While the world is focused on testing ballistic missiles in North Korea

© AP Photo / Anjum Naveed
Shaheen-III Pakistani nuclear caring rocket   

While the world is focused on testing ballistic missiles in North Korea, another potential conflict raises more and more fears. In July, 11 people were killed and 18 injured in the shootings between Indian and Pakistani soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir, and four thousand people were forced to leave their homes.

On Sunday, the former Minister of Information and Broadcasting of India, Wenckai Naidu, whom the National Democratic Alliance nominates as vice president of the country, said that Pakistan must remember the end of the clash in 1971, when Pakistan suffered a defeat during the third Indo-Pakistani war, and Bangladesh gained independence.

Former Indian defense minister and oppositionist Mulayam Singh Yadav said last week that China is using Pakistan to attack the country and is preparing Pakistani nuclear warheads to attack India.

Warheads and Doctrines

In the spring of this year, The New York Times reported that India is thinking about changes in the interpretation of its nuclear doctrine that prohibits the use of nuclear weapons first. Previously, India prescribed only a massive retaliatory strike, which implied strikes against enemy cities.

According to the newspaper, the new approach may imply the use of preventive limited nuclear strikes against Pakistan's nuclear arsenal for self-defense purposes. For now, all this is, rather, speculation, as conclusions are drawn on the basis of analysis of statements by Indian high-ranking officials without any documentary evidence.

But even such assumptions, firstly, can push Pakistan to increase its nuclear capabilities and launch a chain reaction of the nuclear arms race between the two countries, and secondly, can force Pakistan to escalate the conflict for the reason for India to strike first.

© AP Photo / Elias Asmare

A few days after the publication of The New York Times, Pakistan accused India of speeding up the military nuclear program and preparing for the production of 2,600 warheads. In its June report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) noted that over the year India has added about 10 warheads to its arsenal and is gradually expanding its infrastructure to develop its nuclear weapons.

Former Pakistani brigadier general Feroz Khan, an expert on Pakistan's nuclear program, previously stated that Pakistan has up to 120 nuclear warheads.

Last week in Washington, this Pakistani expert also said that Islamabad's plans for the use of nuclear weapons are based on the NATO doctrine of the Cold War, when it was supposed to use tactical nuclear strikes against the advancing forces of the enemy. To this, however, critics of Pakistan have objected that Islamabad uses its nuclear status as a cover for conducting a terrorist war in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

For India, the presence of Pakistan's tactical nuclear weapons has become a problem. If Pakistan uses only tactical nuclear weapons and only on the battlefield, then India, bombing the Pakistani cities in response, will look in black. Hence the talk about changing the interpretations of the doctrine, when it is necessary to have time to eliminate the Pakistani arsenals before they are put into operation.

Another reason - the arrival of Trump to power in the United States. India believes that with the new American president, it has much more freedom in making decisions on the nuclear program. US relations with Pakistan under Tramp also go downward: Americans stopped considering Islamabad as a reliable ally in the fight against radicals in Afghanistan. India, of course, is reassuring.

A script that everyone is afraid of

The growing tension on Hindustan can lead to catastrophic consequences. A trigger that triggers a chain of events leading to a preventive nuclear strike from one side or the other can be an escalation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir or a major terrorist attack in India, like an attack in Mumbai in 2008.

The main problem, according to many analysts, is that no one knows what are the criteria for using nuclear weapons by Pakistan and what exactly it can perceive as the beginning of the war by India. The second problem is that the terrorist attacks in India may not be connected with Pakistan at all, but it will be difficult to convince the Indian side.

In 2008, an American study was published on the consequences of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The authors concluded that although the total charges of the two countries are not so great, their application will lead to a climate catastrophe that will cause large agricultural problems and massive famine. As a result, according to the report, about one billion people will die within ten years. So it seems that the distant problem of India and Pakistan really concerns the whole world.