Over / Under on ...

[AzCat]

... days until Pakistan and India nuke each other? 

Bonus round: who drops the first one? 

 

[Oklahoma_Cat]

I don't think it ever happens. the more countries with nukes, the more hesistant they will be to use them.  if one country drops one, then they know they sealed their own fate.

when the usa nuked japan, there wasn't a huge worldwide supply to make a big threat.

[pissclams]

awful politicky thread

[AzCat]

While I generally tend to agree with (read "hope for that accurateness of") that line of thinking the news isn't good at all.  E.g.:

Several major signs of a coming Indian-Pakistani war surfaced Dec. 24.

Indian troops reportedly have deployed to the Barmer district of southwest Rajasthan state along the Indian-Pakistani border. Furthermore, the state government of Rajasthan has ordered residents of its border villages to be prepared for relocation. The decision reportedly came after a meeting among the state's director-general of police, home secretary and an official from the central government. Stratfor confirmed the report with an Indian army officer.

According to India's ZeeNews, the Pakistani army replaced the Pakistan Rangers that regularly patrol the border with India. The Pakistani troop movements were later confirmed by U.K. Bansal, the additional director-general of India's Border Security Force (BSF) in Barmer, Rajasthan.

As Stratfor reported Dec. 22, there is a high probability of India using military force against Pakistan after Dec. 26, when a deadline expires for Pakistan to deliver on Indian demands to crack down on Islamist militant proxies that threaten India. With low expectations that Pakistan has the will or capability to deliver on these demands, India has spent the past month preparing for military action against Pakistan. Pressure is now ratcheting up on both sides of the border, with Indian Air Marshal P.K. Barbora, air officer commanding-in-chief of the Western Air Command, telling reporters Dec. 24 that as many as 5,000 targets in Pakistan have thus far been identified, while saying that many of the militants hiding out in camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have already fled.

It should be noted that the area of Rajasthan where Indian troops are deploying and where villagers are preparing to evacuate is a long distance from Kashmir, where conflict between India and Pakistan typically takes place. Barmer district is adjacent to Jaisalmer district, where India's Southwestern Air Command is located. Any attacks based out of the Barmer district would involve mechanized and armored forces that could threaten the core Karachi-Hyderabad-Islamabad corridor -- Pakistan's only transit corridor that links the Pakistani heartland of Punjab with the coast. Given that cash-strapped Pakistan is a net food and energy importer and is already flirting with bankruptcy, India has a military opportunity at hand to cut off Pakistan's economic lifeline. Furthermore, a potential cutoff would likely complicate the flow of fuel and supplies to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Any ground troop movement in southwestern Rajasthan is likely to be accompanied by air strikes against militant targets outside of Kashmir and possibly against intelligence facilities in Pakistan's urban areas.

The timing of Indian military action is still unclear, as it will take some time for India to mobilize its forces and evacuate locals along the border area. But given these recent troop movements, it could be a matter of days before the world witnesses another Indian-Pakistani war.

and

The Senate on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of allowing India 'surgical strikes' in saying such attacks would be taken as aggression. "Any violation of Pakistani territory would be considered as war and would be repulsed with full force," Leader of the House Raza Rabbani said while winding up a debate on national security in the Upper House. He rejected reports that US Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen had asked Pakistan not to retaliate in case of an Indian strike. "We were neither conveyed such a message by Mullen nor are we ready to accept such advice," Rabbani said. He dismissed reports of differences between the military and civilian leadership. Rabbani offered India co-operation in the Mumbai probe but said Pakistani citizens would not be handed over to India.

and

With the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) flying sorties over two important cities in the wake of heightened sub-continental tensions after the Mumbai carnage, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been carrying out precision bombing practice runs to prepare itself for any eventuality, sources said on Wednesday.

With the option of carrying out precision bombings of terrorist camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir doing the rounds, IAF sources said that its fighter jets have been carrying out practice sorties at firing ranges in the Rajasthan sector and elsewhere.

and most ominously

The top-level security meeting held by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last Saturday was actually a meeting of Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). The meeting, kept under wraps so as not to fuel the current war hysteria between India and Pakistan, coincided with the first strong sign of Islamabad backtracking on its promise to crack down on the masterminds of 26/11.

Sources, however, denied the NCA meeting on December 20 had anything to do with the current stand-off with Pakistan in wake of the Mumbai terror strikes. They, in fact, stressed the meeting's "only intention'' was "to take decisions on the further consolidation of India's nuclear deterrence''.

The UPA government this week has tried to play down apprehensions of an imminent military conflagration, with the PM making it clear on Tuesday that "nobody wanted war''.

Cautioning against reading much into what they called "a routine meeting'', the sources pointed to the "no-first-use'' policy that underpins India's nuclear doctrine.

"Nuclear weapons are not for war-fighting or even threatening anybody. Any talk of them coming into play is totally absurd. We have a very clear self-declared no-first use policy,'' said a source.

Pakistan, in contrast, has no such policy. And when President Asif Ali Zardari indicated a willingness to take a turn away from it recently, he was publicly snubbed by the military leadership who call the shots across the border. Unlike India, where the NCA is controlled by the civilian leadership, the finger on the nuclear button in Pakistan is that of its Army chief General Pervez Kayani.

For the NCA meeting to have skipped a discussion on the tension building up in wake of Pakistan's belligerent refusal to keep its promise to act against terror groups is improbable. In fact, as reported by TOI on Sunday, the "conventional'' operational preparedness of the armed forces to tackle any eventuality did figure in the meeting.

Since then, Pakistan has shown aggressive signs of cranking up its war machinery, even as Indian forces maintain a high state of operational readiness, with armoured columns, warships and fighters ready to swing into action "in the shortest possible time'' if required.

A meeting of the NCA is held once every three-to-six months to review the further development and management of the country's nuclear arsenal. Under the existing structure, the NCA's political council led by the PM is the "sole body which can authorize the use of nuclear weapons''.

Complicating matters greatly is the fact that the time between launch and vaporization of large segments of either nation's population is under 5 minutes.  And we thought the Cold War was a hair-trigger affair.   

[pissclams]

i wouldn't worry about it.  obama brau, obama.

[JohnnyUtah]

574

Pakistan, ftw.

[yoga-lika_abana]

http://www.ksufans.com/forums/index.php?board=20.0

 

[dr00d]

i wouldn't worry about it.  obama brau, obama.

LOL...

[Brock Landers]

Pakistan vs. India.

Good riddance to both of them.  Maybe if they were wiped off the face of the planet the good old US of A could get some our jobs back!!!!

[pissclams]

i wouldn't worry about it.  obama brau, obama.

LOL...

LOL all you want brau, Obama.

[AzCat]

Pakistan vs. India.

Good riddance to both of them.  Maybe if they were wiped off the face of the planet the good old US of A could get some our jobs back!!!!

But it would suck if all of our software engineers and cheap imported soccer balls glowed in the dark.   

[Oklahoma_Cat]

http://www.ksufans.com/forums/index.php?board=20.0

 

Don't be lame, there is nothing political about this thread.

Do world events not interest you?  LOL @ people who think a nuclear war on the other side of the planet wouldn't have an impact on their life.*


*still don't think anything will happen.

[AzCat]

Yep, that handful of folks living on that little spit of land at the east end of the Med have had no impact at all on world events so it's reasonable to assume that a war involving what, 20% of the world's population, would have no effect either.  Especially if it went nuclear.