Shooting ourselves in the foot
Praful Bidwai
The News International, Pakistan, 15 May 2003
On the fifth anniversary of the Pokharan-II and Chagai nuclear tests
this month, what does the India-Pakistan security balance-sheet look
like? The honest answer must be: negative, ugly and frightening. The two
countries have lost, not gained, in security and trust, as well as in
global stature and prestige. The social, economic and political impact
of going nuclear has been grim, in some respects, disastrous.
Supporters of nuclear weapons had made a number of predictions about
their likely virtuous effects. Consider just five. They said both India
and Pakistan would become more secure and self-confident in the
knowledge that neither can now blackmail the other on the strength of
conventional strategic superiority or covert support to militant groups.
This new strategic equation would form the bedrock of "stability" in
South Asia as a whole.
Second, the leaders of both Pakistan and India, they prophesied, would
start behaving "responsibly" and "maturely". The destructive power of
the Bomb would itself ensure that - regardless of the quality of
leadership.
Third, even an India-Pakistan conventional war would become impossible,
indeed inconceivable. Doesn't deterrence theory tell you that nuclear
weapons-states do not go to war with one another? The low-intensity
conventional skirmishes between the USSR and China in the late 1960s and
1970s across the Ussuri river were only an "aberration". By contrast,
during the greatest confrontation of the second half of the 20th
century, the Cold War, the main adversaries (US and USSR) never
exchanged a shot. That same result should and would hold for India and
Pakistan.
Fourth, the Bomb's supporters predicted, nuclearisation would greatly
expand India's and Pakistan's capacity for political and diplomatic
manoeuvre in world affairs. India would even gain a permanent seat on
the Security Council.
And fifth, the adverse social and political impact of nuclearisation
would be minimal, and its economic costs affordable.
All five predictions have proved false. India and Pakistan have both
become edgy, nervously unsure about each other's designs and doctrines,
and more prone to panic reactions - and strategically unstable. In May
1998, South Asia became "the world's most dangerous place". Since then,
the nuclear danger here has increased, not decreased.
Nuclear weapons have not induced "maturity" and "sobriety" among our
leaders. Indeed, they have promoted hubris and rank adventurism. Some of
our generals genuinely believe that nuclear weapons can work as a shield
or cover under which to indulge in grossly provocative or reckless acts
against the adversary. The casual, cavalier, manner in which India and
Pakistan have repeatedly exchanged nuclear threats is truly
spine-chilling.
Evidently, the realisation has not sunk in among them, or the larger
public, of just how horrific nuclear weapons are, nor of how vulnerable
millions of people living in cities within the range of their missiles
have become. Even a first-generation nuclear bomb dropped on Mumbai or
Karachi will kill 800,000 or more people, flatten most buildings in the
city centre, destroy all communications, and contaminate vast swatches
of land with radioactive poisons, some of which will last for thousands
of years.
There is no military, civil or medical defence against nuclear weapons.
There is no cure for the health injury they cause. They are not weapons
of war, but of indiscriminate killing, mass extermination, genocide.
As for "deterrence", Pakistan and India went to war barely a year after
the Pokharan-Chagai nuclear tests. Kargil was a middle-sized conflict by
international standards, involving 40,000 Indian troops, top-of-the-line
weaponry and billions of dollars. Post-December 2001, the two rivals
were again at each other's throats for 10 long months, with a million
troops eyeball-to-eyeball.
The nuclear danger in South Asia is uniquely grave. The CIA's "Global
Threat 2015" report says that of all the regions of the world, the risk
of nuclear war is the highest in South Asia, and will remain "serious".
Agency director George Tenet has said the chances of war between India
and Pakistan "now are the highest since 1971". They are certainly much
higher than the likelihood of a US-USSR conflict after the 1962 Cuban
Missile Crisis.
Take the issue of global stature. After Chagai, Pakistan became a
virtual pariah state - until 9/11 gave it a chance to get into an
"anti-terrorist" alliance with the US. India's profile in Washington
rose somewhat around (and after) Bill Clinton's visit here in March
2000. But that was because of information technology and the success of
Indian entrepreneurs living in the US - that is, despite India's
nuclear weapons.
India's bargaining power and room for manoeuvre vis-a-vis Washington has
shrunk thanks to its nuclearisation. India remains a middle or secondary
league player in global affairs. For India and Pakistan, nuclear weapons
were clearly no invitation to the world's High Table.
The economic costs imposed by nuclearisation, which are still unfolding,
have proved harsh and extremely burdensome, especially on Pakistan. The
run on the Pakistani rupee triggered by Chagai inaugurated a serious
economic downturn. India has almost doubled its military spending over
five years - at the expense of health, education and social welfare
expenditure.
Military expenditure will spiral as the two build more and more nuclear
warheads, and invest in delivery vehicles, command-and-control systems
and other components of nuclear weapons programmes. This could prove
ruinous.
Even if nuclear weapons are not used, making and deploying them will
impose heavy costs upon India and Pakistan. India will have to spend
anything from Rs60,000 to Rs100,000 crores to acquire a small nuclear
arsenal, which is about one-fifth the size of China's. This will
bankrupt the state and cripple public services. Their collapse would
spell the failure of the state itself.
No less burdensome are nuclearisation's social and political costs.
Nuclear weapons do not come on their own. Inseparably associated with
them is ideological baggage - nuclearism" (or an almost mystical faith
in the power of the Bomb, among other things, to produce security),
legitimisation of the idea of mass destruction and unbounded militarism.
All this is destructive of the values of humanity, peace and reason. It
can only promote extreme intolerance and vicious male-supremacism. These
are a recipe for the corrosion and destruction of democracy.
In the South Asian case, there is a strong correlation between
militarism - both in the form of militarisation of society and daily
life, and the rising weight of the military in state and society - and
communalism or religion-based fundamentalism. Domestically, this is the
gravest danger in both countries. It threatens to rend them asunder as
nothing else does.
This lends great urgency to negotiating nuclear risk-reduction and
restraint measures, leading to regional nuclear disarmament. A beginning
can be made if India and Pakistan return to the unfinished agenda of the
Lahore summit.
At Lahore, India and Pakistan made a commitment to measures "aimed at
prevention of conflict", to meeting "periodically to discuss all issues
of mutual concern, including nuclear-related issues", and "bilateral
consultations on security concepts, and nuclear doctrines, with a view
to developing measures for confidence-building in the nuclear and
conventional fields, aimed at avoidance of conflict", as well as to
"consultation on security, disarmament and non-proliferation issues
within the context of negotiations...in multilateral fora". Will our
leaders rise to the occasion?
Copyright 2003 The News International
|
