The Pakistani Dream of Second Strike Capablity

The Pakistani Dream of Second Strike Capability

      Recently Pakistani media dawn published that Pakistan already possessed second strike Capability, without mentioning the launching platform, ex Pakistani defense secretary Lt.Gen Khalid informed this in a seminar conducted by strategic vision institute, before talking about such capability one must understand what is second strike capability, If a country attacked by preemptive nuclear strike in a first wave of attack, the country's all strategic based weapons and it's support systems will be compromised, they have no options left to counter the first strike, So they need a overseas territory or an sea based moving platforms that can launch Nuclear missiles,

     The known best option is the Submarine based second strike capability, even with the Submarine based Nuclear missiles, you need guidance from satellites too, the Submarine should communicate with satellites for launching the missile, country owned Navigational Satellite systems also must needed for Second strike capability, the Submarine based second strike option is very expensive, once the launch code initiated by the Country's Strategic forces command, the Submarine will launch the missiles within the second, means almost all SSBN are armed with ready to fire missile, unlike land based other assets.

      For First Strike, one must use the Land based Silo or TEL launchers to launch the Nuclear missile, with full superiority of support access, means the country gets Navigational support and guidance for better accuracy, the missile also targets the country's strategic positions only, also no one willing to launch a single nuclear missile, the first strike comes with ripple launch of missiles targeting major economic and Military positions, makes sure that they will not able to launch a counter strike, so the suffered country need an another option to counter the first strike, that's where it's comes the Second Strike Option.

     The Second strike would need as much as fire power to pose a serious nuclear attack, in a Nuclear war no one will launch a single nuclear missile, during the early 1983, Soviet early warning computers malfunctioned and reported single Minuteman ICBM on the way to Moscow, the soviet commanding officer is intelligent enough to predict it's a false Alarm, since both soviet and Americans know, the first strike could comes simultaneous missiles launches with saturation attack to disable all Soviet land based nuke launching systems and early warning networks.

    Mutual Assured Destruction is the term used in Nuclear war, like rival forces of Russia against US  and NATO allies, and China against south pacific nations and India, these are the only countries in the world who poses clear second strike capability, even India too don't have such capability, the ongoing Arihant Project completed by only 2018 or so, the first Indian Nuclear strategic submarine with live nukes is the INS Aridman S2, the first SSBN INS Arihant is the test vehicle to validate the SSBN capability, while the second one is twice as the size of Arihant. S 2 is capable to carry 24 K-15 missiles, or some 8 K-4 missiles, that can capable to disable entire Pakistani strategic positions.

    The North Korean's recently tests a SLBM launch, with modified diesel submarine and modified lad based missile, the Submarine could carry less than four or two Missiles only, that can't pose concrete second strike capability, the same what Pakistan too trying with the Chinese diesel electric submarine, Pakistan has some Agosta class submarines, who can't carry Nuclear missiles or Pakistani cruise missiles, the Agosta can launch Exocet anti shipping missile through it's torpedo tubes, so there is no way of using the proven Agosta submarines for Pakistani SLBM Program. So if Pakistan tries a second strike they could modify Chinese diesel electric Submarine.

   Indian Army has the full offensive capability and can capable to control entire Pakistani territory with in first 72 hours at the mean time Indian Navy can control the entire Pakistani waters within first 24 hours. so Pakistan has no option to counter Indian Army, that's why they sounding themselves has the Second strike Capability,