Opinion Facing the Arihant challenge
Indias proactive military doctrine is clearly aimed at Pakistan,leaving it little option but to build on its own nuclear stash....
The launch of Indias first missile-capable nuclear submarine has serious regional implications. It poses response choices for Pakistan to avert strategic imbalance. India must reflect on the overarching architecture of the relationship it wants to evolve with Pakistan. How far is its military build-up prompted by its threat perceptions or the objective of threat projection and hegemony?
Pakistan,after its breakup in 1971 through Indian military action,still feels that while socio-economic progress and combating extremism are core objectives,its main existential threat continues to emanate from India,where core policymakers and influential segments still regard Pakistans creation as a historical mistake.
Faced with an asymmetries and imbalances in the conventional field from a much larger India, Pakistans hard-won nuclear capability has kept the peace,by providing,through a credible minimum nuclear deterrent,strategic stability in South Asia.
The peace process begun in 2004 attempted to manage the different facets of this difficult relationship with the objective of resolving disputes in a peaceful manner acceptable to both. As part of the composite dialogue,talks were initiated on both nuclear and conventional CBMs. Both sides formally declared that the nuclear capabilities of each other,which are based on their national security imperatives,constitute a factor for stability. Two main agreements on pre-notification of ballistic missile tests and reduction of risks of accidents related to nuclear weapons were signed. Even before India broke off the peace process after the Mumbai incident,the process had slowed down. There was no concrete movement on the core issue of Kashmir and no promise of movement on Siachen,Sir Creek and the Indus waters which provide Pakistans life blood. While the nuclear CBMs agreements continue to hold,there was no forward movement and India wanted to delink itself from Pakistan even in this nuclear field in which India had reversed the maxim of thinking globally but acting locally.
India was encouraged by a number of developments. The US-Indo nuclear deal rather than encouraging nuclear restraint in South Asia,enhanced Indias strategic capability,freeing its limited uranium reserves for military use and keeping 8 reactors out of safeguards able to produce fissile material for 280 nuclear weapons annually,apart from its equally unsafeguarded 13 breeder reactors programme.
US,Israeli and Russian cooperation in Indias ABM programme would further destabilise the strategic balance,forcing Pakistan to increase its throw weight. India rejected Pakistans proposal for a Strategic Restraint Regime with its three interlocking elements of conflict resolution,nuclear and missile restraint and conventional balance,to avoid an unnecessary arms race.
Russia supported Indias nuclear submarine project over two decades through technology,technical advice and leasing of nuclear submarines. India cruise missile Brahmos was jointly developed with Russia.
India will build five nuclear submarines each carrying 12 nuclear ballistic missiles. The two Akula class submarines to be leased from Russia would carry another 48 missiles. This submarine leg of Indias nuclear triad would deploy some 100-plus nuclear weapons. The other air-launched gravity nuclear weapons,land-launched ballistic missiles,tactical nuclear weapons and land,air and sea-launched cruise missiles would constitute a formidable nuclear delivery capability.
India claims that this buildup is necessary because it faces threats from China and Pakistan. However given the growing relationship between India and China,no objective strategist has been able to postulate any credible conflict scenario between the two countries. On the other hand,95 per cent of Indias military potential is targeted against much smaller Pakistan. The planned nuclear submarine fleet with its short-range ballistic missiles is also Pakistan-specific.
Contradicting policy statements of wanting better relations with Pakistan,Indias aggressive Cold Start or proactive military doctrine aims to rapidly seize parts of Pakistan while trying to remain under the nuclear threshold . The nuclear submarine fleet with its second strike capability will be used to reinforce pressure on Pakistan not to use nuclear weapons,tactical or strategic,to deter or counter any Indian thrust into Pakistan.
Pakistan has responded that it will take all steps to safeguard its security and to maintain strategic balance in the region. What should Pakistan do? First of all,develop its own second strike nuclear submarine-based capability. Secondly,equip its conventional submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Thirdly,as Russian assistance has evoked no international objection and it is clear that both leasing of nuclear submarines and technology for their production are completely compatible with the global non-proliferation regime,Pakistan should explore such possibilities. Fourthly,the most important lesson for Pakistan,a latecomer by necessity as a nuclear state,is that while not having to match India nuclear weapon by weapon,to maintain strategic stability it will need to continue its modest fissile material production in the foreseeable future and cannot brook any negotiations counter to this vital national security requirement.
Faced with these escalating threats Pakistan must oppose the initiation of negotiations on the fissile material cutoff treaty which countries with their own comfortable fissile material stockpiles,who have also helped arm India,want to begin and prioritise in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva specifically at Pakistans expense. And if negotiations begin,Pakistan must not accept,just as India has already declared as its national objective,any outcome detrimental to Pakistans security.
The writer is a former Pakistan diplomat who headed Pakistans delegations in Nuclear and Conventional CBMs talks with India from 2004-2007.
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