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A peep under South Asia's nuclear
lid
By David Isenberg
Nearly
five years after India and Pakistan demonstrated their
nuclear weapons capability through tests, debate
continues as to whether or not deterrence has worked and
can do so in the future in South Asia, and on the
overall security of the nuclear weapons programs of the
two antagonists, according to a pair of articles in The
Nonproliferation Review journal.
The journal is
published by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at
the Monterrey Institute of International Studies. The
first article, by retired Pakistani Brigadier General
Hassan Khan, who is currently a visiting senior fellow
at the Cooperative Monitoring Center at Sandia National
Laboratories, notes, "If anything, the region has
witnessed increased regional tensions, a rise in
religious extremism, a growing arms race, tense
stand-offs, and even armed conflict."
An example
of this occurred recently when Pakistan's President
General Pervez Musharraf warned, prior to his trip to
Washington, of a possible "non-conventional [nuclear]
war" in South Asia if the West continued to sell weapons
to New Delhi while maintaining a patchy arms embargo on
Islamabad. In such circumstances, Pakistan would have no
choice but to rely on its nuclear weapons.
The
not so subtle threat of further advancing its nuclear
program and doctrine of first use sent Washington
scrambling to mollify Pakistan. Although Pakistan did
not get more F-16 jets as a result of Musharraf's
support for the US in its "war on terrorism" it did get
a US$3 billion trade agreement spread over a number of
years.
Ironically, given the Bush
administration's recent high profile public concerns
about nuclear weapons proliferation in North Korea and
Iran, President George W Bush did not press Pakistan
regarding its nuclear weapons program. This can be seen
as hypocritical since both North Korea and Iran did sign
the 1968 Non Proliferation Treaty, although North Korea
has lately renounced its participation and sent home
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitors.
But neither Pakistan or India, both of which
tested weapons in 1998 - the first Pakistani tests and
the second for India, whose 1974 explosions shattered
the nuclear-free haven of South Asia - have signed the
1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, or the
1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
And by not
signing the NPT, both states are not only able to avoid
inspections, but they've been reluctant, according to
local watchdog groups and the media, to keep their
nuclear facilities, military or civilian, at
international standards of maintenance, raising fears of
accidents.
In his article, Khan notes that
maintaining nuclear stability between India and Pakistan
is a daunting task. He says, "There is zero tolerance
for mistakes in nuclear management and that fact that
command systems are still evolving in South Asia poses
great risks."
One criterion of nuclear stability
is that of crisis stability, or the measure of a
country's incentives not to preempt in a crisis. "The
1967 air strikes against Arab military forces by Israel
is a conventional example." Here, the news is negative.
According to Khan, Pakistani analysts are well aware
that India contemplated "preventive strikes" on two
occasions in the mid-1980s. In 1984, as tension grew
following the occupation of the Siachen glacier, India
considered but rejected plans for attacking Pakistan's
nuclear facility at Kahuta before Pakistan could acquire
the ability to produce highly enriched uranium. And in
1986-87, during the Operation Brasstacks crisis, many
believed that large-scale, provocative Indian troop
exercises were a part of a masked plan for a "preventive
war".
Khan writes, "This perception of a
possible bolt out of the blue strike - by India itself
or in concert with another extra-regional hostile power
- is now an indelible part of Pakistani threat
perceptions. Pakistani strategic planning cannot
discount this possibility. On the other side, since the
Kargil episode [1999], India is not sanguine about the
coherence of the political-security nexus in Pakistan.
Indian leaders continue to feel that elements of the
Pakistani military may act without consulting the
political leadership. This fear remains potent even if
Pakistani political leaders are themselves military
figures. As a result of these calculations, the second
stability criterion - the recognition by both sides that
preventive or preemptive strikes are not viable -
remains shaky and uncertain in South Asia."
Khan
also finds that Pakistan, unlike India, is unwilling to
reject a no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy due to a
conventional military imbalance. He finds that the
Pakistani situation is akin to NATO's position in the
Cold War. There are geographic gaps and corridors
similar to those that are vulnerable to exploitation by
mechanized Indian forces. He writes, "With its
relatively smaller conventional force, and lacking
adequate technical means, especially in early warning
and surveillance, Pakistan relies on a more proactive
nuclear defensive policy."
India also, in Khan's
view, is a problem in that it assumes, just as the
United States assumed during much of the Cold War, that
it can fight a limited conventional war because its
assured destruction capabilities, both conventional and
nuclear, and its ability to maintain escalation control,
will enable India to punish Pakistan without fear of
retaliation.
Furthermore, recent transfers of
conventional military technology to India have improved
its conventional strike capabilities and could encourage
India to undertake a strike primarily using air power.
Compared to Pakistani capabilities, this imbalance
creates a temptation to strike vulnerable targets,
especially air bases and key infrastructure
Another article, by Adrian Pregenzer, a senior
scientist at the Cooperative Monitoring Center at Sandia
National Laboratories, focuses on securing nuclear
capabilities in India and Pakistan from terrorist and
proliferation risks. While there is no consensus on the
nature of the threat, he finds that in the US there is a
general feeling that security at both civilian and
military facilities in both countries may be
insufficient. Specifically, "US officials are concerned
that political turmoil increases the threat from both
insiders and outsiders to nuclear facilities, material
and weapons and fear that nuclear weapons and facilities
could fall into the hands of terrorists or a hostile
government."
While India and Pakistan are not
signatories to the NPT, they are members of the IAEA and
parties to the Convention on the Physical Protection of
Nuclear Material. But only a minority of facilities in
each country is under voluntary IAEA safeguards. In
India, only four of 14 operating power reactors are
under IAEA safeguards, and safeguards are intended for
only two of 12 reactors in the planning or construction
stage.
In regard to Pakistan, its lack of a
no-first-use nuclear doctrine could imply greater
dispersal of nuclear weapons and delegation of authority
to field operations, both of which complicates the
problem of providing security. And while India has said
that it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, it
has said it will massively retaliate against nuclear
attack, which implies a high degree of readiness, and
similar dispersal of weapons and authority.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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