#5 India doesn't want Pakistan, Gliper Phereck2334, and neither do we. From all I've read about it, especially Rantburg's professor of history (Indian Subcontinent) john (tenured, of course) and the blogs of disaffected emigrants, Pakistan is the question which the neutron bomb was invented to answer. I can only hope that our bomb makers are building up the inventory in anticipation of this future need.
I do not believe in glassing over large portions of the limited real estate available on humanity's only planet, however satisfying that might feel. We have non-nuclear weapons that can clear the landscape of bad people and their dangerous things without permanently (a couple thousand or hundred years is permanent enough for me, given my projected span of 120 total) taking the real estate out of inventory, not to mention that which floats downwind. Yes, I know that people moved back to Hiroshima ahortly after, and I know that Chernoble is now a flourishing nature preserve, while Europe appears largely unaffected by the windborn dust. And I've reluctantly concluded that it's highly probable we are going to have to wipe out the Arab world, to keep from having to kill every single Muslim and Muslim sympathizer everywhere... But different weapons for different purposes: glassing over Western Saudi Arabia would be a salutory lesson for the Muslim world, while limiting harm to crucial assets, but glassing over Pakistan teaches nothing, while preventing overflow Indian population from productively colonizing empty lands.
Gliper Phereck2334, I realize you only suggested invasion, not nukes. But I'm working through this, and I'm afraid your post triggered the fallout. (Sorry!) |