Achin Vanaik

False hope in deterrence

The Hindustan Times (New Delhi), May 29, 2002

See also his Not that much time The Telegraph (India) 28 May 2002, below

If current war clouds have receded and with it the danger of a

nuclear exchange, what about the next confrontation or the time after

that?

How many warning bells do we need to hear to recognise what has been

obvious since those tests of May 1998? That this is the part of the

world where a nuclear holocaust is most likely.

Remember those denials by so many in the pro-bomb lobby of India

after Pokhran II that this was a racist slur, implying as it did that

we in India and Pakistan were less responsible than other nuclear

weapons powers. Remember too, that virtually the whole of the Indian

bomb lobby in welcoming those tests declared that both countries

going openly nuclear would actually bring about greater regional

stability and peace. Could there have been a more disastrously inept

prediction?

The easy way out is to claim that a duplicitous Pakistan is

responsible for our post-Pokhran, post-Chagai mess. But this excuse

won't do because the egg still remains on the faces of our Indian

experts who were so inexpert as not to anticipate this duplicity.

Therefore, the temptation is to now claim that Pokhran II was

inevitable because Pakistan was threatening us anyway with its

nuclear capability, or some other argument resting on the wondrous

powers of nuclear deterrence. Anything to save face and the

pro-nuclear argument, except the truth.

The presumed nuclear threats from Pakistan and China were always the

excuses, never the reasons. Indeed, the official declared position of

this Indian government - that the Indian bomb is neither 'country

specific' nor 'threat specific' - itself gives the game away. Pokhran

II was supposed to be an expression of India's political manhood, a

way of equipping oneself to participate in the tough, hard-headed

game of global geo-politics as an ambitious and rising power.

Obsession with political manhood through greater military

belligerence and power has always been the hallmark of Sangh ideology

- the reason why it has wanted the bomb since the Fifties, well

before the Pakistan or China threat could have been said to exist. It

is this same ideologically rooted belligerence and hostility that has

also spread so widely among the Indian elite (how else could the

Sangh have climbed to power?) which now threatens a regional

Armageddon.

For if it is Pakistan that, on balance, might be the first to pull

the nuclear trigger, it is India that is the most likely to provoke

the kind of conventional military conflict (whether in the name of

fighting terrorism or whatever else) that can spiral upwards to such

a situation.

The Cold War was essentially an ideological conflict where though the

US and Russia might have engaged in proxy wars in the third world,

there was little danger of them directly confronting each other

militarily - let alone brandishing nuclear weapons. Even then, it

was, on several occasions, a close run thing.

Here in South Asia, Pakistan, behind the post-1998 nuclear shield,

thought it could launch an incursion into Kargil. That war, which saw

both sides prepare covertly for possible use of nuclear weapons, was

brought to an end by external intervention, in much the same way as

external - above all US - pressure dissuaded India from going beyond

the brink this time, whatever claims New Delhi will undoubtedly make

for the 'success' of its coercive diplomacy and brinkmanship.

The point is that whatever the political-diplomatic setbacks for

Pakistan during and after Kargil, it has not suffered any decisive

military defeat - precisely the aim and intention of so many amongst

the Indian elite (especially in Hindutva circles) who have demonised

Pakistan as the root cause of all India's troubles in Kashmir and

elsewhere. For them, Pakistan's 'nuclear bluff' must be called. That

is, the risk of a holocaust must be taken because Indian pride,

manhood, etc. demands it and because without a decisive military

defeat of Pakistan, India will always be tormented by an evil

Pakistan regime filled with an irrational and unbalanced hostility to

India. (Does it really matter if it is a Zia, Musharraf, Benazir or

Islamic fundamentalists in power in Islamabad?)

Yet, this same Pakistan regime can be relied upon to be rational and

balanced enough never to launch nuclear weapons no matter what the

military provocation from India, or even in the face of its own

'decisive' defeat. With this mindset so widespread in Indian

decision-shaping circles, is it any surprise that so many in South

Asia and internationally are now reaching the frightening conclusion

that some kind of nuclear exchange in the next seven or more years

between India and Pakistan is inevitable?

It is as simple as this: President Musharraf can and must do much

more to prevent cross-border terrorism. But because he is nowhere in

full control of events in Pakistan (indeed he is fighting for his own

political survival), he cannot guarantee its permanent end any more

than the US can stop terrorist attacks on it despite its own brutal

assault on Afghanistan. Recently, US Secretary of Defence Donald

Rumsfeld has said as much.

If India nonetheless sees such terrorist acts as sufficient cause for

war, then it will happen. There is a point where brinkmanship without

going further is unsustainable, and an India which has so cavalierly

practised brinkmanship after December 13 and May 14 has put itself in

a corner where in the future it will be under immense pressure

internally to go that one fatal step further. After all, the US,

Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia have the consolation of knowing

that they will not be directly affected by a nuclear exchange between

these two 'small' nuclear powers whatever their terrible mutual

devastation.

If war takes place between India and Pakistan, any Indian assumption

that it can score a 'decisive' victory quickly and easily will almost

certainly be shown to be faulty, leading to a dynamic of escalation

that has real likelihood of reaching the nuclear level. The Giriraj

Kishores of the world will, of course, not listen to some of the more

sober of India's military thinkers.

So what do we have to do? We have to avoid war by eschewing the

politics of war-mongering and brinkmanship, putting even terrorism

into proper perspective. If war still takes place, we must not resort

to nuclear exchanges. The second is even more important than the

first. But there is only one serious and effective way to ensure

this: get rid of all nuclear weapons in the region.

There are those in the Pakistani establishment who, recognising the

much greater burden and danger of nuclearisation and war for Pakistan

than for India, have always preferred non-nuclear parity between the

two countries, in contrast to others who believe nuclear weapons

compensate for Pakistan's conventional military imbalance vis-à-vis

India.

Twice after coming to power (September 2000 at the UN and in

mid-January 2002), Musharraf has proposed exploring such regional

denuclearisation measures, only to be ignored and contemptuously

rebuffed by India.

Thus, there is still space for both governments to rethink and

retreat from this insane nuclear path taken after May 1998. We must

understand clearly what the pro-bomb lobby will never like to admit:

nuclear deterrence is nothing but the irrational hope that terrible

fear (of the consequences of nuclear war) will always promote wise

decisions by fallible human beings operating under intense pressure

(especially in wartime situations) in changing circumstances they can

never fully control.

Seeking security through nuclear weapons is nothing but hope

masquerading as strategic wisdom. And that hope is looking

increasingly shopworn.

Not that much time

The Telegraph (India) 28 May 2002

In the light of the shocking attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, which, of

course, are to be totally condemned, two questions dominate our

political horizon. Should India go to war against Pakistan? And will

it? The answer to the first question is that it should not. It would

be militarily dangerous, potentially disastrous (because of the

nuclear factor) and politically foolish and unjustified. The answer

to the second question may be bruising to Indian egos, but it is

Washington not New Delhi that is almost certainly going to play the

decisive role.

While many in India will assume that Pervez Musharraf must bear the

principal blame for the Kaluchak attack (or even for the tragic

assassination of Abdul Gani Lone), this is not the way the rest of

the world sees it, although it can certainly collar Islamabad for not

doing enough to stop cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

What the rest of the world sees is a Musharraf government

halfheartedly and even somewhat hypocritically engaged in a war

against internal Islamic fundamentalist forces, but nonetheless the

engagement is real enough with the latter determined to defeat this

Pakistan government and usher in a far more fundamentalist regime.

They see a Musharraf government which is not in control of the

country and is itself the victim of bomb blasts; a government which

has immediately condemned both the December 13 and May 14 attacks in

India, and even called for an international impartial investigation

into them. They see no evidence provided by the Indian government

linking these attacks to Musharraf's orders, although obviously

circles within the wider establishment, such as sections of the

Inter-Services Intelligence, are very likely to be involved.

In fact, it would be utterly foolish of Musharraf to have wanted the

December 13 or May 14 attack, which only put much more pressure on

him, with the latest one diverting attention away from Gujarat and

the world's opprobrium of the Indian government on that score. It is

far more plausible to see these attacks as carried out by forces

fighting on two fronts, not just in Kashmir but also to undermine the

Musharraf government. They would like nothing better than to provoke

India to attack Pakistan, that is, turn matters into a war between

the two country's armed forces.

This would immediately benefit them politically by harnessing

anti-Indian patriotism and jingoism (which they will do everything to

fan) to their cause. Like our own religious extremists, they

recognize that their anti-secular fundamentalist agenda can never

have anywhere near the same public resonance as a stance of

"defending at all costs the honour and sacred territory of the

country", that is through a nationalist chauvinism gone berserk. In

fact, their shameful and cowardly terrorist attack is itself

indicative that politically they are losing in Jammu and Kashmir,

being ever more alienated from the public there.

For this sangh parivar-led government, anxious to rationalize away

its own culpability in the Gujarat carnage, threatening war with

Pakistan is the best way to divert attention from the fact that the

greatest danger to the future of India as a secular, democratic and

humane society does not come from outside but internally from the

sangh itself with its pernicious ideology and aim of establishing a

Hindu rashtra. Indeed, since the constituency for anti-Pakistan

sentiments is much wider than for anti-Muslim and anti-Islam

sentiments, one of the crucial cards the sangh must consider playing

before the next general elections is precisely the provoking of a war

situation with Pakistan. Such a strategy is all the more likely to

work electorally if it can be combined with acts (such as more

communal riots or a communally charged campaign again centred on

Ayodhya) which can further polarize emotions in accordance with the

Hindutva ideology of hatred towards Indian Muslims.

If, politically, it is religious extremism on both sides that will

benefit, there is also the fact that not only will war not solve

anything, including the issue of permanently ending cross-border

terrorism, it is certain to make things much worse. A short-duration

war will almost certainly be a stalemate with immense suffering on

both sides (the Pakistan army is as battle-hardened as India's) while

a longer-duration war of attrition (in which India's military

"advantages" have more chances of surfacing) is almost inconceivable

because of the international uproar and because of the much greater

likelihood of Pakistan resorting to nuclear weapons if its feels it

is losing - a response that is also perfectly conceivable in a

short-duration war.

In such a nuclearized context, it is the height of irresponsibility

for India to talk in terms of "calling Pakistan's nuclear bluff". The

fact of the matter is that India's tests in 1998 (followed by

Pakistan's) established a new situation where a terrible nuclear

shadow was thrown over south Asia. But instead of acknowledging what

a mistake this was and how it has dramatically reduced the space,

militarily speaking, that India previously had, the bomb lobby

continues desperately to pretend that there is no nuclear shadow but

in fact, so much more sunlight!

But will India go to war or launch the kind of attack across the

border that would almost certainly escalate matters to such a pitch

between the two countries? It is not impossible for India to take

such action. Indeed, both its current rhetoric in response to the May

14 attack and its previous policy of brinkmanship through massive and

sustained mobilization of armed forces along the border (for longer

than has ever been the case in peacetime since 1947) puts it into a

corner where its non-military options become even weaker, if not

closed. Moreover, the sangh, as pointed out, needs anti-Pakistan war

hysteria for domestic reasons.

But it is still the case that the key actor is the United States of

America not India, and that it will be very difficult indeed for New

Delhi to buck Washington, if the latter says no to even a "limited"

military strike on Pakistan. India's plan is to get the US to agree

to such a limited strike and restrain Musharraf from responding,

though abstinence of this sort can seriously undermine his domestic

position. The US needs Musharraf so much for its other purposes, not

just for fighting al Qaida but for other geo-strategic reasons in

central Asia, that it is very unlikely to go along with this Indian

plea.

After giving due allowance for the unavoidable uncertainty factor

which means that defying logic, reason, or the intentions of key

actors, there could still be war, it would be fair to say that the

balance of probabilities weighs against this. But the truly

frightening thing is that this need not be the case the next time

around or the time after that. Both conventional war and with it the

possibility of escalation to nuclear exchanges are very real

prospects over the next five to seven years, perhaps longer.

We now have to give our serious attention, first, to getting rid of

nuclear arsenals in this region even before total global disarmament

takes place simply because this is the region where such a nuclear

conflagration is most likely; and second, to preventing a

conventional war breaking out over Kashmir even if terrorist acts

continue to take place. If we cannot resolve the Kashmir issue soon

(which requires dialogue with Pakistan and representatives of

Kashmiris on both sides of the border), then can we find practical

ways of easing border tensions through exploring various creative

measures, for example, by establishing an effectively patrolled and

monitored demilitarized zone on both sides of the line of control?

In short, we haven't that much time. But have we even begun,

seriously enough, the process of thinking anew instead of constantly

screeching as of old?

The author has recently co-authored the book, South Asia on a Short

Fuse: Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament