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Four years after Pokharan the nuclear danger is now!

PRAFUL BIDWAI writes from New Delhi
***The India-Pakistan nuclear balance-sheet is strongly negative. Four years on, both have lost security. Nuclear weapons have become a liability. Nuclearisation hasn't given India or Pakistan a greater voice in world affairs. Pakistan could soon return to its pre-September 11 "failing state" status once the US is through with its South Asian "anti-terror war". India's profile has risen in Washington--despite, not because of, nuclear weapons, and because the Vajpayee government has become America's client-partner. That's no invitation to the world's high table.***
IT is a fateful, frightful coincidence that an India-Pakistan conflict should seem imminent on the fourth anniversary of their nuclear tests. India has cranked up its military machine, already on high alert for four months.
A "limited" strike across the Line of Control still cannot be ruled out. Nor can harsh diplomatic measures. The likelihood of a military conflict has greatly increased after Jammu's ghastly May 14 terrorist attack.
The visits of US officials Richard Armitage and Christina Rocca only highlight that grave danger. The danger has certainly not passed.
A "limited" strike on Pakistan won't reflect wisdom or rationality on New Delhi's part. Rather, it will demonstrate India's frustration at Islamabad's refusal to take "action" on the list of 20 "terrorists", most of them unconnected with the December 13 Parliament attack.
Pakistan may be dishonest in claiming it cannot stop militants crossing the LoC, given the terrain. But India too has practised brinkmanship and sent contradictory signals. Is its bottom-line "action" against the 20, or an end to bordercrossing?
A "limited" strike is unlikely to bend Pakistan to India's will--except through mediation by the US, at a high cost. "Limited" strikes will probably lead to open warfare which could escalate into a nuclear catastrophe.
Highlighting this deadly prospect is a sensational (London) Sunday Times report. This says the Pakistani army mobilised its nuclear arsenal against India during the 1999 Kargil war without the knowledge of Prime Minister Sharif.
Citing senior White House
adviser Bruce Riedel, it says the US had "disturbing information" that India and Pakistan "were heading for a deadly descent into full-scale conflict, with a danger of nuclear cataclysm".
This gives a hair-raising edge to well-founded fears that Kargil had a serious potential for nuclear escalation. This Column then recorded that India and Pakistan exchanged nuclear threats no fewer than 13 times.
Kargil was the world's biggest-ever conflict between two nuclear weapons-states.
Although Mr Riedel is silent on this, it is likely that India too drew up plans to use nuclear weapons. The Sunday Times discloses that: * Nuclear weapons were mobilised for actual use during a large-scale conflict, involving 40,000 Indian troops, numerous air-strikes and naval manoeuvres. The chances of use are highest in war.
* Pakistan's elected Prime Minister was totally unaware of his army's nuclear preparations. He was told that terrible truth by Mr Bill Clinton in Washington.
* The army fully controls Pakistan's nuclear activities--to the point of blocking information from civilian leaders. Earlier, Ms Benazir Bhutto had to beg the CIA to brief her on Islamabad's nuclear capability. Her own army denied her that--as Prime Minister!
* When reminded by Mr Clinton of how close the US and the USSR came to nuclear war in 1962, an "exhausted" Mr Sharif recognised the "catastrophic" danger, and "said he was against [the preparations], but worried for his life back in Pakistan".
A troops pullback followed--much to Gen Pervez Musharraf's annoyance. Then came the coup, thanks to the Sharif-Musharraf conflict.
These disclosures should chill many spines. They highlight how irresponsible Pakistan's military leaders are, and how irrational calculations could start a nuclear conflict.
But this can only give Indians cold comfort. For it is India's leadership which cajoled, taunted and chided Pakistan into crossing the
nuclear threshold.
Mr Sharif first balked at the prospect of testing. He decided on the blasts only after Mr L.K. Advani made his May 18 Kashmir speech, warning Pakistan that the "geopolitical situation" had changed.
In nuclear war, it doesn't take two to tango. A single move can produce catastrophic consequences. Wreaking nuclear devastation upon the adversary after he has bombed you can only be an act of revenge, not of regaining security.
Indian leaders deceived themselves that nuclear weapons would miraculously instill sobriety into khaki brains. They committed a colossal blunder in capitulating to RSS pressure.
The tests fulfilled not a national-consensual project, but a unique Hindutva obsession. No party other than the BJP has demanded India's full-scale nuclearisation--right since 1951.
South Asia's 1.3 billion-plus people are paying for the historic stupidity of Vajpayee, Sharif & Co. We could all turn into particles of
radioactive dust.
The danger is not imaginary. The CIA's "Global Threat-2015" report says the risk of nuclear war is highest in South Asia and will remain "serious". Director George Tenet testified: "If India were to conduct large-scale offensive operations into Pakistani Kashmir, Pakistan might retaliate with strikes ... in the belief that its nuclear deterrent would limit the scope of an Indian nuclear counter-attack".
One of India's few genuine strategic experts, Gen V.R. Raghavan, concurs. He says a limited India-Pakistan conflict is likely to escalate to the nuclear level.
A first-generation nuclear bomb dropped on Mumbai or Karachi will kill 800,000-plus people, flatten most buildings, destroy communications, and contaminate vast swathes of land with radioactive poisons 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.
The costs of nuclear weapons can be unbearable. The expenditure, of anything like Rs. 60,000 to 100,000 crores, on a small Indian nuclear arsenal will bankrupt the state and cripple the already feeble social sector. This would spell failure of the state.
No lighter will be nuclearisation's political costs: reduced global stature, internationalisation of Kashmir, and subservience to the US.
The India-Pakistan nuclear balance-sheet is strongly negative. Four years on, both have lost security. Nuclear weapons have become a liability.
Nuclearisation hasn't given India or Pakistan a greater voice in world affairs. Pakistan could soon return to its pre-September 11 "failing state" status once the US is through with its South Asian "anti-terror war".
India's profile has risen in Wash-ington--despite, not because of, nuclear weapons, and because the Vajpayee government has become America's client-partner. That's no invitation to the world's high table.
Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.