Idiots who argue that all of India needs to be hit or that all of Pakistan need to be hit for a critical hit are.. well idiots. For the US and USSR it made sense to cover such large areas and hence have the large amount of warheads they have. Considering the geography of India and Pakistan, population centres and the strength of the state to respond to(in terms of disaster management and recovery) .. Pakistan will always need MORE nuclear weapons than India to ENSURE that the Indian state is unable to ever return to normalcy or continue as a single cohesive entity. It is that calculation that goes into the number of nuclear weapons you keep, not exacting in sq km of the entire geographical mass of the country.
Pakistan on the other hand is the target of 20 to 25 odd strikes on its major population centres to essentially end the state of Pakistan. Again, this will NOT stop nuclear warheads from being lobbed at India till they run out...but Pakistan will cease to exist as a state.
Wiki has a rather good article on the effects of nuclear explosions.
Effects of nuclear explosions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lets look at a different angle, from the views of a limited nuclear conflagration. Same limited number of bombs are lobbed at each other and then nations decide to back off under international and internal pressure/shock: There was a study carried out jointly by a US Environmental NGO known as NRDC along with professors at Princeton..so the credentials of the study should be pretty well acceptable. I will only paste the excerpts relevant to the post.
Zia Mian - The Program on Science and Global Security
M.V. Ramana - The Program on Science and Global Security
Abdul Hameed Nayyar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
They have only targeted the Northwestern Indian cities due to their understanding of Pakistan's nuclear attack capabilities. Considering the study is now 13 years old and the capabilities of both nations are much more advanced and thorough.. it cannot be taken as but a reflection of a likely scenario. Their take on the results of a limited nuclear exchange of 24 ground explosions is as follows.
For the second scenario, we calculated the fallout patterns and casualties for a hypothetical nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in which each country targeted major cities. We chose target cities throughout Pakistan and in northwestern India to take into account the limited range of Pakistani missiles or aircraft. The target cities, listed in the table below, include the capitals of Islamabad and New Dehli, and large cities, such as Karachi and Bombay. In this scenario, we assumed that a dozen, 25-kiloton warheads would be detonated as ground bursts in Pakistan and another dozen in India, producing substantial fallout.
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NRDC calculated that 22.1 million people in India and Pakistan would be exposed to lethal radiation doses of 600 rem or more in the first two days after the attack. Another 8 million people would receive a radiation dose of 100 to 600 rem, causing severe radiation sickness and potentially death, especially for the very young, old or infirm. NRDC calculates that as many as 30 million people would be threatened by the fallout from the attack, roughly divided between the two countries.
Besides fallout, blast and fire would cause substantial destruction within roughly a mile-and-a-half of the bomb craters. NRDC estimates that 8.1 million people live within this radius of destruction.
Most Indians (99 percent of the population) and Pakistanis (93 percent of the population) would survive the second scenario. Their respective military forces would be still be intact to continue and even escalate the conflict.
Study:
NRDC: The Consequences of Nuclear Conflict between India and Pakistan
The last line is an interesting point to note. That even with such major attacks, both India and Pakistan are seen as continuing to survive the conflict and still attacking each other(this bears hints to the Sunderji doctrine and brasstacks with its practising NBC warfare). The study naturally states it well that while India will lose more people, it accounts for a lesser percentage of the population than Pakistan.
One thing to note however is that while the NRDC believed that both states would continue with the "limited" scenario, I have my doubts regarding Pakistan. The reason for this is that the NRDC study was carried out in 2001 during a relativly stable government and very little impact of terrorism and extremism in Pakistan. Today there is a lot more polarization along with sectarian and ethnic strife that may lead to "warlords" coming out in the open to declare war within Pakistan within a few years of a limited yet devastating nuclear strike.
Which brings us back to why 200 warheads. This scenario is well understood by the Pakistani state and hence the focus is more and more on sending a covert overt message to the other side that any future conflict will no longer be limited. Pakistan is willing and able to commit suicide rather than die a horrible slow death. With more developed delivery systems with greater range to target all but the farthest of Indian cities, Pakistan will ensure that the devastation to India and Indian ecology is sufficient enough to .. rather dismally.. ensure a horrible life for the surviving Indian state and its people. Again, it is VERY likely that even in this all out conflict most of Indian and Pakistani population will survive.
But you dont need 2000 to have a very damaging or fatal effect on the Indian state. Just enough to kill a substantial number of the population. And then again, there are various studies which show exactly how even a "limited" conflict will result in a disaster which plays not one year, not five year.. but will plague the subcontinent, China, the Middle east...and Central Asia for decades to come.
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