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CAN PAK-INDIA NUCLEAR DETERRENCE HOLD?

The nuclearisation of South Asia can be analysed from different angles.

Dawn Ejaz Haider May 28, 2023 

Exactly 25 years ago, on May 28, Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests (a sixth was done on May 30). The tests were a response to India’s five nuclear tests, conducted on May 11 and 13. Both governments, after the tests, declared a moratorium on further testing. A quarter century since May 1998, they have stuck to the moratorium, though neither has signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

………………………………..We should be less sanguine about deterrence holding in all situations. Indeed, there’s now growing literature about the world being “on the cusp of a Third Nuclear Age” where a number of factors are likely to make the old belief in deterrence increasingly problematic if not entirely untenable.

This article primarily deals with India and Pakistan, a nuclear dyad in conflict. But some of the observations here are also applicable to other NWSs, including those whose possession of nuclear weapons have been “legitimised” by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

WHAT IS THE THIRD NUCLEAR AGE?

In a 2021 article for European Journal of International Security, titled Strategic non-nuclear weapons and the onset of a Third Nuclear Age, Andrew Future and Benjamin Zala describe the Third Nuclear Age as the combination of Second Nuclear Age thinking — i.e., deployment of Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons (SNNWs) — “with the return of the kind of major power competition associated with the First Nuclear Age.” This combo, as experts have begun to note, is highly dangerous.

…………………………………………………………………………………….. we are witnessing the use of info war by both Ukraine/NATO and Russia. Misinformation and disinformation campaigns, as is now widely known, serve to undermine trust in public institutions and governments. They are also essential tools in influencing perceptions.

INTEGRATION, AI AND THE KILL CHAIN

While the SNNW technologies [ Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons ] are disrupting the battlefield by getting increasingly more accurate and sophisticated, there’s the additional problem of cross-tech/cross-platform integration that is concentrating and increasing firepower devastatingly.

Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) are also likely, by most accounts, to take the human out of the decision-making loop. This is not hypothetical, since multiple such systems are being tested and prototypes developed. Another problem is the presence of SNNWs in a nuclear environment, such as between a nuclear dyad.

Since they “constitute an employable and credible weapon system that can engage the sources of enemy power directly, skipping the tactical and operational levels of warfare”, nuclear adversaries can use them thinking that they could keep the conflict below the nuclear threshold. Also, in the case of NWSs there’s no way of knowing whether these weapons carry conventional warheads.

Cross-platform integration and the introduction of AI — what we can call the Internet of Military Things — is changing the concept of the decision-making speed and what the militaries call the kill chain (it also throws up many ethical issues). Up until now, the kill chain was a series of processes, executed sequentially. With AI, we are now looking at overlapping some of those phases and completing them in parallel, to reduce the execution time of the chain.

In other words, the weapon is fired first, the find and fix processes overlap the flight time, and the final target designation is sent to the weapon in flight, through a SATCOM channel. Now bring AI into this and combine it with hypersonic missiles and you get an idea of how much time will be reduced on the kill chain.

In August 2020, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States conducted a simulated experiment. It pitted a Heron-developed AI pilot against a top F-16 human pilot. The AI pilot beat the human pilot in a 5-0 sweep in dogfight and manoeuvres.

While some of these technologies are expensive, others are not. The cost of many will steadily come down further as they proliferate (drones are a case in point, as is cyber and digital expertise). At this point, there are almost no regulatory frameworks for a number of emerging technologies.

Integration and the digital environment has also brought other risks. In a January 2018 report, the Royal Institute of International Affairs warned that US, British and other nuclear weapons systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This is far from an abstract threat.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….. This is not all. In a January 2023 edited volume, The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age, professors Vipin Narang and Scott D Sagan point to what they call the “declining confidence in deterrence.”

Gathered in the book are some of the top world experts trying to analyse the presence of nuclear weapons in a new age: growing prevalence of personalist dictatorships; incomplete or incorrect information; states facing multiple nuclear adversaries (regional subsystems) and operating in a novel information environment where misinformation can be maliciously planted or otherwise spread rampantly; states possessing small nuclear arsenals which they fear may not be reliable or survivable or over which they may not retain firm command and control.

As they put it: “Each of these factors alone, and especially in combination, generate risks that our standard strategies of nuclear deterrence are simply unequipped to manage or address.”

This is just a bird’s-eye view of a much larger and complex body of literature, a corpus that is increasing in volume, not as an exercise in alarmism but in analysing the emerging, uncertain trends.

INDIA-PAKISTAN, A CONFLICT DYAD

Some might say that it will be a while before some of these advanced technologies will get to these shores. They are wrong.

UAVs are already here, as are missile defences and precision, long-range artillery.

India is already seeking to bolster its anti-ballistic and cruise missile defences, developing MIRVs (multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles), hypersonic glide vehicles (reducing the already very short missile flight times) and fielding SSBNs (ship submersible ballistic nuclear), essentially, nuclear-powered submarines which can carry ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

These systems can both be non-nuclear and nuclear — i.e., they can carry tactical and strategic warheads………………………………………..

There are a number of additional risk factors as far as India and Pakistan are concerned: they are locked in a conflictual model; they have had multiple armed confrontations; both are nuclear-armed with growing arsenals and capabilities; since 2014, but more so since 2016, there is no dialogue framework between the two (covert channels notwithstanding);………………………………………

This environment is known. But it also feeds into another set of problems that increases the likelihood of a conflict:

a: India’s stated doctrine of limited conflict;

b: India’s movement away from the declaratory no-first use policy, as contained in its 2003 doctrine, to what can now only be described as a non-stated first-use policy; and

c: India’s poor record of handling weapon systems and platforms, which increases the risk of accidental conflict.

COLD START AND LIMITED WAR

India’s doctrine of limited war has a high probability of a spiral. ………………………………….

At the politico-strategic levels, relations remain tense, with little to no dialogue between the two sides since August 5, 2019, when India unilaterally and illegally revoked the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, in violation of UN Resolutions. Past experience suggests that deteriorating relations result in a higher probability of conflict between the two sides

INDIA’S NO-FIRST USE IS A SHAM

India’s 2003 Nuclear Doctrine declares that India is wedded to no-first use (NFU) — i.e., India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, unless it is attacked with nuclear weapons. The NFU declarations, as experts have widely argued, are political, not operational statements.

ACCIDENTS, MORE ACCIDENTS…………………………………………………………………..

As noted by one Indian analyst, “the Indian military services over the last several years have witnessed many high profile tragedies and mishaps.” During PAF’s Operation Swift Retort on February 27, 2019, while there was a dogfight going on over the skies along the Line of Control, Indian ground air defence shot down one of its own Russian Mi-17V5 ‘Hip’ medium-lift helicopters, killing six service officials and one civilian.

In two other incidents, “India’s indigenous Arihant [nuclear] submarine [was left] out of commission for many months in 2018; and a fire and explosion on board an Indian Kilo-class submarine in 2013…killed 18 crew members.”

ELUSIVE COMMON GROUND

As nuclear weapons states outside the framework of the NPT, Pakistan and India have certain legal and normative responsibilities. Their civilian nuclear programmes are under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

India, which has a 123 Agreement with the United States, has been trying to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and is already a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime. Pakistan, for its part, has constantly argued against discriminatory approaches to non-proliferation and disarmament……………………………………………

The writer is a journalist interested in security and foreign policies. He tweets @ejazhaider

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 28th, 2023 more https://www.dawn.com/news/1756369/can-pak-india-nuclear-deterrence-hold?preview

May 29, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | ASIA, weapons and war