India Sharpens Nuclear Claws
Praful Bidwai
Asia Times Online, 31 January 2002
NEW DELHI - By test-flying a new, improved short-range version of the Agni missile last Friday, India has made a provocative move vis-a-vis Pakistan. It has also signaled that it is determined to weaponize its nuclear capability and fully and rapidly proceed toward deploying it in the field. New Delhi's summary rejection of Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's offer to work with India for de-nuclearizing South Asia underscores the same message.
The government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has clearly set its face against nuclear restraint. It is equally dogged about not de-escalating its unprecedented conventional military buildup along the border with Pakistan, in the wake of an armed attack on its parliament building in New Delhi on December 13, allegedly by Pakistan-based terrorists. About a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers, armed to the teeth, confront one another at the border.
This is the biggest-ever buildup in the two rivals' history. India has linked de-escalation to "effective action" on Musharraf's part against the "terrorists", 20 of whom it has named in a list handed over to Pakistan. Pakistan is now under growing pressure not just from India, but also the United States, to cut its umbilical cord to the jihadist militants operating in Kashmir - just as it had turned against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Amid the high-tension confrontation comes a new war of words, focused on nuclear weapons. This has further aggravated matters. The hostile rhetoric belies the fond hope that possessing nuclear weapons would instill sobriety and a sense of responsibility in Indian and Pakistani leaders.
Musharraf's proposal for de-nuclearizing South Asia came two days before the latest Agni test-flight. Musharraf also offered to sign a no-war pact with India. The Vajpayee government last Friday rejected both these proposals summarily, but with characteristic sanctimoniousness. It said its own stand is that "Nuclear weapons should be banished from the entire globe. De-nuclearization of India and Pakistan will have no meaning". It also said Musharraf's proposals are "nothing new", and asked Islamabad to end its "cross-border terrorism and proxy war" forthwith.
This is the second time Musharraf has offered to rid South Asia of nuclear weapons in cooperation with India and other powers. The first occasion was September 2000, when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly and proposed the formation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in South Asia. India made a riposte to the de-nuclearization proposal in the form of the Agni test. This version of the ballistic missile has a shorter range (700 kilometers) than its predecessors (Agni-I, range of 1,500km, and Agni-II with a range 2,000-2,500km).
But the new missile is much lighter and road- and rail-mobile. It is said to be far more accurate than the older versions. The new Agni also uses all-solid fuel. This offers a major advantage over the liquid fuel used in the second stage of the earlier models, which is corrosive and requires a prolonged filling process. This missile thus further narrows the gap between the manufacture and testing of nuclear weapons, on the one hand, and their induction into the armed forces, or deployment, on the other. India is also reportedly building a huge underground facility at thecost of US$300 million to house a nuclear command and control center.
In addition, India is believed to be acquiring two nuclear-powered submarines from Russia. The Russian daily Novye Izvestia said the two Project-971 "Bars" class multi-role submarines will be leased in 2004 and are likely to be deployed in the Indian Ocean to "balance" China's growing presence there. The move is significant because India's own Advanced Technology Vessel submarine development project has repeatedly failed to deliver results. In 1988 too, India had leased a Soviet nuclear submarine for three years. Nuclear-powered submarines have a long submergence capability. They can stay underwater for up to a year and hence carry a big element of surprise, which is an asset in creating a "deterrence" equation or in an actual nuclear war.
The growing nuclear rhetoric partly reflects some of these India-specific developments. In the past three weeks, a number of Indian political and military leaders have made statements warning Pakistan that it could be "wiped out" by nuclear weapons. Among the more remarkable of these statements was army chief S Padmanabhan's January 11 statement that his force was "fully ready" for war. He warned that although "nuclear weapons are not meant for war fighting", India would severely punish any state that is "mad enough to use nuclear weapons against any of our assets". Padmanabhan added, "The perpetrator shall be so severely punished that his very existence will be in doubt. We are ready for a second strike".
Defence Minister George Fernandes was quick to issue a rebuttal of this "cavalier" statement - under Western diplomatic pressure. But he had himself boasted only a few days earlier that India could "absorb" a first nuclear strike and yet retaliate.
General Padamanabhan's statement was highly unusual, because Indian defense chiefs are not expected to make policy or policy-oriented pronouncements. And it is only rarely that their news conferences are televised live. However, the controversy was not laid to rest on January 12. Four days later, India's naval chief too made a hawkish statement referring to a second-strike capability. He said he could "neither confirm nor deny" whether any ship in his fleet carries nuclear weapons. Such pronouncements are extraordinarily dangerous in the middle of the present eyeball-to-eyeball crisis. Twice before their 1998 nuclear tests, India and Pakistan came close to the verge of war amidst "routine" military exercises - in 1986-87 and then again in 1990.
Since the tests, during the Kargil war of 1999 alone, they exchanged nuclear threats 13 times. The present nuclear danger is much, much graver than Kargil, indeed more serious than any Cold War nuclear standoff since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Neither side is relenting or blinking first. Both are trying to extract the maximum possible political and military advantage by courting the United States and getting it to act as the effective mediator, although by a different name.
Copyright 2002 Asia Times Online
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