CIAO DATE: 2/00

India and Pakistan: Defining Security with the Bomb

The South Asia Monitor
Number 5
February 1, 1999

The Center for Strategic and International Studies

 

Eight months after India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear tests, strategic thinkers in both countries are beginning to define “minimum deterrence” in quite similar ways. They have not really come to grips with the changes in their defense structure and the need for command and control that flow from a declared nuclear capability. Nor have they dealt with its impact on their conventional doctrine. In discussions with the United States, both countries are attempting to bargain hard with their willingness to sign the Conventional Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and other nonproliferation agreements—and both risk overplaying their hand. While both support nuclear risk reduction in principle, neither sees it as an urgent priority. The asymmetries between India and Pakistan, and between India’s relations with Pakistan and with China, are a serious obstacle to the establishment of a reliable risk reduction system.

 

India: Usable Weapons, but Not Deployed

The mainstream view of Indian strategic posture, as it is starting to emerge, includes the following elements:

• Weapon inventory sufficient for “minimum deterrence”, at a level not defined, but probably smaller than China’s nuclear arsenal. One hears numbers advocated as low as 50 warheads and as high as 400; the most common estimate is 200. Those who advocate the higher figures acknowledge that they may not be reached for years.

• Nuclear weapons kept in “non-mated, non-alert posture”.

• Missile testing to continue, including a longer range Agni.

• India does not need the full panoply of delivery systems and command and control features used by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The nuclear weapon is not regarded as a war-fighting weapon but as a “last resort.”

• No first use, and no use against non-nuclear powers.

• India’s doctrine posits the credible risk of a nuclear response to “unacceptable damage”, rather than a guaranteed nuclear response to a defined threat or attack. Some compare India’s approach to the French theory of “proportional deterrence”; this would imply that the notional targets are cities rather than military forces.

This does not represent a consensus. There are vocal proponents of a more assertive posture, including an eventual submarine-launched capability and a warhead inventory approximating China’s. Behind these generalizations, moreover, lie important unresolved issues.

• What dedicated command and control mechanisms are needed to make the deterrent credible? Even a simpler setup than those used by other nuclear powers will involve changes in present arrangements for responding to military crises, and a major investment in communications.

• India’s military services are not part of the Ministry of Defense; there is no integration or exchange of staff between the services and the civilians who staff the ministry. Personality clashes and personnel issues have recently strained civil-military relations to the breaking point. The defense minister has pledged to revamp this structure. Without major change, it is hard to see how it can accommodate the command, control, and coordination needed to manage a nuclear arsenal.

• India’s calculation of the inventory it wants to use as a deterrent is based on China’s; it does not appear to have factored in the potential escalatory effect on Pakistan. Because of the unresolved dispute with Pakistan, India probably cannot simply base its calculations on the largest adversary, as the United States did during the Cold War.

• The interplay between India’s conventional and nuclear doctrines is only beginning to be explored. In particular, the need to calibrate strategy toward Pakistan so that it does not trigger a “doomsday” nuclear response may dictate changes in India’s traditional plans for use of its conventional arms in the event of conflict.

 

India and the nonproliferation regime:

There is a consensus, or close to it, that India should act as if it were a member of all feasible parts of the international nonproliferation system. This means not conducting further tests, maintaining and perhaps formalizing in law a ban on export of nuclear materials and technology, and living by the restrictions that India would undertake were it able to sign the NPT as a nuclear weapons state. Opinions are more divided as to whether India should actually sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and, when it is completed, the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Unless the United States and other major powers ratify the CTBT, India will surely not take that step.

The mainstream, but not the nuclear hard-liners, continues to hold fast to India’s global disarmament agenda. Some defense intellectuals believe that India can use its signature to the CTBT as a bargaining chip to advance global disarmament. They overestimate India’s bargaining power and perhaps also India’s willingness to abolish its own newly declared arsenal.

 

Pakistan: Reacting to India

In Pakistan, by contrast, there is less debate about national strategy. The prevailing view is that Pakistan needs to base its strategy and its nuclear inventory on Indian capabilities rather than intentions. Several points in the emerging mainstream Indian view have their Pakistani analogues, notably:

• the notion of a deterrent force at the minimum necessary level;

• the priority to developing missile delivery systems;

• the concept that this is not a “war-fighting” weapon.

The major difference in Pakistan’s approach derives from India’s overwhelming conventional superiority. In Pakistani eyes, nuclear deterrence is intended to ensure the survival of the nation, regardless of whether the threat is conventional or nuclear. This, coupled with Pakistan’s lack of interest in a no-first-use pledge, suggests that Pakistan does not rule out preemption. The same logic would suggest that Pakistan’s deterrent threat would need to be a fairly drastic one, probably directed against population centers. This issue, however, does not figure in the public debate. Discussion of command and control is sketchy—and highly sensitive, given the military’s strong historical role and delicate relationship with civilian politicians.

 

International nonproliferation:

Pakistan has traditionally said it would adhere to any of the international nonproliferation agreements if India also did so. There was some discussion within the past six months of Pakistan’s possibly signing the CTBT without waiting for India. Such a move carries political risks, and it is not clear whether the government is prepared to carry through. Like India, Pakistan has always agreed that it should not export nuclear materials or technology. Because Pakistan’s export control mechanisms are weak, the outside world will be focusing on the implementation of any non-export pledge as much as on the pledge itself.

Pakistan, like India, has overestimated the value of its participation in the CTBT and other nonproliferation agreements as a “bargaining chip.” It wants U.S. engagement in a settlement of Kashmir. There is no chance of the United States taking on the kind of role Pakistan seeks—nor of the United States pushing for the kind of settlement a Pakistani leader could readily accept.

 

Toward India-Pakistan Risk Reduction?

The danger to regional security from India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals stems from a miscalculation or accident rather than from a deliberate decision to go to war. This makes their bilateral risk reduction efforts the most important aspect of their post-nuclear relationship from the point of view of regional security.

At their first meeting to discuss “peace and security,” Indian and Pakistani representatives submitted potential lists of confidence-building measures that included substantial common ground. This is the only positive element in an otherwise sterile official dialogue.

The road to actual implementation of a system for reducing the risk of accidental conflict, however, will be difficult. Although there is no real opposition to nuclear risk reduction measures in either country, neither are they looked on as a priority. Both countries bring to the table dangerous mindsets.

• In India, one often hears that “Pakistan understands” that India has no hostile designs on it. The fact that major population centers and the Indus River headwaters were not attacked during past Indo-Pak wars is cited as evidence.

• In Pakistan, however, there is a strong sense that the nation’s survival is potentially at risk in the event of a major Indian attack. Without a clearer understanding of India’s defense doctrine, this could generate a catastrophic miscalculation.

• India is unlikely to see its national existence hanging in the balance. It may be hard for Pakistan to calculate what India might consider “unacceptable damage.”

 

What about China?

If risk reduction is a daunting agenda for India and Pakistan, it has not even been attempted between India and China. Neither side is likely to see itself in danger of extinction, and while there is a longstanding border disagreement, both sides have lived peacefully with it since 1962. Thus, the likelihood of conflict, or even of a serious scare, is low. A serious strategic dialogue between India and China would be a great asset in stabilizing the region, however, by making it possible to move away from the escalatory logic that is built into the current relationships among India, China, and Pakistan. India will also be watching carefully for evidence that China is moving away from support for Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programs.