NEW DELHI: Pakistan defence minister Mohammad Khwaja's threat to use "tactical" nuclear weapons is not just a case of political hyperbole. The notion that nuclear weapons deter retaliation by the Indian Army while allowing Pakistan to send jihadis to carry out terror strikes in India is a deeply held view in the Pakistani establishment.
The argument was not totally misplaced as the spectre of nuclear escalation has weighed on India as well - till the line was decisively breached by the surgical strikes by the Indian Army on terror launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The decision indicated that India will no longer buy into the threat of an "irrational" opponent.
The belief in the invincibility of its nuclear weapons has seeped deeply into Pakistani elites, civilian as well as military, aided with a carefully nebulous nuclear stance that does not spell out nuclear red lines. So Pakistan has regularly rattled the nuclear sabre like when it "tested" the nuclear-capable Hatf missile during the Kargil war.
The argument was not totally misplaced as the spectre of nuclear escalation has weighed on India as well - till the line was decisively breached by the surgical strikes by the Indian Army on terror launchpads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The decision indicated that India will no longer buy into the threat of an "irrational" opponent.
The belief in the invincibility of its nuclear weapons has seeped deeply into Pakistani elites, civilian as well as military, aided with a carefully nebulous nuclear stance that does not spell out nuclear red lines. So Pakistan has regularly rattled the nuclear sabre like when it "tested" the nuclear-capable Hatf missile during the Kargil war.
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