No risk of nuclear war between Pakistan and India - decades of military skirmishes - CLEAREST EXAMPLE TO SHOW MILITARY SKIRMISHES - and EVEN WAR between nuclear states - DO NOT ESCALATE to nuclear war
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Summary - there is no real risk of nuclear war. Pakistan use its nuclear weapons as a last resort, only if India mobilized an overwhelmingly large army to invade Pakistan or part of Pakistan. That won’t happen. India has no first use policy for nukes so it won’t use them either.
They have had military clashes for two decades and one short war in 1999 and these did NOT lead to a nuclear war, and there is no reason for them to do that in this crisis.
Neither side will use nukes for obvious reasons.
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.
Pakistan's nukes unusually are intended for military use in a conventional war but it would only use them
AS A LAST RESORT in very extreme situations
Only to prevent an attack by India not any other country
if the Pakistani military can’t stop an overwhelming invasion by Indian soldiers
only use them to target the Indian soldiers not civilians.
Keeps the nukes separate from the launchers so they can’t be launched by mistake
No risk of terrorists in Pakistan getting hold of them - the Pakistani army is very disciplined and has good control of its nukes
Nothing remotely like that is going on.
India also knows about this and won’t attempt such an attack.
India has a no first use policy for nukes
This is not even a low level clash between the two militaries - which happens quite often.
There is nothing even remotely like that going on. All that’s happened is
gunmen from the Kashmir Resistance, who MIGHT have crossed over from Pakistan have killed 26 civilians in the Kashmir area of India
not connected with the Pakistani army
So what is India’s concern?
India is concerned that Pakistan is not doing enough to stop terrorists that operate from Pakistan
India in response suspended a water sharing treaty [which has no practical immediate effect], closed its main border with Pakstian and accused Pakistan of facilitating “cross-border terrorism
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-between-india-and-pakistan
See also my short summary post:
What if India sends soldiers into Pakistan to find the terrorists or air strikes - an incursion - if this happens it is not a big deal but so far India has done nothing military
Pakistan’s defence minister said that they believe India is planning to send soldiers into Pakistan - an incursion. If anything like this happens, an incursion or air strikes, it will just be to deal with the Kashmir Resistance, a terrorist group in Pakistan.
An incursion just means some soldiers from India cross the border into Pakistan and India has done that before.
They haven't done it this time. If they send soldiers across the border of course Pakistan would likely send soldiers on their side to stop them. So then that would lead to a military clash but there have been many such clashes over the years.
An incursion would normally be just a few hundred to a few thousand soldiers. In the war in 1999, India sent in 30,000 soldiers.
Pakistan has half a million soldiers and in a typical war half of the soldiers are free for the front line with the rest used to supply it. So, it would need to be a very large invasion indeed to overwhelm Pakistan’s conventional capabilities.
India does have the soldiers. India has 1.2 million soldiers. But they are not very well equipped. And India won’t do a massive attack on Pakistan anyway because of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent. There is nothing in the current situation to suggest anything like that.
Water agreement suspended - makes no difference to Pakistan at least until September as India has no way to hold back the vast amount of water flows down to Pakistan right now
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.
If India remains withdrawn from it, it can use its existing reservoirs and infrastructure to withhold water from Pakistan in October / November but not before.
It’s important to remember India hasn’t actually committed to any particular action at this time.
It’s rare for countries to get into conflict over water agreements, most water issues are solve amicably and by October this will be long in the past.
BLOG: No we won’t have large scale water wars
— price of water is too low, below price of desalination for long distance transport
— sometimes countries with shared rivers have conflicts but most water issues are resolved amicably with water agreements
READ HERE: https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/No-we-won-t-have-large-scale-water-wars-price-of-water-is-too-low-below-price-of-desalination-for-long-distance-trans
No way for India to withdraw from the water treaty legally without consent from Pakistan
It’s not clear legally how it can withdraw as there is no mechanism for withdrawing written into the agreement. Countries can withdraw from any bilateral treaty with mutual consent but India hasn’t tried to do that. Also they can withdraw if the other side breaks the treaty but India is not alleging that Pakistan broke the treaty.
The UN security Council can step in if needed to maintain international peace and security. It has said explicitly it will do so in a dispute between nuclear powers.
So, if this is still an issue by October the UN Security Council may well intervene and India is not a permament member of it so doesn’t have the veto power to stop such a resolution.
In more detail on the legal situation:
Under Part V Article 42 of the Vienna Conventation, a treaty can only be suspended in compliance with the Vienna Convention
Article 57 says
“The operation of a treaty in regard to all the parties or to a particular party may be suspended:
(a) in conformity with the provisions of the treaty; or
(b) at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting states.”
(a) doesn’t apply here because the Indus Water Treaty doesn’t have any provision for suspending it.
(b) India hasn’t held any consultation with Pakistan on its intent to suspend the treaty
Alternatively by article 60
a treaty can be suspended if the other party breaches it, however
India doesn’t allege that Pakistan has breached the treaty.
So what happens next? If India continues in breach
Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter the UN Security council can step in for cases which may be a threat to international peace and security
The UN Security Council can then take action to maintain international peace and security
So, the UN Security Council can step in. India is not one of the five members that an block resolutions there, and in 1998 the UN Security Council said they would intervene if a threat to peace arises between two nuclear nations.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1906366
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.
Abbasi’s threats are saber rattling - in reality Pakistan is super careful to make sure its nukes can’t be used by mistake
Abbasi bluffed that Pakistan could use nukes against India - this is very similar to Putin’s bluffs.
"If they stop the water supply to us then they should be ready for a war
[INDIA CAN’T STOP THE WATER SUPPLY TO PAKISTAN BEFORE SEPTEMBER BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH WATER FLOWING IN THE RIVERS RIGHT NOW].The military equipment we have, the missiles we have, they're not for display. Nobody knows where we have placed our nuclear weapons across the country
[THE NUKES ARE KEPT SEPARATE FROM THE MISSILES TO MAKE SURE THEY CAN’T BE FIRED BY ACCIDENT].
I say it again, these ballistic missiles, all of them are targeted at you,"
[CORRECT THAT PAKISTAN’S NUKES ARE A DETERRENT FOR INDIA ONLY, NO OTHER COUTNRYHOWEVER THEY ARE ONLY FOR USE AGAINST MILITARY TARGETS IN AN INVASION
PAKISTAN SAY THEY ARE ONLY FOR USE AS A LAST RESORT AND NEVER AGAINST CIVILIAN TARGETS]
This is saber rattling.
India has already said it's suspended the water agreement, so this is about India physically stopping water for Pakistan
India can't physically stop the water supply to Pakistan even if it tried until September 2025.
Then Pakistan is super careful with its nukes to avoid mistakes
Pakistan keeps the nuclear warheads separate from the launchers to make sure they can't be used by accident.
They have them only for use as a last resort, in the case of an invasion by India of a large army they can't keep out with conventional methods.
They say specifically that they are not for use against civilian targets like cities.
For more on this see below:
All this is similar to Putin. Using bluffs for political reasons, but in reality beneath the hood, Pakistan like Russia is super careful to make sure that there is no risk that they ever could use nukes by accident.
Pakistan and India are an example that shows that two nuclear armed neighbours won’t use nukes even with frequent military clashes every year
There are things about the Pakistani / Indian situation which you need for the context. Over the years they have learnt how to live as neighbours with many military engagements and even a full scale small war in 1999 in which both sides had nuclear weapons. It shows how nuclear states do not readily use nuclear weapons even if they fight each other.
One of the worst days of fighting recently, was on 13th November 2020:
6 civilians, 3 soldiers and a border guard killed on their side according to India
4 civilians, and 1 soldier killed and 22 others wounded on their side according to Pakistan
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/13/pakistan-summons-top-indian-diplomat-over-kashmir-violence
Before that on 26h - 27th February 2019:
India did two air strikes on what it said was a terrorist group in Pakistan dropping bombs from planes flown over Pakistan, though satellite imagery shows that nobody was harmed just damaged some woody hillsides.
Pakistan’s fighter jets shot down an Indian Mig-21, the pilot was captured and later returned to India on March 1
India shot down its own Mi-17 helicopter by mistake, ,killing all on board
When Pakistan shot down an Indian plane
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.
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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
India’s air force said Friday it accidently shot down one of its own helicopters as it engaged Pakistani fighter planes in an aerial confrontation in Indian-controlled Kashmir in February.Air Chief Rakesh Singh Bhaduria said “it was a big mistake.”
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.
From that you see that India’s army is inexperienced in warfare with modern weapons.
It is the same for Pakistan and for China.
India’s two best armed neighbours also have never fought a modern war with modern weapons.
Since 2019 India has been trying to modernize its military. It bought 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, and five S-400 missile defense systems from Russia with three of those deployed. It’s not a lot to defend the world’s second largest country. It’s had to deploy its soldiers to the borders of the Himalayas since 2020 to defend against China and that’s taken a lot of their military budget.
Its modernization has gone far slower than they hoped. Only around 16% of their equipment was “state of the art” as of 2023. More than half is old.
QUOTE STARTS
In 2018, a parliamentary report categorized 68 percent of the country’s military equipment as “vintage,” 24 percent as current and only 8 percent as state of the art. Five years later, in an update, military officials admitted that there had been insufficient change because of the size of their challenge.
While the share of state-of-the-art equipment had nearly doubled, according to parliamentary testimony in 2023, it still remained far less than what is called for in a modern army. More than half of the equipment remained old.
…
The modernization efforts were set back by a costly four-year deployment of tens of thousands of troops to India’s border with China after the skirmish in 2020. Another major hurdle has been the Ukraine war, which has affected the delivery of weapons from India’s biggest source: Russia.
Official testimony to Parliament showed that even when money was ready, the military struggled to spend it because orders were tied up by supply chain disruptions caused by the “global geopolitical situation.”
“The biggest difference is the induction of Rafale, which is a boost for Indian Air Force capability,” said Ajai Shukla, a defense analyst in New Delhi.
The challenge, Mr. Shukla said, is deploying the various new systems with an expertise that demonstrates “functional deterrence” to adversaries.
“I would want to ensure that we were not just kidding ourselves,” he said. A concern would be if “we have the weapons systems, and then finally, when it’s time to use them, it turns out that we don’t really have them.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/world/asia/india-pakistan-military-kashmir-attack.html
Even with a short incursion or military strike India will be reluctant to act because of the possibility of showing up its shortcomings with some other fiasco like the one in 2019. It might do something but likely limited and short and with a great deal of care to avoid exposing its airforce especially.
Further back in the Kargil war both sides already had nukes. Neither side had nuclear capable missiles in 1999. Instead they both had aircraft that could deliver them. Pakistan didn’t even deploy its airforce so it certainly never considered using nukes.
QUOTE The missiles — the main delivery vectors of the two sides — had neither been proven nor inducted into the strategic forces at the time since they were still undergoing the testing phase. The only possible nuclear delivery systems available to the two sides at the time were their nuclear-capable aircraft. Though India made limited use of its air force, Pakistan did not deploy its air force throughout the conflict.
https://thesvi.org/kargils-myths-and-realities-a-pakistani-perspective/
To repeat the introductory graphic:
Photograph: Kargil war
For details of the Kargi war see Kargil War - 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
Background to the killings of tourists
Kashmir chose independence from Pakistan and India originally but then joined India.
The time of most violence is
2020: more than 4000 cross-border firings
That was followed by a ceasefire in February 2021. That led to an easing of tensions but then:
2022 and 2023: India
cracked down on independent media in Kashmir
redrew the electoral map to give Hindu-majority areas an advantage in elections
targeted killings against Hindus became more frequent
India (led by Modi) has responded with an increasingly militarized response to those killings.
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-between-india-and-pakistan
Pakistan developed its battlefield nukes as a deterrent alongside normal missiles in a conventional war - but only to deter a massive invasion by India - as a cost saving measure to reduce the size of its army - no first use against civilians
The unusual thing about Pakistan is that it has battlefield nukes like Russia and the USA. Few of the smaller nuclear powers have those.
Pakistan developed its nukes in response to India's Cold Start Doctrine (CSD). That is a controversial policy by India to mobilize quickly with no preparation and do a limited retaliatory attack on Pakistan without reaching the nuclear threshold and then ending the action as quickly as it began, also before there is time for international pressure to build up to stop them.
Cold Start: India's clever plan to punish a nuclear-powered Pakistan
A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War Doctrine
Pakistan feel they could be easily overwhelmed with a suddenly mobilized large Indian army, because of India’s vastly greater economic ability to maintain an army.
Pakistan has a large population too. Compare the two countries, I’ll use Global Firepower though its figures are a little higher than other sources for both countries, but to compare the two.
Pakistan:
252 million people, 85.8 million fit for serice, 4.8 million reach military age every year and army of 0.654 million
India:
1.4 billion people, 523 million fit for service, 24 million reach military age every year and army 1.45 million
https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.php?country1=india&country2=pakistan
It’s clear both sides are limited by the costs of the equipment for their soldiers not by the available personnel, Pakistan could have an army three times the size of India’s from just one year of recruitment of men reaching military age.
Pakistasn could spend more in order to build up such a large army that it could prevent an invasion even if India were to focus all the might of its army on, say, taking over part of the disputed areas in Kashmir.
But it feels it needs the money elsewhere. So it developed the battlefield nukes.
It’s not really about the wages of soldiers in a modern war. It’s about the costs of their equipment. If you have a hundred thousand soldiers with equipment of several decades ago they are not much use.
This is what "modern diplomacy" says about the situation:
While, Pakistan also can spend more money on its conventional force, but, it believes in minimum credible nuclear deterrence within its limited financial resources. The purpose of the development of TNWs is defensive not offensive because Pakistan would use it to fortifying it borders. NASR has been criticized by the international community and India by arguing that it would increase arm race in the region, but, the purpose of this development is just to overcome the growing threats from the Indian hawkish doctrines. CSD forces Pakistan to increase its dependence on nuclear weapons.
Significance of Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons - Modern Diplomacy
This is why Pakistan don’t have a “no first use” policy, because the whole point in their nukes is that if a big army from India was invading Pakistan, then they would use them to offset the disparity in the sizes of army.
This is a controversial policy of course but it is how they think.
It is the only place in the world AFAIK where there is a country that actually has a stated a military policy of using nukes in an otherwise conventional war.
Russia has a policy where it would only use nukes in case of a major attack where it’s own integrity is at stake or something similar, so not quite no first use.
But Pakistan is the country with probably the lowest threshold for use. But still it is not that low.
They have said they will only use them defensively if Pakistan is under threat in that specific situation that it faces a big conventional army marching into Pakistan from India.
Also Pakistan has small nukes and said that they are not going to drop a nuke on civilians. So it is not about a first use against civilians either.
India will NOT mobilize a large army to invade Pakistan
To trigger this then India would need to rapidly mobilize a large army and try to invade Pakistan by overwhelming them by numbers as well as surprise, too quickly for them to respond except with nukes.
This is not going to happen. The whole point in this policy is that India would know the consequences of such an attack and so wouldn’t do it.
This is what the association of Atomic Scientists say for more background.
They have had many military exchanges but this is the first time they have downed jets or done air strikes on both sides.
But it does not at present risk nuclear war. Not with both sides knowing what the other’s capabilites are and with clearly stated policies on the Pakistani side.
India is committed to no first use of nukes and no use of nukes against non nuclear countries and works towards universal disarmement and prohibition of nukes
India has put resolutions to the UN General Assembly since 1982 calling for a conference to end all nukes.
India submits four nuclear disarmament resolutions every year. These
always get adopted by the General Assembly but
are only suggestive, to be binding they'd need to pass in the UN Security Council where the five permanent members are all nuclear states and would veto them.
So India’s disarmament never get anywhere but India persists with them every year symbolically to keep the world's attention on this issue
some day hopefully it succeeds.
Here are the four resolutions that India submits to the UN General Council every year and the UNGC adopts every year - but never get adopted by the UN Security council:
A/RES/79/64 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Nuclear Weapons
A/RES/79/42 Measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction
A/RES/79/23 Role of science and technology in the context of international security and disarmament
So India is a most implausible country to use nukes.
This is from September 2023
TRANSCRIPT:
Mr. President, India is a responsible nuclear weapon state and as per its nuclear Doctrine is committed to maintain credible minimum deterrence with the posture of no first use and non-use against non-nuclear weapon state.
,,,
India submits two annual resolutions: one a long-standing call for negotiations on an international universal and binding convention on prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons, and another on reducing the nuclear danger.
India has been advocating steps towards reducing the unacceptable risk of unintentional and accidental use of nuclear weapons and reviewing their role at the national level.
Mr. President, progress towards the goal of nuclear disarmament requires a climate of mutual trust and confidence in the International Community. India stands ready to work with all countries towards the objective of creating a world free of nuclear weapons.
[The video is a compiliation from various sources and has several repetitions and elaborations of those basic points]
Pakistan does permit first use but only against an overwhelming attack by the Indian army - not for use against any other country - and it keeps its nukes separate from the launchers and under a centralized command
nukes kept separate from launcher
Pakistan reportedly has kept its weapons in a de-mated form, meaning the warhead is separated from the delivery vehicle, with a strict centralized command-and-control system in place.
India specific, not for use with any other country
not for Israel
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and deterrence posture is defensive and India specific, unlike India, which has kept its policy more open-ended and avoided identifying specific potential adversaries in its doctrine.
…
there has never been an official statement or any other indication of a shift to identify Israel as a potential target. On the contrary, Pakistan repeatedly has reiterated that its nuclear weapons program is only to deter threats from India. Likewise, the range of the Shaheen III was capped intentionally at 2,750 kilometers to allay any such concerns.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-10/features/pakistans-evolving-nuclear-doctrine
Pakistan also sees its nukes as weapons of “last resort”. .
General Kidwai, founder and director-general of the Strategic Plans Division, caused some confusion when he suggested a minimum range of zero, but then this was clarified as “metaphorical”. The minimum range is 60 km, which means they are not meant for close up combat in battle
Kidwai’s clarification reiterates that there is no change in the range of nuclear missiles and the existing range of missiles from 60 kilometers to 2,750 kilometers shall remain sacrosanct for now.
[in support of what Pakistan says, that it’s just metaphorical]
On the contrary, it could be a diplomatic nightmare because it may open the floodgates of international condemnation for breaking the much-revered nuclear taboo.
Such a posture also goes against the primary concept of Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence, which views nuclear weapons as weapons of last resort that would inflict unacceptable damage on the enemy.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-10/features/pakistans-evolving-nuclear-doctrine
So both are very careful about their nukes in different ways.
Not true that if one country uses nukes all countries will - opposite if anything
Also I’d like to debunk the idea of a nuclear threshold. At least get you thinking and discussing it, if you have been convinced by it.
This is the idea that if at any time somewhere in the world that some nuclear power uses nuclear weapons again, that after that all the nuclear weapon states will feel that a line has been crossed, that nuclear weapons are now acceptable in warfare and world war III will break out.
It would be the opposite of that in my view.
If there ever was a real nuclear exchange - in the modern world - the biggest humanitarian relief operation ever mounted
Try to think of it as a real event not a thought experiment.
After the first exchange between two nuclear powers, if it did ever come to that, then it would be an unprecedented situation. Thousands or perhaps millions of people with radiation sickness, suffering burns, needing treatment. Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but in the present. Not in the past. All of it videoed and shared on the internet from numerous mobile phones. People whose friends in another country had been nuked. It would be just awful.
But also it would mean the biggest international relief operation ever undertaken. Medical services worldwide would be overwhelmed sending doctors and nurses and supplies to help.
Not something that would lead to more use of nukes by other countries - rather - mass revulsion for nukes amongst the public
Do you think that this would lead to other countries doing more nuclear attacks? Seriously?
It would surely lead to a vast revulsion for nuclear weapons amongst the general public worldwide. Not them clamouring for their politiicans to use them too.
So, no, I do not see a small scale nuclear exchange, if it ever came to that, as leading to nuclear war more generally.
What do you think?
However both Pakistan and India are well aware of the situation and they are learning how to live as neighbours with nuclear weapons who actually also are involved in military engagements.
About half the world is in a nuclear free zone
About half the world, including most of the southern hemisphere, is a nuclear weapon free zone.
No country in just about the entire southern hemisphere has nuclear weapons now. That's one effect of South Africa disarming preemptively in 1989. It lead directly to the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty. So one nation disarming can have a big knock on effect. South Africa’s actions haven’t had much effect on Europe for sure. But they had a huge effect on Africa and the Southern Hemisphere
.
Signatories of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty - states that have ratified in green, and signed but not ratified in yellow. South Africa’s decision to give up the bomb didn’t have much effect on Europe but it lead to this nuclear free zone in Africa.
In this picture all the blue areas, including just about the entire southern hemisphere, are Nuclear-weapon-free zones
Many countries have absolutely no wish to have nuclear weapons. 93 states have already signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and 73 have ratified it.
Signatories in yellow, ratified in green
Here in the UK then the SNP party in Scotland would denuclearize Scotland on independence if we ever did get independence.
The former leader of the labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, is a long term campaigner against nuclear weapons. He has said that if elected as prime minister he would never use nuclear weapons in any circumstances, even if attacked by them.
He gets a lot of criticism forthat - but what good does it do to drop a nuclear bomb and kill millions of civilians in another country if they do that to you?
It never makes any sense, all that could do is to provoke them to drop more wepaons on you and it is totally unethical and a war crime basically.
This is my article I did about it:
Because nuclear powers dominate world politics it is easy to get the idea that their stance is normal.
But amongst countries generally it is abnormal. Very few non nuclear countries have any ambitions or wishes for nuclear weapons.
Nuclear winter is now an out-dated idea
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.
Photograph from here:
https://aviationweek.com/business-aviation/safety-ops-regulation/pyrocbs-ominous-clouds-you-should-know-about
First, the idea was never that nuclear winter would be caused by the mushroom clouds. Mushroom clouds do get above weather and rain for larger explosions but they beak up and disperse within a few tens of minutes. Ground bursts or low air bursts will lift some dust in the clouds but most of this falls out as “fallout” and it’s not got any soot in it because it forms long before the fires produce any soot.
The cooling soot is caused by the fires that are set up AFTER the clouds.
But there’s nothing special about fires from a nuke except that the fires start simultaneously over large areas.
These are just like wildfires in forests, which happen every year and never lead to anything resembling a nuclear winter. The reason is that the soot doesn't rise high enough in updrafts from even the most intense wildfires, and it quickly rains out. Same also for firestroms in cities.
Every year we have vast forest fires in Australia, Canada, Siberia, California, and the vast grassland fires in Africa. These are natural and have been going on for millions of years since long before humans evolved. Indeed many of them were more extensive before humans, and they never lead to enough soot for a global winter or even autumn.
See for example:
BLOG: Fires in California are not apocalyptic
— they are part of nature and trees are adapted to them from millions of years ago
— giant redwoods will soon spring back to life
READ HERE: https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/Fires-in-California-are-not-apocalyptic-they-are-part-of-nature-and-trees-are-adapted-to-them-from-millions-of-years-ahttps://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/Fires-in-California-are-not-apocalyptic-they-are-part-of-nature-and-trees-are-adapted-to-them-from-millions-of-years-a
Also the fires for Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the fire bombing of Dresden didn’t lead to cooling effects. So the theory was always absract, not based on any actual data from nukes or from firestorms. It was based on a very simple computer model too as back then we couldn’t model it properly - a model made by Carl Sagan and another researcher in 1983 , “Climate and Smoke: An Appraisal of Nuclear Winter”,
Carl Sagan agreed his idea was mistaken when the big smoke plumes from the Kuwaiti oil fires didn't cause any significant cooling in the Middle East. It was not very plausible that fires after a nuclear war would rise higher than plumes from oil burning as it pours out of the ground.
As Carl Sagan wrote in his
"it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4–6 °C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared.”
(Sagan, 1997. Demon Haunted World : 257)
As the cloud physicist professor William R. Cotton put it in the most detailed criticism I’ve found:
Stratospheric injection of smoke from burning urban areas, however, is probably relatively little. Turco et al. (1990) estimate as much as 10% of the smoke will reach the stratosphere but this is probably on the high side.
First of all, the intense burning period following a bombing is likely to last only a few hours and only a few targets will have sufficiently concentrated fuels and sufficiently unstable atmosphere to support stratospheric penetrating convection.
Even intense firestorms such as occurred over Dresden, Germany during World War II are likely to transport only a small proportion of the smoke produced into the stratosphere.
… The strong winds associated with firestorms ventilate the fires, thereby strengthening them. Tripoli’s (1986) simulation of such an urban firestorm revealed, however, that the cyclostrophic reduction in pressure associated with the rapidly rotating storm created vertical pressure gradients that weakened the storm’s updrafts, and, as a result, the smoke plume was detrained at lower levels.
Moreover, the weaker updrafts increase the time that scavenging processes will operate in the rising updrafts, and increase the efficiency of precipitation processes and wet removal of smoke.
... In summary, it appears that the bulk of the smoke from wide-spread nuclear warfare will be deposited below the middle troposphere, probably in the range of 4 to 6 km
(Cotton, 2009. Human impacts on weather and climate : 207-8)
So Cotton sees no way for a nuclear winter to happen, based on his comparisons with fire bombing of cities and with firestorms and what he knows professionally about cloud processes and updrafts.
There are still some researchers that try to get Carl Sagan's idea to work,. The main one here is a paper by Robok and others that claim that if there is a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India that it would have devastating cooling climate effects on the whole world.
However, they don’t model the firestorm, and start the simulation with five billion tons of soot already high enough to reach the stratosphere or already in the stratosphere.
Others try to find ways to get so much soot up there and can't make it happen.
A later paper in 2018 by Reisner et al. did model the firestorm and they found that nowhere near enough soot would get that high.
This paper by Reisner et al. makes lots of assumptions to overestimate the amount of soot and it still gets only a fraction of a degree reduction most in the Arctic, not nearly enough to reverse the effect of global warming and most of it less than the year to year variation in temperature of +- 0.2 C.
Their conclusion is:
“Our analysis demonstrates that the probability of significant global cooling from a limited exchange scenario as envisioned in previous studies is highly unlikely, a conclusion supported by examination of natural analogs, such as large forest fires and volcanic eruptions.”
Here is my graphic summarizing their conclusions
This paper models that part of the process and concludes that most of the soot would not get above the weather and would just rain out (as happened with the Kuwaiti oil fires). The impact on global temperatures would be small and last five years. Nothing resembling a nuclear winter.
This was for an exchange with 100 low yield 15 kiloton nukes over Indian cities (similar to Hiroshima).
They assume that
Both sides target cities - Pakistan’s policy is to use their nukes only against military targets
Indian cities have almost no rubble
European cities would be much less affected
cities that are constructed of less flammable materials with much more rubble would produce less soot.
Also they assumed
it isn’t raining at the time
isn’t about to rain
isn’t cloudy.
as all that can mean very little soot gets high up.
Even for India, presumably the same exchange during the Indian monsoon season would lead to almost no soot in the upper atmosphere.
They also assume
Not cold, not winter conditions
Even in Pakistan / Northern India do get colder weather in winter.
That makes a difference because the soot only rises by convection. If the surface weather is cold there wouldn’t be much convection.
Their model is also
simplified in a way that overestimates the amount of soot produced.
They used
a dry atmosphere.
With a moist atmosphere
the latent heat may lead to more soot rising higher, but then
more of the soot might rain out as for the black rains of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
QUOTE STARTS
Unlike a volcano with superheated buoyantly driven exhaust material from the caldera moving rapidly upward and being rapidly transported into the stratosphere, environmental conditions can inhibit BC [Black carbon or soot] transport in nuclear exchange events.
For example, if the exchange takes place
during the winter, or
when clouds are present, or
if the winds are too high or too light to prevent fire spread, and/or
if it is raining or has recently rained,
the amount of BC produced and/or the amount that reaches the lower stratosphere could be relatively small.
Likewise,
if remote military sites are primarily targeted instead of cities,
the amount of BC produced will also be substantially reduced
[added bullet points]https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JD027331
Checking the seasons for North India and Pakistan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_India
Those qualifications rule out:
winter [November to February]
monsoon season [June to September]
most of post monsoon [October to November]
if winds are too fast or too slow for fires to spread
The Loo winds last for days in May to June, strong, dusty gusty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loo_(wind)
They are likely strong enough to disrupt fires.
So the only months that apply are March and April.
In those optimal conditions they got a
a fraction of a degree reduction in temperature for a few years, with most of the effects in the Arctic regions.
Remember that for Pakistan and India,
Reisner and team intentionally overestimates the effects
tweak their model to get as much soot as possible into the upper atmosphere by adopting various assumptions by Robok et al.
For hot flammable Indian cities
Doesn’t work in winter or monsoon season in the same area
The result doesn’t apply to Europe / Russia:
Very different for exchange between Russia and NATO where
conditions are colder,
clouds and rain are more common,
pyronimbus clouds nore likely to rain out,
cities are far more fire resistant with higher percentage of rubble
city fire conditions similar to normal wildfires we get every year
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.
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.
Contents
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I do many more fact checks and debunks on our facebook group than I could ever write up as blog posts. They are shorter and less polished but there is a good chance you may find a short debunk for some recent concern.
I often write them up as “short debunks”
See Latest short debunks for new short debunks
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I do the short debunks more often but they are less polished - they are copies of my longer replies to scared people in the Facebook group.
I go through phases when I do lots of short debunks. Recently I’ve taken to converting comments in the group into posts in the group that resemble short debunks and most of those haven’t yet been copied over to the wiki.
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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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.
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PLEASE DON'T COMMENT HERE WITH POTENTIALLY SCARY QUESTIONS ABOUT ANY OTHER TOPIC: please comment here: https://robertinventor.substack.com/p/post-to-comment-on-with-off-topic-d60
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!