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United States military strategists believe that India may seek to destroy Pakistani nuclear arsenal if it appeared that the stockpile was about to fall into the hands of terrorists.
"India, another nuclear power, would not stand idly by, if it appeared that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal was about to fall into the hands of extremist," The Washington Post quoted the strategists as saying.
They said India might seek to destroy Pakistan's nuclear stockpile by a pre-emptive action, which could provoke a new war in the subcontinent.
The US military had conducted more than 25 war games involving a confrontation between India and Pakistan, and each had resulted in a nuclear war, Air Force Colonel (retd) Sam Gardiner, an expert on strategic games, was quoted as saying.
The next step that worried experts, said the Post, was the regional effect of turmoil in Pakistan. If the Pakistan government fell, other Muslim governments friendly to the US, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, might follow suit, the experts said.
Harlan Ullman, a defence analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a non-governmental think-tank, said the ultimate nightmare "is a pan-Islamic regime that possesses both oil and nuclear weapons".
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