In case your are forget cold start is a recent doctrine, tailor made after failure of Operation Parakram.
India has yet to have an opportunity to implement it,,before that Indian doctrine called strike corps size invasion forces, which would aim to cut Pakistan into half and capture major cities, which was one nuclear thresh holds of Pakistan.
When 2008 Mumbai happened Cold Start was still on the drawing board, with only couple of exercises in the bag there was no mobilization back then.
You are claiming the success of Pakistani nuclear doctrine based on the fact India has not invaded, apply reverse logic i.e since Pakistan has not nuked India, that would mean that Indian doctrine is a success??
Perhaps, but I can safely say, I know atleast as much as you do. However I do know this for a fact Pakistan has limited land area to disperse it weapons and countries as huge as US and Soviet union chose to deploy majority of its weapons at sea.use to have nuclear bombers in air 24/7, in DEFCON 3 upwards conditions.As they were pretty sure that enemy first strike will destroy or disable most of it land based systems and only way to ensure second strike capability was to hide them at sea.
Where is the time window, your SFC will have to bring the nuclear weapons from different parts of Pakistan(where they are stored separately to ward of accidental launch or falling into hands of terrorists) , assemble them, mate them with missile then punch in the launch codes, this process will take days if not weeks, where as Indian weapons launched from the sea will not need to go through steps 1, 2,3 but just launch codes, they will be on their targets with in 2- 7 mins.
Then offcourse the aim will be to take out more than 50 % of your arsenal in first strike.Even the EMPs created by these strikes will disable all electronics and communication throughout entire Pakistan. Theoretically if India launched enough weapons in first strike it can take out your entire land based arsenal. Practically offcourse some would survive the initial blast or even survive them EMP, but would that be enough to overwhelm India's BMD systems??..maybe.. but to cause unacceptable damage..I think not.
Hence we have a mature and declared nuclear doctrine, we will not fire the first nuclear weapons, but our nuclear doctrine if implemented will ensure that we will fire the last shot.
You may want to research more . Because the basic idea of " Cold Start " is nothing new to the Indian Army , being first tested in its crudest form during Op.Brasstacks itself .I know the " improved " upon Cold Start is a recent addition and somehow appears to have gone " cold " due to the recent developments on the other side - not only factoring in the " specific missile " . Unlike the Indian nuclear doctrine which recently added " the attack on any Indian forces anywhere " , the Pakistani one hasn't changed and been quite consistent from the beginning . Pakistan doesn't guarantee that it will not attack any country if its " thresholds " which remain " largely unclear " or " unknown " are crossed . Since no other side has dared to invade Pakistan and no " red lines " have been crossed until now after the testing of " first nuke " - which isn't Chagai I or II , there's no reverse logic that applies here . On the other hand , India has chosen not to test Islamabad's resolve at least four times now since date , which speaks volumes of the success of Pakistani " deterrence " .
If you did , you wouldn't have made a comment that India can somehow perform a sort of " decapitation strike " and still get away " unscathed " and somehow win a " nuclear war " - a fallacy in itself since there are no winners . Pakistan still has sparely populated - desert and mountainous areas in which these nukes or all terrain TELs can be successfully dispersed which makes for a robust " second strike capability " - something the Americans have hinted at , from a long time ago . The completion of the " nuclear triad " isn't far away whilst you only have one nuclear submarine for now , which cant be on patrol at sea at all times . You are choosing a wrong example here , nothing between India and Pakistan is comparable to that of U.S and the now defunct U.S.S.R. since their stockpiles , yields , delivery systems and second strike capability were more advanced than you think . We are neither that far away from each other nor have the technological capability to early detect and strike as both country used to have and still do .
What are you assuming here ? That they have to brought from some far far away land to one central location to be mated and launched ?
It is generally thought that the Strategic Forces Command can bring its weapons to a " launch " state in a 5-7 minutes window , in emergency times/crisis . So it isn't , if getting ready for a nuclear strike would take hours or days for Islamabad , the time window will not exceed any more than 10 minutes . @
AhaseebA As for the usual " accidentally setting off " or " terrorists launching nukes " , save it for Funny threads , not the stuff that is relevant here anyways . May I know just how many weapons can be launched from " sea " in one go , taking into account the current Indian capability ? Does the number exceed even five ?
No .
How do you plan on taking out that percent of the Pakistani arsenal if I may know ? What intelligence do you have about the location of the nuclear weapons and the launch sites anyways ? Why exactly has it already been done then ? I remember the Indians were quite desperate to attack Islamabad during Op.Parakram . What then if not the nuclear threat caused them to back away since they know more than us and would have factored in , all that stuff . If it were to work like that and EMP would be that efficient to prevent " missile launches " , that would have been done long time ago by either side or during the Cold War . So , how many " weapons " are enough as per you to dent Pakistan's capabilities to counter strike ? I said even if 50% of Pakistani arsenal survives ( which means around 60 ready to go " nukes " ) , they would be enough to cause " unacceptable damage " to the adversary and that thing isn't hard to understand looking at your most populous cities . You still have a lot to learn about your " adversary " or " Pakistan's nuclear capabilities " before assuming things that make no sense .
Yeah , something yet to be proven whilst on the other hand , you have a complete history of the " enemy " standing at the gates but ordered not to " cross " it .
What makes you think that we care about what "Pakistan's main stockpile" is? A nuclear warhead aimed at our forces will warrant a fitting and disproportionate(all out) response. I'd encourage you to read Sandy's posts for further elaboration.
Ok , just tell them then not to cross the border and risk the entire Indian population then . If you hadn't cared , wouldn't you have crossed the borders ?
Four times and counting !
