Electrolite: Grab your hat

May 22, 2002

Grab your hat Meanwhile, Charlie Stross points out that the “topic du jour” might look pretty provincial and old-news on just a few minutes’ notice, if Pakistan and India start tossing nuclear weapons—which is by no means out of the question.

Get this: it’s a water war, among nuclear powers with up to 250 atomic weapons between them, and a festering grudge. […] My guess is that if this goes nuclear, it will kill more people than the first world war — possibly more than were killed directly during the second world war. The likely after-effects (famine, drought, and civil unrest) will do for many more.
We’re teetering on the edge of this catastrophe, one so huge it makes 9/11 look like a storm in a tea-cup, and the most frightening thing to behold is how little attention it’s getting in the navel-gazing west.

Up to now, it’s been pretty easy for most of us, so far, to push worry about this into the back of our minds. (At least, for those of us without friends and family in South Asia.) But if it happens, I don’t think many of us are ready for the sheer shock. Are you ready for Calcutta or Bombay to no longer exist? Are you ready for megadeath, even the megadeath of strangers? This week? Have you thought through how it will feel? [01:27 PM]

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Comments on Grab your hat:

Mac Thomason ::: (view all by) ::: May 22, 2002, 02:10 PM:

As I was saying in the wrong place, China has been friendly with Pakistan in the past. If they get involved with India, this could get very bad.

Man, am I dumb.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: May 22, 2002, 02:36 PM:

My impression is that China has been "involved" for a long time, at least to the extent of using Pakistan as a way of bedevilling their enormous long-term strategic rival India.

David Joseph Greenbaum ::: (view all by) ::: May 22, 2002, 05:17 PM:

That would be my impression, as well. The "involved" part is just more of that wonderful interstate niggling "stop-touching-me" crap that sovereign states use to remind each other that borders exist.

I don't want to armchair speculate on the imminent likelihood of war in south Asia, nor on the proximity of direct Chinese intervention. I would like to wonder, though, how many high-level high-latency military-political contacts are being put into place?

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: May 22, 2002, 06:52 PM:

Nowhere near enough, is my impression, which is why onlookers are mega-worried. There's nothing like the "hot line" that American and Soviet/Russian leaders have maintained.