In “Pakistan's Battlefield Nuclear Policy,” Jaganath Sankaran argues that Pakistan's threat to employ tactical nuclear weapons in a war with India is not credible because the use of such weapons would cause the immediate deaths of hundreds of thousands of Pakistani civilians while achieving negligible military effects.1 Sankaran, however, misunderstands how Pakistan is likely to employ nuclear weapons during wartime; he overstates the likely number of Pakistani civilian casualties from the initial use of tactical nuclear weapons; and he understates the potential negative battlefield consequences for the Indian army. Why would any rational Pakistani leader pull the trigger if it inevitably meant the death of so many Pakistani innocents and only a few Indian military personnel? If Sankaran's analysis is to be believed, no leader would. Thus, Pakistan's threat to use tactical nuclear weapons to deter Indian conventional operations has been a bluff. That conclusion is dangerous, because if...
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Spring 2016
April 01 2016
Correspondence: Battling over Pakistan's Battlefield Nuclear Weapons
Christopher Clary,
Christopher Clary
Christopher Clary is a postdoctoral fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He thanks Mark Bell, Gurmeet Kanwal, Feroz Hassan Khan, Walter Ladwig III, Jeffrey McCausland, Nicholas Miller, Vipin Narang, David Smith, and members of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their helpful comments.
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Gaurav Kampani,
Gaurav Kampani
Gaurav Kampani is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Tulsa.
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Jaganath Sankaran
Jaganath Sankaran
Jaganath Sankaran is Assistant Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.
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Christopher Clary
Christopher Clary is a postdoctoral fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He thanks Mark Bell, Gurmeet Kanwal, Feroz Hassan Khan, Walter Ladwig III, Jeffrey McCausland, Nicholas Miller, Vipin Narang, David Smith, and members of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their helpful comments.
Gaurav Kampani
Gaurav Kampani is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Tulsa.
Jaganath Sankaran
Jaganath Sankaran is Assistant Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Online Issn: 1531-4804
Print Issn: 0162-2889
© 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
2016
International Security (2016) 40 (4): 166–177.
Citation
Christopher Clary, Gaurav Kampani, Jaganath Sankaran; Correspondence: Battling over Pakistan's Battlefield Nuclear Weapons. International Security 2016; 40 (4): 166–177. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_c_00240
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