& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

PlaiNWordS

Nuclear WMDs in South Asia

M B Naqvi writes from Karachi
THERE is something curious about the likely purposes of the recent visit of India's hardline Defence Minister George Fernandes to Beijing. Indian Premier Atal Behari Vajpayee had only recently made the overture for talks with Pakistan. There must then be some link with Pakistan too. In Beijing Fernandes firmly reiterated India's nuclear doctrine of 'No First Strike'. Perhaps it was appropriate that the Defence Minister was sent, who after the Pokhran nuclear tests in May 1998, had nominated China as the main security threat to India. But Pakistan and the nukes must have figured in talks with Chinese leaders. NWMDs anyway have to be discussed between India and Pakistan.
So long as Indian and Pakistani governments say what they say -that Indian WMDs are there to serve its core interests and concerns while Pakistan's basic security is predicated on its WMDs -- a modus operandi between them is, in this writer's view, impossible. Not many people fully realise the mischief these nuclear WMDs do. While India has those nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at Pakistan, no Pakistani general or civilian government can trust that those weapons would not be used against Pakistani targets in a grave crisis. Similarly while the nuclear-tipped Ghauris, Abdalis and others stand aimed at India, no responsible Indian can trust Pakistan's intentions. It is in the nature of these weapons; no adversary can be trusted with them in a crisis anywhere. Mutual trust and nukes don't gel.
There is unending rhetoric from Bomb-lovers about deterrence and a possible detente or a Nuclear Restraint Regime, based on Confidence Building Measures. India and Pakistan are overt nuclear powers for five long years. Has deterrence worked? Did the two go beyond signing a Memorandum of Understanding regarding a desired de tente or NRR? Could that understanding be ever negotiated? Why was it not discussed despite good drafts provided by the Americans to both sides? Indians loftily dis-
miss the reason for this failure to Gen. Musharraf's Kargil adventure. Have they asked the simple question: how could Pakistani military, in the context of India's proven nuclear deterrent, go ahead with cocking a snook at it?
It is a serious question requiring serious inquiry. This involves the basic mischief that nuclear weapons do. The first thing that happens after a country crosses the nuclear threshold is a swollen head of its policy planners. An arrogance of power penetrates into their think-
ing processes. Remember the arrogant and bellicose statements of Messrs L.K. Advani and Vajpayee made soon after May 13 Pokhran tests; they are all on record. By unexpectedly exploding six nuclear devices a bare 25 days later, Pakistan government confused the Indians. True, the Indians twice tried to start talks in accordance with the false expectations raised by their nuclear gurus who had been selling the nukes in both countries as a means of maintaining peace through deterrence. The other side wasn't buying.
While the arrogance of power in the case of Indians, thanks to their democratic framework, has remained confined to dreams of eventual grandeur based on overwhelming power being acquired and a certain moderate behaviour is mandated by plurality of decision makers, Pakistan's military rulers went overboard. Conscious of their nuclear capabilities, they converted Kashmiris' spontaneous and nonviolent mass movement in 1989 into an armed insurgency and called it Jihad. In Afghanistan they virtually went berserk and played king-makers in the 1990. They began to dream of strategic depth -- against India, of course. They punched well above their height. Results can be seen today: the US is wary; India is extremely inimical; Afghans of even Karzai's kind dislike Pakistanis. It is totally out of tune with most major powers.
The fact of the matter is that the doctrine of deterrence has not
worked. Ideally, Pakistan should be deterred by Indian nuclear might and India should be duly respectful of Pakistan's capabilities. Are the two adequately deterred? Bold will be the man who will answer in the affirmative. Which general or government can miss the fact that a Ghauri will take two to three minutes to reach its target in India? Indian Prithvi too will take the same time to wreak terrible destruction in Pakistan. No government or an army can take a rational or calculated decision or
even to pick up the telephone within three minutes, if they do get an inkling. Today, the brutal fact is that both countries are on hairtrigger alert; both will launch on the first indication that the other is activating its missiles. A sadder fact is that they have to remain on this dangerous, instant alert --- all the time and always -- with its expected accidents and failures.
Deterrence depends upon credibility of the nuclear weapons and delivery systems plus the second strike capability. The enemy will be deterred only if the adversary, despite being nuked first will make a nuclear riposte. It also involves wholly rational decision-making: only resorting to NWMDs when being absolutely sure that the enemy has broken his spoken or unspoken commitment about not mounting a wanton attack. This particular requirement of peace-through-deterrence theory is a tall order. Look at hundreds of accidents and alarms about enemy being attacked during east-west cold war. They had 27 to 30 minutes to verify and be restrained. In volatile South Asia the available time can only be three minutes. Imagine the accidents, glitches, technical malfunctions and the power of rumours and or passions between Pakistan and India.
Americans and their chelas in Delhi and Islamabad have talked glibly of a rough balance of terror between the two and then the two will live in peace ever thereafter. They forget the element of trust is the first to go in nuclearisation. CBMs are no substitute for mutual trust. During the last 10 or 12 years, with CBMs in place, these facilities were forgotten and were not used whenever a crisis arose threatening a war. The two, apart from being so close to each other, cheek by jowl in fact, have purposes that can be achieved only at some cost to the other. So no experience of US-Soviet detente-making is actually relevant. Deterrence is anyhow a bogus concept and insufficient basis for peacekeeping between India and Pakistan, given the proneness to accidents and a culture of carelessness.
Moreover, semantics apart, who believes in the doctrine of 'No First Strike'? Imagine the scenario: a war
is starting or has started between these two neighbours. Now which commander in India will masochistically wait, while keeping his nukes primed, until Pakistani generals have pressed the red button first -- thus suffering absolutely unacceptable destruction of, say India's one or two urban-industrial centres -- as the theory is adumbrated. The world is told to believe that after Indian high command has made sure that this has actually happened, they will then order their own riposte that will be so massive as may send Pakistan to the stone age. Is this military behaviour amidst the dust and din of war credible? This is all too fanciful and unreal.
Just as India's No First Use is not credible, Pakistan's doctrine of reserving the right to use the nuke first -- in a critical situation where basic security of state is threatened, of course -- is also suspect. Its first use is predicated on a critical situation during a conventional war. If so, this use is even less credible because (a) the situation being already critical, such use will not ensure any relief or cessation of hostilities, much less victory; (b) it is sure to invite retaliation in kind which may lead to a worse defeat. Moreover, by the time the critical stage is reached, the capacity to use the option may have been compromised. A power with inferior conventional strength needs to avoid war altogether or start off with a nuclear strike. For, the use of nuclear weapons can only result in excessive destruction in both and old notions of victory and defeat do not apply.
What the opposing generals are more likely to do is to try and preempt the other. Thus there may be a race between the two sides to be the first to strike -- and as massively as may be feasible or judged adequate. The two, as of now, remain engaged in hectic arms races of various kinds. Why else are they conducting so many missile tests? Whatever relevance Mr. Fernandes' No First Use doctrine may work with regard to China, US or others, it has little to Pakistan.
There is no way the nuclear weapons can help win a war or maintain peace. All other uses of nuclear weapons in a possible war do not make sense. They will cause senseless destruction of vast areas. Not that preemptive use is sane. Thanks to dispersion of nuclear weapons in each country, both nations may end up with wholly unacceptable devastation for no rational purpose. Use of nuclear weapons on this Subcontinent is anyhow insane and can only result in Mutually Assured Defeat. Indeed, the damage to non combatants outside India and Pakistan can neither be avoided nor justified.
The only sane and rational thing is for common South Asians to mount an effective peace movement and let both New Delhi and Islamabad be compelled by their respective people to do without nuclear weapons altogether. A wholly non-nuclear South Asia will be so many shades saner and safer. It won't solve all the problems, of course. But the nightmare of a senseless nuclear war will disappear. Let peaceniks be given a chance -- or rather they should assert themselves here first and show that Pakistan does not produce only hawks, if also mostly bogus.
MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.
**The only sane and rational thing is for common South Asians to mount an effective peace movement and let both New Delhi and Islamabad be compelled by their respective people to do without nuclear weapons altogether. A wholly non-nuclear South Asia will be so many shades saner and safer. It won't solve all the problems, of course. But the nightmare of a senseless nuclear war will disappear.**