A nuclear war between India and Pakistan in May 2025 was ‘predicted’ in 2019!

On 22 April 2025, a deadly attack in Pahalgam, kashmir, claimed 26 lives, mostly Hindu tourists. The Resistance Front initially took responsibility before retracting. India swiftly blamed Pakistan for supporting cross-border terrorism, an accusation Islamabad firmly denied. In response, India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, expelled Pakistani diplomats, and sealed its borders. Pakistan retaliated in kind, and both sides reported ceasefire violations along the Line of Control beginning 24 April. By 30 April, India had closed its airspace to Pakistani carriers. With tensions soaring, global powers, including the UK and US, urged both nuclear nations to step back from the brink.

India and Pakistan each possess an estimated 170 nuclear warheads within their respective military arsenals. As such, a nuclear exchange between the two nations would involve the detonation of merely three per cent of the world’s total nuclear stockpile. However, even such a limited exchange, carried out over a brief period, could result in the immediate deaths of over 100 million people and trigger profound climatic disruption on a global scale.

This scenario was examined in detail in a study published in October 2019 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, entitled “How an India-Pakistan nuclear war could start—and have global consequences.” Led by a team of atmospheric scientists including Alan Robock and Owen B. Toon, the study projected that, depending on the yield of the weapons employed—ranging from 15 to 100 kilotons—the number of immediate fatalities could fall between 50 and 125 million. Urban centres would be largely obliterated, critical infrastructure decimated, and the capacity for emergency response overwhelmed.

Beyond the immediate and devastating human toll, a nuclear conflict would have far-reaching climatic consequences with the potential to disrupt global systems for decades. Even a regional nuclear war—such as a hypothetical conflict between India and Pakistan—could ignite massive firestorms capable of injecting between 16 and 36 million tonnes of soot into the upper atmosphere. This soot would absorb sunlight and reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface by 20 to 35 per cent, leading to a sudden drop in global average temperatures of between 2 and 5 degrees Celsius. This process, commonly referred to as “nuclear winter,” would result in decreased precipitation, widespread agricultural failure, and severe food insecurity affecting potentially billions of people.

The study further underscores that in the event of a large-scale nuclear exchange—such as between the United States and Russia—up to 150 million tonnes of black carbon could be propelled into the stratosphere. This would diminish incoming solar radiation by as much as 70 per cent and cause an average global temperature decline of approximately 10°C. The magnitude of this climate disruption would be sufficient to induce a prolonged nuclear winter, devastating global agricultural production, destabilising ecosystems, and undermining economic and political systems worldwide.

The authors presented a troubling hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could occur in May 2025. This specific date was not chosen arbitrarily, but was based on their projections regarding the growth of the nuclear arsenals of both nations. By that time, India and Pakistan were expected to possess between 400 and 500 combined nuclear warheads. The authors selected a near-future timeline to underscore the urgency of the threat, highlighting that such a conflict could unfold within the span of just a few years if current trends continued unchecked. By placing the potential crisis in 2025, the authors aimed to focus attention on a very real risk in the short term, urging policymakers and the international community to take action before the situation reached a critical point.

It is striking that the hypothetical scenario outlined by the authors bears an uncanny resemblance to the current escalation of military tensions between India and Pakistan. As of 1 May 2025, the conflict threatens to spiral into a nuclear exchange, with catastrophic consequences not only for both nations but for the wider world as well.

Screenshot of the article “How an India-Pakistan nuclear war could start—and have global consequences”.

Should they not be fully informed, the data and conclusions presented by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists must be promptly brought to the attention of the governments of India and Pakistan before they consider any decision that might lead to the escalation of an armed conflict of a nuclear nature.

Screenshot of the article “How an India-Pakistan nuclear war could start—and have global consequences”.

Such a confrontation would not only result in the immediate annihilation of tens of millions of human lives in the region but would also trigger devastating global consequences, indirectly affecting all of humanity. Projections indicate a regional climatic collapse that would lead to a catastrophic food crisis. In the worst-case scenario, the conflict could spill beyond its original borders, drawing in other nuclear powers and culminating in a large-scale nuclear war, with effects exponentially more destructive than initially envisaged.

It is the moral and strategic duty of all States—particularly those possessing nuclear capabilities—to act with responsibility, restraint, and full awareness of the irreversible consequences that any hasty decision would entail.