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There is no saving grace in nuclear devastation

The Indo-Pak stand-off: Exchanging nukes would be an epic global disaster.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has not really expanded the fear element or moved the doomsday clock closer to midnight by announcing during his recent visit in Pokharan that India's adherence to the 'no first use' of its nuclear arsenal might change according to circumstances.
Assuming that he means Pakistan as the catalyst for the revision of the Vajpayee doctrine of 1999, it is a bit of a muchness. Since India's neighbour is not a signatory to this clause, all it does is equate India's nuclear policy with that of Pakistan.
After Pulwama Imran Khan had stated: "With the weapons you have and the weapons we have, can we afford miscalculation? Shouldn't we think that if this escalates, what will it lead to?"
God forbid, there is ever such a scary scenario where the governments of these two nations eschew conventional battle for nuclear devastation it really will not matter which one generates the first mushroom. The other, stinging with the stench of mass death will ipso facto retaliate with one of its own thereby doubling the death toll which would run into millions.
In March the NYT carried a piece about such a ghastly option being exercised by the two nations and cheerfully called it 'most likely'. Between the two nations the official count is 300 odd warheads but there could be more which makes 298 redundant since one each would be enough.
Despite the western media's projections that these two 'immature' nations not yet in the first world would press the button, one would like to believe that this breathtaking arrogance and the vanity to kill millions would be a scenario that neither Modi nor Imran Khan would like to have on their conscience.
If India is reworking its options, it could well be because it believes `Pakistan has deployed low yield nuclear weapons on its border and the power to set them off is with local commanders. This sits uncomfortably with the Indian forces.
Pakistan wants to ward off any armoured penetration into its terrain, but even if one nuclear device were to be fired it would escalate into Armageddon as we cannot even imagine.
We can talk about and even use nuclear strategy as a threat as Rajnath has done by bringing it up in a fresh context, but nuclear attacks are not confined to geographical boundaries. Just the cloud of toxicity could, depending on the winds, drift all the way to Europe or the Far East, destroying life as we know it across that path and changing the climate of the planet forever.
This nuclear winter pretty much destroys the present global set up, be it financial, commercial or simply targeting the spectrum of co-existence. As such, every nation in the hemisphere and the world as an entity has more than a vested interest in making sure that both countries act with restraint and a heightened sense of responsibility to the comity of nations per se. And every nation in the neighbourhood should do what it can to ensure its own safety from any such possibility.
All too often this nuclear option is made into a romantic crusade as if it was a page out of a comic book. The inability to grasp the massive fallout of even one warhead exploding is beyond human capability. Words only underscore the lack of comprehension. Not only would hundreds of thousands of Indians and Pakistanis be incinerated in nano seconds but the years of disease and disfigurement and the barren wasteland that would not support habitation for decades would make a twisted travesty of the subcontinent and its neighbours.
To be fair, both nations' leaders would have to either be half mad or totally arrogant not to know all this. There is no saving grace in nuclear devastation, no point is won, everything is lost.
So far, sanity has prevailed. Fifty years since the 1971 war and twenty since the Kargil conflict, neither nation has targeted the other's nuclear facilities in what can only be seen as a tacit pact to keep off that patch of grass. Even terrorist attacks have been on civilian targets or standard military installations.
There is a fear that the current changes in the status of Kashmir and Pakistan's efforts to stir reaction and backing from the UN and other international bodies is signaling a flashpoint between the two countries. It has never been this bad but still, nuclear weaponry must be kept off the table.
The fact is that with 15,000 warheads in the world as estimated and horizontal proliferation adding to the stockpile unchecked, the odds on someone actually doing the dirty improve visibly and that has to be something the world has to guard against. Sadly, the world suspects India and Pakistan the most likely to take the step that has not been taken since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It would take 3.5 minutes for a warhead to reach the other side. Both capitals would be within range. In a 'my daddy is bigger than your daddy' comparison, Pakistan has more warheads while India has more advanced delivery systems with deeper penetration calculated at 3,000km. Not that any of these stats matter.
This is not a movie where the hero rushes to the rescue. There will be nothing but radioactive wilderness, a cold wind and a black sunless sky.
And no life.
- bikram@khaleejtimes.com