Karna_A: The question remains. What is the basis for saying that "Pakistan will drop a low-yield nuke on Indian forces in their territory"?
Again, this is an example of just repeating Pakistan's threats, without trying to see if they are valid. IOW, post-1987, there is a petrification / fossilization in Indian thinking on this.
WHY would Pakistan drop a low-yield nuke, given the rest of what you wrote there? Are they incapable of figuring that part out? Reading the Pakistani newspaper columns by fairly knowledgeable ex-military or diplomat types, it is clear that they don't believe in this instant nuclear-option stuff. Only Indians are petrified by the threat. Pakistanis make it pretty clear that they don't even believe that there is a single nuke left in TSP.
But some other things can be safely assumed:
a) Any large move of tanks into TSP would be preceded by pretty heavy raids on TSP's assets, including storage depots for any nukes. Lists of facilities are exchanged, but that only means that those will be targeted in the first 5 minutes, and that they will be empty.
So the tactical nukes etc. will be in unannounced places, and of course most will be known from intel or aerial / satellite imaging or tapped cellphone communications, so all such facilities will get hit. As long as that air/missile war phase is going on, any use of nukes means a strategic exchange, so it is not going to happen.
b)Any commander who uses tactical nukes knows that he and his entire force will be annihilated, or caught and tortured to death. I don't doubt that Pakistani officers have sworn to defend their slum to the death, but using tactical nukes is the exact opposite: it guarantees the extinction of your slum as well. So will he use the weapons?
c) Meanwhile the choice facing the top brass in TSP is a quick exit or death, and I see no evidence that they will choose the second option.
d) Any field officer who gets tactical nukes in his control, including the knowledge to arm and fire them,
becomes an instant coup threat in Pakistan. So allowing tactical nukes to fall into the hands of junior suicidal types is incompatible with survival, and hence there is no way that the top brass will allow that. Consider this: Colonel Abdul is given tactical nukes, and ordered to go fire them at the Indian forces. He has 2 choices:
i) Mass death
ii) Turn around and drive back towards Pindi and aim and arm the nukes, and invite the govt to invite him in as the next Mahdi /CEO. So that he can sue for peace, showing that he saved 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 lives in India AND Pakistan. Instant praise in DC and Dilli.
Which do u think Abdul will choose? Can't the TSPA top brass figure that out?
e) So... the threat of tactical nukes is empty. They cannot afford to let those fall into the hands of anyone who can use them.
f) Once the tactical nukes are gone, and the fuel is over, the TSPA armored divisions have only one option: White Flag Calisthenics.
So the whole TSP threat is a paper tiger. Yeah, I know.. I sound like the mad general in "Octopussy"
Inside 96 hours we will have conquered all of western Europe!
Let me know what are your arguments against these. Simply declaring that "Pakistan will use tactical nukes against advancing Indian forces" is Tom Clancy level of argument, does not survive elementary levels of thinking. One has to look deeper.
P.S. After u have had a chance to read this, I am going to move these posts to RahulM's thread on "Boom or Bluff?" where I see that more authoritative ppl than I have also gone a lot deeper than the Tom Clancy assumptions. But they have not yet pointed out that real reason why tactical nukes cannot be used - the coup threat. The only interest on this thread is that Indian non-response is largely because of unthinking Indian self-terrorization.