WI: Indo-Pakistani War in 2002?

IOTL, in a period between December 2001 and June 2002, there was an uncomfortable escalation of tensions between the governments of India and Pakistan, after an incident involving a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament which left 12 dead. India claimed that Pakistan's intelligence service was involved in this attack, and also blamed pro-Pakistani insurgents in Kashmir. Both countries began mobilizing their armies, but what most worried observers compared to the three previous Indo-Pakistani wars was the fact that both India and Pakistan now possessed nuclear weapons. Eventually, both countries managed to reach a peaceful resolution to the issue, and cooler heads prevailed.
But what if India or Pakistan had decided to go to war in the midst of the crisis?
Who would be more likely to win this conflict?
How does the Afghan theater of Bush's War on Terror end up playing out if Pakistan is getting bombed by India?
 
India doesn't bomb pakistan as both countries will nuke each other meaning they have nothing left to bomb. Both nations are gone. So now you have massive refugees crisis on hand. Pashtun, balochistan and south india and assam im guessing will be fine as these areas aren't worth targeting.
 
I doubt it will end up as a nuclear war unless India start taking Pakistani major cities. It will likely end up like the other Indian-Pakistani wars with both Sides making inroads but not taking anything of value or making it very far into the other before a ceasefire is made.
 
Hopefully nukes don't fly but...there has never been a war with 2 nuclear armed countries facing off directly. Before like Korea/Vietnam/Afghanistan etc only one side had nukes, the opponent may have had help from the other bloc but there was no direct nuke vs nuke confrontation. Here you have two neighbors who "really dislike" each other, and both sides, though Pakistan more than India, have to be concerned that their nukes might be taken out (either by conventional weapons or nukes). While neither side might have no intention of using nukes, and have reasonable guidelines for when they might be used, if one side or the other sees the conventional battlefield as making a use it or lose it situation things can happen. Heck, imagine if a convoy carrying nukes from one spot to another in Pakistan gets hit by a couple of Indian jets on armed recon. They only see a guarded therefore valuable convoy worth hitting, OTOH the Pakistanis may decide "oh shit, the Indians are trying to destroy our nukes on the ground." Yhis totally innocent incident can set off a very ugly chain of events.
 
One of the worrying things about this scenario is that no-one involved had a robust command and control system (this is rather more true of Pakistan, but not to a degree that makes much difference). Given the fact that they border each other, the first warning of a strike might be a mushroom cloud climbing into the sky and communication with higher authority was by no means assured. This meant launch authority had to be delegated to a degree that was deeply alarming - relatively junior officers, operating from their own limited knowledge, could easily be forced to decide whether to respond to what they believed was an enemy strike or conversely use their weapons before they were lost.

We have really been very lucky with nukes in OTL.
 
In one of the NATO-WP timelines here, can't remember which one, there was a response (by the US if I recall) with a tacnuke to a fuel dump explosion that was mis-reported as a nuke strike and the response was rapid before this could be confirmed. Once the first nuke was used, things escalated to the strategic level as essentially all war gaming showed would happen unless you were very lucky. Given that relations between India and Pakistan are probably worse than they ever were between the US & USSR, and not sure if those folks even have a "hot line", and they are neighbors, this sort of oops is not unlikely at all. Once the first one goes, especially in that area, it will really hit the fan.

We have never tested the outcome when two nuclear armed powers are at war with each other mano a mano. To date, all sorts of forces have restrained use of nukes in the wars where one side had them and the other did not. Luck kept Israeli nukes unused as conventional actions kept the Arab forces from getting to the point where the Masada option was deemed necessary, probably the closest we have been. Aside from the local consequences of an Indian-Pakistani nuclear exchange, and fallout for folks downwind, possible climate effects, once the smoke clears, unless the big boys are willing to use force to stop it, nuclear proliferation will go wild. The genie is out of the box, and everyone will feel the need for it.
 
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