the lethality of another Indo-Pakistan war

I actually (unlike nearly everything else) have no real opinion on the relationship between India and Pakistan, both sides are extremely biased towards the other and the decade old hatred doesn't seem to have thought neither side anything whatsoever!

Another Indo-Pakistani war in the near future would be particularly lethal and may be the first time to see nuclear weapons deployed on human beings in this century.

Many say that following the Kargil war (the last war fought between the two countries) that diplomatic relations are beginning to commence, but truth be told mutual suspicion of the other governs their relationship.



But the cost of a war if fought with no clear winner (and listening to both sides assessment it would be hard to determine just that), could result in the near annihilation of both.

Take the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980's as an example, Iran had an economic and arms embargo on it and when attacked by a massive Iraqi force it managed to push it back and fight a devastating war on the offensive against Iraq (which was being armed by 44 countries) resulting in well over 1,000,000 slaughtered and both countries heavily damaged economically.

But the military arsenals of both of those countries wasn't enough to fight a large scale precise war, for example the Iranian Air Force very seldom went on offensives since their jet fighters were such a high asset, the Iraqi Air Force at the time had to fight a very conventional war with older MiG's (with the exception of a few dozen Mirage F-1's).

The Pakistanis on the other hand sport a good few of the good old F-16's, while they have also ordered 250 JF-17 fighters, (an interesting development to watch), the Indians on the other hand have over one hundred Su-30's and 40 Mirage 2000's.

The Iraqi Scud missiles gave Iraq the ability to make the people of Tehran flock to the hills throughout the war with Iran, but as seen on their full long term use against Tel Aviv proved capable of "only" killing a small number of Israelis using conventional explosives.



The Pakistanis and the Indians however not only have over 60 nuclear warheads each but also nuclear missiles with a range of up to 2,500km to deliver them to each others cities, this gives them (unlike the Iraqis and the Iranians) the ability to instantly wipe out thousands of each others people.

What bugs me about this is the fact is that Iran doesn't have a single nuclear warhead and have been scrutinized by the same western governments that allowed and encouraged Pakistan to build up a hefty arsenal of its own only ten years ago!



This has ensured that if and when India and Pakistan finally clash once again over religious and ethnic tensions they will have the opportunity to reek hell on each other!