Pakistan

[BenBurch]

I think we may be seeing the end of "friendly" relations with our "ally" Pakistan.

In case you spent the last 36 hours testing a new diving bell, Pakistan has arrested several people who helped the USA locate Osama.

If finding and killing Osama is a crime in Pakistan, then I think we know who really runs the place, and its time to recall our ambassador and stop asking them for permission on ANY military matters whether inside their country or not.

This means abandoning Afghanistan, since the supply line is cut, but I don't think we will be able to rescue that country from the blow our previous Administration dealt them with its utterly incompetent attempts to get Osama, and so it is time to cut our losses.

I also think that a series of raids, either by special forces teams or simply by large enough bombs, should be planned to destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons, delivery capability, and processing plants. They must be disarmed before they give the bomb to their dear friends, Al Queyda.

 

[egslim]

I also think that a series of raids, either by special forces teams or simply by large enough bombs, should be planned to destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons, delivery capability, and processing plants.

Are all those locations even known?

It's not so hard to move a few mobile missiles and a couple of nukes to a secret location.

And I think the standard expected response to an attack on a country's nuclear deterrent is nuclear retaliation.

 

[WildCat]

And I think the standard expected response to an attack on a country's nuclear deterrent is nuclear retaliation.

Who would they attack?

 

[hgc]

Who would they attack?

India.

 

[egslim]

Who would they attack?

If the US attacks their nuclear deterrent? Guess.

Pakistani missiles lack the range to hit the continental US, but they could target Diego Garcia, one of the bases in use by the US near the Gulf, or even Israel. Of course they could simply load a nuke onto a little fishtrawler and sail it straight into New York harbor.

Pissing off (and I mean really pissing off) a nuclear power is risky business.

 

[keale]

If the US attacks their nuclear deterrent? Guess.

Pakistani missiles lack the range to hit the continental US, but they could target Diego Garcia, one of the bases in use by the US near the Gulf, or even Israel. Of course they could simply load a nuke onto a little fishtrawler and sail it straight into New York harbor.

Pissing off (and I mean really pissing off) a nuclear power is risky business.

This is true but im sure they also know that if they did that Pakistans major cities will cease to exist also. Thats the thing about nuclear weapons you can get us but we can get you too.

 

[MG1962]

Who would they attack?

based on their last nuclear escalation - themselves lol

 

[Eddie Dane]

If the US attacks their nuclear deterrent? Guess.

Pakistani missiles lack the range to hit the continental US, but they could target Diego Garcia, one of the bases in use by the US near the Gulf, or even Israel. Of course they could simply load a nuke onto a little fishtrawler and sail it straight into New York harbor.

Pissing off (and I mean really pissing off) a nuclear power is risky business.

Excuse me while I put on my sunglasses and crawl under the table with a white sheet over my head.

 

[BenBurch]

...

Pissing off (and I mean really pissing off) a nuclear power is risky business.

Funny that nobody feels that way about US.

My contention is that we either take out these weapons and the capability to make more (to the point of targeting scientists and engineers) or we WILL have one of them loaded on a container and shipped to NYC.

My contention is that Pakistan is at least partially a puppet of Al Queyda or they wouldn't be acting as they have.

 

[Bikewer]

So, in the name of ending our little adventure in Afghanistan, how big a war do you want?

Pakistan is difficult, to be sure. The Taliban are, as everyone knows, pretty much the creation of the Pakistani intelligence services, who wanted a proxy army to cause India trouble.
Now, the Taliban are merrily blowing up Pakistanis while some elements of the Pakistani military/intelligence are evidently aiding them in an active manner.
Pakistan is deeply corrupt, again common knowledge, and much of our aid/assistance monies are pretty much being siphoned off to pad pockets rather than build things.

Still, to hear the various pundits I listen to tell it, there is still a healthy core in Pakistan that is not in favor of religious fundamentalism and is perfectly willing to be a good partner with us and a good neighbor in the region.
So what to do? I think the notion of swooping in and magically taking out the entire nuclear infrastructure of the place is....Fanciful.
And what if we did? Would India, emboldened by the resultant shift in the balance of power, decide to simply grab Kashmir? Or more?
After our prolonged military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, do we want to commit more troops to try to pacify/occupy a large, technologically-advanced nation with a potent military?
Do we just pull out and wave by-by, leaving virulent anti-American sentiment to fester until the next 9/11?
All the pundits I listen to list Pakistan as one of the most dangerous places on Earth. None have a solid proposal as to what to do about it.

 

[WildCat]

U.S. officials say Pakistan has apparently tipped off militants at two more bomb-building factories in its tribal areas, giving the terror suspects time to flee, after U.S. intelligence shared the locations with the Pakistani government.

Those officials believe Pakistan's insistence on seeking local tribal elders' permission before raiding the areas may have most directly contributed to the militants' flight. U.S. officials have pushed for Pakistan to keep the location of such targets secret prior to the operations, but the Pakistanis say their troops cannot enter the lawless regions without giving the locals notice.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

The latest incidents bring to a total of four bomb-making sites that the U.S. has shared with Pakistan only to have the terrorist suspects flee before the Pakistani military arrived much later.

http://my.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20110618/b60f8b3c-6660-40ce-82b4-7f1cef384ee2

 

[BenBurch]

A person (I think it was on Face The Nation) said "Pakistan is not a country with a military, it is a military with a country."

 

[egslim]

This is true but im sure they also know that if they did that Pakistans major cities will cease to exist also. Thats the thing about nuclear weapons you can get us but we can get you too.

So it comes down to political will: The American will to neutralize Pakistan as a nuclear power, possibly in preparation to forced regime change, versus the Pakistani will to defend itself against that.

In that contest Pakistani political will is stronger.

Funny that nobody feels that way about US.

ROFL. No nation-state has pissed off the US for so long, you even forgot what it's like.

The worst any nation-state did to the US in the past 60 years was the Cuban missile crisis. And that was very innocent compared to an actual attack. Even WWII left the continental US unharmed.

Hint: On a 1 to 10 US aggravation-scale, the Gulf of Tonkin incident or invasion of Kuwait weren't even close to a large scale attack on the continental US.

My contention is that we either take out these weapons and the capability to make more (to the point of targeting scientists and engineers) or we WILL have one of them loaded on a container and shipped to NYC.

If you start taking out those weapons and the infrastructure behind them, you will incite Pakistan to launch a nuclear attack against the US. And if the Pakistanis are remotely competent you will not be able to eliminate all weapons simultaneously.

If you don't threaten Pakistan, they won't risk a nuclear exchange.

Even organizations that use suicide bombers restrict that practice to their lowest rank and file. They try to keep their commanders, skilled support staff and other valuable members alive. Nuclear retaliation against Pakistan would wipe out people indiscriminately, so the leadership won't risk it unless severely threatened by attack.

 

[angrysoba]

This means abandoning Afghanistan, since the supply line is cut, but I don't think we will be able to rescue that country from the blow our previous Administration dealt them with its utterly incompetent attempts to get Osama, and so it is time to cut our losses.

I also think that a series of raids, either by special forces teams or simply by large enough bombs, should be planned to destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons, delivery capability, and processing plants. They must be disarmed before they give the bomb to their dear friends, Al Queyda.

I think that before attempting to blast Pakistan to bits there may be other options available to punish the ISI and the Pakistani military. The most sensible strategy seems to me for the US to cut off military aid to Pakistan as that money probably ends up in the hands of the extremists that Pakistan trains to fight against India.

A person (I think it was on Face The Nation) said "Pakistan is not a country with a military, it is a military with a country."

This is has been said about Pakistan many times although the formula was orginally used to talk about Prussia.

It is apparently so true of Pakistan that from what I read in the Economist the US first broke the news of their raid to kill bin Laden to the heads of the ISI and the military rather than the president and prime minister of Pakistan.

There's a really interesting piece on India-Pakistan here.

The other change is over doctrine and delivery. India has long held a position of “no first use” of nukes. Pakistan, by contrast, with weaker conventional forces, refuses to rule out the option of starting a nuclear war against India, and is now taking steps that could make such first use more likely. Last month it test-fired a new missile, the Hatf IX, with a range of just 60km and specifically designed for war-fighting. Two missiles are carried in tubes on a transporter and can be fired, accurately, at short notice. The warheads are small, low-yielding devices for destroying large tank formations with relatively little explosive damage or radiation beyond the battlefield.

Pakistan’s generals say their new tactical weapons will meet a threat from India’s Cold Start doctrine, adopted in 2004, that calls for rapid, punitive, though conventional thrusts against Pakistan. But by rolling out tactical nuclear weapons, Pakistan is stirring fears of instability. Previous efforts to reassure observers that terrorists or rogue army officers could not get hold of nukes rested on the fact that warheads and delivery systems were stored separately and were difficult to fire—and that final authority to launch a strike requires “consensus” within the National Command Authority, which includes various ministers and the heads of all three services, and is chaired by the prime minister.

But tactical nuclear weapons deployed close to the battlefield pose new risks. Command-and-control protocols are likely to be looser and more delegated. If field officers retreating in the face of a conventional attack by India were forced to decide between using or losing their nuclear weapons, a border incursion could swiftly escalate into something very much bigger and more lethal.

This all suggests, as others have done, that the idea of obliterating Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is fanciful. Pakistan is more likely to resort to "use it or lose it" thinking and probably launch a nuclear war with India who will then retaliate.

The US does have other means of leverage over Pakistan and they are probably right now inadvertantly funding the jihadis that Pakistan hopes to use against India but which spend lots of their time going after NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan as well as blowing up people attending volleyball tournaments or shopping in markets.