Summarizer

Just a note that the importance of the triad is a very American perspective on deterrence and most other countries don't seem to approach this the same way the US does. The Russians really have a quad (they also have mobile, truck mounted ICBM's that form a significant part of their deterrent, offering some of the guaranteed second-strike advantages that the US gets from SSBN's- and which their SSBN program does not provide nearly as well as the USN does). The Chinese only recently added a manned aircraft leg of their triad with the JL-1. The Indians technically have a triad- just no silo based systems, all of their land based missiles are from TELs, and they only have two SSBN's and do not do alternate crews so more than 1/3 of the time they don't have any deterrent at sea. The Israeli's are not believed to have any sea-based ballistic missiles, their sea-based deterrent would be Popeye cruise missiles and so vulnerable to interception. The Pakistanis are still building their first sea-based deterrent. The French and the UK have no land-based missiles, they are only sea-based and airplanes. The South Africans invested in the Jericho missile more for its space launched capabilities than its warhead delivery abilities, and never really looked at anything sea-based, so far as is publicly known.

Nuclear capability by itself isn't a complete deterrent. It has been widely reported that the US military has made contingency plans for a decapitation strike and seizure or destruction of nuclear weapons in Pakistan in case the situation turns really bad there. Real deterrence requires a credible second-strike capability on survivable platforms such as submarines.

> the US military has made contingency plans for a decapitation strike and seizure or destruction of nuclear weapons in Pakistan in case the situation turns really bad there. Real deterrence requires a credible second-strike capability on survivable platforms such as submarines. The existence of a plan does not equate to the feasibility of its execution. A submarine-based deterrent is indeed the "gold standard" for survivability, but it is not the only standard. There is enough pain for the US that they wouldn't actually attack Pakistan.

>There is enough pain for the US that they wouldn't actually attack Pakistan. The US does have the advantage that the surviving Pakistani nukes might very well end up flying to India instead :)

> There is enough pain for the US that they wouldn't actually attack Pakistan These are the states whose Senators are in play this year [1]. Let's say Trump decides it's fuck-around-with-Islamabad-o'clock. He fucks around. Pakistan nukes at India. How many of those Senate seats flip as a result? I'm going to guess none. Let's go one step further. Pakistan nukes Al Udeid and Camp Arifjan (both theoretically within range of their Shaheen-III). American troops are killed. Does the President's party lose any seats? At that point, I'd bet on a rally-'round-the-flag effect. The truth is there isn't political downside to the President fucking around with Pakistan. Its nuclear deterrent isn't designed to contain America. And it can't threaten us with maybe the one thing that could make Trump suffer, a refugee crisis. [1] https://www.270towin.com/2026-senate-election/

> Let's say Trump decides it's fuck-around-with-Islamabad-o'clock. He fucks around. Pakistan nukes at India. How many of those Senate seats flip as a result? I'm going to guess none. If America does something to pakistan, then pakistan wouldn't bomb India but rather America In your scenario India did literally nothing. I know the rivalry but even then India has its own nukes and if India wasn't part of the plan then case would be on America A much more likely scenario is that Pakistan's military would take over (Pakistan has never been really stable after its independence) and their ties with china would grow and China would feel threatened as well and if things go the same as venezuela that is that Trump says that they would control pakistan for time being (similar to venezuela) then China would be genuinely pissed and a WW3 conflict can arise considering China could send their military there and the possibility of nuke could be a choice if the war really happens between America/China but the possibility of it is really really slim and depends on how the war goes.

>If America does something to pakistan, then pakistan wouldn't bomb India but rather America This is a mistaken assumption. It is very likely that the nukes would always fly to India unless the US somehow communicated their intent before acting. In a situation where you're launching nukes in retaliation, you're usually not waiting very long to think about where you're going to be sending them to.

> then pakistan wouldn't bomb India but rather America This isn't an option. Not within a nuclear window. The only bases within range are Al Udeid and Camp Arifjan. Hence its inclusion in the above scenario. > then China would be genuinely pissed and a WW3 conflict can arise This is tantamount to saying Pakistan can't actually retaliate. Which is my point. Pakistan's nuclear deterrent doesn't actually deter America. China does.

Huh? How would Pakistan do that exactly? They have zero capability to strike the US homeland. In theory they might be able to hit a US military base in the region but even doing that successfully would require an extraordinary level of luck.

>but even doing that successfully would require an extraordinary level of luck. On a normal day it'd probably not be a huge problem for Pakistani ballistic missiles to penetrate those bases’ own air defenses. However if the US was planning a strike, there'd certainly be Aegis BMD coverage there, which would be a problem. It's possible they'd even deploy THAAD to protect some bases.

Maybe Pakistan, or Israel.