The India-Pakistan doomsday scenario

The so-called nuclear game, the one experts fear but deem most likely, starts with an act of Pakistani terrorism. Already, attacks across the border that separates Indian and Pakistani Kashmir occur almost daily. On Thursday, for example, as Pakistan moved troops toward the area of conflict, a pair of Muslim militants stormed an Indian police camp in Kashmir, killing three policemen and wounding several others. India, observers argue, will eventually respond to these kinds of cross-border raids. And if civilians are targeted -- as they were in a May 14 attack on an Indian army camp in Kashmir, which killed 34 people, most of them women and children -- the likelihood of a reprisal from India becomes almost inevitable, some experts argue.

That response would almost certainly not be nuclear, however. "If such an attack occurs, I expect India will strike across the Line of Control [which separates Indian Kashmir from Pakistani Kashmir] with both air and ground forces," says retired Col. Dan Smith, a security expert at the nonprofit Center for Defense Information. Where the attack occurs will likely define the next stage of war. If Indian troops threaten a Pakistani-held city in Kashmir, like Muzaffarabad, President Pervez Musharraf might wait and press for diplomacy, Smith argues. But India's military capacity dwarfs Pakistan's, and if the conflict moves beyond Kashmir -- to a more vital city like Lahore, which rests south of Kashmir but close to the Indian border -- then "all bets are off," Smith says. "Anything could happen."

More specifically, adds Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an anti-proliferation nonprofit, Musharraf would likely weaponize one or more nuclear warheads. That is, he'd load the weapon onto a delivery device, a plane or missile. It's hard to know how or when this might occur. The details of Pakistan's nuclear capabilities remain classified or unknown. Pentagon officials, speaking generally, have said that Pakistan has "a couple of dozen" warheads that are capable of delivering a yield of about 15 kilotons, or 15,000 tons, of TNT. (This is about the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.)

But no one seems to know how long it would take for such weapons to be readied for combat, if in fact they aren't already locked and loaded. And when the details surrounding deployment remain shrouded in uncertainty, and both Pakistan and India suspect that the other side is willing and able to push the button, the possibility of a preemptive first strike increases.

"Currently it's believed that India and Pakistan have not weaponized their warheads, but there will be the concern on each side that it's happened," says Kimball. "So as a conventional war is occurring, they may think that a nuclear option is right behind; they may take action in a way that they might not otherwise take."

If nuclear weapons have already been deployed in the field, the danger may be more acute. "If the ability to use these nuclear weapons has been given to regional military commanders, then their use can come about earlier in the battle," says M.V. Ramana, a physicist and research staff member in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security. "Either because of false alarms, misinformation, accidents or intentionally, but without permission from higher political authorities."

Both Indian and Pakistani leaders seem more willing than ever to use nuclear weapons. On Thursday, Pakistan threatened once again to use its nuclear weapons. And Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has spoken repeatedly of the need for a "decisive battle." He's defended his country's right to use its nuclear weapons, which are at least 10 times as powerful as Pakistan's, according to India's claims. Plus, the political party that Vajpayee leads -- the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party -- is considered by many to be the political wing of a rising racial and Hindu mythology that lends itself to extremism.

"There's a suicidal bent that's rising," says Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist who was born in Karachi, grew up in Bombay and who is now president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Md. "It's a hallmark of the nuclear age: I'm going to wipe them out if they're going to wipe me out. These are the kinds of statements being made, and they're not responsible."

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