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Next Steps: Weaponization and Deterrence?
South Asia After the Tests: Where Do We Go From Here?
Roundtable Workshop
July 1, 1998
Discussion on the issues of weaponization and deterrence revolved around five key points:
There were two opening presentations in this session. The first dealt primarily with the reasons why there is a real possibility that nuclear weapons will be used during the next conflict in the subcontinent. The second presentation laid out an argument why India and Pakistan should not move toward weaponization of their nuclear capabilities.
Possibility of Weapons Use
One participant observed that a nuclear exchange is likely to occur not because of rational calculation, but through miscalculation or through accidental or unauthorized detonation. Pointing to a history of miscalculations in the relations between India and Pakistan, this participant cited the 1965 war between the two countries, which erupted because Pakistan’s leaders thought sending paratroopers to liberate Kashmir would lead to an insurrection by the people of the disputed territory. In the mid-1980s, miscalculation again almost triggered a war when an Indian military leader sent his troops on an exercise near the Pakistan border.
Another reason why an inadvertent nuclear exchange might take place in the subcontinent stems from the difficulty of setting up a command and control system in the subcontinent that is reliable and safe. During the Cold War, the two primary antagonists, the United States and the Soviet Union, were separated by an ocean. Missile flight times to their respective countries—25 minutes—allowed, through the use of satellite monitoring, enough time for a rational response. With respect to India and Pakistan, there is approximately a 2–5 minute warning once a missile is launched, which allows almost no time to make a thoughtful decision. Even if delivery was made by airplanes instead of missiles, the situation would still be grave.
A key factor affecting the possibility of miscalculation or accidental detonation of nuclear weapons is the number of those weapons. Simply put, the more weapons there are, the more difficult it will be to control them. Therefore, the number of actual nuclear weapons in each country’s arsenals must be controlled. It is possible that both countries would be willing to adhere to such controls given their stated commitments against engaging in a nuclear weapons race. But it is not clear what either India or Pakistan will accept as a minimum level of deterrence in terms of the number of nuclear weapons. The number of weapons that each country has can be limited by controlling the amount of fissile material available to both countries. Yet, while India has indicated that it is willing to undertake some kind of fissile material cutoff, Pakistan thus far has not, thereby complicating the issue. Although it is presumed that 80–100 weapons will inspire security, it is not absolutely clear this will be so.
Why Weaponization Should Be Avoided
An important measure that India and Pakistan must take is a decision not to conduct additional nuclear tests. Testing creates a psychological climate of immense fear. The recent tests have destroyed years of patient work by citizens of both countries attempting to build a climate of harmony. A no-testing pledge can take a number of forms including the CTBT or a bilateral agreement between the two countries.
India and Pakistan must agree not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. At the time of this workshop India is agreeable to such pledge but Pakistan is not, for understandable reasons: Pakistan has the capability for a fewer number of weapons than India; is at a disadvantage to India in terms of conventional forces; and wishes to reserve its few weapons for "value" targets such as Delhi and Bombay instead of Indian troop formations. According to some reports, Pakistan has given to India a list of eighteen cities that might possibly be targeted by nuclear weapons.
A number of additional confidence-building measures could be taken between the two countries to stabilize the situation. These include hot-lines of communication, flag meetings, and flights over respective territory to monitor troop movements.
Stabilizing Nuclear Relations
Ultimately, the danger of nuclear war in South Asia is here to stay. Although it can be argued that the mutually assured destruction (MAD) strategy between the United States and the former Soviet Union was hardly a "safe" form of deterrence, deterrence as practiced in the subcontinent is never going to be as "safe" as it was during the Cold War. As the Cuban missile crisis proved, even a well-established nuclear deterrence between these super-powers can be vulnerable.
In essence, in the absence of movement toward nuclear disarmament in the subcontinent, which is a very remote possibility at the present time, the focus should be on stabilizing the nuclear relations between India and Pakistan. One means of achieving such stability will require technology that decreases the chances of unauthorized use and of accidental detonation. One such technology is called permissive action links (PALS). These are electronic circuits wired into a bomb and do not allow activation except under very particular circumstances. They are connected directly with the appropriate authority by radio so that conspiracies can be worked against. Of course, PALS is not a perfect answer or absolute assurance of nuclear security or stability. Technology does not have an answer to the kinds of dangers that exist on the subcontinent today. Yet PALS may serve as palliatives, as a first step toward alleviating the danger of possible use of nuclear weapons. The United States and other NWS may be able to share PALS technology with India and Pakistan, as they did with France. Unfortunately, however, such a move by the United States would be seen as caving into nuclear weapons proliferators and would involve sharing sensitive technology that relies heavily upon specific nuclear design and hence possibly revealing that design. Fortunately, there are ways of handling the principles of PALS design that do not reveal details of weapons designs and structures. This was not discussed in this forum.
Another participant laid out a case for why India and Pakistan could maintain nuclear deterrence without actual weaponization. According to this participant, improved command and control (C&C), and not weaponization, is necessary for deterrence and for crisis management. In essence, the step that some people most fear—that India and Pakistan will move toward weaponization—is not necessary in order to create a stable deterrence relationship between the two sides.
Although understandings of the term may differ, weaponization essentially means developing the interface between the weapons system and platform or the delivery vehicle in which the nuclear weapon is to be housed. A significant degree of testing must take place in order to ensure that the interface between the weapons and its means of delivery operates reliably. Such tests involve flight testing of missiles, establishing records, evaluating results of tests, making sure that proper sequencing occurs, and ultimately assuring that the nuclear devices and their platforms are integrated in a way that makes them usable upon command.
But deterrence can be achieved without these steps being taken. In this regard, there are several general points worth noting:
Safety and Security
In terms of safety and security of nuclear weapons, both India and Pakistan appear to keep the necessary components separated at this point. In addition, PALS may, as has been suggested earlier, help guard against accidental detonation and unauthorized use. However, PALS is designed to work with certain weapons systems. Should India and Pakistan require assistance in using it, however, there is a the risk of revealing their nuclear weapons design. The possibility of India and Pakistan’s agreeing to this revelation is unlikely. Besides being insufficient to achieving real deterrence, weaponization also carries unwanted domestic risk: a weaponized nuclear program in which the weapon is integrated with the delivery system is vulnerable to terrorism. If weapons are kept separate from platforms, then possible terrorist threat to use the nuclear weapons may be difficult to achieve. This leads to the issue of authorized use: without weaponization there will be fewer decisions to make about delegating authority and fewer possibilities of a loose chain of command.
Weaponization and Policy
The link between weaponization and doctrine is crucial. The development of capabilities must be connected with political objectives. At present, the political objectives focus on deterrence not war-fighting. But once the various components are available, it is simply a matter of time before the capability is actually weaponized. At a point where weaponization and consequently readiness is reached, there is more threat to the stability of the region and less room for negotiating flexibility. Once a country is weaponized, it is harder to think of how not to make use of them.
Real Time Monitoring Capability
A weakness in real time intelligence monitoring capabilities is another factor in the decision on weaponization. Both India and Pakistan have inadequate capabilities in this area, which should give them pause in moving toward full weaponization. A related issue is that of delegated versus assertive command and control. The United States has held the view that in crisis situations it may be necessary to move from an assertive posture where central authorities have a tight control over nuclear weapons to delegated authority. This requires a high level of confidence in that chain of command and in the training for those responsible in the chain. Military involvement in the early stages of the planning process is important because the military tends to have a more cautious attitude toward warfare than do civilians.
Accommodation and Reassurance
Accommodation and reassurance set in an active program of strategic arms control is a necessary element. For their own strategic reasons there is now a great need for mutual accommodation and reassurance between India and Pakistan. In particular, they should especially pay more attention to short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs). Because the use of these missiles really shorten the time available to respond, the two countries should avoid putting nuclear missiles on SRBMs.
The two countries might build a spirit of accommodating reassurance through conventional force reduction and energy cooperation. Pakistan should not object to a no-first-use pledge, but if it does, then it might consider a no-early-use promise. The Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is also important.
It was stated that India is not going to agree to nuclear disarmament in South Asia unless China also agrees to disarm. In other words, the focus cannot be solely on the India-Pakistan dimension of the issue, but rather on the triangle made up of China, India, and Pakistan. One participant rejected the notion of Indian nuclear disarmament in both terms, stating that India’s consistent position has been that disarmament must be taken in the global context, and that if India is to disarm, all states are to disarm.
It is also overstating the case to say that the tests constituted a crime against peace. Insecure nations can be forced into peace and calm, but this is never long-lasting. Testing has made India feel more secure vis-à-vis China; Pakistan’s tests have made it feel more secure vis-à-vis India. In fact, these are not necessarily bad developments, and might actually strengthen the basis upon which peace rests.
Another matter relates to the philosophy that India and Pakistan will adopt in terms of the use of nuclear weapons. Although India and Pakistan have fought three wars, neither country has targeted the other’s cities or value systems. Each side has shown a considerable degree of restraint. But there are others who strongly rejected the notion of past India and Pakistan restraint, noting that Pakistan’s actions in Bangladesh were egregious and that both India and Pakistan have indeed targeted each other’s cities during past conflicts.
Discussants also noted that there is too much emphasis on the ability of India to manage its command and control system for its nuclear weapons. Credit must be given to the fact that the people who built nuclear weapons can also design command and control systems for them. An example given is the management of the railway system after the British departure.
Discussion
Several questions were raised: If China is a principal motivator for India’s nuclear weapons program, will India have to weaponize to make its capability credible? How far will India have to go toward weaponization if its key motivation is China? What is India and Pakistan’s ability to move from tests to mounting reliable devices on reliable missiles? And what are the likely costs of such a development? (A recent Brookings Institution report notes the large sums of money paid by the United States for its nuclear weapons deterrent.)
One participant suggested that mass politics in both India and Pakistan played at least some role in the movement toward the tests. But mass opinion remains woefully ignorant about the possible uses and impacts of such weapons and rely on governments and NGOs to educate them about these issues. Better education will serve as a constraint against governments being pushed to use weapons in the event of a crisis. In the United States, it took almost 30 years for the public to come up to speed on these issues.
In discussing what next steps India and Pakistan would take following their tests, it was suggested that the possibilities be set against the five goals articulated by the Permanent Five (P5) and Group of Eight (G8). These next steps specify that India and Pakistan:
One participant emphasized that the number of weapons to be built by each side would be limited. Pakistan, in particular, has a strong interest in limited weaponization if for no other reason than a lack of resources.
As to the issue raised about not needing weaponization for deterrence, one participant strongly rejected the notion by questioning how deterrent is possible if a country is not in a position to use its nuclear weapons instantaneously, given that an opponent exists who might be able to destroy the weapons before they are used? Moreover, it was noted that one of the safest modes of deterrence was to place nuclear weapons on submarines. If this kind of deterrence is seen as most stable, this should apply to the situation in South Asia. It was also proposed that if the next step India and Pakistan take was to become declared and fully-capable NWS, they should join a number of international regimes as such. One point raised related to India’s requirements for its nuclear forces and posture. It was noted that India actually faces a much more complex challenge analytically than does Pakistan. Pakistan has made it very clear that its nuclear weapons capability is intended to achieve deterrence vis-à-vis India alone. But India has identified as targets not only Pakistan, but also China, and at times the global structure. The possible implication of this is that India ultimately will have the capability to target the United States as well. If we assume for the moment that China is India’s main concern, then it would mandate different kinds of deployment and targeting than vis-à-vis Pakistan. A lot of emphasis has been on the need for transparency, command and control, and deterrent stability in the South Asian context. But to an Indian strategic planner, it would seem best that deterrence vis-à-vis China be pursued along the lines of China’s deterrence policy vis-à-vis the former Soviet Union. This involved a lot of calculated ambiguity, deception, and dispersal. It should be noted that the Chinese seemed to have long ago assumed that India has had nuclear weapons and adjusted its targeting strategy accordingly. So, it is not quite clear why India believes that it is necessary to increase its capabilities vis-à-vis China much higher. If India very explicitly identifies China as a threat, then it might provoke a major reallocation of Chinese strategic resources toward nuclear weapons. However, for the foreseeable future, China will work to deny India an enemy.
A major concern expressed was the stability of Pakistan in the wake of the tests and resulting sanctions. A possible collapse of Pakistan was seen as evident. India was seen as having coerced Pakistan into testing and then to increase the latter’s defense spending. The model of BJP policy appears to be that of the United States, which outspent the Soviet Union in terms of defense expenditures, leading to the latter’s collapse. But Pakistan’s collapse would not work in India’s interest: A collapsed Pakistan would produce fiefdoms of various kinds controlled by generals and brigadiers who may assume command over nuclear weapons.
Several differences exist between India-Pakistan deterrence and U.S.-Soviet deterrence. The United States and Soviet Union, in their nuclear policies, had to do a number of things to reassure allies about the potential use of weapons. In particular, the United States had to provide confidence to the Germans who thought that the United States and the former Soviet Union were willing to fight WWIII down to the last German. There is also the question of face-to-face enmity. While there was no face-to-face enmity between the United States and Soviet Union, there exists one between India and Pakistan, given their history of conflicts and skirmishes. Then there is the question of distance. The United States and the Soviet Union are on opposite ends of the globe, but in the case of India and Pakistan, there is no real time buffer.
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