Recent reports have said that Pakistan's nuclear capability is greater than India's. This reported asymmetry has inspired much discussion in the media and on the cocktail circuit. The report has not caused alarm amongst national security mandarins because the news may not be accurate. Also, we have long lived comfortably with the marked nuclear imbalance with China. To postulate foreign policy postures and defence plans, the consideration is the perception of the likely threat. To evaluate a threat, a country's intelligence, political and defence communities study two basic factors: the capability and the possible intention of a likely adversary. For a threat to exist, both must. But unlike capability, intentions can change swiftly. So it is prudent to be wary of a neighbour like Pakistan, which has constantly shown inimical intent and political instability. A threat potential evaluation must take into account an adversary's:(a) Military strength, weaponry, training and morale alongside defence spending.(b) Industrial, scientific, agricultural and economic bases and their productivity, that is, new scientific developments, gross domestic product and economic growth.(c) Demographic factors such as the segment of population between 18 and 45 years old that can be physically employed in the military.(d) Close military relations with another powerful country. Threat assessment - fathoming the future - is an attempt at the impossible. The information available to analysts is often vague and contradictory. Conclusions based on recurring patterns are more reliable. Yet analysts must be alert to new signals like those that surprised us in Kargil. During the cold war, it was normal practice for strategists to indulge in ``bean counts''. They would count the adversary's number of troops, tanks, fighter planes, submarines and nuclear warheads and compare them with the numbers in their own forces. This compares like with like on each side. An attempt at numerical parity or superiority can force choices out of sync with national purposes and realistic scenarios. It is more useful to compare the numbers of adversary weapons with the capability to defeat those weapons. A threat is a function of quality as well as quantity. Bean counts overestimate the threat of large numbers of inferior weapons and underestimate that of fewer but better weapons. Today's ``smart weapons'' are much superior, more lethal and accurate than the ``dumb'' bombs of World War II. Weapon delivery vehicles have greater accuracy and heavier payloads. Instead of equating the numbers of these delivery systems one needs defensive mechanisms to defeat them before an attack becomes viable. Deterrence, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. There must be demonstrated capability to inflict unacceptable damage, and a recognised political will to exercise it. Our scientists and engineers have displayed the ability to build and explode nuclear devices, but that device has not yet been known to be matched and married to an airplane or to a surface-to-surface missile (SSM) that could carry it accurately. The flight profiles and delivery parameters have to be worked out, validated and practised. Only then will we have nuclear deterrence. The deterrent weapons must be securely in place. They must be known to all adversaries. There has to be an infrastructure for their use. This will include fail-safe communications and mechanisms with back-ups for control by the country's chief executive from his Operations Command Post (OCP), right down to the bases for launch of the nuclear weapon fighters and missiles. For the security of the nuclear forces they would have to be placed at a distance from the borders of our potential enemies, maybe in central India.This would give early warning of impending air attacks and opportunity to intercept such threats. In any case, as in the USAF Strategic Air Command, the SSMs and their crew, like nuclear warplanes and their pilots and technicians, must be placed in shelters to make them impervious to attacks. We have acquired nuclear weapons to prevent all-out war not to fight it. If our deterrence is in place, it does not matter if we have fewer warheads.òf40óThe writer is a retired air vice-marshal
