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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Shivram Hala who wrote (5960)	8/27/1999 2:29:00 PM
From: sea_biscuit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Eminent nuclear scientist M V Ramana should be posed the question. If india didn't have nuclear weapons but pakistan did, would the kargil conflict have ended on the LOC ? India and Pakistan have both been "shadow nuclear powers", suspected of having nuclear bombs "in the basement". It is not as if India (or Pakistan) acquired those weapons last year. But what has really changed is the steady deterioration in the relations ever since India indulged in nuclear Diwali in Pokhran last year. Pakistan's calculation was to internationalise the kashmir issue playing on the fears of a nuclear conflict between hostile neighbours. Which they did. Ask a few people in the West who are reasonably knowledgeable about international affairs about where in the world they think there is a possibility for the next nuclear exchange to take place, and they are very likely to rattle off the name of Kashmir. A year ago, it was doubtful if many would have even heard of the place. He should ask why pakistan refuses to sign a no-first use policy. Why? The answer is fairly simple. Pakistan's conventional forces are much smaller than those of India. Its strategy is similar to NATO's stance in Europe during the Cold War. NATO realized that it could never match the Warsaw's Pact's conventional might (outnumbered almost 4-to-1 in tanks, 3-to-1 in ground forces, and 2-to-1 in aircraft). Therefore it settled for a doctrine that gave it the flexibility to use nuclear weapons first. Pakistan has adopted a similar strategy and hinted that it could contemplate a nuclear first strike if its security were seriously threatened. Makes perfect sense, from Pakistan's point of view.