Are nukes invincible?

It is exactly five years since Pakistan blasted its way into the nuclear club. It is not that Islamabad's nukes did not exist earlier. Mian Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, merely made a convincing demonstration of a largely known nuclear capability. Pakistan formally announced possession of one nuclear device's components in early 1990s while Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan's Nawai Waqt interview in early 1984 had announced the mastery of the technology that was to enable it to fabricate atomic weapons.

At any rate, Pakistan has had what is described as a minimal nuclear deterrent -- enough to keep India, with its larger stockpiles and infrastructure, at bay. The test explosions in May '98 were only a confirmation of that. Pakistani decision makers, mainly generals, had already made the characteristic policy decisions that were based on the assurance of an amply invincible defence: they were pursuing a Forward Policy in Afghanistan, making and unmaking governments in Kabul since early 1992. Pakistani military decision makers had already made in 1990 the decision to convert the Kashmiris' spontaneous protest movement in 1989 into an Islamic Jihad which was non-violent, non-religious and one based on the ideology of Kashmiriat. Both policies required an insurance of a high order that the nuclear capability had provided.

Now two sets of policy statements are emanating from Islamabad that are hard to reconcile with in any realistic view of what might happen in the short run: One emphasises the crucial importance of nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles; they are crucially important for national security. They will take care of India which is seen as a permanent and radical threat. Behind this line lies much pride and assurance.

The other is Pakistan's readiness to denuclearise if only India will do the same. Pakistan has again reverted to Nuclear Weapons Free South Asia idea, coupled with a No-War pact with India. Earlier (in 1980s) Pakistan had offered five options to resolve the then uncertainty regarding the nuclear capabilities of the two countries. India found them unacceptable.

Question is if the Pakistanis do think that their nukes make them invincible and that their security is threatened only or mainly by India, how can they visualise a wholly nuclear weapons free regime in South Asia? Can a piece of paper, the treaty to shun war, be enough guarantee to base the national security on without reference to the quality of relations with India?

India disregards all Pakistan's proposals concerning nukes. It grandly refuses to take note of Pakistan's India-specific weapons and is loath to equate itself with puny Pakistan. It sees itself as a big power with a world role. It refuses to embroil itself in negotiations over nuclear matters on a plane of equality, with give and take, that may drag it down to the status of a regional power such as Pakistan is. It however wants a purely nuclear weapons based détente with Pakistan: a Nuclear Restraint Regime for South Asia without wide-ranging commitments by India. The offer was there in 1999 in the Lahore Summit. But then a military stand off followed in 2002 that forces Pakistanis to rethink their assumptions and assertions.

After five years, it is anyhow necessary to reassess the value of nuclear weapons especially after what has happened in 2001 (after 9/11) and 2002 in the grand confrontation with India. In the autumn of 2001, Pakistan, in order to save (a) its stance on Kashmir and (b) its nuclear "assets", decided to betray its Taliban friends and sided with the US against them. Nuclear weapons failed to provide enough backbone to Islamabad's rulers to resist American demands. After all Islamabad was being asked to reverse a 25 years old policy and the concrete gain of 'strategic depth'. Where is that precious depth now? Why couldn't Pakistan's impregnable defence enable Islamabad to ask for time and a compromise?

As for 2002 experience, it is even more telling. India, knowing that Pakistan is world's seventh nuclear power, threatened to invade it and massed its troops on the borders in an attack mode. Twice India made as if it will start shooting and each time the Americans intervened to dissuade it. But in June last year Richard Armitage carried assurances from President Musharraf that there will be no more Jihadis crossing LOC into Indian Kashmir. Well, that was a U turn on Kashmir policy! It has been reaffirmed on May 8 last. The jihad thing was Pakistani preference over Kashmiris' nonviolent and quite secular protest movement.

Note that India threatened to invade Pakistan despite its nukes. Its threats were seen as credible. There is no observer anywhere who thought that the Indians were bluffing. President Musharraf himself has kept asserting that he has stopped all infiltration across LOC and has been meekly asking for talks, preferring peace to war. He has renewed the promise again. Why haven't the nuclear weapons bolstered his position so as not to force him to go on giving assurances to India and to seek talks? The fact that India credibly dared Pakistan to make the first nuclear strike proves that the deterrent value of the nukes was absent.

It is anyhow necessary to make a cost-benefit analysis of the nukes. One doesn't mean in purely financial terms, though financial angle is not altogether irrelevant. But let us keep money out of something that is supposedly extraordinarily valuable to national defence. But the people must be convinced that there is actual value addition to national security by untold expenditures. Mere hype will not do.

Who can forget George Fernandes' arrogant theory: nuclear weapons deter only nuclear weapons; India can wage a conventional war. The conclusion, in the India-Pakistan context -- Pakistan's nukes' raison d'être -- is that Pakistan could actually be threatened with a purely conventional invasion, knowing that it was nuclear power. What was implicit in the threat was an invitation to use its nuclear weapons first and then wait for Indian riposte: India would then take out all its major industrial-urban centres and send it to the Stone Age. Isn't the scenario credible? Pakistanis have to assess whether these precious nukes are really invincible.

The nukes' only benefit was rulers' self-assurance and a sense of achievement. That boosted national morale, though, going by the number of people who deprecate these weapons and who opposed the tests in May '98, there were and are many responsible Pakistanis who are not impressed.

On the debit side the entries are many. The very first consequence of the two countries going nuclear was to freeze the Kashmir's status -- because neither side can or should go to war. It will have to remain 'as is where is'.

Second, so long as nuclear-tipped Pakistani missiles stand aimed at Indian targets no Indian government can trust Pakistan. Similarly so long as nuclear tipped Prithivi or Agni stand aimed at Pakistan, nobody among Islamabad's decision-makers can trust Indian intentions. It is the nature of nuclear weapons to destroy trust in a radical fashion.

Third, geography is decisive. A missile between the two countries will take no more than 2 or 3 minutes. That leaves no time for verification of a report or rumour about the other's strike. Thus in any crisis, may be all the time, the two will have to be on a hair-trigger alert: launch on first report, whether true or false. That will be a built-in destabilising factor, taking no cognisance of an accident or misperception; there were scores of such alarms during the east-west cold war. But they had at least 27 minutes to check up.

Fourth, so long as nuclear weapons' stockpiles are there, they will go on being updated, improved upon and secretly augmented, with a view to giving more options or advantage to a side. An arms race properly so called is inescapable. Mr. Abdus Sattar holds that no fixed numbers can be assigned to the "minimum" deterrent and enemy's added capabilities will have a direct impact. Upward movement in stockpiles, in the case of the Soviets and America, took them to over 50,000 -- an absurdity that was inescapable.

Fifth, real peace is scarcely possible between two rival nuclear powers who have to watch and assess each other's 'true' capability, with ample caution not to be over-confident. Neither peace nor stability can come to India and Pakistan so long as they are competitively building a deterrent -- which does translate into an arms race, slow or fast.

So long as militaristic thinking has a hold on decision-makers in both countries, their national priorities will always leave out adequate provision for the poor and the weak. Beneficiaries of the current economic system and of the nukes will go on being enriched. Quality of life for the majority will continue to deteriorate.

The conclusion must be emphasised that India and Pakistan may have landed themselves in a cul de sac: trapped in a nuclear as well as conventional arms races. A great deal of dispassionate and creative thinking is required. It is easy for an average Indian nationalist to dismiss Pakistanis' worries about the Indian Bomb as misplaced: India is a big power, it has to face China; maybe it may have to face down other major powers. Pakistan's ultra-rightwingers propagate that Indians -- they mean Hindus -- are unreliable; they are inimical; we need a deterrent, even one that is not 100 per cent effective.

With such mental baggage neither will go anywhere. The call is for Indians and Pakistanis who can discard national stereotyping and can think positively and dispassionately without being carried away by nationalist hubris. May be they can bottle back the nuclear genie in an all Asian setting or may be in South Asian context. It has to be done if the region has to have a hopeful future.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.