Maverick's World

"Taking POK" - a discussion of some technical aspects - V

In the previous post, I worked through my understanding of the Pakistani strategic perspective and how that might influence their response to an Indian attempt at "Taking POK".

Now I want to walk through some of the loose ends. These are things to which I feel there are no obvious answers or no answers at all.

Let's start with the issue of nuclear weapons.

Can Pakistan use its tactical nuclear weapons in a "counterforce" role in this conflict? - Well... yes but if used in "Azad Kashmir" - the clouds of radioactive dust will end up falling on Pakistan's national capital region. In Gilgit Baltistan, if such weapons are used, then it is likely the fallout will contaminate the Indus River which supplies water to most of Pakistan. A certain group of Indians believe this makes it unlikely that Pakistan will use nuclear weapons in this case. I do not agree with this assessment as it assumes a "rational actor" model. I am more inclined to take an expansive view of the Kidwai "red lines" (sometimes called Musharraf's Red Lines) - as I feel any immediate loss of face in Kashmir is likely to have personal repercussions for Pakistan's military leadership - that makes a discussion on "rationality" difficult.

Can India use its nuclear weapons to coerce Pakistan into backing off on its land grab? - Sure - but then that visibly crosses a red line. If India does that, Pakistani Generals will simply as - "So what is to stop them from doing this and marching into Karachi or Islamabad tomorrow? ". You can see where that thinking leads.

I think it is safe to say - that as soon as the conflict erupts Pakistan will clearly signal its desire to use nuclear weapons for its defense. How the Modi government will manage that - I cannot foresee. I feel a race a to dominate the ensuing escalation will follow. I cannot guarantee that in the fog of war - mistakes will not be made and a breakdown of nuclear deterrence will not occur.

Even if neither of those things happen - i.e. no mistakes and no breakdown - there is a problem. Truth be told, no one wants to really fight a nuclear war but just look like they will do it if needed. The real strategic use of nuclear weapons is mainly to create a circumstance by which your opponent is bankrupted by arsenal servicing costs. If in the rush for escalation dominance - the "no mating" clause is broken, then it unclear if either Indian or Pakistani economies will survive the costs of maintaining a sizable nuclear arsenal at a high level of readiness.

There is the troubling matter of the fog of war.

Communications in the mountains are quite challenging. Mountains absorb radio waves and unless satellites are available to bounce signals over them, it is difficult to retain connectivity. I am obviously touching upon the "third dimension" aspect of modern warfare which is quite crucial to success in any military expedition, but I do not want to get into the specifics of how that will play out. It suffices to say that whoever is able to maintain the logistics of information (high velocity data transport, and reliable encryption) will have an advantage in the battles that follow. There is no clarity on this issues really and the entire field is rife with disruptive technologies. It is impossible to really estimate the impact this will have on the fog of war on either side.

And will the fog of war created in one theater of operations couple to others? Will the fog spread from conventional theaters to nuclear theaters? - I don't know if there an answer to that*.

Now we can briefly talk about the thing that we should ONLY have talked about - the economic cost of "Taking POK".

I pointed out that the gains for India for "Taking POK" are more in the non-monetizable realm - but the costs of mobilizing such a military expedition are in the monetizable realm. As with any war - one can pay for it by creating debt as long as there is some hope of economic growth which will pay the war debt. If such growth can't be arranged, the expedition will result in more damage to the aggressor than to the target. An economy with a declining growth rate offers little chance of paying off war debts. And paradoxically in history - every failing economy has a political group that attempts to promote war as an avenue to economic revitalization**. When the war inevitably leads to an internal economic collapse, the resulting famine and disease kill far more people than the enemy fire ever did. No matter how many times nations play this game - they always lose and somehow generations of people forget to learn this key lesson. There is no way to predict economic growth obtained by stealing the land next door - especially when the land grows no food, has no minerals and generally brings with it hostile populations who resist assimilation.

In short - Yes India can think about "Taking POK" and probably do it too - but the Indian economy may not grow as a result of this campaign and without growth - the war debt will not be serviceable. This bad debt will cause a depression. If you think the present recession is bad, perhaps you should not consider ideas that will invite a depression.

That is all I have to say for now. If I think of anything more I will write about it.

* Usually when a physicist tells you "I don't know if there is an answer to that question" - you should really consider stopping that line of thinking - but that's just my suggestion. I provide physical models of complex dynamics for a living, and I usually see great misfortunes when people forge ahead with poorly posed physics at the root of their engineering schemes.

** I actually use the desire to go to war in a national security mechanism as  good gauge of how bad the true growth in the economy is.  Today in developed economies it is very easy to hide debt and create hedonomic numbers that look awesome while the real economy crumbles. When elements of a national security mechanism start talking about war - that suggests to me that their nation is in a very different economic place than the numbers are showing on their central bank's website.

posted by maverick @ 5:30 AM