For its part, the Indian army strategy to right away take the unpleasant under a doctrine called "Cold Start." Cold Start envisions rapid recruitment follow by a major unpleasant into Pakistan previous to the country can respond with strategic nuclear weapons. Such an offensive—and Pakistan's likely conformist defeat—could make the use of planned nuclear weapons all the more likely.
The Indian subcontinent is home to two of the major armies on Earth. Not only are the armies of India and Pakistan both better in person than the U.S. Army, but they have stood at alert facing one another since the termination of the British Indian Army in 1947. The two armies have clashed four times in the past seventy years, and may yet do so again in the future.
The Indian army is the chief land force of the Indian armed forces. The army numbers 1.2 million active duty workers and 990,000 reservists, for a total force strength of 2.1 million. The army's primary tasks are guarding the limitations with Pakistan and China and domestic security—particularly in Kashmir and the Northeast. The army is also a common provider to United Nations peacekeeping missions abroad.
The army is prepared into fourteen army corps, which is further made up of forty infantry, armored, mountain and RAPID (mechanized infantry) divisions. There is just about one separate artillery brigade per corps, five separate unbreakable brigades, seven infantry brigade, and five brigade-sized air defense formations.
Infantry and mountain division are mostly assigned to the mountainous North and Northeast regions, where manpower concentrated counterinsurgency and ton warfare forces are important, while infantry, RAPID, and shatterproof formation sit on the border opposite Pakistan. Perhaps unusually the Indian army has only one airborne unit, the Parachute Regiment, which is actually an umbrella headquarters for army airborne and Special Forces. The Parachute Regiment controls seven special-forces battalion and three airborne brigades.
The army is equipped from a number of sources, primarily Russia and a growing domestic arms industry, with increasing amounts of Israeli and American weaponry. More than 4,000 tanks equip the country's ninety-seven armored regiments (the equivalent of American battalions), including 2,400 older T-72 tanks, 1,600 T-90 tanks, and approximately 360 Arjun Mk.1 and Mk.2 tanks. Complementing the T-72/90 tanks in armored and mechanized infantry formations are BMP-2 mechanized infantry combat vehicles.
Most of the Indian Army's 4,000 weaponry pieces are from Russia, including newer 300-millimeter Smerch multiple launch rocket systems, but the country appears to be turning away from Russian field artillery towards American towed M777 and South Korean K-9 Thunder self-propelled howitzers. A new howitzer, the Dhanush, appears close to widespread acceptance. Air defense artillery, on the other hand, is dominated by Russian equipment, from battlefield Tunguska self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to S-400 "Triumph" high-altitude air-defense missiles.
The Pakistani army numbers 650,000 active duty staff and five hundred thousand reserves, for a total strength of 1.15 million. Although Pakistan resides in what most would believe a rough neighborhood, it is on relatively good terms with neighbors China and Iran. As a result, the army's primary missions are home security operations against the Pakistani Taliban and facing off against the Indian army. Like India, Pakistan is a major donor of forces to United Nations peacekeeping missions.
The Pakistani army consists of twenty-six combat divisions falling under the control of nine army corps. Most divisions are infantry divisions, with only two non-breakable and two automatic infantry divisions. Each corps also gearshift an average of one armored, one infantry and one artillery brigade each. Not only is the Pakistani army smaller than the Indian army, but it skin texture fewer offensive forces competent of attacking India head-on. Special operations forces are concerted under the control of the Special Services Group, which controls eight commando battalions.
The army's tackle is mostly Pakistani and Chinese, with Turkish and American weapons in key areas. The country has fewer than seven hundred frontline tanks, including the Khalid and the T-80UD, with another one thousand rationalized versions of the 1970s-era Chinese Type 59. Pakistan lacks a modern infantry fighting vehicle, relying on more than two thousand M113 tracked indestructible personnel carriers.
Pakistan has nearly two thousand artillery pieces, primarily Chinese and American, but they are older models with little in terms of acquisitions in sight. Standouts among these are roughly 250 M109A5 155-millimeter self-propelled howitzers and two hundred A-100E 300-millimeter multiple launch rocket systems—similar to India's Smerch. One standout category where Pakistani weapons outmatch Indian ones in the area of attack helicopters, where the country fields fifty-one older AH-1S Cobra attack helicopters with another fifteen AH-1Z Vipers on order.
If the two countries went to war, a major clash between the two armies would be inevitable. Outnumbered and under-equipped, the Pakistani army believes it is in a position to launch small local offensives from the outset, before the Indian army can reach its jumping-off points, to occupy favorable terrain. Still, the disparity in forces means the Pakistanis cannot hope to launch a major, war-winning offensive and terminate a ground war on their own terms. As a result, the Pakistani army is increasingly relying on tactical nuclear weapons to aid their conventional forces.
For its part, the Indian army plans to immediately take the offensive under a doctrine called " Cold Start ." Cold Start envisions rapid mobilization followed by a major offensive into Pakistan before the country can respond with tactical nuclear weapons. Such an offensive—and Pakistan's likely conventional defeat—could make the use of tactical nuclear weapons all the more likely.
The adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan makes the Indian subcontinent one of the most dangerous places on Earth. The disparity in forces, war plans on both sides, and the presence of tactical nuclear weapons make a regional nuclear war—even a limited one—a real possibility.