Watts argued, given the questionable assumptions on both sides, it is not difficult to envision a future conventional military conflict between India and Pakistan spinning out of control and escalating to nuclear use. Watts said perhaps the most obvious trigger could be another Mumbai-like terrorist attack that India could simply not ignore. Watts said the lack of great insight into each other’s red lines and nuclear proliferation among the countries could also be a trigger. Watts argued the size, character, safety and reliability of the American nuclear arsenal offers Washington little leverage in deterring, or stopping, a nuclear conflict on the Indian subcontinent.
Watts argues that the potential use of a nuclear weapon in the next 10 to 20 years, and its perception that it was strategically successful for the country that used it, could cause the world to go in one of two directions: The first being that international revulsion against breaking the nuclear taboo would be so strong and widespread it would precipitate the necessary transformation of world politics to render nuclear abolition possible. The second would be that limited use of low-yield nuclear weapons would become the “new normal” and give rise to a second nuclear age whose danger and uncertainties will “dwarf” those of the first.