Only nuclear weapons keep India and Pakistan from a new conflictThe potential Indo-Pakistani war, as it sometimes seems, is very similar to the potential war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In both cases, the question is not whether there will be a war at all, but when it will begin. Because both there and here there is an insoluble territorial conflict with mutually exclusive positions of the parties that have not changed for decades. And the fact of eternal tough confrontation has already become the most important component of national psychology in the opposing countries: as long as these countries exist in their current form, they are enemies.
THE DETERRENT FACTORThere is, however, one very significant difference.
Armenia and Azerbaijan do not have nuclear weapons – and there are suspicions that they will never have them. This actually greatly lowers the political and psychological threshold for them to start a war, which was demonstrated by the events of autumn 2020 (" Armenia – Azerbaijan: 26 years later ", "HBO", 11/27/20). Therefore, another war will inevitably start between them, unless Armenia capitulates on its own.
India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, as well as their means of delivery, and they continue to increase them. Given the extreme overpopulation of both countries, as well as their natural and climatic conditions (constant extreme heat and humidity) with a not very high level of medical care, a nuclear war between them will become a real apocalypse. Which is perfectly understood by both sides.
It is also perfectly clear that nuclear weapons are much more necessary for Pakistan than India, since India is much stronger in conventional weapons.
Here we can draw analogies with other real or potential conflicts – between Russia and Ukraine or between Algeria and Morocco (" Morocco and Algeria: neither peace nor war ", "HBO", 17.02.23). In all these cases, a militarily stronger country is also much larger in territory. It "hangs" over a weaker country, creating a situation where it, in fact, has no rear, since aircraft and missiles of the strong side can reach any point of the weak. But a weaker country, in the best case for it, is only able to reach the border areas of a stronger one.
SUPERIORITY IN CONVENTIONAL WEAPONSIndia is very significantly superior to Pakistan in almost all classes of military equipment (except, perhaps, self-propelled artillery), both quantitatively and qualitatively.
The Hindus still have quite a lot of outdated equipment, but the Pakistanis have much more of it. In particular, the basis of the Pakistani Air Force is still made up of second- and third-generation aircraft (J-7, Mirage-3/5), and among the F-16s, early modifications of A and B production of the 1980s predominate. The Indian MiG-29, Mirage-2000 and especially the Su-30 are much more powerful and modern.
The vast majority of Pakistani tanks are various Chinese derivatives of the Tour 59, that is, the degraded T–54. They also have no chance against many thousands of Indian T-72 and T-90, and the 320 T-80UD received by Pakistan from Ukraine in the early 1990s will not save this country.
The situation is similar at sea, only the Pakistani submarine fleet is able to create certain problems for the Indians. In addition, India's military-industrial complex is much more powerful than Pakistan's. Although India is still experiencing great difficulties with the development of its own weapons, mass licensed production there has been mastered quite successfully.
SUPERIORITY IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF TRIUMPHTrue, I must say that the Indian Armed Forces almost always had a significant superiority over the Pakistani ones, but this by no means guaranteed them victory (by the way, the events in Ukraine also show us that the formally weaker side can create very big problems for the formally stronger side).
So, in 1965 ("The Bloody Trail of the British Empire ", "HBO", 08/21/20), the Pakistani Air Force won the war in the air. Because of what the war on land, in fact, ended without clear results.
In 1971, the main goal of Delhi was to break away from the enemy of its eastern part, present-day Bangladesh (" New Delhi celebrates one of the most important victories ", "HBO", 04.12.20). This goal, of course, was achieved, since a very weak Pakistani grouping in the eastern part of the country was completely isolated from the main part of Pakistan, was completely surrounded by Indian troops, who were also actively assisted by partisans inside Eastern Pakistan itself. On the western front, the success of the Indians was by no means so obvious, despite the significant superiority in forces.
Therefore, in the course of a potential new war, the unconditional triumph of the Hindus is not guaranteed. It is possible that at best they will reach the Indus (and it is not a fact that they will regain Kashmir, since in this high-altitude theater of operations (Theater of Operations) superiority in technology almost does not play a role). However, then Pakistan will have no rear at all, unless Afghanistan is used as such.
It is in this situation that Pakistan needs nuclear weapons, as well as ballistic and cruise missiles to deliver them to targets.
As mentioned above, the planes of the Pakistani Air Force will not reach most of the Indian territory even theoretically (even if they are sent one way in the style of kamikaze). But the creation of missiles reaching to the extreme south and east of India, Islamabad is quite capable.
However, the situation will radically change when Delhi receives the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system. It will be able to shoot down most of the Pakistani missiles (there is nothing to say about planes). And this will significantly devalue Pakistan's nuclear missile potential.
After the full deployment of the S-400 (apparently, India will receive 10 divisions of this air defense system – five regiments of two divisions each), Delhi will be strongly tempted to launch a massive preemptive strike against the Pakistani missile forces in order to destroy most of the missiles and their launchers (PU). The few remaining missiles will be shot down by the "four hundred". After that, India will have complete freedom of action without the use of its own nuclear weapons (despite the fact that these weapons will remain intact).
CHINA FACTORIn this case, the question arises whether China will come to the aid of its strategic ally ("Beijing goes on the offensive", "NWO", 16.11.18). However, a ground war in the Himalayas is extremely difficult for reasons of a natural and climatic nature ("Conflict on the roof of the world", "NWO", 26.06.20).
Therefore, the ground forces in western China are focused more on Mongolia and Central Asia than on India (" Wild West in Chinese ", "NWO", 28.10.22). [...] [...]
But the Air Force ("The sky darkens from red dragons ", "NWO", 03/18/12) and the PLA Missile Forces (" China is hiding behind a nuclear shield ", "NWO", 11/25/12) may well strike at Indian territory and through these highest mountains in the world. And the ships (" Celestial Armada ", "NWO", 01.10.21) and submarines (" Arming the fastest in the world ", "NWO", 23.07.21) of the PLA Navy will not prevent anything from appearing in the Indian Ocean, attacking India from the east.
However, even in this case, the S-400 can seriously affect the situation, since it is capable of shooting down any Chinese aircraft and a significant part of Chinese missiles. In addition, the opposite situation arises here: being in the role of a weaker party, India can already launch a nuclear strike against China. Although its nuclear missile arsenal is several times smaller than China's, it is capable of inflicting colossal human and material losses on China, making its victory truly pyrrhic.
ELEMENT OF UNPREDICTABILITYIn general, multilateral nuclear deterrence is a crucial factor for preventing war in South Asia.
But there may be some factor, this deterrence is devaluing (for example, the same Indian S-400). Or just some incident will happen, which is impossible to predict now, but which will cause an uncontrolled escalation.
For example, a similar incident in the form of a terrorist attack occurred on February 14, 2019 in the Indian part of Kashmir, 45 Indian servicemen were killed. India placed all responsibility on Pakistan, after which its air Force attacked the camps of Islamic militants in the Pakistani part of Kashmir. The main striking force was the Mirage-2000 with Israeli UAB. Indian officials said hundreds of militants were killed, but ground and satellite images showed that apparently the Indians did not hit anything and did not kill anyone.
The next day, an air battle took place near the border, during which the Indian Air Force lost a MiG-21 Bison (tail number CU2328), its pilot was captured, but was very quickly returned to his homeland.
The winner of the "bison" was the JF-17, thereby this type recorded its first ever victory in the air. This is a very interesting car. At the request of Islamabad, the Chinese aviation industry developed the FC-1 light multipurpose fighter, transferred the license and helped to arrange assembly (modifications of the JF-17) on the customer's territory. Neither the FC-1 nor the JF-17 enter service with the PLA. The Hindus' claims that they shot down a Pakistani F-16 still have no confirmation. Although an aircraft of this type with the serial number 78-0269 was claimed to be shot down, there is obvious fake news. This aircraft was produced for the Dutch Air Force and carried the Dutch number J-269. In 2009, it was acquired by Jordan (Jordanian number 131). In 2014, it did sell 13 of its F-16s to Pakistan (having received 15 more from the same Netherlands instead), but the "131st" F-16B was not among them. He is still part of the Jordanian Air Force, so there was no way he could have been shot down over Kashmir.
"At the same time," the Indians, with the help of the Israeli Spider air defense system, shot down their own Mi-17 helicopter. Thus, India, despite its huge quantitative and qualitative superiority, lost again in the air. But Pakistan also had no desire to develop success, realizing that the superiority of the enemy would inevitably affect. Therefore, this incident was successfully "hushed up". Until next time. Or before the deployment of the S-400.
ALLIES ON PAPERAs you know, China and India are members of the BRICS and they, along with Pakistan, are members of the SCO.
This, however, in no way prevents them from preparing to fight among themselves (The Bermuda Triangle of Moscow, HBO, 21.04.23).
Moreover, Pakistan is now supplying Ukraine with such an extremely necessary commodity as 122-mm shells. They are produced in Pakistan under a Chinese license (" How Asian countries participate in the Ukrainian campaign ", "HBO", 03.02.23).
This is clearly not a problem for Beijing. Which is not surprising. During the war in Afghanistan, up to 90% of our losses were caused by Chinese, not Western weapons (" Afghan Lesson for Russia ", "HBO", 06.04.18). This has never happened – and here it is again.
Alexander KhramchikhinAlexander Anatolyevich Khramchikhin is an independent military expert.
