the terminal stage of the Ballistic projectile. So all we were stuck with was a nice booster stage rocket that was a Galosh, but lacked the real teeth of the actual missiles deployed around Moscow.

[John Locke]

Both Pakistan and Hindu India would squish Ghandi like a bug and not give him a second thought.

Just a reminder that Hindu India did squish Gandhi like a bug, on 30 January 1948.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Actually, the Aksai Chin is a high plateau overlooking Kashmir. Good high ground.

My thoughts exactly. (#63) Oh, now, I'm not saying that China will necessarily use control of the Aksai Chin as a flanking position for an invasion of India anytime this decade... or the next... just that their annexation of the Aksai Chin provided them with that capability. And I think that the Chinese like having that advantage, in case they ever want to use it.

[spetznaz]

I have been listening to Mr Hal Lindsey for quite some time now, acutally a long time now. And although he seems like a very genuine gentleman i do not remember even one episode where he did not spout forth some message of doom and destruction.

A time reached where watching the program was at first depressing, and then just too much. After all, listening to him give 'biblical proof' that the US will be destroyed by terrorists (according to him that is why the US is not mentioned in the book of Revelations.... it gets destroyed by a terrorist nuke/ecological disaster/financial calamity etc etc take your pick pf what 'disaster' is in vogue that week. Recently terrorists).

So i am wary of him. Although i think he is a good fellow, and i think some of his opinions might be quite accurate. However his program can be quite depressing, and literally scary, at times.

Maybe that' the intention.