False Hope in Deterrence 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. Copyright 2002 The Hindustan Times |
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