On point of the thread as started by
@VCheng
Sir.
Your original post as quoted:
"How does India invade a nuclear armed country and not get annihilated in return? Is Kashmir really that important?"
Allow me to subject you to a little bit of 'verbose sermon'.
Never has there been a greater tragedy to befall the Human race, than the emergence of a thought that the concepts of 'Victory' & 'War' as being an aim worthy of pursuit.
War was comprehensively yet simplistically defined by Baron Carl Von Clausewitz in his work
On War as
“War is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will” (Book 1, Part 2, p. 75) Clausewitz saw history in relative terms, rejecting absolute categories, standards, and values. The past had to be accepted on its own terms. The historian must attempt to enter into the mindsets and attitudes of any given period.
History, for him, was a dynamic process of change, driven by forces beyond the control and often beyond the comprehension of any individual or group. The approach has emphasised the famous notion that "War is a continuation of politics with an admixture of other means" (
i.e., organized violence) and the recognition that war can vary in its forms depending on the changing nature of policy and of the society within which it is waged.
In contrast, another great mind of the time, Baron Antoine Henri de-Jomini, in his work
Summary of the Art of War (Precis de l'Art de la Guerre, 1838), was of view of history and of war as being static and simplistic. He saw war as a "great drama," a stage for heroes and military geniuses whose talents were beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. He saw the revolutionary warfare in which he himself had participated as merely the technical near-perfection of a fundamentally unchanging phenomenon, to be modified only by superficial matters like the list of
dramatis personae, technology, and transient political motivations. He drew his theoretical and practical prescriptions from his experiences in the Napoleonic wars.
My summation of the above two points is for the benefit of those members who may have a rather simplistic view of war as being an enlarged version of the dance undertaken by two pugilists in a rather bloody yet 'entertaining' bout of boxing on a fine Saturday night. Members would do well to note that the war, by itself, is a perfect admixture of both the above perspectives, and can not be summed up in a word by itself.
Towards this end, I would do grave injustice to another great thinker at the time, Archduke Charles of Austria, if I were to not touch upon his words of wisdom as uttered to the German nation in April 1809:
It is natural to the human mind to look with anxiety on the future; and to endeavour, as far as possible, to calculate the course which events may take; especially in a crisis of extraordinary interest and importance. But it is in general so absurd to attempt prediction, that we should have carefully avoided the dangerous office, if some of our contemporaries had not been more confident; and had not chosen to avow, that they could 'look into the seeds of time, and say which grain would grow and which would not.'
When you talk of the concept of MAD or "Mutually Assured Destruction" the general perception that is carried, and is in fact, foremost on one's mind, is the utter and irreversible destruction of a nation as a demographic and topographic entity.
What most fail to understand is that the concept by itself is implausible and unachievable by a solitary act. There is often the discourse in public domain of the employment of nuclear weapons in a tactical scenario in what may also be called a low yield counter force strike.
What one forgets is that the mere use of the destructive powers of this weapon rests on the cost that the user is willing to pay. It is at this very level that the concept of MAD is a factor in the overall strategic calculus.
In the context of the nations concerned, what is the price that either nation is willing to pay? That is a question that neither you, nor I , nor anyone over here for that matter, can answer.
If we were to enquire the same of the leadership in any of these countries, the leader, howsoever totalitarian or authoritative, will be hard pressed to quantify the price.
