How real is the risk of nuclear war?

Within the newest India-Pakistan stand-off, there have been no ultimatums, no crimson buttons.

But the cycle of navy retaliation, veiled alerts and swift worldwide mediation quietly evoked the area’s most harmful shadow. The disaster did not spiral in the direction of nuclear battle, nevertheless it was a reminder of how rapidly tensions right here can summon that spectre.

Even scientists have modelled how simply issues may unravel. A 2019 research by a worldwide workforce of scientists opened with a nightmare situation the place a terrorist assault on India’s parliament in 2025 triggers a nuclear change with Pakistan.

Six years later, a real-world stand-off – although contained by a US-brokered ceasefire on Saturday – stoked fears of a full-blown battle. It additionally revived uneasy recollections of how fragile stability within the area may be.

Because the disaster escalated, Pakistan despatched “twin alerts” – retaliating militarily whereas saying a Nationwide Command Authority (NCA) assembly, a calculated reminder of its nuclear functionality. The NCA oversees management and potential use of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Whether or not this transfer was symbolic, strategic or a real alert, we might by no means know. It additionally got here simply as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly stepped in to defuse the spiral.

President Trump stated the US did not simply dealer a ceasefire – it averted a “nuclear battle”. On Monday, in an deal with to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated: “[There] is not any tolerance for nuclear blackmail; India won’t be intimidated by nuclear threats.

“Any terrorist protected haven working underneath this pretext will face exact and decisive strikes,” Modi added.

India and Pakistan every possess about 170 nuclear weapons, based on the think-tank Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute (Sipri). As of January 2024, Sipri estimated there have been 12,121 nuclear warheads worldwide. Of those, about 9,585 have been held in navy stockpiles, with 3,904 actively deployed – 60 greater than the earlier 12 months. The US and Russia collectively account for greater than 8,000 nuclear weapons.

The majority of each India’s and Pakistan’s deployed arsenals lies of their land-based missile forces, although each are growing nuclear triads able to delivering warheads by land, air and sea, based on Christopher Clary, a safety affairs knowledgeable on the College at Albany within the US.

“India probably has a bigger air leg (plane able to delivering nuclear weapons) than Pakistan. Whereas we all know the least of Pakistan’s naval leg, it’s affordable to evaluate that India’s naval leg is extra superior and extra succesful than Pakistan’s sea-based nuclear pressure,” he advised the BBC.

One cause, Mr Clary stated, is that Pakistan has invested nowhere close to the “time or cash” that India has in constructing a nuclear-powered submarine, giving India a “clear qualitative” edge in naval nuclear functionality.

Since testing nuclear weapons in 1998, Pakistan has by no means formally declared an official nuclear doctrine.

India, against this, adopted a no-first-use coverage following its personal 1998 checks. However this stance has proven indicators of softening. In 2003, India reserved the proper to make use of nuclear weapons in response to chemical or organic assaults – successfully permitting for first use underneath sure circumstances.

Additional ambiguity emerged in 2016, when then–defence minister Manohar Parrikar steered India should not really feel “sure” by the coverage, elevating questions on its long-term credibility. (Parrikar clarified that this was his personal opinion.)

The absence of a proper doctrine does not imply Pakistan lacks one – official statements, interviews and nuclear developments supply clear clues to its operational posture, based on Sadia Tasleem of Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace.

Pakistan’s nuclear threshold stays obscure, however in 2001, Khalid Kidwai – then head of the Strategic Plans Division of the NCA – outlined 4 crimson strains: main territorial loss, destruction of key navy property, financial strangulation or political destabilisation.

In 2002, then-president Pervez Musharraf clarified that “nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India”, and would solely be used if “the very existence of Pakistan as a state” was at stake.

In his memoir, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote that he was jolted awake at night time to talk with an unnamed “Indian counterpart” who feared Pakistan was making ready to make use of nuclear weapons throughout the 2019 stand-off with India.

Across the identical time, Pakistani media quoted a senior official issuing a stark warning to India: “I hope you recognize what the [National Command Authority] means and what it constitutes. I stated that we’ll shock you. Look forward to that shock… You’ve gotten chosen a path of battle with out understanding the implications for the peace and safety of the area.”

Throughout the 1999 Kargil Struggle, Pakistan’s then-foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed warned that the nation wouldn’t “hesitate to make use of any weapon” to defend its territory. Years later, US official Bruce Riedel revealed that intelligence indicated Pakistan was making ready its nuclear arsenal for doable deployment.

However there’s scepticism on each side over such claims.

Former Indian excessive commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria wrote in his memoir that Pompeo overstated each the danger of nuclear escalation and the US function in calming the battle in 2019. And through Kargil, Pakistan “knew the Indian Air Pressure would not cross into its territory” – so there was no actual set off for even an implicit nuclear risk, insist Pakistani analysts.

“Strategic signalling reminds the world that any battle can spiral – and with India and Pakistan, the stakes are greater as a result of nuclear overhang. However that does not imply both facet is actively threatening nuclear use,” Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst, advised the BBC.

However nuclear escalation can occur by chance too. “This might occur by human error, hackers, terrorists, laptop failures, dangerous knowledge from satellites and unstable leaders,” Prof Alan Robock of Rutgers College, lead writer of the landmark 2019 paper by a worldwide workforce of scientists, advised the BBC.

In March 2022, India by chance fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile which travelled 124km (77 miles) into Pakistani territory earlier than crashing, reportedly damaging civilian property. Pakistan stated India failed to make use of the navy hotline or problem a public assertion for 2 days. Had this occurred throughout heightened tensions, the incident may have spiralled into critical battle, specialists say. (Months later, India’s authorities sacked three air pressure officers for the “unintentional firing of a missile”.)

But, the hazard of nuclear battle stays “comparatively small” between India and Pakistan, based on Mr Clary.

“As long as there’s not main floor fight alongside the border, the risks of nuclear use stay comparatively small and manageable,” he stated.

“In floor fight, the ‘use it or lose it’ downside is propelled by the likelihood that your floor positions will likely be overrun by the enemy.” (‘Use it or lose it’ refers back to the strain a nuclear-armed nation might really feel to launch its weapons earlier than they’re destroyed in a primary strike by an adversary.)

Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford College’s Hoover Establishment, believes that “neither India nor Pakistan desires to be labelled as the primary violator of the post-Hiroshima nuclear taboo”.

“Moreover, any facet that resorts to the usage of nuclear weapons would face substantial retaliation and undergo unacceptable casualties,” Mr Ganguly advised the BBC.

On the identical time, each India and Pakistan seem like beefing up their nuclear arsenal.

With new supply methods in growth, 4 plutonium reactors and increasing uranium enrichment, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may attain round 200 warheads by the late 2020s, based on The Nuclear Pocket book, researched by the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Info Mission.

And as of early 2023, India was estimated to have about 680kg of weapons-grade plutonium – sufficient for roughly 130-210 nuclear warheads, based on the Worldwide Panel on Fissile Supplies.

Regardless of repeated crises and shut calls, each side have thus far managed to keep away from a catastrophic slide into nuclear battle. “The deterrent remains to be holding. All Pakistanis did was to answer standard strikes with counter-conventional strikes of their very own,” writes Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst.

But, the presence of nuclear weapons injects a continuing undercurrent of threat – one that may by no means be totally dominated out, regardless of how skilled the management or how restrained the intentions.

“When nuclear weapons may be concerned, there’s at all times an unacceptable degree of hazard,”John Erath, senior coverage director on the non-profit Heart for Arms Management and Non-Proliferation, advised the BBC.

“The Indian and Pakistani governments have navigated these conditions previously, so the danger is small. However with nuclear weapons, even a small threat is simply too giant.”