A nuclear strategist at the American Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Vipin Narang has said that India could launch a preemptive first strike against Pakistan if it feared that a nuclear attack was imminent.
According to a report published in Indian daily Hindustan Times Vipin Narang further said that “There is increasing evidence that India will not allow Pakistan to go first”.
“India’s opening salvo may not be conventional strikes trying to pick off just Nasr batteries (launch vehicles for Pakistan’s tactical battlefield nuclear warheads) in the theatre, but a full ‘comprehensive counterforce strike’ that attempts to completely disarm Pakistan of its nuclear weapons so that India does not have to engage in iterative tit-for-tat exchanges and expose its own cities to nuclear destruction,” Vipin added.
