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Superpower by 2020.

• pjc50 8y ago
  India arguably became a superpower when they acquired their first nuclear bomb in 1974. However, the recent Kashmir conflict has not made their conventional forces look very good.
  • swarnie_ 8y ago
    Nukes only really work when you flex against someone without them, see Russia and the Ukraine or America and most the world. The dick waving contest between India and Pakistan is probably the scariest situation on earth right now.
    • 687ma4 8y ago
      The reason why nations with a very low average IQ should not be allowed to have nukes. IN/PK having nukes bothers me much more than Russia or China having nukes.
      • justforfunhere 8y ago
        Could you provide some source/citation from where you came to this conclusion that IN/PK have low average IQ.
        • rudiv 8y ago
          Already gone. I'm not surprised to see the sentiment expressed though - things like the space program tend to bring out the racists in full force.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • simonh 8y ago
      It doesn't always work even then. Just look at the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. We could have crisped half the population of Argentina in theory, but it really wasn't even a point of political discussion. The Taliban was complicit in the murder of ~3,000 US citizens but again nukes were not on the table. Having said that, we can't automatically assume that would never provoke Britain or the US to a nuclear response, wouldn't provoke a more extreme reaction in another country in different circumstances. Britain and the US were never existentially threatened.
      • hyeonwho4 8y ago
        To be fair, "just nuke afghanistan" was a phrase I heard several times in 2001. Maybe 10% of the US population would have welcomed use of nukes. More, if it had been packaged as part of with-us-or-against-us rhetoric.
        • simonh 8y ago
          That doesn't mean it was on the table as a serious political option. I chose my words carefully.
      • saiya-jin 8y ago
        You are wrong here [1], Thatcher threatened Mitterrand to nuke Buenos Aires if he doesn't give her codes to Exocet missiles sold by French to Argentinians earlier. Just to be clear - she was stating she happily kills hundreds of thousands of civilians in a horrible way just because 20 Navy sailors died during war (personally I think its pretty clear she was bluffing, but maybe Mitterrand knew something on her that made him bulge). Calling her 'Iron lady' is insult to all proper ladies of this world [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/22/books.france
        • simonh 8y ago
          I'd recommend not simply uncritically believing everything you read. As far as I can tell this is a complete fiction invented by a dodgy French psychoanalyst to spice up his me-too biography of Mitterrand. French support for us during the conflict was immediate, extensive and un-stinting, far beyond what you could coerce with such a transparently ridiculous threat. Furthermore the account in his book doesn't even match the actual sequence of events. French co-operation with us began immediately, not after the destruction of the Sheffield many months into the conflict. Furthermore missiles like the Exocet don't have 'codes' you can use to remotely disable them. Why would they? There's also no evidence the UK ever had or used anything like that. The whole thing is poppycock from start to finish.
    • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Nukes work great against other nations that have them. Just because they're never used doesn't mean they don't work. If they didn't then the Cuban missile crisis would have just been "the start of WW3". The ability of any nation with nukes to have a good enough shot at inflicting catastrophic damage on any nation that attacks them acts as a great equalizer. Every nuclear nation is a nation that nobody else is going to pick a serious fight with with the possible exception of massive deficits in military power (nukes or not if NK levels Seoul for whatever reason the US and China will probably send in troops to calm things down). Uncomfortable peace is still better than war.
  • adventured 8y ago
    No country becomes a superpower courtesy of nuclear bombs. Ask North Korea and Pakistan, both of which are feeble in terms of economy and military. India is still extraordinarily poor today and in 1974 it was that much worse. They have zero global superpower reach either economically or militarily. Both economically and militarily they're still very much a regional power. The largest economies do not fear India's economic power, yet. The US is the sole superpower today and it most certainly doesn't fear India's economic power. The US is only just becoming concerned with China's economic might in the last six or seven years. China's currency has only a small amount of global reach and influence, India's currency wields almost none. Their GDP per capita is #139 in the world, below East Timor. Given 30 years they should become a middle income country (assuming some setbacks along the way). In 50 or 60, if everything goes right, they could be a superpower.
  • simonh 8y ago
    Having nuclear weapons isn’t the sole factor in becoming a superpower. Britain has had nukes almost as long as there have been nukes, but I wouldn’t describe us as a superpower, or France, or Israel.
• rudiv 8y ago
  It's meaningless, just like most political slogans meant for domestic consumption. E.g. MAGA, etc.