India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia
by
Šumit Ganguly and S.Paul Kapur.
1. ABOUT THE AUTHORS :
Šumit Ganguly is a professor of political science, holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, and is the director of research at the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also director of the university's India Studies Program. His other publications include The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes of Peace.
2. This book is set up as a debate between the two authors over whether nuclearization has created a barrier to escalation during crises between the two nations or whether it has instead created a shield for Pakistani adventurism and a risk of Indian overreaction.
The concept of Nuclear deterrence has been a feature of nations since time immemorial. Since the first bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, deterrence acquired a special significance, particularly due to the development of nuclear weapons. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in the post- war period peace and stability have largely been functions of the policy and strategy of deterrence. The conditions and context under which nuclear deterrence functions has drastically altered since the Cold War period. In fact South Asia is seen as the most dangerous case of contemporary nuclear stand-off where deterrence can fail.
Authors of two of the most comprehensive books on South Asia's new nuclear era, Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, offer competing theories on the transformation of the region and what these patterns mean for the world's next proliferators.
Ganguly begins with an outcome-based approach emphasizing the results of militarized conflict. In his opinion, nuclear weapons have prevented Indo-Pakistani disputes from blossoming into full-scale war.
Kapur counters with a process-based approach stressing the specific pathways that lead to conflict and escalation. From his perspective, nuclear weapons have fueled a violent cycle of Pakistani provocation and Indian response, giving rise to a number of crises that might easily have spun into chaos. Kapur thus believes nuclear weapons have been a destabilizing force in South Asia and could similarly affect other parts of the world.
With these two major interpretations, Ganguly and Kapur tackle all sides of an urgent issue that has profound regional and global consequences. Sure to spark discussion and debate, India, Pakistan, and the Bomb thoroughly maps the potential impact of nuclear proliferation.
3.Many scholars of repute have anlysed and given their views on the role of nuclear weapons in keeping stability or disturbing the same in the region ( South Asia ) , But unfortunately there is no uniform conclusions drawn from their view points.
They attribute conventional violence in a nuclear South Asia to a phenomenon known as the "stability/instability paradox." According to this paradox, the risk of nuclear war makes it unlikely that conventional conflict will escalate to the nuclear level, thereby making conventional conflict more likely. Although this phenomenon encouraged U.S.-Soviet violence during the Cold War, it does not explain the dynamics of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan. Recent violence has seen Pakistan or its proxies launching limited attacks on Indian territory, and India refusing to retaliate in kind. The stability/instability paradox would not predict such behavior.
A low probability of conventional war escalating to the nuclear level would reduce the ability of Pakistan's nuclear weapons to deter an Indian conventional attack.
Because Pakistan is conventionally weaker than India, this would discourage Pakistani aggression and encourage robust Indian conventional retaliation against Pakistani provocations
Pakistani boldness and Indian restraint have actually resulted from instability in the strategic environment.
A full-scale Indo-Pakistani conventional conflict would create a significant risk of nuclear escalation. This danger enables Pakistan to launch limited attacks on India while deterring all-out Indian conventional retaliation and attracting international attention to the two countries' dispute over Kashmir.
Unlike in Cold War Europe, in contemporary South Asia nuclear danger----> facilitates, rather than impedes, conventional conflict.
4. Another critical study by Mr Muhammad Shoib examines the competing perspectives on the impact of nuclear weapons proliferation on the South Asian security environment.. As a region of burgeoning economic and political importance, South Asia offers a crucial test of proliferation's effects on the crisis behaviour of newly nuclear states.
His study elucidates the dialogue between scholars-- who believe that nuclear weapons have stabilized the subcontinent, and those who believe that nuclear weapons have made South Asia more conflict prone.
by pairing competing analyses of--> four major regional crises:
a) the 1987 "Brasstacks" crisis,
b)the Indo-Pakistani crisis of 1990,
c)the 1999 Kargil war, which occurred after the nuclear tests; and
d) the 2001-2 Indo-Pakistani militarized standoff
In addition, the implications of the South Asian nuclear experience for potential new nuclear states such as North Korea and Iran. are also studied
The evidence of the 1990s seem to suggest that the stability and prosperity of Asia-Pacific have flowed in part from the widespread adherence by regional countries to the non-proliferation norms and regimes, viz: the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). dating back to 1968 when seventy states signed the NPT, and this came into force in 1970.
Since then, the number of states party to the NPT has increased considerably to 176 states and thus opted to give up nuclear power for military purposes
But the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998 shattered the strategic status quo on the sub-continent, fuelling global concerns that the two long-time protagonists were moving close to a nuclear confrontation.and this resulted in shatterng the nuclear non-proliferation regime to pieces and fundamentally altered the nuclear balance of power. Subsequently, things got worse when India tested a missile capable of carrying this nuclear device. The campaign for nuclear disarmament is failing just when success seemed at hand.
5. Scholars have been investigating various aspects of the subject from different perspectives, especially from the point of view of deterrence theory. Most of the literature on deterrence can be broadly categorised into two schools of thought
: deterrence optimist school and the pessimist school.
The scholars belonging to the first school broadly believe that nuclear deterrence works across cultures and different political systems.
They argue that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by more states does not necessarily destabilise the international order and may even create conditions for a more peaceful world. The scholars who subscribe to the second school, however, emphasise the important differences in the technological conditions,
political and organisational cultures of the states.
These variations, they feel could either impede or enhance deterrence stability.
Given the anarchic nature of world politics and the uncertainties that are prevalent in the inter-state relations, the emergence of the powerful non-state actors embracing messianic ideologies,
it is a prudent policy to restrain, dissuade, contain and prevent acquisition of nuclear weapons by new states. Kenneth Waltz, a leading theorist of international relations belongs to the first school.
Scott D. Sagan is the principal proponent of the second school.
In what can be termed as the most illuminating scholarly dialogue, these two scholars have put together their arguments in the book under review – The Spread of Nuclear Weapons. The nuclear weapons optimist position flows from the logic of rational deterrence theory. This theory indicates that the possession of nuclear weapons by two states reduces the likelihood of war between them primarily because the costs of war and its consequences are immense. Basing his arguments within the neorealist structural theory
Waltz indicates that systemic pressures disable any two nuclear weapons state from deviating from the point of logical decision making;
that nuclear weapons are primarily a tool of deterrence and their existence is a stabilising factor in international politics.
He strongly advocates the view that more new nuclear weapons states would actually lead to greater stability on a systemic level.
He is, however, not alone in making such argumentations
. Bruce de Mesquita, Peter Lavoy and John Measheimer equally believe that “nuclear weapons are a superb deterrent”
1 Sagan, on the other hand, strongly asserts that such an optimistic view of nuclear weapons is dangerous for the world.
Placing his arguments within the theoretical underpinning of organisational theory, he argues that military organisations in nuclear weapons states suffer from certain common biases: inflexible routines and parochial interests. Such behavioural patterns, swaying on the side of inflexibility, could lead to the breakdown of deterrence and trigger off a major nuclear exchange with catastrophic consequences. Differing with Sagan’s position and projecting a positive future for nuclear deterrence,
Basrur in Minimum Deterrence and India’s National Security, Ganguly and Hagerty in Fearful Symmetry, and Rajgopalan in
Second Strike Arguments about Nuclear War in South Asia
supports the Waltzian position that nuclear weapons have acted as a deterrent in the India-Pakistan context.
The dominant view emanating from their writings is that the rhetoric of threat between the two countries is nothing more than mere rhetoric to deter the other from considering the nuclear optionThe two states might experience a sense of desperation because of their vulnerability to conventional attack but in crisis situations, both countries have exhibited a greater sense of desperation to avoid the use of strategic nuclear weapons.
6. Sagan refutes this position by claiming that states like India and more importantly, Pakistan lacks institutional mechanisms for civilian control over nuclear decision making.
Military organisations are also “inward looking”, heavily influenced by domestic politics and therefore, decisions regarding nuclear weapons would be taken based on issues of domestic stability, rather than systemic threats.
However,there is a conceptual difference between nuclear deterrence and conventional deterrence. The two concepts are not to be mixed together. Conventional deterrence depends on the quality, quantity and strength of conventional forces that a country possesses. Such forces could be utilized either for an offensive or defensive posture.
Countries also could strike first in a conventional sense to gain the advantage as the costs and consequences of such strikes are limited. Nuclear deterrence is achieved through its ability to punish a country with a high rate of “unacceptable costs”
. In the words of Waltz, “dissuasion by deterrence operates by frightening a state out of attacking, not because of the difficulty of launching an attack and carrying it home, but because the expected reaction of the opponent may result in one’s own severe punishment”
.3 Deterrence is primarily achieved through the certainty of retaliatory punishment and the uncertainty of a state’s nuclear policy in times of crisis. For such a retaliatory strategy, the survivability of nuclear weapons from a first strike; a second strike nuclear force is crucial.
Although conventional wars can be fought in a nuclear environment, yet higher the stakes in the war, the greater the risk of nuclear retaliation. As a result, nuclear weapons negate both conventional and nuclear advantage
History has also proved that in a conventional world, wars spiral out of control and could be limitless, whereas in a nuclear world, only limited wars could be fought.
7. Nuclear weapons in the South Asian context have given rise to numerous speculations about their probable use in war.
The chief western concern is that India and Pakistan have a history of wars; they had a bloody partition, and both states are inherently hostile towards the other’s existence. Given the emotional volatility of their relations and the geographical proximity of their borders, both countries could be engaged in a devastating nuclear arms race, strike each other with nuclear weapons with unimaginable consequences and come to oversee their mutual destruction.
Sagan refutes the efficacy of rational deterrence theory in this context, elaborating that actors’ rationality in a nuclear environment is an assumption, not backed by evidence. He cites that though India has an extremely assertive civilian nuclear command structure, the Pakistan military is in complete control of its nuclear weapons. Both sides have a history of misunderstanding, have engaged in four wars in the past, and a violent dispute over Kashmir. They have also shared pre-colonial, colonial and common cultural traits. Such a situation contrast sharply with the American-Soviet nuclear balance during the Cold War. These two countries did not have any territorial dispute and hardly knew each other in cultural terms.
Though admitting that the new nuclear powers would not repeat the mistakes of the Cold War adversaries, Sagan argues that the India- Pakistan historical rivalry, protracted ideological and territorial disputes may drive them up the nuclear ladder during a crisis.
This might happen either willfully, accidentally or by miscalculation.
8. The books under review can be placed in three thematic categories. These are essentially the three conditions of deterrence stability that have been identified by the scholars. By placing each author’s arguments within the intellectual boundaries of the requirements set out, the review would attempt to delineate the trend of the debate in the South Asian context. The review would end by providing the final thoughts on the issue and the dominant trend that emerges in the argumentation of the four reviewed books.
The three important requirements of nuclear stability are:
Prevention of preventive war.
Survivable second strike forces.
Avoidance of accidental nuclear war.
To summarise, the debate with regard to nuclear weapons in the South Asian context is no more about whether these weapons are a viable tool of statecraft. Rather, the debate has shifted to the realm of numbers; how many nuclear weapons should a state possess in order to establish a credible nuclear posture of deterrence?
The answer which emerges from the review is not many. Neither India nor Pakistan possesses the resources or the need to enter into a nuclear arms race.
A few survivable weapons with second-strike capability, however, are within these states’ finances and public support.States co-exist in anarchy at the systemic level where the dominant rule is self help.
So long as states are suspicious of each other, nuclear weapons are here to stay.
And as long as this is the existential order of the day, states have to devise tactics to limit the possibility of their own destruction.
Nuclear weapons bring about stability despite the fact that their existence threatens humanity with annihilation.
It is important to note in the end that the Clausewitzian dictum “war is a continuation of politics by other means”is not a useful paradigm in the nuclear age.
These weapons are not usable weapons but their existence is a reality that states have to learn to deal with.
In a very Waltzerian sense, perhaps the threat to use nuclear weapons is much more morally defensible than their actual usage
Hopefully, these weapons will always remain in the domain of threats; strategic posturing and the long peace will be a reality in perpetuity.
konthai
References:
, 1, Article :The Essence of the South Asian Nuclear Debate
Namrata Goswami
Volume: 30
Issue: 3
Review Essay
July 2006
Scott D. Sagan, Kenneth N. Waltz
2.Article in MIT PRESS
Volume 30, Number 2, Fall 2005
E-ISSN: 1531-4804 Print ISSN: 0162-2889 Kapur, S. Paul.
India and Pakistan's Unstable Peace: Why Nuclear South Asia Is Not Like Cold War Europe
International Security - Volume 30, Number 2, Fall 2005, pp. 127-152
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