India and Pakistan will NOT use nukes - just a border clash like many before
India and Pakistan can't even fight a world war, way beyond their capability and they are only fighting each other no interest in any other party. And no way either uses nukes.
In more detail:
India and Pakistan often have military clashes. That does NOT mean nuclear war. As we’ll see, neither side is going to use nukes
And
Nobody in India or Pakistan has the slightest interest in attacking any other country over this.
India and Pakistan even
had a full scale small war in 1999 when both sides were already nuclear powered with nukes they could drop from planes.
Neither side used nukes.
They have had frequent military clashes every year this century except for one year without military clashes in 2022.
This blog post is summarizing some of the key points in my previous blog post here:
As for a world war neither country is interested in attacking any other country apart from each other in this conflict. And neither has the capability to fight a world war.
Video
Why India and Pakistan will NOT use nukes
India is not going to invade Pakistan with hundreds of thousands of soldiers
Pakistan will only use nukes if
attacked by an Indian army so large its own half milllion strong army isn't big enough to stop it.
nukes only to target soldiers, never civilians
India knows this
India is not going to attack Pakistan with an enormous army.
That is why Pakistan has nukes, to prevent India doing that.
India has the clearest no first use policy of any country and
every year India introduces four resolutions to the UN General Assembly to try to get other nuclear powers to completely denuclearize as fast as possible.
These resolutions are always adopted by a majority in the general assembly which shows that most countries want to abolish nukes
however the other nuclear powers haven’t yet supported India’s drive for very rapid denuclearization and have it as a longer term aim
So India is a most implausible nation to use nukes.
Also neither country has the slightest interest in attacking any other country over this dispute.
Pakistan says clearly its nukes are only to deter India, no other country. Not even Israel if it was to attack Pakistan.
India and Pakistan have frequent military clashes and even a small war in 1999 - when both were ALREADY nuclear powers
They have attacked each other numerous times
every year this century except 2022.
They had a full scale small war in 1999 the Kargil war and back then both sides already had nukes they could drop from planes.
They never used nukes and will never use them.
India and Pakistan give the world's clearest example that small conventional disputes between nuclear powers do NOT automatically escalate to a nuclear war.
China and Russia had a military clash in 1964 when both were already nuclear powers - dozens died on both sides - neither side used nukes
There was another example earlier last century when China and Russia had border clashes in 1964 when both were already nuclear powers.
According to Chinese sources 72 were killed on the Chinese side and according to Russian sources 58 were killed on the Russian side.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict
That is an earlier example which shows that conventional clashes do NOT automatically escalate to nukes.
Nuclear powers do NOT use nukes for very obvious reasons - you are SAFE
For very obvious reasons nobody wants to go there.
You are SAFE.
Pakistan has shot down an Indian fighter jet before and it is not at all surprising if they do again - especially if India uses it’s older model fighter jets instead of its few modern French Rafaels - remember India is the one with no nuclear first use policy
[UPDATE]
Pakistan has shot down an Indian fighter jet before.
They have frequent clashes and this is just another one. With likely several Indian fighter jets shot down because modern missiles are more effective than they were last time they clashed when one Indian fighter jet was shot down.
Update - turns out that the Indian fighter jets were all shot down over Indian not Pakistan. One as far as 100 km from the front line.
This means they were shot down by advanced long distance radar guided missiles not by short range manpads or heat seeking missiles.
They shot down at least one each of
Rafale (officially confirmed) - this is low visibility 4th generation jet
Mirage
MiG-29
Su-30
This is a list of the types of aircraft in the Indian airforce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Indian_military_aircraft#Air_Force
Pakistan used
China’s PL-15E beyond visual range missile range of approximately 145 km
Likely fired from a Chinese J-10CE fighter aircraft.
It probably couldn’t have shot down a 5th generation fighter like the F-35. And probably the Indians made the mistake of loitering near the border to be ready for any response from Pakistan and so got shot down.
It’s the first time such modern Chinese technology has been used in air combat or indeed in warfare generally
Details from: https://missilematters.substack.com/p/operation-sindoor-indian-air-strikes
So - this is not a lucky shot or a simple heat seeking missile as I suggested before.
Any low flying fighter jet can be shot down even with a lucky shot from a manpad. There are numerous examples of this in the Ukraine war as well as recently a fighter jet shot down by a sea drone. https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/05/world-first-ukrainian-maritime-drone-shoots-down-russian-flanker-jet/
But that’s not what happened here.
Both armies have never fought a war before with modern weapons. The last time they clashed, India shot down one of its own helicopters killing all three on board.
QUOTE STARTS (FROM 2019 WHEN INDIA ACCIDENTALLY SHOT DOWN ITS OWN HELICOPTER)
India’s air force said Friday it accidently shot down one of its own helicopters as it engaged Pakistani fighter planes … Six air force personnel were killed in the crash, which occurred close to the airport on the outskirts of the region's main city of Srinagar.
That is a sign of inexperience. Here again, they may not have prepared very well as they should have known that Pakistan has those missiles available.
It also shows that Chinese weapons are well designed, unlike the Rusisan ones that frequently underperform in combat. The debris will be useful for India and likely others like the USA to get hands on information about the Chinese missile.
Details from: https://missilematters.substack.com/p/operation-sindoor-indian-air-strikes
That does NOT mean that either side will use nukes. They won't.
India is no first use. It is the one that lost the figher jets.
Pakistan wouldn’t use nukes unless there is a very massive Indian army attacking them and the whole point is to deter India from attempting that. There is no way India does that.
There is no situation here where either side would use nukes.
How they de-escalate - by taking time to decide for each response - eventually resolved by longer and longer pauses between responses - or dialogue - or international mediation
The main way they de-escalate is by taking time to decide for each response. If Pakistan does respond more than it's done already by shooting down Indian drones and possibly fighter jets then it won't be for some time typically.
If it was continuous war rather than military clashes, they'd have responded already.
India might go on to do a military raid or more air strikes.
Pakistan might do air strikes
But eventually it will be resolved either by them just leaving longer and longer between responses until it stops, or by international mediation or by dialogue with each other.
Pakistan’s defence minister says Pakistan is ready to wrap it up if India backs down and says it will do no more attacks
India’s defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif says
If india is ready to back down we will wrap up this tension on our side
Not aware of any contact between the sides at the time of the interview though there usually is
TRANSCRIPT
Question. How far is Pakistan willing to go here?
Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif: This has been initiated by India. If India is ready to back down, they have taken the initiative.
We have just responded.
We have we have been saying all along in the last fortnight that we never initiated anything hostile towards India.
But if we're attacked, we'll respond.
If India backs down, we will definitely wrap up this tension.
But as long [as] we are under attack, under fire, we have to respond, we have to defend ourselves.
Minister, is there any contact between yourself and the Indian side at the moment?
I'm not aware of it.
There is content normally during these hostile, you know, activities and tensions that are back door contacts available anywhere in the world,
But I'm not aware of any contact between India and Pakistan at the moment.
Many countries offered to mediate but discreet backchannels are more likely to succeed than formal mediation
According to Rabia Akhtar, director at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research at the University of Lahore
Pakistan seeks third-party mediation
India doesn’t want mediation
historically backchannels with other countries have been a better approach than mediation
typically with the US, China, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
As for countries offering formal mediation, these include
Iran
China
Russia
Malaysia
But it’s probably not going to be resolved by formal mediation.
QUOTE STARTS
Akhtar said that historically, third-party mediation has played a critical role in de-escalating India-Pakistan tensions.
“Both countries lack bilateral crisis mechanisms and have outsourced escalation control to third parties,” she said. “Traditionally, these backchannels have been run by the US, China, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.”
While she noted that such efforts had failed to resolve the Kashmir issue, “they have helped both sides save face and step back from the brink”.
“In the current crisis, discreet backchannel facilitation, not formal mediation, may be the most viable option,” she added.
The National Security Advisors have talked to each other by phone according to Pakistan. That is seen as a de-escalatory move.
QUOTE STARTS
Indian and Pakistani National Security Advisers have spoken by phone amid escalating tensions between the two countries, Turkish broadcaster TRT World reported late on Wednesday, a day after India carried out cross-border strikes against terrorist infrastructure.
Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, confirmed the development to TRT World in an exclusive interview …
Dar did not give any details of the discussions between India’s Ajit Doval and Pakistan’s Asim Malik, TRT World reported, and added in their broadcast that the contact was being seen as a de-escalation effort amid fears of a full-scale military confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
News18 couldn’t independently confirm the phone call. There was no official word from India or Pakistan.
India can’t even leave its water agreement legally - so if both sides forget about it, it remains in force - and it can’t stop the water from the glacier ice melt or monsoon from May to September so nothing can happen until October - India hasn’t even said it will divert any of Pakistan’s allotment
As for the water agreement, India can't even do anything until October as there is no way to build a large enough dam to stop enough of the Indus in the spring thaw of the glaciers in Himalayas or the monsoon to make any difference to Pakistan.
And nukes can't restore a water sharing agreement but diplomacy can and they likely forget about it by then.
However it’s important to realize that India has only said words, not done anything legally, as there is no legal way to leave the agreement.
So if they both forget about it, India remains within the agreement.
It's only if India interferes with Pakistan's water in October that it becomes an issue. This seems very improbable.
There is no way either side uses nukes - and if there ever was even one Hiroshima again globally - this would lead to the largest humanitarian operation in history - not to more nukes - likely to abolition of nukes
If any country globally ever uses nukes then as soon as whatever exchange is over the world's focus including both belligerents would be on the largest humanitarian operation the world has ever seen involving specialists in radiation sickness and complex burns injuries from around the world.
It would NOT lead to more nukes it would likely lead ot the abolishing of nukes.
It would likely lead to all the main nuclear powers joining India’s call for rapid abolition of nukes
See also:
also
But they are NOT going to use nukes.
also
SHORT GRAPHICS BASED SUMMARY
This is a summary of the highlights of my:
Pakistan has had nukes since 1984. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Pakistan and India have fought each other in small skirmishes most years for decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Pakistan_border_skirmishes
They even fought a small war in 1999 which is AFTER Pakistan had nukes ready to use.
TEXT ON GRAPIC:
Kargil war of 1999
NEITHER SIDE USED NUKESPakistan already had nukes
- developed in secret since 1974
- fiurst sub critical test 1983
- delayed first test explosions to 1998
- only second ever conventional war between nuclear states
first: China and Russia in 1969)India: 30,000 soldiers, 527 killed
Indian soldiers after capturing a hill from Pakistan in the Kargil war of 1999
Pakistan: 5,000 soldiers, 453 killed
Shows even wars between nuclear states do NOT lead to nukes
Photograph: Kargil war
For details of the Kargi war see KargilWar - used the figures from the Indian and the Pakistani military for the numbers of soldiers killed.
For the history of the Pakistan nuclear tests: Chagil I
We could hardly have a clearer example to show that small military skirmishes between nuclear armed neighbours do NOT escalate to a nuclear war.
On the water agreement, India can't legally suspend it. So it's not clear what will happen there.
But it makes no difference to Pakistan at least until September since this is a time of high flow and nothing India can do with the existing infrastructure it has on the rivers can make any difference to the flows going through to Pakistan at least until October.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC Indus water treaty gives Pakistan control of three rivers and India control of three rivers.
Beas, Ravi and Satluj controlled by India.
Indus, Jhelam, Chenab controlled by Pakistan.
These rivers have so much wate in them from May to September that India couldn’t stop enough water to make a difference to Pakistan until October no matter what it tries to do
India CAN’T BLOCK PAKISTAN’S WATER at present
Background graphic: Indus River
Hassaan F Khan, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy and environmental studies at Tufts University USA says:
Hassaan F Khan: The western rivers allocated to Pakistan carry very high flows, especially between May and September. India does not currently have the infrastructure in place to store or divert those flows at scale,
To expand on it in more detail: You can't shut off a river unless you build a huge dam.
If you build a barrier across a river that has as much water flowing through it as the Indus during glacier melt the river just rises until it fills the space behind the barrer then goes over it.
If you build a dam in a place where the river is falling steeply it makes almost no difference. E.g. suppose you built a dam the height of the Niagara Falls just below the falls, it would just fill to the height of the falls and within an hour or two the river would be flowing over the dam just like it flows over the falls.
If you build a tall dam in a flat area it doesn't work because the river will just flow around it.
To stop the Indus you can do it two ways.
A carefully located dam - ideally at a place where the river goes through a narrow gap between hills after flowing a long way over flat ground.
Divert the river in pipe or artificial watercourse often with the pipe having to go through hills or mountains until it reaches another river or else to a very dry or desert area where it can flow into the ground.
Both of these are possible but they are megaprojects that take years to complete and billions of dollars of funding.
There isn't any way that India could block the Indus river practically between now and October.
Also, it hasn't started on any such project and it has never even said it will block the Indus river just that it's withdrawn from the agreement.
India has only said words, not done anything legally, as there is no legal way to leave the agreement.
So if they both forget about it, India remains within the agreement.
It's only if India interferes with Pakistan's water in October that it becomes an issue. This seems very improbable.
A few years back Pakistan downed an Indian plane.
This is the downed plane - though it looks dramatic - the pilot ejected as is normal in such accidents and escaped unharmed and for a while was in custody of the Pakistanis and the Indians asked for his return:
This is the downed plane - though it looks dramatic - the pilot ejected as is normal in such accidents and escaped unharmed was in custody of the Pakistanis and the Indians asked for his return:
Pakistasn shot down this Indian Mig21 fighter jet.
Pilot Abhinandan Varthaman escaped unharmed and was captured - later returned to India.
Pakistan and India both have nukes.
One of many incidents - but they do not escalater when this happens.
See:
He eventually was returned to India
Later analysis suggets that India missed all three targets in that mission, probably because they set the glide bombs to fly at the buildings at the wrong height so they flew overhead and landed in the forest beyond.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/indias-strike-on-balakot-a-very-precise-miss/
India also accidentally shot down one of its own helicopters in 2019
A few years back Pakistan even downed an Indian plane.
This is the downed plane - though it looks dramatic - the pilot ejected as is normal in such accidents and escaped unharmed and for a while was in custody of the Pakistanis and the Indians asked for his return:
This is the downed plane - though it looks dramatic - the pilot ejected as is normal in such accidents and escaped unharmed was in custody of the Pakistanis and the Indians asked for his return:
Pakistasn shot down this Indian Mig21 fighter jet.
Pilot Abhinandan Varthaman escaped unharmed and was captured - later returned to India.
Pakistan and India both have nukes.
One of many incidents - but they do not escalater when this happens.
See:
He eventually was returned to India
Later analysis suggets that India missed all three targets in that mission, probably because they set the glide bombs to fly at the buildings at the wrong height so they flew overhead and landed in the forest beyond.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/indias-strike-on-balakot-a-very-precise-miss/
India also accidentally shot down one of its own helicopters in 2019
No possibility of nuclear winter or even nuclear autumn
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
Nuclear winter is not about mushroom clouds - the heavy dust falls out and the rest disperses in tens of minutes.
Nuclear winter is about fire clouds like this that form after firestorms (pyrocumulus)
- this one is for the Bootleg fire in Southern Oregon, August 18, 2021.
- we get vast wildfires with fire clouds many times a year and they don't lead to nuclear winters.
- Indian cities are especially flammable but it still doesn't work in simulations.
The attention focuses on Pakistan and India, possibly because that’s a scenario with the optimal conditions for soot to get into the upper atmosphere (outside of monsoon season).
Implausible scenario even for India and Pakistan:
Very theoretical - aim is to prevent war by both Pakistan and India
Pakistan’s policy to use nukes against military targets - never to use against cities
After any nuke exchange, however small, world would respond in shock
Pakistani and Indian civilians would both call on their governments to stop immediately
Focus of the world’s largest humanitiarian rescue mission ever, far larger than for the earthquake disasters that affect the regions
Surely nobody uses nukes after radiation and burns specialists from around the world converge to help survivors
Here is a short summary:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC:
implausible scenario as Pakistan and India have nukes to PREVENT WAR
specific to the highly flammable and hot Indian / Pakistani cities
but Pakistan would NOT TARGET CITIES only military installations
Not even a nuclear autumn - well within year to year variation
Only a fraction of a degree cooling - mostly in the Arctic - even in optimal conditions with hot flammable Indian / Pakistani cities at height of summer and optimal winds
wouldn’t work in the colder and less flammable temperate cities
won’t work in winter, monsoon, post monsoon or during summer Loo winds
that leaves March and April
not even a nuclear autumn - small fraction of a degree
most effects in the Arctic
far less than enough to reverse global warming temporarily for a few years
For more on this see my:
See comment on that blog post for more details.
I’ve rewritten this with headers may make it easier to read:
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Governments do NOT seriously believe in a world war or nuclear war or they’d tell us how to protect ourselves from fallout
There is no risk of a world war. You can tell that governments don’t seriously believe that there really is a risk of a world war because if they did, they would tell their civilians how to protect themselves from fallout.
Tens of thousands of the civilians in Hiroshima died AFTER the explosion from fallout - many know that but most people don’t know:
most of those lives could have been saved with simple instructions to stay indoors until the fallout dust loses its radioactivity.
Older people ion the UK know that they need to get indoors if there is a nuke and stay well away from the dust.
I doubt if as many as 1 in 100 of younger people know this
We don’t know this because
we don’t need to know it
because there is no risk of a nuclear war
The governments are NOT hiding this information from us.
And it makes NO SENSE for politicians to bluff about nukes and then not to tell people how to protect themselves from fallout to avoid scaring them.
Not telling us about fallout shows that they are not serious in their bluffs or their political statements about risking a world war.
If there was a real risk as in the cold war the government would be telling us about this every day, a short 1 minute video every day much like the videos during COVID lockdown.
The information would be prominently displayed in the news websites also.
This is not happening because government leaders know full well that there is no real risk of a nuclear war.
Why we do NOT risk a world war from: Ukraine, the Middle East, China, North Korea, or anywhere else in the world - next to impossible - and longer term are headed for a future without any war
For a first overview look at the graphics, read the bullet points summary, and read the section titles in the contents list - then dive into more detail in any section of interest. If you are on the laptop you can also navigate to any section by clicking on the column of horizontal dashes you see to the left of this page.
Movie myths - world can’t get radioactive - fallout only travels as far as the wind can blow a mushroom cloud before all the heavy dust falls out - in tens of minutes
This is to help people who believe false movie claims about nukes.
When I was a kid there was a nuclear test going off somewhere in the world most weeks. It did NOT make the world radioactive.
allout is the mushroom cloud falling from the sky.
It falls within tens of minutes. The cloud is dispersed completely in less than an hour.
It only gets as far as it can getin the strongest winds in a few tens of minutes.
The strongest winds can move it tens of kilometers in tens of minutes not hundreds or thousands of kilometers.
What is left is light dust too light to fall out quickly and this mixes with the natural radioactivity we have everywhere already.
It wouldn't make a noticeable difference to background radioactivity.
Your body is radioactive naturally because of the potassium anyway. At very low levels harmless to you. Similarly background radiation is harmless.
Dust rapidly gets less radioactive - anyone who gets well away from the dust is very protected - and emergency services can start to access the fallout zone only 2 days after the nuke falls
Fallout is local to the nuclear explosion and the radioactivity is reduced so much that emergency workers could enter the fallout zones after 2 days.
After 2 weeks then apart from some hot spots it wouldn't hinder travel through the
For details on fallout see my:
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TIPS FOR DEALING WITH DOOMSDAY FEARS
If suicidal or helping someone suicidal see my:
BLOG: Supporting someone who is suicidal
If you have got scared by any of this, health professionals can help. Many of those affected do get help and find it makes a big difference.
They can’t do fact checking, don’t expect that of them. But they can do a huge amount to help with the panic, anxiety, maladaptive responses to fear and so on.
Also do remember that therapy is not like physical medicine. The only way a therapist can diagnose or indeed treat you is by talking to you and listening to you. If this dialogue isn’t working for whatever reason do remember you can always ask to change to another therapist and it doesn’t reflect badly on your current therapist to do this.
Also check out my Seven tips for dealing with doomsday fears based on things that help those scared, including a section about ways that health professionals can help you.
I know that sadly many of the people we help can’t access therapy for one reason or another - usually long waiting lists or the costs.
There is much you can do to help yourself. As well as those seven tips, see my:
BLOG: Breathe in and out slowly and deeply and other ways to calm a panic attack
BLOG: Tips from CBT
— might help some of you to deal with doomsday anxieties
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They're not going to use any kind of Nukes because even they understand how devastating the effects were going to be on.
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The reason is I often aren't able to respond to comments for some time and the unanswered comment can scare people who come to this post for help on something else
Also even when answered the comment may scare them because they see it first.
It works much better to put comments on other topics on a special post for them.
It is absolutely fine to digress and go off topic in conversations here - this is specifically about things you want help with that might scare people.
PLEASE DON’T TELL A SCARED PERSON THAT THE THING THEY ARE SCARED OF IS TRUE WITHOUT A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE OR IF YOU ARE A VERY RELIABLE SOURCE YOURSELF - AND RESPOND WITH CARE
This is not like a typical post on substack. It is specifically to help people who are very scared with voluntary fact checking. Please no politically motivated exaggerations here. And please be careful, be aware of the context.
We have a rule in the Facebook group and it is the same here.
If you are scared and need help it is absolutely fine to comment about anything to do with the topic of the post that scares you.
But if you are not scared or don’t want help with my voluntary fact checking please don’t comment with any scary material.
If you respond to scared people here please be careful with your sources. Don’t tell them that something they are scared of is true without excellent reliable sources, or if you are a reliable source yourself.
It also matters a lot exactly HOW you respond. E.g. if someone is in an area with a potential for earthquakes there’s a big difference between a reply that talks about the largest earthquake that’s possible there even when based on reliable sources, and says nothing about how to protect themselves and the same reply with a summary and link to measures to take to protect yourself in an earthquake.
Thanks!