India said its warplanes killed "a very large number" of fighters when they struck a militant training camp inside Pakistan on Tuesday, raising the risk of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours, although Pakistan officials denied there had been casualties.
Pakistan said it would respond at a time and place of its choice, with a military spokesman even alluding to its nuclear arsenal, highlighting the escalation in hostile rhetoric from both two sides since a suicide bombing in Kashmir this month.
India had to respond to Pakistan's terror attack.
And Pakistan's rattling of the nuclear sabre over India's air strike is--to use a technical term--moronic.
Nuclear threats are only credible when you are defending a vital national interest--like national survival.
Unless Pakistan wants to develop a reputation of a nutball state willing to use nukes for looking at them the wrong way, all Pakistan has done is weaken the value of future nuclear threats.
Why will India believe future Pakistani nuclear threats to deter India if Pakistan doesn't use nukes now? Which is a problem if India actually crosses a threshold of threatening a vital Pakistani national interest--which this Indian air strike isn't.
And in another aspect of idiocy, does Pakistan really want to validate nuclear threats for smaller threats--like for sponsoring deadly terrorism, in a completely random example?
Pakistan is lucky India restricted its response to an air strike. But the Pakistanis are apparently too moronic to appreciate that.
UPDATE: There are claims of aircraft losses on both sides.
But at least Pakistan doesn't seem to be making more nuclear threats when their foe has nukes, too.
And India seems like it would prefer to deescalate. Does Pakistan really feel it must respond to India's attack which was obviously a response to Pakistan's policy of supporting and fueling terrorism inside Indian territory?
UPDATE: We can't cut Pakistan loose as Pakistan deserves as long as we need to base troops in landlocked Afghanistan. We don't rely on Pakistan for supply routes because of routes developed through Iran and Russia that can serve as an alternative. But we don't want to place reliance on either of those, now do we? In theory we can thread a route (Black Sea-Georgia-Azerbaijan-Caspian Sea-Turkmenistan) that avoids Pakistan, Iran, and Russia, but it is tenuous and it would be really expensive. Of course, if Iran's government is friendly to America, the situation changes incredibly.
UPDATE: More details and context.
UPDATE: Oh, Hell: "Indian PM Modi reportedly gives 'free hand' to military".
A blank check to the Indian military is a path to nuclear war if the Indian military believes, as their Cold Start doctrine appears to hold, that achieving a major victory over Pakistan's army is the objective with their "free hand" from the government.
And again, the Pakistanis have been poking a nuclear-armed state that has superior military power with Pakistani-backed terrorists. That is DEFCON 1 level of moronic.
UPDATE: Things seem to be settling down.
For the purpose of not risking a nuclear war, things may work out well. India had to openly respond to the Pakistani terror attack, and the air strike was a visible retaliation that was not as insulting as a major ground operation. And Pakistan has a visible trophy--a captured Indian pilot from a plane shot down--to show that they resisted India successfully.
So maybe both sides did enough to walk back from the brink.
Unless this is just a pause as forces are mobilized, moved, and readied.
I assume our government has information to say which of those things is true.
UPDATE: I may have been hasty in my hope:
The Pakistani Army Thursday heavily shelled forward posts along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch and Rajauri districts, committing repeated ceasefire violations but drawing "strong" retaliation from the Indian Army, an official said.
This is the seventh consecutive day that Pakistan breached the ceasefire, targeting forward posts along the LoC.
There have been fresh ceasefire violations in Nowshera and Krishna Ghati sectors, officials said.
Unless border shelling is just the "Dead Enemy Theater" that both sides accept as the price of not going to general war.
UPDATE: Pakistan tries to deflect the reality that they support Islamic terrorism by saying they suffer from Islamic terrorism. I really find it offensive that they want us to feel sorry for them for suffering collateral damage from their weapon of choice.
Pakistan has up to 150 nuclear warheads while India has a bit fewer.
China would rather not get dragged by Pakistan into a nuclear war. Or push India into a closer alliance with America. Well, yeah.
UPDATE: How much longer will Pakistan merely suffer "collateral" damage from their support of jihadis to become the primary victim? They might want to ask Assad about that issue.
UPDATE: Pakistan released the Indian pilot. That's a good sign Pakistan has no interest in a wider war.
UPDATE: It seems like the potential for a major war is receding. Good. On the bad side, I doubt that Pakistan has been deterred from continuing to support Islamic terrorism.
