The Telegraph says that India plans war within a couple weeks, to clean out the terrorist camps. They apparently want to get it over with before the monsoon season starts in July. The most disturbing thing is this:

One officer said he believed there was only the "slimmest chance" of nuclear weapons being used. "We will call Pakistan's nuclear bluff," he said. It [the nuclear factor] cannot deter us any more."

I hope he's right that it's a bluff. It's not a bet I'd make.

If India was going to strike Pakistan proper, then I'd be more worried too. But striking at terrorist camps in Kashmir, when Musharraf has also publicly stated he doesn't like terrorists either? Maybe the general will use this to his advantage, publicly decrying the attack but quietly hoping for its success.

I keep wondering if the Indians and Pakistanis view nukes the same way we did, as strategic weapons primarily. Mutual Assured Destruction may not be their model (reasonably so for India, less so for Pakistan). It's obvious that the Pakistanis view their nuclear program as an issue of national and Islamic prestige as much as, or more than one of national security. It's also obvious that the Pakistanis have much more to lose than the Indians in the event of a nuclear exchange. What isn't obvious is whether that's relevant to them.

It's always dangerous to assume another is using the same calculus of reasonableness you are. Saying "they don't want this to happen any more than we do" is just setting yourself up for a Wile E. Coyote moment, when too late you realize that the universe is using different rules than you think it is. There is plenty of evidence that the Soviets during the Cold War considered a general nuclear exchange as "winnable," while it was an article of faith of US policy that it wasn't. That meant that we needed to maintain survivable forces and huge overkill to keep the stakes too high for the USSR to think they stood a chance. Some of Carter's startegic pronouncements and policies were so dangerous in that regard that I still shudder retroactively when considering them.

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