Chinese troops challenge India at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh, standoff continues

The Print ^ | 24 May, 2020 1:36 pm IST | Snehesh Alex Philip

[Zhang Fei]

[India also has nukes and would not hesitate to use them in China or her proxy Pakistan. Nukes could be flying three ways if a real conflict breaks out.]

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People float the idea of using nukes like they’re playing a computer game, where you simply restart the game once your character is killed. In real life, it’s very unlikely. The US has floated the use of nukes probably a dozen times since they were invented. It has used them precisely twice.

Nukes are never an option against nuclear power with 2nd strike capability. The logic of nuclear weapons use dictates that any strike be an all-out attack to destroy the enemy’s command and control as well as its 2nd strike capabilities. That means cities and rocket bases. If you are going to kill millions of the enemy, you’d better kill them all. Because nuclear retaliation is guaranteed if you fail.

If India does a first strike, it needs to ensure that China’s SLBM’s are taken care of. That means its short-legged Kilo subs need to know where China’s SLBM-carrying subs are, and take them out before Beijing can get in touch with those subs with targeting information. Bottom line is that even if Modi kills a few hundred million Chinese, he risks tens of millions of Indian dead. Seems like a huge price to pay for a parcel of uninhabitable wasteland.

It will never be an option even in the event of conventional defeat. Losing land vs being made extinct? The choice is easy. Whereas any country that launches nukes against a nuclear power in possession of at least hundreds of nukes can expect to have its major cities and their inhabitants cremated. Nuclear doctrine is written to deter. When nuclear deterrence (to conventional invasion) fails, I expect committing suicide by initiating a first strike is a much tougher decision than the dry-as-dust documents would suggest.

Hitler tried to pull the temple down around him. I doubt any other leader, democratic or otherwise, would. Hitler wasn’t right in the head.