nuclear-news

Nuclear balance of terror makes India and Pakistan less safe

Nuclear missiles don’t give security The Daily Star, Praful Bidwai, 1 May 12, “…….Nuclear weapons have made India and Pakistan more, not less, insecure. Millions of civilians in both are vulnerable to, but defenceless against, attacks by nuclear-capable missiles. Both are stockpiling large quantities of bomb fuel. Pakistan is building new plutonium facilities even as it expands its uranium enrichment programme.

There is no worthwhile arms control process between the two states.
Pakistan is reportedly busy dispersing its “nuclear assets” to prevent
the US from getting hold of them so they don’t fall into extremist
hands. This will create new uncertainties.

Ultimately, the greatest danger in this region lies in its leaders’
smug faith in nuclear deterrence. This doctrine holds that security is
achieved through a “balance of terror” — deterring an adversary’s
nuclear attack by threatening him with “unacceptable damage” with your
nukes.

For half a century, India maintained a principled stand against
nuclear deterrence. It termed it “morally abhorrent,” because
underlying it is disregard for life, and preparedness to kill millions
of civilians. India also argued that deterrence leads to an expensive
arms race — and greater insecurity.

This captured the truth about the Cold War, with its furious nuclear
build-up, missile rivalry, and spiralling arms spending in the rival
blocs led by the US and the USSR. Nuclear warheads in each multiplied
from a few dozen in the early 1950s, to several hundreds in the 1960s,
to many thousands in the 1970s.

Their number reached an astounding 70,000 in the mid-1980s, enough to
destroy the world 50 times over. This made the world irredeemably
unsafe, causing hundreds of accidents, strategic misperceptions, false
alarms, and hair-raising confrontations like the Cuban missile crisis
of 1962.

We now know from recently declassified documents that the Cuban crisis
was much worse than thought. More scarily, neither the Kennedy nor the
Khrushchev leadership knew of its true gravity. On many other
occasions too, deterrence nearly broke down.

Deterrence assumes perfect transparency about adversaries’ nuclear
capabilities and doctrines, no accidental or unauthorised use of
nuclear weapons, no strategic misperceptions, and no conventional
conflict between them.
In the Cold War, there was very little transparency. All kinds of
accidents happened. Nuclear submarines collided with ships carrying
nuclear weapons. Weather rockets were mistaken for missiles.
Counter-strikes were ordered — to be called off in the nick of time.

Nuclear states do fight conventional wars — as the USSR and China did
in the 1970s. More infamously, India and Pakistan fought the mid-sized
Kargil war one year after their nuclear blasts. This involved tens of
thousands of troops, top-of-the-shelf weaponry, and hundreds of
casualties, with potential for nuclear escalation.

Nor do nuclear weapons prevent a conventional arms race. India and
Pakistan have raised their conventional arms spending three- to
four-fold since 1998.

Tragically, India has unlearnt the truth about nuclear deterrence and
is replicating the Cold War-style behaviour pattern. It’s rushing
headlong into a missile race with China which is three times bigger in
economic size and military expenditure. India must rethink — and use
diplomatic options to de-escalate rivalry with its neighbours.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=232300

May 1, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, India, Pakistan, weapons and war