WI: Indo-Pakistani Nuclear War, Late 2008/Early 2009

Redo of an earlier thread.

In the wake of the horrific 11/28 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India and Pakistan were engaged in a military standoff with the former country threatening to launch air raids on the latter in retaliation for alleged Pakistani support of the terrorist attacks, and Pakistan threatening retaliation in kind. The crisis was eventually solved diplomatically, but what if it hadn’t? What if the crisis had escalated to the point of open warfare between the two nations, eventually concluding in a full strategic nuclear exchange between the two nations?

Note that this thread is meant not so much as to deal with the nuclear war itself, as the effects of an India-Pakistan nuclear war have been repeatedly analyzed over the years. Rather, what effects would such a cataclysmic event have on the rest of the world on the cusp of the 2010s? The effects of the ensuing refugee crisis and fallout on bordering nations like Iran, China, Bangladesh, etc.? On the legacy of the Bush presidency and on the incoming Obama Administration in the US? On the US-Russian New START treaty? On North Korea’s nuclear weapons program? On the controversy over the Iranian nuclear program? On the rest of the Middle East on the brink of the Arab Spring? Things like that.
 
Pakistan and North India become wastelands, South India turns into Afghanistan from 1992-1996. Expect the collapse of the Sri Lankan, Afghan, Bangladeshi and other neighboring countries' economies (China barely survives). The Great Recession turns into a depression, probably even worse than the one in the 1930s. Most likely the UK and France denuclearize, probably the US and Russia as well. The taboo over nuclear weapons becomes worse, and it might escalate to the point where the UN will embargo any nation having a nuclear program, and in cases such as North Korea you might see Russia, the US, South Korea and Japan invading it so as to end their nuclear program. As for Iran, the ensuing fallout might lead to civil war by 2010, but not before being embargoed by the UN making the Iranian economy even more unprepared to deal with refugees.

Obama will have to spend his entire administration dealing with the fallout and trying to lessen the effects of it. I don't think this can be accomplished in four years, so he most likely loses in 2012 to either a Republican or a Perot-esque third party candidate. Doomsday cults will increase in size. Bush's presidency was nearing end at this point, so he won't be blamed too much for it. If one was to criticize him for opening relations with Pakistan and being Musharraf's friend, the claim might be countered that the attacks might have still happened even without 9/11, leading to the nuclear war.

As Iran is embroiled in civil war a lot of Shia terrorist groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen will be weakened. Maybe Syria and Yemen's revolution will have a more positive outcome, making this TL not as horrible.
 
The "taboo" about nukes since 1945 has been broken. Yes the results where they were used have been disastrous but you absolutely positively will not see the big powers denuclearize. What has been made blatantly obvious is that if you have even a relatively small number of deliverable nukes the damage you can do is huge. Therefore your best defense is to have some nukes to keep the wolf from your door. I expect proliferation not renunciation, and the UN can't do anything, the big boys will have to be willing to stomp any potential nuke programs before they produce deliverable weapons.

While the fallout will be an issue, the reality is that by the time it gets to the USA it will very much diminished, although there may be issues with milk/dairy products and some crops. With the prevailing winds west to east, Iran and the Arabian peninsula will get fallout mostly as it has traveled around the world except areas relatively close to detonations. If the war is during or just before the monsoon, those heavy rains will cause much fallout to precipitate out of the atmosphere. Obviously India, Western China, Bangladesh, SE Asia will be severely hit. Eastern China, Taiwan, and Japan will have serious problems. The southern hemisphere should avoid contamination.

Any bits of Pakistan with survivors, and Afghanistan will be hellscapes as groups contend for survival. Things will be bad in India, starvation and disease will be widespread in areas not directly hit but breaking up in to the patchwork it was prior to the raj may not happen.

A severe recession and possible depression may very well occur, certainly a good deal of trade will be disrupted. Because of contamination, agricultural areas will be rendered unusable for some time. What this will mean is that some countries that could provide adequate calories for their population pre-war will need to import food, and some countries like the USA and Canada which were major exporters may have less food to export. The amount of food available for food aid, whether to the affected areas or other parts of the world that rely in food aid will be markedly decreased. Shirtages will be common, outright famine will be a major issue - and this will result in wars for food.
 
Any bits of Pakistan with survivors, and Afghanistan will be hellscapes as groups contend for survival. Things will be bad in India, starvation and disease will be widespread in areas not directly hit but breaking up in to the patchwork it was prior to the raj may not happen.

That's pretty optimistic. All the big cities in Northern India such as New Delhi will be hit, leading to the only government India might have limited to the governments in the southern area. That coupled in with a mass famine, a refugee crisis and the fact that those governments might not survive on their own as nobody would wish to invest in them might lead to them falling into chaos as well.
 
Question is are there any "spite" strikes? IE does India throw a few nukes at China while they are going down, or does Pakistan chuck one or two at Iran?

In any case Pakistan has 80-120 operational nukes, mix of 20-25kt for delivery by Mirage III and 150kt or possibly 300-500kt (these unconfirmed) from MRBMs

India has 150-300 nukes, with about 120 operational, 48 delivered by 16 Mirage 2000 and 32 SEPECAT Jaguars, and 68 nuclear tipped missiles with warheads 15-250kt
 
Let's assume that Pakistan launches roughly 100 nukes, and India 150. Now we have to do the math on how many of these actually reach enemy territory and go off - some of the aircraft delivered weapons won't go off as the aircraft go down before reaching a target area, some weapons may fail to detonate even if the bomb/warhead makes it to enemy territory. How many of these will be airbursts (which produce minimal fallout) and how many ground bursts which produce a great deal of fallout. What are the targets of the weapons - we can assume certain military installations, known nuclear weapons plants and reactors, and certain government facilities will be on the target list. Once you get past that, and understanding some targets may have more than one weapon scheduled (either because of the size of the target or perhaps a second or more weapon aircraft delivered with a secondary target if the target has been taken out by the first strike), what is now on the target list.

Frankly given the difference in the stockpiles, and the geography, Pakistan has to realize that even a primarily counterforce attack will devastate the country - OTOH much of India is out of reach for Pakistan, and they have a more limited armory. I expect that they will have a significant countervalue component to their nuke plan. Beyond obvious things like a nuke or two for places like Mumbai (Delhi obviously gets hit for other reasons), one way to spread hate is to hit the dams in Northern India that provide a good deal of drinking and irrigation water, flood control, and hydro power. Consequences of this are obvious.

Given the size of the stockpiles, neither India nor Pakistan can afford to throw a few random nukes at Iran or China. Pakistan hitting Iran (say a nuke on Tehran) gains them nothing, and if India throws a couple at China they risk China devastating the areas of India that Pakistan could not hit. The Cold War stocks of weapons and delivery systems that the USA and USSR had allowed for the possibility of throwing some around at anyone they felt might be problematic. These countries have neither the weapons nor delivery systems to spare.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Question is are there any "spite" strikes? IE does India throw a few nukes at China while they are going down, or does Pakistan chuck one or two at Iran?

In any case Pakistan has 80-120 operational nukes, mix of 20-25kt for delivery by Mirage III and 150kt or possibly 300-500kt (these unconfirmed) from MRBMs

India has 150-300 nukes, with about 120 operational, 48 delivered by 16 Mirage 2000 and 32 SEPECAT Jaguars, and 68 nuclear tipped missiles with warheads 15-250kt
Pakistan and Iran don't really have any problems with each other. Nuking the one country that would try to help Pakistan deal with Balochi rebels is a pretty stupid idea.
 
Pakistan and Iran don't really have any problems with each other. Nuking the one country that would try to help Pakistan deal with Balochi rebels is a pretty stupid idea.
Pakistan and Iran fought a proxy war in Afghanistan back in the 90's, not sure how much hate is left over from that. Stupidity of the idea depends on if the leadership thinks they are going to be around or not, if they think they aren't going to have a country left, what do they have to lose?
Frankly given the difference in the stockpiles, and the geography, Pakistan has to realize that even a primarily counterforce attack will devastate the country - OTOH much of India is out of reach for Pakistan, and they have a more limited armory. I expect that they will have a significant countervalue component to their nuke plan.
This isn't exactly true, only the absolute tip and farthest Eastern portions of India are out of range of their ballistic missiles, everything if withing range of their ballistic missiles, on a one way trip Pakistan's Mirage III's can hit all of India
 

Ak-84

Banned
Ahhhh, another thread where peolle play Indo Pak senarios knowing fuck all about the area, politics, forces, geography and doctrine. Does not stop them from speculating.

Lets see, 2008, the lessons of the 2002 deployment have been taken to heart in both countries, but only as yet implemented in Pakistan (India still has not fully implemented them in 2018). We'll ignore conventional foreces, except for the observation that Pakistan has historically moved signifcant troops to the Western border to fight the budding AQ and TTP insurgency, which would dominate military matters till about 2016 OTL.

*Nuclear forces in 2008 (correction Pakistan has slightly more nukes than India 130-100).
India is still mostly a/c based, its missile programme is suffering from significant delays.
Pakistan has managed to operationalise most of its missiles. The Shaheen II provides its main long range missile attack, while Mirages and F-16 are the air component.

In 2008, niether side's Early Warning systems are particularly well known, except Pakistan has the TPS-77 radar (just delievered infact) which has an ability to detect Missile RV, as does the Indian S-300 RADAR TIN SHIELD, but it is more limited. The detectiin ability for missiles for rest of the systems is unknown. No space based warning systems are known to exist.
*Nuclear Forces Part 2
Pakistan has a genuine hard target kill capability with the Shaheen II and possibly its Ra'ad ALCM, which was just entering service in 2008. Precision nuclear attack capability which exists today, may not in 2008. The GIDS Range Extension Kit (PDF, page 17 of the brochere) permits a CEP of 10m and a still classified standoff ability. Its not known whether or not this system was available in 2008 or whether it had been integrated with nuclear systems (the later is still not known even today, but presumed). India does not have much by the way of comparison, the Agni family is still suffering from delays, and while BraHMos is operational, it did not get integrated with the IAF until 2016. India's short range missiles like Pritihvi and Agni I are operational, and will be used, although they will find themselves exposed to counter fire from Pakistani short and medium range missiles (Ghaznavi and Shaheen I, the later despite the similar name, is actually not related to the Shaheen II at all). In addition Pakistan has thge liquid fuled Ghauri missile, which is pretty inaccurate, has a slow response time, probably used for counter value. (about 2000 KM range, the operational version in 2008).
The status of nuclear weapons at sea in 2008 is unknown, although both navies have AShM which could in a pinch be used for land attack.

*Nuclear stategy.
India out of necessity is going have to adopt a couter value stategy. Air attacks on Pakistani cities, with perhaps missile attacks on shorter range targets, like Lahore, or forward airbases. Pakistan has a counter force strategy. At least the PAF is going to use its own nukes to pound Indian defences, RADAR sites, etc, to ease up the job of the missile forces, with the Shaheen II expecially being detailed to attack hardened weapons sites and bunkers which shelter Indian leadership in the war. In retaliation for enemy attacks on cities, probably the Ghauri forces, all mobile, are detailed to deliver large, but inaccurate warheads to Indian population centers.

*Outside Involvement
Pakistan has significant troop deployments outside its borders. In 2008, this includes S Arabia (Tabuk and the Yemen border) Bahrian (an infantry battle group) in addition to Air basing rights all over the GCC (by 2008, IIRC the everyday deployment of AF assets has ceased, I think). I find it likely all these will be targeted by the Indians.
Chinese involvement is very likely, especially if Pakistan starts using Chinese satellites and nodes for data/warning/communications, expect at least some Indian strikes, which basically is the push the world needs to get to totally fucked from majorly fucked

 

Ak-84

Banned
Pakistan and Iran fought a proxy war in Afghanistan back in the 90's, not sure how much hate is left over from that. Stupidity of the idea depends on if the leadership thinks they are going to be around or not, if they think they aren't going to have a country left, what do they have to lose?
Pakistan is not going to waste warheads on Iran for shits and giggles. They are all needed to accomplish the India warplan
This isn't exactly true, only the absolute tip and farthest Eastern portions of India are out of range of their ballistic missiles, everything if withing range of their ballistic missiles, on a one way trip Pakistan's Mirage III's can hit all of India
Thing about "range" is that it means "on trajectory 'X' with a payload of 'Y', the missile will be able to hit a target 'Z' KM away. Adjust "X" and especially "Y" and "Z" can adjust significantly.
 
Pakistan and North India become wastelands, South India turns into Afghanistan from 1992-1996. Expect the collapse of the Sri Lankan, Afghan, Bangladeshi and other neighboring countries' economies (China barely survives). The Great Recession turns into a depression, probably even worse than the one in the 1930s. Most likely the UK and France denuclearize, probably the US and Russia as well. The taboo over nuclear weapons becomes worse, and it might escalate to the point where the UN will embargo any nation having a nuclear program, and in cases such as North Korea you might see Russia, the US, South Korea and Japan invading it so as to end their nuclear program. As for Iran, the ensuing fallout might lead to civil war by 2010, but not before being embargoed by the UN making the Iranian economy even more unprepared to deal with refugees.

Obama will have to spend his entire administration dealing with the fallout and trying to lessen the effects of it. I don't think this can be accomplished in four years, so he most likely loses in 2012 to either a Republican or a Perot-esque third party candidate. Doomsday cults will increase in size. Bush's presidency was nearing end at this point, so he won't be blamed too much for it. If one was to criticize him for opening relations with Pakistan and being Musharraf's friend, the claim might be countered that the attacks might have still happened even without 9/11, leading to the nuclear war.

As Iran is embroiled in civil war a lot of Shia terrorist groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen will be weakened. Maybe Syria and Yemen's revolution will have a more positive outcome, making this TL not as horrible.

Not a chance. Pakistan-India going completely in the toilet is not going to alter China's perceived strategic interests in a way that makes them want to give up their pet buffer state, in fact it's likely to retrench them. Russia, North Korea, and Israel at a minimum will NEVER give up their nukes for anything because they view it as a matter of absolute strategic necessity for survival, and as long as some still have them all the other major powers must as well. None of those powers are willing to spend millions of lives to shut down the holdouts either. The world is going to be just as nuclear as before, the only question is if a bunch of other states decide to jump in on proliferation feet first.

I also don't see an obvious reason why Iran would end up in a civil war. The government's hold is very tight and they won't hesitate to start shooting refugees at the border en masse the nanosecond they see a threat to their stability.

Question is are there any "spite" strikes? IE does India throw a few nukes at China while they are going down, or does Pakistan chuck one or two at Iran?

In any case Pakistan has 80-120 operational nukes, mix of 20-25kt for delivery by Mirage III and 150kt or possibly 300-500kt (these unconfirmed) from MRBMs

India has 150-300 nukes, with about 120 operational, 48 delivered by 16 Mirage 2000 and 32 SEPECAT Jaguars, and 68 nuclear tipped missiles with warheads 15-250kt

No, definitely not. Remember that a Pakistani strike alone is not going to destroy India, though to do enough damage to keep them from conquering Pakistan, Islamabad will need to toss every nuke they can at them, so no strikes on Iran. They also don't need another furious power invading them from the east, and striking like that would lose them a lot of sympathy in the Muslim world. Bad move all around. India won't toss any at China for the precise reason that Pakistan alone can't destroy them completely. Remember that a lot of these targets will need to be hit multiple times (destroying a megacity is going to take a lot of warheads, there's a reason the USSR's missiles carried so many MIRVs and there probably would have been a number to each big city), will be military targets near the front lines, or will be other strategic targets. Overall, India would lose maybe their 10-15 biggest western cities and a lot of military and strategic assets, but that's very much recoverable damage over the long term. Nuke China and invite a massive response via means that cannot really be intercepted (China has a much more advanced ICBM force that cannot really be interdicted, while Pakistan will rely in large part on aircraft) and it really is game over. There is absolutely no reason for New Delhi to do something so stupid.
 

Ak-84

Banned
I think I stated that Pakistan did **not** rely on A/C (above).
As for India, even in a 50 warhead case (basically a worst case scenario for Pakistan), they are screwed.
The subcontinent relies heavily on its irrigation systems to grow food and its transportation network to get food thousands of KM away. These systems, as well as industrial and communications systems are not going to survive even a minor exchange. The current population is unsustainable without these systems.

To draw an analogy, let’s say a man is standing on a stack of dozens of boxes. If you remove five, suddenly and violently, you can’t say “he’ll be fine, just lower by five boxes length”. No the whole stack will collapse and he’ll come tumbling down.
 
One thing to note is that this would be occurring at a time of relatively high Indian immigration to the United States. Between 2000 and 2010 IOTL, the Indian American population swelled from just under two million individuals to just over three million. By 2015, that number was nearly four million. Of those four million in 2015, over half were immigrants.

Given the fact that Indian-Americans are a generally successful and politically influential group, and that the average American would probably be more sympathetic to India than Pakistan in this scenario, I can see a massive amount of pressure on the United States government (that is, newly elected President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party with solid majorities in Congress, who are largely pro-immigration anyway) to admit large numbers of Indian refugees.

So, how high can the Indian-American population get by 2015? Five million? Six million? Seven million? Higher? I don't know, but they're likely going to congregate in areas that already have a strong South Asian presence: the Northeast (CT, NJ, PA, NJ, etc), Chicago, major population centers in California and Texas, etc.

There'd be all sorts of knock-on effects from this change in the United States, but cynically, I do wonder if in this scenario Bobby Jindal might receive more pressure from certain corners of the GOP to run for President in 2012 - which could actually be huge, given that he arguably had a better chance in the Republican primaries for those years than he did in 2016.
 
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