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Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: Askold on March 01, 2019, 01:24:59 am

Title: India and Pakistan threat of war (again)
Post by: Askold on March 01, 2019, 01:24:59 am
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/27/pakistan-pm-imran-khan-appeals-talks-india-war-kashmir

If I've got the timeline right it went something like this: Terrorist attack happens in India with India accusing the terrorists being a group based in Pakistan. India sends out planes to attack ground targets in Pakistan and the two sides both claim to have destroyed enemy fighters. India first claimed that they had lost no planes but later demanded that Pakistan release the pilot they captured.

Seeing as both sides have nukes and have fought wars before the tensions are high. Notably, the Pakistani military leaders believe in limited nuclear warfare and have said that they will use nukes as part of their strategy if they go to war, while Indian military has the opposite view, not believing in limited nuke usage. Instead they have said that if someone uses nukes against them they will retaliate by firing everything at them, hoping that this threat of Mutually Assured Destruction will keep any potential war non-nuclear.

...Clearly both sides want to use their main strength, the Pakistani military is weaker than the Indian so they are likely to lose in a conventional war and want to use nukes while India doesn't.
Title: Re: India and Pakistan threat of war (again)
Post by: dpareja on March 01, 2019, 01:53:18 am
They used to have this uneasy deal where they'd maintain roughly equal conventional and nuclear forces, but more recently Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has grown larger while India's conventional forces have become stronger.

Apparently, former US Presidents, when asked what kept them awake at night, are pretty much unanimous in saying, "India and Pakistan".
Title: Re: India and Pakistan threat of war (again)
Post by: niam2023 on March 01, 2019, 02:11:32 am
India and Pakistan, or as I like to call them, the national equivalent of "He's touching me!" "No you're touching ME!" "He's touching me!" "MOM!!"
Title: Re: India and Pakistan threat of war (again)
Post by: dpareja on March 01, 2019, 02:29:37 am
Top-level international cricket basically has to bend over backwards to accommodate the fact that India and Pakistan won't play bilateral series against each other.
Title: Re: India and Pakistan threat of war (again)
Post by: Askold on March 01, 2019, 04:59:43 am
India as a bigger country can field a numerically bigger military. Looking at their equipment list on Wikipedia I see no clear difference at least in the army equipment that would give a massive edge. (India did finally get rid of their INSAS rifles which are laughably bad in quality. They actually had to go back to using old AKs and everyone universally agreed that it was a better choice until they had time to buy new guns that actually work. ...And have bigger magazines.)

Air force is another matter with the two countries having planes from Russia (or CCCP era), China, USA and France ...but not the same planes.