Reducing Nuclear Dangers in South Asia
by Abdul Sattar
The Kargil crisis in mid-1999 illustrated once again the slender thread by which peace hangs between Pakistan and India. Fortunately, another war was averted. Both states, now overtly nuclear, seemed cognisant of the terrible dangers implicit in escalation. Pakistan did not commit its military forces to the battle. The Indian air force and army refrained from expanding the theatre of conflict which remained confined to the remote, highly mountainous and sparsely populated Kargil sector in the northern part of Kashmir. As in 1990 when also the Kashmir crisis was on the boil, the United States again played a helpful role in war prevention. President Clinton prevailed on the Pakistani prime minister to agree to the restoration of the 1971 ceasefire line.
Hardly had the Kargil crisis subsided when the Indian air force shot down an unarmed Pakistan navy plane on August 10, 1999, while it was on a routine training flight inside Pakistan airspace near Karachi killing 12 trainees and 4 instructors. The resultant tension could have become even more explosive when Indian helicopters trying to remove the debris from the Pakistani to the Indian side of the border in order to falsify evidence and were targeted by Pakistani missiles.
A year earlier the Security Council, in resolution 1172 of June 6, 1998, adopted after nuclear tests first by India and then by Pakistan in May of that year, had called on India and Pakistan to resume dialogue to address the root causes of tensions between them, specifically Kashmir.
The Indian prime minister's visit to Pakistan in February 1999 raised hopes of an earnest dialogue on Kashmir but these soon perished. But the dialogue never commenced. India gave the Lahore communiqué a unilateral interpretation which advertised absence of seriousness in resolving the fifty-two year old dispute involving the future of thirteen million people of Kashmir. In retrospect, the UN Security Council resolution of 1998 did not radiate seriousness of purpose. It merely urged Pakistan and India to resume dialogue, but without indicating any intention to take further action. In doing so, the Council ignored the history of consistent failure and futility of bilateral negotiations between the two countries to resolve any serious dispute. Of the two that were peacefully resolved, the Indus Basin dispute, a matter of life and death for agriculture in Pakistan, was mediated by the World Bank (promising to mobilise funds for the construction of reservoirs and canals in Pakistan to replace waters of rivers diverted by India), and the incendiary boundary dispute in the Rann of Kutch was arbitrated by an international tribunal in 1968.
Negotiations between Pakistan and India have historically failed mainly for one reason: India has tried to exploit power disparity to dictate its preferences, rejecting all suggestions for impartial determination of disputes in accordance with principles of international law and justice. It even resiled from its commitment to implement the resolutions of the Security Council on Kashmir to which it had earlier given its consent. As a result, the Kashmir question has hung fire for fifty-two years, and even relatively less important disputes have remain unresolved. The dismal record of unproductive negotiations is illustrated by residual boundary issues in Kutch. While the main boundary dispute was settled through arbitration in two years, the residual issue of the dividing line in the Sir Creek at the western terminus has defied agreement despite scores of bilateral meetings over the past thirty years.
Even when agreements are concluded, their implementation has been problematic because of differences over interpretation and absence of goodwill and mutual accommodation. The Lahore Declaration signed by the prime ministers of the two countries in February 1999 became a virtual dead letter because on return to New Delhi the Indian spokesman gave it a twist which Pakistan considered wholly inconsistent with the spirit of the declaration on Kashmir. A decade earlier the defence secretaries of the two countries announced agreement on disengagement of forces in the Siachen area of Kashmir but India has refused to implement it. Meanwhile, the armed forces continue to lose more men to frost and snow than in fighting.
II - Disarmament Vision [where is 'I']
Pakistan has historically supported all resolutions in United Nations conferences for the limitation, progressive reduction and eventual elimination of weapons of mass destruction. It is party to the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. On nuclear weapons, too, Pakistan took a consistent stance. Words apart, in practice, too, it refrained from pursuit of the nuclear weapons option for twenty-five years even though India was inducting weapons capability into the region.
Pakistan signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963 and also supported the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The policy was also demonstrated in decisions against the construction of weapon-oriented nuclear plants. Its research and power reactors were placed under IAEA safeguards. Pakistan even turned down a commercial offer for the construction of a plutonium plant. That policy of nuclear abstinence was however to prove both na�ve and purblind, given Pakistan's dangerous security environment.
Exploiting the political crisis in East Pakistan, India resorted to political interference, first covert and then blatant military intervention and aggression. Pakistan's Western allies remained spectators. The United Nations Security Council was paralysed due to Soviet veto. The General Assembly passed a resolution which India treated with contempt. Outnumbered and outgunned, the army in East Pakistan was overwhelmed. Sixty thousand soldiers were taken prisoner. The country was forcibly divided.
Pakistan's traumatic experience illustrates the dangers of populist postures on global disarmament issues and policies divorced from a realistic calculus of regional security. The former is cost-free; the latter involves practical risks. A state confronted by threats to its security from a more powerful neighbour has to scramble for its own defence. The promise in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter of collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace has regrettably remained empty.
The 1971 disaster belatedly led to painful reappraisal of the policy of nuclear abstinence. Survival of the residual state called for development of an effective deterrence. In the absence of alternatives, acquisition of the nuclear option was conceived as a means of deterrence of aggression and prevention of war. A decision in principle was made to embark on efforts for the acquisition of the nuclear weapons option. The policy decision was easier made than implemented.
III - Nuclear Pursuit
After the Indian nuclear bomb test in 1974, innovatively termed a 'peaceful test', the United States and other industrialised states placed stringent controls on export of nuclear technology. Earlier, some of these very countries were generous to India, providing training at nuclear laboratories to Indian scientists and engineers, transferring technology and providing equipment.'American policy in the 1950s and early 1960s augmented India's capability to acquire nuclear weapons.' Beside the desire to win markets, Washington was motivated by Cold War considerations. Influential opinion in the Kennedy administration considered it desirable 'if a friendly Asian power beat Communist China to the punch' and, to that end, 'helping India acquire a nuclear explosive'.
With Pakistan's desire to acquire the nuclear option becoming an open secret, industrialised countries decided to erect formidable legal, technological and economic barriers and obstacles. Although it was India that tested the bomb in 1974, Pakistan was targeted for policies of denial and discrimination. Canada immediately cancelled cooperation with Pakistan even for the operation and maintenance of the Karachi nuclear power plant which was under IAEA safeguards. The United States not only froze cooperation but also intervened to frustrate the implementation of a contract between Pakistan and a French company for the construction of a plutonium separation plant although it was to be under IAEA safeguards.
The Symington and Glenn laws enacted by the United States provided for imposition of non-proliferation sanctions. In their application if not also intent, the laws discriminated against Pakistan, and were actually invoked in 1979 for denial of economic cooperation and military sales to Pakistan. The Pressler law of 1985 made economic and military cooperation with Pakistan (alone) conditional on annual presidential certification that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear bomb. After the Soviet forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan President Bush declined to give the certificate. US economic assistance and military sales to Pakistan were immediately terminated. Even advance payments made for aircraft and other equipment amounting to $1.6 billion were frozen.
Pakistan paid the penalties, amounting to billions of dollars and made the sacrifices but persevered in its endeavours to develop the nuclear option, security and survival taking precedence over everything else.
It took Pakistani scientists and engineers a decade's dedicated work to acquire nuclear explosion capability. Once that was done, Pakistan reverted to its policy of restraint. Safeguarding the peace and security of the country was its sole objective. Pakistan entertained no ambition to great power status. After deterrence was achieved Pakistan suspended production of fissile uranium in 1989. Emphasis shifted to reducing dangers implicit in weapons of mass destruction.
IV - Restraints
Pakistan's purpose warranted no more than a minimalist approach. Consistently with that purpose, Pakistan did not proceed to weaponise the capability. For years thereafter, it relied on recessed deterrence, refraining from a test explosion. Islamabad was willing, indeed keen, to consider and promote mutual restraints. The approach was eminently rational. As General Krishnaswamy Sundarji said in a vivid phrase: 'More is unnecessary if less is enough'. For the purpose of deterrence even recessed capability was considered sufficient.
Believing that its minimal capability was then sufficient for deterrence, Pakistan even discontinued further production of fissile uranium in 1989. That decision had to be revised in 1990 when India was reported to be considering air raids on sites in Azad Kashmir. Still, Pakistan did not embark upon weaponisation.
Despite pressure from the scientific community for testing the technology, the government decided not to do so. Consistent with its policy, Pakistan voted in favour of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) when it was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996. It did not sign the treaty only because Indian opposition in the Conference on Disarmament and the UN raised suspicions about New Delhi's intentions. The apprehension proved correct when India carried out multiple nuclear explosions on May 11 and 13, 1998.
The popular uproar in Pakistan for counter-tests was resisted by the government. In dire fiscal straits due to political corruption and economic mismanagement, it sought instead to obtain security guarantees from the United States. While the Pakistani prime minister agonised over the decision, Indian government ministers proclaimed threats. One of them warned Pakistan to take note of the geostrategic transformation and roll back its policy on Kashmir. Another challenged Pakistan to come out into the battlefield. That clinched the ongoing argument. Pakistan had to demonstrate that it, too, possessed weapon capability. But having done so on May 29 and 30, Pakistan announced a moratorium on further tests.
V - War Prevention
Pakistan-India relations have remained tense but crises have been contained or defused on four occasions over the past two decades and another war has been averted. Even when nuclear weapons were not assembled, the recessed capability was credible enough to induce restraints against escalation.
The first, somewhat ambiguous, instance of a hint of possible use of nuclear weapons arose in the mid-1980s when Islamabad received reports that India was contemplating, by itself or in collusion with another state, an air attack aimed at the destruction of the uranium enrichment plant at Kahuta. The Pakistan government let it be known that it would hold India responsible for any such aggression and retaliate with 'all means at its disposal'. Use of nuclear weapons was neither specifically mentioned nor excluded, however.
Another crisis with nuclear undertones took place in 1990. It was triggered by the largest combined military exercise in India since independence, in the Rajasthan salient on Pakistan's border in the winter of 1986-87. Code-named Brasstacks, its aim, according to Indian exercise documents, was to cut off southern Pakistan from the north. Whether Indian military planners projected the conversion of the exercise into a cross-border operation as suggested by some researchers, India actually refrained from doing so. Pakistan, on its part, has not confirmed the speculation that in the event of Indian attack it might have invoked the nuclear deterrence.
The third crisis during which the spectre of a nuclear confrontation was seen by observers arose in April-May 1990. Indian military strategists apparently worried about the continuation of the Sikh insurgency in Indian Punjab triggered by the military attack on their holiest shrine were now confronted also by the mass uprising for freedom in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Attributing both to Pakistani instigation, political support and military assistance, some hot-heads in the Indian GHQ were reported to have recommended air raids on training camps allegedly established in Azad Kashmir, on the Pakistani side of the line of control. Such aggressive action, American military analysts were said to have concluded, would provoke a Pakistani response with a high probability of escalation to general war in which Pakistan, unable to defend its territory by conventional means, would be forced to use the weapon of last resort. So grave was the concern in Washington that President George Bush decided to send Robert Gates of the National Security Council as his personal emissary to Pakistan and India on a mission of preventive diplomacy in April.
The latest crisis, in Kargil in May-July 1999, both tested and illustrated the deterrence assumption. A similar crisis in Kashmir in 1965 exploded into a war because each side reacted disproportionately to limited actions by the other, raising the ante without restraint so that the situation got rapidly out of control. In contrast, during the Kargil crisis in 1999 both sides acted with prudence and tried to contain the conflict as the crisis deepened.
VI - Nuclear Race?
The concept of a nuclear race is fundamentally flawed. It eclipses the basic point that nuclear deterrence is not dependent on parity of arsenals. Pakistan does not need to enter into a competition with India. Invocations of an impending nuclear race are not only irrelevant but also counterproductive. Given the disparity in size and resources, the implicit threat of Pakistan challenging India into a competitive build-up lacks credibility. Worse, by conjuring up the prospect of such a competition and of enormous additional expenditures, such statements create the false impression that the task of maintaining deterrence is beyond Pakistan's means.
Not only foreign but also some concerned Pakistani critics invoke the US -USSR strategic arms race as an example of the burdens it imposed on both superpowers, especially the USSR. While recognising the validity of Paul Kennedy's thesis of imperial over-stretch as the main factor in the fall of great powers, it is a gross oversimplification to attribute the disintegration of the Soviet Union to expenditures on strategic arms alone. Equal if not more fatal flaws were the repressive system, pursuit of ideological rivalry and the attempt to perpetuate and enlarge the Russian empire.
Of lessons for Pakistan in the Russian experience, the one that we need to assimilate is the indispensability of good governance. The writer who was stationed in Moscow during the 1988-90 period was struck by the erosion of the popular will. So disillusioned had people become with the empty promises of the Soviet system and so disgusted were they with political misrule and rampant corruption that they seemed not only to have lost faith in the Soviet Union's right to survival but actually to wish for its collapse. Relevant too is the fact that massive reductions in strategic arms alone have not availed the Russian state.
To be sure, Pakistan cannot afford to burn its candle at both ends. Prevalent corruption and misrule have crippled our state's capacity and excessive diversions to defence historically starved our country's development. But both are remediable. The nation will have to get rid of incompetent and dishonest leaders. Military expenditure has to be contained through more innovative planning. Already, allocations for defence have been reduced from over 6% of GDP to under 5%.
Every nuclear state has determined its nuclear posture in the light of its own objectives and assessment of the security environment. The US -USSR paradigm has no relevance for us. Nor can India, with its anachronistic ambitions to hegemony, great power status and rivalry with China, be an exemplar for Pakistan. Pakistan's objective is limited and specific. On that solid foundation it can erect an appropriate nuclear posture within its limited means.
VII - Upgrading Minimum Deterrence
The Indian 'nuclear doctrine', recommended by an officially appointed group including influential writers and thinkers on strategy and announced by the Indian government in August 1999, envisages buildup of a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles that can be launched from the ground, air and sea. The plan was explained in the context of second-strike capability against China. In the process, India could acquire a first-strike capability against Pakistan. With a large land-, air- and sea-based strike force of bombers and missiles capable of reaching every nook and corner of Pakistan, India would pose a threat far more serious in future than at present. Predictably, opinion in Pakistan has been alarmed.
Obviously, Pakistan's deterrence force will have to be upgraded in proportion to the heightened threat of pre-emption and interception. Augmentation of the quanta and variety of the strategic arsenal is unavoidable. Equally important are questions about adequacy of conventional forces. A nuclear response cannot be invoked to deal with local contingencies. Given the consequences, the nuclear threshold should be maintained at a high level. Can Pakistan cope with the budgetary burden?
It should not be presumed that the task cannot be managed within the limits of Pakistan's resources. Innovative planning should be able to restructure the defence forces, integrating conventional and nuclear deterrence within the limits of Pakistan's financial capacity and without compromising prospects of economic growth which is indispensable if the country is to sustain its ability to maintain long-term defence needs.
In the months ahead, Pakistan will need to focus on objective analysis and assessment of the implications of India's plans and actions. Would the Indian government decide to implement the recommendations made by the authors of the nuclear doctrine? How long will it take to realise the projected force goals? To what extent might that make Pakistan's minimal deterrent capability vulnerable to a surprise attack by Indian missiles and strike aircraft? Might India conclude that its preemption and interception capability, enhanced by the anti-ballistic missile system New Delhi is planning to acquire, make it immune from a Pakistani response? If so, what concrete steps should Pakistan take to ensure the survivability and credibility of its deterrence force?
So far the government has only declared that minimum nuclear deterrence will remain the guiding principle of its nuclear strategy. Reasonableness and moderation will remain the hallmark of its stance on strategic issues. It will not engage in any nuclear competition or arms race. Of course, that is neither necessary nor affordable. Yet, the minimum cannot remain static. As India builds up its arsenal, the necessity of assuring the survivability and credibility of the Pakistani deterrent, will make some expansion and upgradation unavoidable.
On basis of reciprocity, Pakistan has also been keen to induct restraints in regard to production and deployment of ballistic missiles, their ranges and payloads. So far its statements have evoked no response. Several years ago, India started producing the Prithvi missile. With a range of 150-250 kilometres, this nuclear warhead-capable medium range missile can strike almost every major city or air base in Pakistan. Some of these missiles have even been moved to storage sites close to Pakistan's borders. Nevertheless Pakistan has not so far deployed the small number of tactical missiles Pakistan imported in late 1980s or the medium range missiles it produced indigenously over recent years. Geographical proximity and vulnerability of launch sites has necessitated efforts for production of mobile missiles.
Even as between great powers, purely deterrent forces 'can be relatively modest'. Provided their survivability can be assured against a surprise attack, continued buildup of nuclear weapons should be unnecessary. Nor does a strategic arsenal have to match the adversary's arsenal. For, nuclear weapons are not meant for war-fighting. Nuclear deterrence, unlike the conventional one, is not degraded by quantitative or qualitative disparity.
It is a commentary on the time warp in which South Asia is trapped that while the superpowers have been engaged in strategic arms reduction and the other nuclear powers appear to be moving toward limitation, India and, perforce, Pakistan are building up nuclear arsenals. It is regrettable, too, that influential opinion has remained silent. The major powers seem reluctant to use their influence to prevail on India to abandon its ambitious plans. Their desire to promote nuclear restraints seems to have ebbed. The political will seems undermined by fear of detriment to their economic and political interests in India.
VIII - No-First-Use
India's declaration that it would not be the first to launch a nuclear strike is a cost-free exercise in sanctimonious propaganda. In the first place, India is not threatened with aggression. Secondly, enjoying superiority in conventional forces, India can cope with local wars without invoking the nuclear threat. It is, besides, flawed in logic: renunciation only of first use of nuclear weapons seems like a subterfuge to camouflage the intention to resort to first use of conventional weapons. From Pakistan's viewpoint, such a thought needs to be deterred. A no-first-use nuclear posture could invite aggression. Faced with the prospect of destruction at the hands of an aggressor with superior conventional forces, a victim cannot forswear retaliation with any of the means at its disposal. That would make nonsense of the concept of nuclear deterrence.
Implicit in nuclear deterrence is the assumption that nuclear weapons are intended to prevent wars, and not for fighting wars. The contingencies in which nuclear weapons may have to be used have not been articulated and may even be difficult to define. It is obvious, however, that a weapon of last resort is by definition not a weapon to be used for conquest or expansion. Pakistan can therefore declare that it will never resort to the threat or use of nuclear weapons, or for that matter conventional force, for aggression. A unilateral non-aggression proclamation automatically rules out the first use of nuclear or conventional weapons.
IX - Restraint and Responsibility
General Pervez Musharraf, the head of the government that took power on October 12, 1999, has declared that Pakistan would pursue a policy of 'restraint and responsibility'. His statement has reiterated and reinforced Pakistan's pledge to the world community that the country will persist in efforts for reducing nuclear dangers in South Asia.
As of the time of this writing, the government is engaged in serious consideration of the question of signing the CTBT. Whether circumstances will actually permit the government to sign the treaty or not, it has already declared its intention to observe the spirit of the treaty. On substance the treaty is considered to be acceptable. In fact, as stated above, Pakistan voted in favour of it in 1996. It has no intention to conduct another test and will not do so unless some unforeseen action by India provokes a review. An event that jeopardises the 'supreme interests' of a state would be admissible ground even for a party to serve notice of withdrawal from CTBT.
Pakistan's stance on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is in line with its traditionally positive approach to nuclear issues. Not only has Pakistan therefore agreed to participate in negotiations on FMCT, its predisposition is favourable. After the Conference on Disarmament overcomes procedural hurdles and negotiations enter the substantive stage, Pakistan will participate actively. Issues relating to verification and stockpiles will be of critical importance for Pakistan.
About the Author
Ambassador Sattar participated in the Security Dialogues of the Melbourne Group in Melbourne, August 1998 and Washington, February 1999. In late 1999, he came out of retirement to take up the position of Foreign Minister of Pakistan. This article was written just prior to his taking up that appointment and reflects is personal views rather than those of the Government of Pakistan.