Kargil War goes Nuclear

Reading about the Kargil War and was thinking of the nuclear possibility.

There was a tiny thread on this last year, and a bigger one 6 years ago, that I didn't want to necro so I'll just post the final part of it here:

The question to ask is how exactly it would turn nuclear. It was an irrelevant conflict- both sides having a pissing contest for the sake of domestic prestige. The Pakistanis pushed past the Line of Control, got smacked down by the Indians and simmered down.

So, this is true. But reading about the war, the Pakistani positions were set in easily defensible spots that could only be attacked by full frontal assaults by the Indians. Flanking or surrounding the Pakistani positions would require crossing the Line of Control (LoC), meaning escalation of the battle.

Say the Indians grow weary of painful frontal assaults and flank the Pakistani's, crossing the LoC. The Pakistanis now have an escalation, invasion on their soil, and commit more, and the Indians do so in return, and so forth.

1999 Nuclear War would not be as bad as the Hell's Door Opened scenario, given the smaller arsenals, particularly on the Pakistani side. Given Pakistan had about a dozen working nukes, and India maybe 50 tops, I do not see Pakistan really targeting anything other than military targets. That being said, nukes can fall off-target and plenty of military targets are in/near cities.

Let us say the exchange happens early July 2000. Minor exchange, Pakistan is worse off than India but still isn't bombed into a parking lot. Painful for India but not devastating.

My main question is what effects it has on international politics?

Does it change the 2000 US elections at all? Is Putin still elected? Does Blair face greater opposition for this happening on his watch?
 
Pervez Musharraf claims that Pakistan's delivery systems were not working at that time. Might have been a bit of a problem.
 
I think that the reason why India and Pakistan are slogging it out in the north is exactlly so things don't turn nuclear. Terrain means that it's hard to achieve any kind of decent victory so even defeat isn't disaster and defeated side isn't going to excalate because it can cotain the victor's gains. Plus terrain limitations keep number of troops down, further limiting what is possible to achieve.

In the south breakthroughs wuld be more problematic, making one side more likely to excalate if it's loosing, making nuclear exchange far more likely.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Under recent (2000s) computer models a nuclear war between India and Pakistan with each side using 50 Hiroshima size weapons would result in a global ozone hole and major temperature drops of several degrees across the grain producing regions of the world. The changes would take place almost immediately and would last for at least a decade.

A major temperature drop would throw world agriculture back to pre-industrial times in terms of yield. The US would probably be able to survive if it became a food autarky and simply prohibited the export of food to other nations, after all we've lost half our grain yield this year and are not in danger of famine. Meat from land animals will be very expensive to purchase if it is not banned outright, and fish is going to be expensive as well. The pressure on fisheries might very well lead to extinction of popular types like tuna. Even now several major fisheries are only a decade away from depletion due to overfishing.

The international situation is going to become a lot more chaotic. Look at all the political turmoil that has happened in recent years due to food prices rising. In a situation where food is not just expensive but actually below requirements things are going to get much worse, especially in regions with limited food supply. The major countries might go in to Africa and Asia under the cover of peacekeeping operations to begin necolonialism (either the modern meaning or a style much closer to historical colonialism) as Africa has some of the most fertile soil on Earth. If African countries are not invaded and manage to ride out the first year or two of food shortages without descending into civil war or general chaos they will be able to become quite wealthy by selling food to the more developed nations and wealth will start flowing from the global North to the global South.

Nuclear weapons are going to become a lot more taboo, expect there to be a major push for nuclear weapons reduction, if not an outright ban. The old anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s is going to come back full force.

Lastly, I think that the environmental movement as we know it may end up suffering from the crisis. It is going to be hard to justify the expense of regulations and power plant filters when everyone is going to be needing even more power for heating due to lowered temperatures. You might even end up with people proposing deliberate global warming and attempts at climate control. If a greenhouse gas effect can be created the world can get back to normal faster and it would fix the immediate problem. At the very least people are going to scoff at the possibility of global warming during a man made ice age.
 
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