Maximizing minimum nuclear deterrence
By Ninan Koshy
The new Indian Minister of State for Defense Pallam Raju, soon after assuming
office on Monday, asked the global community to put pressure on Pakistan, which
he is concerned "is crossing the minimum deterrent threshold".
Just three days earlier, Indian army chief General Deepak Kapur expressed his
concern over reports of Pakistan's efforts to increase the number of its
nuclear warheads. He also emphasized that Pakistan is expanding its nuclear
arsenal beyond what is required for minimum deterrence.
Pakistan is possibly supplementing or replacing its current uranium-based
nuclear weapons arsenal with plutonium-based
weapons that are more destructive and easily deliverable, the US Congressional
Research Service said in a report in mid-May. Members of Congress have been
told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear
arsenal.
There is reason to believe that India's nuclear capability, with its
expansionist doctrine and burgeoning defense machinery, is largely responsible
for the growth of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
When the India-US civilian nuclear deal went through last year, India managed
to get de facto status as a nuclear weapon state. During the discussions on the
deal, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh repeatedly assured the nation that
it would not affect the strategic program of the country, meaning its nuclear
weapons program. But what exactly is this strategic program?
After virtual silence on its nuclear doctrine for a long period, a government
press release on January 4, 2003, "shared with the public" the Cabinet
Committee on Security's review of the "operationalization of India's nuclear
doctrine".
It assumed that the public already knew about India's nuclear doctrine, so now
it was explaining how the doctrine was being made operational. This assumption
itself was strange, since all the public had heard of until then was a draft
nuclear doctrine released in August 1999, by the lame-duck Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) government on the eve of elections. This draft had been criticized
on several grounds by opposition parties, including the now ruling Congress.
But all criticisms and suggestions relating to the draft were totally ignored.
The press release of January 4, 2003, gave a "summary" of the nuclear doctrine.
It spoke of "building and maintaining a credible minimum deterrent", a position
of "no first use", a second-strike capability that would be massive and
designed to inflict unacceptable damage and retained the option of retaliating
with nuclear weapons in the event of a major attack against India or Indian
forces by biological or chemical weapons.
What exactly is minimum deterrent? No nuclear weapons state has ever admitted
that its stockpile is at more than the minimum level. Even if a state begins by
saying that only a minimum number of nuclear weapons are necessary, perceptions
about the threat and estimate of the adversary's weapons, the action-reaction
process, all lead to raising the minimum.
In the 1960s, Robert McNamara expressed the view that for credible deterrence,
the United States needed 400 megatons of nuclear weapons. This was known as
"sufficient defense". Even after the US made thousands of megatons of nuclear
weapons, they were not found to be sufficient. The Indian nuclear doctrine
actually prescribes an open-ended, far-reaching program of nuclear
weaponization that will constantly push the limits of any minimum not only for
itself but also for any adversary.
To speak of credible deterrence is a contradiction in terms. The basic problem
in all nuclear deterrence is the inherent lack of credibility. This is due to
the fact that the reprisals envisaged are, by definition, wholly
disproportionate in their effects and militarily pointless. While one can hope
to deter hostile actions by threatening to massacre millions of innocent
people, it makes no sense whatsoever when the time has come to carry out the
threat, not even if it can be done with impunity.
Deterrence must be dangerous, genuinely dangerous if it is to be effective. It
follows that there can be no such thing as a "stable", "pure" or "minimum"
deterrence.
The term deterrence has to be confined to its proper meaning. It has the same
Latin root as "terror" and should denote a policy of dissuasion based on
threatening reprisals which should outweigh any conceivable benefits from
attack. Defense on the other hand is a policy of dissuasion based on
counter-posing such force that an attack would be certain to fail. The two
modes of dissuasion are incompatible in practice.
The Indian doctrine stated, "The fundamental purpose of Indian nuclear weapons
is to deter the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons by any state or entity
against India and its forces anywhere." What will be the minimum deterrent
required for "credible" second-strike capability and for "punitive retaliation"
against any state or entity which can include the US or the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization?
Deterrence is the readiness and willingness to fight a nuclear war. According
to the doctrine, India is ready for such a war against any state or entity
anywhere, not just some neighboring countries whose threat was originally
claimed to have led to India's acquisition of nuclear weapons.
The doctrine gives a definition of credibility. "Any adversary must know that
India can and will retaliate with sufficient nuclear weapons to inflict
destruction and punishment that the aggressor will find unacceptable if nuclear
weapons are used against India and its forces."
Credibility apart, at least the reason for possession of nuclear weapons is
clear. It has nothing to do with defense. It cannot defend the country from a
nuclear attack. All it can do is hit them with "punitive retaliation",
"destruction and punishment the aggressor will find unacceptable".
So India's nuclear weapons cannot protect in case an adversary, say Pakistan,
attacks. For instance, all they can do after a million or so Indians are killed
is to kill, say, 10 million Pakistanis and destroy substantial parts of
Pakistan. This must be a great source of assurance and comfort to all Indians.
While the famous draft nuclear doctrine of India was gathering dust in the
office of the National Security Adviser, the United States substantially
revised its nuclear doctrine. There is reason to believe that the BJP leaders
were much influenced by it. While they found legitimization for India's nuclear
weapons program in the new posture of the US they were ready to endorse the new
doctrines of the US.
The classified Nuclear Posture Review of the US, details of which appeared in
the media in the second week of March 2002 revealing the Pentagon's ambitious
nuclear battle plans, redefines the role of nuclear weapons as fundamental to
US defense policy, places new emphasis on the utility of nuclear weapons in US
military doctrines and strategy and changes the very concept of deterrence.
For the first time, the US sent strong signals that it was contemplating new
uses for nuclear weapons. First use and first strike are large on the nuclear
agenda of the US. The changes in doctrine are related to nuclear weapons and
deterrence as well as "strike-first" and "hot pre-emption".
India's minister of state repeatedly referred to the "no first use" policy of
India. Pakistan also claims to have a similar policy. The National Security
Board in mid-2002 asked the government "to review its no-first-use of nuclear
weapon policy in the light of history of the last four years".
It was evident that the new Nuclear Posture Review of the US and the doctrine
of pre-emption considerably influenced the board. According to an exclusive
report published in India Abroad the National Security Board's final report
recommended that "India should consider withdrawing from this commitment as
other nuclear weapons have not accepted this policy”. Further, the no-first-use
policy is compromised by stating that in the event of an attack by chemical or
biological weapons, India will retaliate with nuclear weapons.
From the time of the India-Pakistan Kargil war of 1999, there has been the
distinct dark shadow of nuclear weapons on India-Pakistan relations. The
Subramonyam Committee's - headed by K Subramonyam, the doyen of Indian
strategists - authoritative review of Kargil notes that during the conflict,
Pakistani officials and non-officials alike attempted to convey certain implied
nuclear threats. Nuclear threats and counter-threats of nuclear retribution
were frequent during the border confrontation crisis. Each government also used
missile tests to convey warnings and to signal its political resolve.
The Indian military establishment seems to have reacted to this inability to
convert nuclear capability into political or military advantage by believing
that a limited war under the nuclear umbrella remains feasible. It has also led
India to think in terms of further increasing its superiority in conventional
forces to fight a short and intense war and gain its political objective. The
serious flaw in this policy is that Pakistan would decide that it cannot
compete against the larger resource base available to India and therefore be
driven to rely more and more on its nuclear weapons to correct the imbalance.
This is what we are witnessing now.
This also shows that Pakistan's minimum deterrent is decided by what it
perceives to be the nuclear and conventional strength of India. India's minimum
is decided by its perception of both Pakistan and China.
The India-Pakistan and India-China nuclear pairs are inextricably linked,
raising complicated issues pertaining to a trilateral nuclear and strategic
structure. The international system has little experience in dealing with such
situations. The triangular nuclear relationship that is developing between
India, Pakistan and China raises complicated questions about nuclear doctrines
and strategy, as well as defense planning, introducing more uncertainty to
South Asian security. This only maximizes minimum deterrence.
Ninan Koshy is formerly Visiting Fellow, Harvard Law School and author of
War on Terror: Reordering the World and Under the Empire: India's New Foreign
Policy.
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