My apologies, I got the opposite impression because you mentioned it in a thread with a title starting with "The Losing deterrence of ..."
First let me commend you for taking time to think and write out a very good piece on this topic, my regards.
But I do not agree with the title of this thread and conclusions drawn, let me explain my point of view with a bit of history of tactical nukes.
In some time in early 90s, when USSR had collapsed, I remembered reading a paper which was talked about then I think in US Military Review about USSR war plans in case of war with NATO. These plans surprised quite a number of people.
Basically, in 70s-80s, USA enjoyed an edge in strategic nuclear weapons and also was able to keep a sizeable portion of IRBMs in Western Europe while USSR bid to place the same in Cuba had failed in 60s. USSR tried to counter-act this perceived imbalance by planning a conventional strike across West Europe in case of war without triggering a nuclear exchange a.k.a Soviet Cold Start. It massed a sizeable amount of armour in Eastern Europe especially against West Germany in a salient feature known as Fulda Gap. This Soviet armour concentration and perceived soviet ability to strike across Fulda Gap in one of three directions and possibly seize important German cities such as Frankfurt before a bigger US formation could arrive from the other side of Atlantic must have given NATO planners quite a few sleepless nights.
They ultimately solved this problem by deploying tactical nukes especially in West Germany. Doing that basically assured that any major conflict and success of Soviet conventional forces will get 'escalated' toward a full blown nuclear exchange which was what Soviets were trying to negate.
This than resulted in some 'statements' and noises made by Soviets about striking first etc. but the seriousness only got revealed after Soviet collapse. To counteract US tactical nukes they were left with no option but to start the conventional war with nuclear strikes in West Germany and Northern Europe on all targets where they considered any nuclear weapons were held/deployed without making a full blown nuclear strike on strategic weapons held/deployed by French, British or US. Well, we do not know how that could have played out.
You should see the Indian statements in the same context. Their plans of a conventional strike without igniting a full nuclear exchange got counteracted the same way by Pakistan deploying tactical nukes. Initially they responded by stating that any use of nukes even tactical, even on our own soil will result in a nuclear strike by them. That is basically a non-statement , this is exactly why tactical nukes are deployed for i.e to assure an escalation towards a full nuclear exchange and therefore deterring an enemy from making a conventional strike as well. Indians must have known the worthless-ness of this statement and have been heading in the same direction and making same type of plans as Soviets made when in the same situation. They certainly would have formulated plans and must be in process of implementing them to make a first nuclear strike to counteract Pakistan's ability to deter their conventional strike with tactical nukes. These new articles and statements are not directed toward Pakistani planners, ours must have already studied NATO and Soviet strategies and plans in depth, but are oriented towards their own personnel in lower rungs of leadership to prepare them for such an eventuality.
Questions are, will their new strategy work? and what is or should be our response?
Soviets strategy to counteract tactical nukes was to make a limited nuclear strike, only on tactical nukes and IRBMS deployed inside Northern Europe, they kept even French and British deployed weapons out of these planned strikes. And also enjoyed the chance of US, there main opponent, well away from Europe and not part of landmass/nations being struck, therefore their theorising that a limited nuclear strike is feasible. Although how it would have actually played out is unknown as Soviets collapsed before they could put this plan in action ever.
On the other hand Indians do not enjoy such a situation, both nations have a common border and Indians strike corpse will not be advancing in Guatemala (aka West Germany). They will be advancing right inside our own territory and distinguishing between tactical or strategic nuclear targets will be practically impossible, they cannot have the luxury of thinking that Pakistan will balk from replying to a limited nuclear strike on its soil. Hence they are giving feelers of enacting a full blown nuclear strike, which ridiculously, they are now calling a 'pre-emptive' strike. But if you peel away all the shenanigans, it is basically a Hot Start rather than a Cold Start.
Now what is or aught to be our response. I think Pakistani planner never gave even a dime to Indian statements of 'no first use' and had planned from start to handle a first strike from Indian side.
First, That is why all of our missiles, whether ballistic or cruise, are mobile rather than Silo based. Mobile launchers are inherently far more difficult to plan against and require a far larger number of warheads to achieve same amount of confidence as against silo based launchers. This is the reason why even Russians are converting a portion of their land based strategic forces into mobile launcher based.
"I think that" Indians are presently, in number of warheads and launchers, not at the level to achieve the reasonable confidence in success of such a strike. They will need to increase their fissile material production and number of warheads and delivery vehicles significantly to reach that level. (As a side not, I think that what US did for them in terms of removing restrictions of NSG, so that Indians could be free to utilise their own reserves for military purposes, was seen here as what it is. A full blown, and I'll say a brash attempt to help India to actually be able to try attempting what I have mentioned above. And 'most probably' is the reason why we headed to the Yellow Sea to accept what they had been offering again and again for a number of years).
Second, members of this forum, had seen recent test for MIRVed capability in terms of response to Indian attempts at attaining ABM capability. But history of MIRV development do not attest to this, they were not developed to counter-act ABMs. They were developed to harden your nuclear force's capability to still be able inflict massive punishment even if a sizeable portion had been lost in a strike by the enemy. "It may be the case" that when Pakistani planners were planning tactical nuke, looking at history, they had already started planning for the next steps up the nuclear escalation ladder.
Third, SLCMs are already being tested and it is possible that other plans may be in the offing to strengthen 'second strike' option more.
