Onwards to the Nuclear Abyss

Feroz R Khan
Jun 18, 1998
India, Pakistan And The March Of Folly


, a few weeks ago, tested nuclear devices in southwestern Baluchistan, and in the
process announced its entry into the world’s "elite" club of nuclear powers. ’s decision to change its status from a nuclear capable
state to one fully acknowledging its capability was motivated, as explained by Islamabad, by New ’'s of
nuclear and a lack of a coherent response from the international community. The Pakistani response to the Indian challenge
gravely undermined the regional security of and in fact, proved the recent RAND Corporation study, commissioned by the
United States Air Force, that is the next most likely candidate for a nuclear conflict in the world.

The question which still remains unanswered is:
what forces propelled and to the edge of the nuclear abyss?

The whole political situation in , especially as it pertains to and , is a collection of problems which have created the Gordian Knot of Indo-Pakistani relations. The invisible force is the issue of . lurks in the body politic of Indo-Pak
relations as a cancerous tumor ready to attack and kill any means, which can normalize the relations between both nations. has
festered as an open wound in the domestic affairs of both New and Islamabad and one, which refuses to heal (courtesy of the local
politicians on either side of the political fence).

Neither nor is internally stable. has experienced ethnic problems, domestic violence and terrorist acts
committed on its soil for over a decade with no end in sight. Some of the problems faces internally were the result of the
ten-year Afghan . During the , helped in organizing, training, arming and logistically aiding Afghan factions to fight
against the Soviet occupying forces with the help of United States. After the ended, and the Soviet troops withdrew from
, a vast majority of the mujahideen with no viable employment to pursue continued to use as a base of operations to
gain their political aims in the Afghan civil that immediately followed the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from the conflict.

What the Afghans could not destroy, the local Pakistani politicians accomplished on their own. Pakistani politicians have periodically
used ethnic dissimilarities to fan their own peculiar brand of politics at the expense of national solidarity. Pakistani politicians, regardless
of their ideological stripe, have been guilty in the past of fomenting civil strive by pitting one ethnic, religious, provincial or political
group against another to enhance their own agenda and secure their own political power base. Too often in the past, when Pakistani
governments have found domestic opposition too vocal or too critical of their policies, they have chosen to externalize their internal
difficulties by resurrecting the phobia of an Indian threat.

This is not to imply that an Indian threat does not exist, but to suggest that domestic Pakistani politics have discovered a useful tool in
the issue to distract their critics. , for nearly a decade now, has been experimenting with a nascent that is
still fragile and still needs a lot of confidence before it can fully bloom. Pakistani institutions are slowly evolving into their own after a long
period of rule and hence, are still not mature enough to stand on their own. The politicians in , accustomed for too long
to a lack of political discourse, still feel uneasy in situations in which their faults are highlighted and their motives questioned. Whenever
a Pakistani feels threatened, it raises the issue of to reinforce its legitimacy and declare its orthodoxy to the official
dogma.

The effective resolution of the Kashmiri problem faces serious hurdles, because over the last fifty years of perpetual conflict on the issue
neither nor is willing to compromise on the status of . ’s position is, and has been; that should hold a
United Nation’s mandated plebiscite on the question of Kashmiri sovereignty as originally agreed upon in a United Nation’s resolution.
, for reasons of its own domestic consumption, refuses to do so. Indian position on is not as strong as its would
like it to be. Firstly, has an implicit realization that the Kashmiri , the majority of them Muslims, if given the opportunity to
determine their own status, would rather opt for independence and if worse comes to worse, would chose to side with . New
does not want the Kashmiri question to be settled impartially since it believes that impartiality will harm its interests in the region.
An independent , or a ceded to under international supervision, will forever destroy the myth of as the
world’s largest secular . Secondly, can not afford to let slip away from its grasp as it would have no official caus
belli to lament against . The Indians have used the cloak of Kashmiri troubles to successfully mask their real regional
hegemonistic aspirations in Asia. Lastly, wants to resolve the Kashmiri question with without a third part mediation,
because it knows that will never agree to such a condition and thus, it can continue to claim Pakistani hindrance and
diplomatically blame Islamabad for a lack of progress in the matter.

It should not be construed from the above paragraph that does not want to settle the problem of . , in lieu of its
interests, wants the Kashmiri thorn removed from its foreign/domestic as soon as possible. Indian is of the opinion that
the issue of should be dealt with militarily and not through mediative channels. is determined to gain and dominate the Vale
of through armed might for two reasons. One, since possession is nine tenths of the , wants to give the international
community and a fait acompli and hopes that by doing so, they will accept the reality and admit the Kashmiri question to be a
moot one. Therefore, the Indian hopes that Islamabad would realize the futility of the task and sotto voce accept Indian
dominion over and thus, renounce its historic claims to the region. Furthermore, once the sovereinity/independence of is
decided, the international community would have no other option, but to diplomatically recognize the Indian gambit and encourage
to do the same.

The second reason that propels this logic to its intended conclusion is the internal Indian problem of Khalistan; the Sikh declared
homeland in the Indian State of Punjab. After the assassination of Indira by her Sikh bodyguards and the storming of the Golden
Temple by the Indian Army, a vast majority of the Sikhs became disenchanted by the Hindu majority rule and started to clamor for an
independent homeland. In 1987, a political group of Sikhs declared their independence from and started to call their new homeland
Khalistan. Since then the Indian army has been covertly engaged in low level counter-insurgency operations in Punjab trying to quell
the Sikh insurrection. The Indians are eager to contain the rebellion and prevent the dismemberment of Punjab, their most productive and
fertile state. Recently, there have been signs of alarming developments in Indian Punjab as far New is concerned and one, which
has caused it some anxious moments. The local insurgency in has shown signs of slipping into Punjab and in the process,
implying the capability of merging in with the Kashmiri to the Indian home rule and thus, forging an united anti- alliance.
The Indian is at pains to stop this from becoming a reality. The rationale being, if it can not contain the anti-Indian sentiment
in and Punjab, how likely can it stop its spread to other Indian states simmering with dissent against New ?

Hence, the only way the Indians can prevent the insurgency from exploding in Punjab is to isolate it from and make certain that
two would never merge into one. This being the case, it becomes incumbent upon the Indians to fully neutralize the irksome Kashmiri
freedom fighters and curtail their political and logistical support. This implies an overt confrontation with ’s
Inter-Services-Int elligence. ISI has been secretly supporting the Kashmiri struggle against for a long time and has shown no
interest in slowing down or even ending its operations in the region. Also, the Indians are worried that should the ISI gain the upper
hand in , it will seek to undermine New ’s authority in Punjab and really cause the Indians an administrative nightmare. This
would be nightmare seems all too real to the political pundits in . ISI is, after all, one of the few Third World intelligence services with
real practical experience in conducting major covert operations. ISI has plenty of knowledge in how to conduct, organize and support
intelligence/ operations on a large scale having gained the experience in , against the Soviet Union, courtesy of the
Central Intelligence Agency.

To the Indians, the ISI is the real danger to their sovereign integrity in both and Punjab and not the local insurgent movements.
As far as the Indian intelligence is concerned, ISI has the means, expertise and operatives to carry such out such a mission on a
systemic level.
To secure themselves against this external threat, the Indians not only need to defeat the ISI, but also remove it completely from
and restrict its ability to influence events in the region.

To do so militarily is a difficult task. has over 600,000 troops in trying to pacify the insurgents and it still has not secured
any tangible success in the region. , in order to fully deliver the d’grace to the ISI in needs an occupying army capable
of maintain its presence in the region over a long period of time. It needs to reach down to the level of the villages and methodically root
out the support from the Kashmiri freedom fighters and deny them any indigent empathy, no matter how ruthless such an undertaking
might be. In short, it can not afford to control the cities only, occasionally engaging in punitive expeditions and venturing out, but
otherwise leaving the countryside to the opposition. Such a did not work for the Americans in Vietnam; it did not work for the Red
Army in and it certainly will not work for the Indian Army in .

The other side of this coin is that , even though it had the political and the strategic will to do it, tactically can not afford the luxury
of such an engagement. With half of Indian forces committed in , its financial resources committed to the enterprise, Indian troops
would be, if not qualitatively at least quantitatively, on par with Pakistani troops across border. The Indians would no longer enjoy their
superior ratio against the Pakistani Army. In fact, the troops would be evenly matched and such a scenario does not appeal to the Indian
planners. The reason being that an attacker needs at least 10:1 ratio to overwhelm a defender. However, the Indians committed in
, their remaining forces in the west, without withdrawing any contingents from the east, would give the Indians at most a 5:1 ratio
against the Pakistanis with all their force multipliers included into the equation.

Also given the fact that there are four to six Pakistani army corps confronting the Indians in the -Sialkot-Multan sector, the
possible schwerpunkt of an Indian attack into , and that due to a lack of strategic depth the Pakistani Army is deployed in a
continuous line of defense. The Indians, thus, can not to sustain a major breakout offensive against at those odds without
risking a counter-offensive. A task the Pakistani Army is paying quite a lot consideration and preparing for: a defensive-offensive
doctrine. In the last few years, the Pakistani Army has adopted the German Bundeswehr (Army) as its model and is trying to institute the
Bundeswehr’s Kreigslogik, philosophy, in its own modus operandi. The primary task of the Bundeswehr in the defence of Western
Europe was to contain the Soviet Army near the IGB (Inner German Border) and prevent a Soviet armored breakout into the Central
plains. In other words, the ability to bear the burnt of an attack, maintain a defensive posture, but still be able to conduct local
counter offensives to deny the enemy the fluidity of movement and force him into a of attrition and a stalemated tactical situation that
favors the defense. The only other option, for the Indians, to over come this would be to withdraw a sizeable number of troops in
or mobilize their vast reserves. First of all, this would weaken the Indian efforts in and secondly, tip the Indian hand to the
Pakistanis, thus severely negating their element of surprise in any conflict. Both outcomes which are unacceptable to the Indians.

This would then explain why Indians have embarked on a procurement program that would salivate the arms dealers the world
over. In the last few years, Indian defense expendiure has been hovering around the 10 billion dollar mark. The Indians have purchased
the state of aircraft in the French Mirage 2000-5s, Russian MiG 29s, Sukhoi Su30s. In their efforts to accquire a blue water navy, the
Indians have modernized their missile frigates; are seeking to enhence their carrier borne capabilities and are even discussing the
potential operational deployments of nuclear submarines in their fleet. The Indian land forces are rapidily converting their missile arsenals
into battlefield force projection modes. The Indians have increased their offensive capabilities across the board. The Mirage 2000-5, the
MiG 29 and the Su30 are not only the most advanced type of combat aircraft, but they are also force mulitipliers intended to cancel out
the Air Force’s ability to protect the Pakistani air space, but more importantly to deny the Pakistani Army, and PAF the control
of air space over the battlefield and in this manner restore the Indian numberical advantage in an attack. All of these procurements have
one intended aim and that is to prerpare for a .

Pakistani air force, navy and land forces are primarily intended to be employed as defensive measures in a case of and historically, it
has been the of that its leadership has not heeded this view. The wars of 1948, 1965 and were the result of the
Pakistanis mistakenly embarking on adventures resulting from ill thought out plans. Pakistani , but more critically its
political leadership, has always ignored the realities of the sub-continent and has believed itself as being comparable to the Indians in
prowess. A perspective not validated by reality. is in no position to challenge militarily, econmically or industrially
and it should give up its pretenses to the contary and seriously adopt a defensive posture vis a vis . There were brief
glimmers of such an occurance happening, when in the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, undertook its defensive requirements
to qualitatively balance the Indian edge and inducted weapons that reflected such a philosophy. A few examples being the F-16s,
Mirage fighters, the French Agosta-B submarines, Ukrainian TU-80 main battle tanks and creating a sophiscated air defense grid
reinforced with multiple layered radar systems and SAM missile batteries. For a while it seemed that would requate the Indian
tilt, but given its nuclear programme, it was targeted by the Pressler Amendment, a country specific sanction, that enabled the United
States to curtail aid to Islamabad. Over a decade, since the implementation of the Pressler Amendment, sought to
reverse its intent diplomatically and through offical channels. Unfortunately for Islamabad, given the vageries of domestic American
politics, the disinterested attempts by two Pakistani premiers and the ineptitude of Pakistani Foreign Office, the amendment was never
repealed though the American administrations undertook promises to seek its demise. To fully detail the scope of Pressler Amendment,
and to seek to explain its impact and how it could be reversed, is beyond the scope of this article.

In the interim, while the discussions were conducted to restore American aid to , Pakistani Air Force was seeing its
capabilities seriously being eroaded and its lead in qualitative superiority over the Indian Air Force being diminished. As the F-16 was
supposed to be ’s premier air defence interceptor and strike aircraft, its eclipse by the moderation of IAF posed serious a
challenge to and undermined ’s air defence posture. Not only did Pressler Amendment cut aid, it also restricted American
financial aid to making it extermely difficult for Islamabad to purchase replacements and upgrades elsewhere due to a lack of
foreign currency. The and secert kickbacks of Pakistani politicans, as shown in the Mirage 2000-5 deal with France, did not
help the defence needs of either.

Still, excerised commendable restraint and continued to wait for Washington to pay much needed attention to the security
problems in , but to no avail. It was slowly dawning on the Pakistani political leadership that the
needed to revitalized and foreign investment encouraged in rebuilding the country’s crumbling infrastructures. The economic
growth was gradually taking center stage in Pakistani ’s priorities and over a period of years, in the mid 1990s, the
showed a marked, if a weak, upturn for prosperity. The was concentrating on all the right areas of national economic
development and it seemed that was poised for a spurt of an economic growth. There was an almost tacit acknowledgement in
Islamabad that a poor was a far greater threat to than the the Indian designs against it. As the decade of 1990s
entered its twilight years, Pakistani officials were becoming concerned about the problem of as being the biggest obstacle to a
continued economic growth cycle and were keenly interested in resolving the issue with .

The Indo-Pak efforts at implementing confidence building measures and seeking to diffuse the problem of , through official
contacts, did not amount to much. The bilateral discussions were always marred by the intractibility of the Kashmiri Question; did
not want any third party mediation on the issue and wanted to engage in direct talks on the problem. , on the other
hand, wanted the Indians to hold a vote on as mandated by the and wanted a third party to oversee that
kept its promise without reneging on its committments. Both sides understood the fact that progress was highly unlikely given the
non-compromising stands adopted by each nation, but they were willing to pursue a dialogue. Even though was outclassed,
militarily, it did not feel its security too endangered by the Indians, because Islamabad had always counted on the pragmatic nature of
the Indians not to overtly risk a confrontation with and its willingness, if not to solve the problem, atleast not to inflame it
needlessly. All of this changed with the arrival of Atal Bihari and like minded nationalists to power in .

and the that he came to power with was highly nationalistic and revisionist. The party, Bharatiya Janata Party,
which headed had officially proclaimed in its platform its intentions to seek revanché for all injusticies meted out to the Hindus.
To achieve this goal,
would be the prefered path and armaments the desired means that would carry to greatness. BJP, the confederation of
nationalist minded ideology, had always harbored a desire to indelibly put ’s stamp of power in Asia and in the process, emerge as
’s main contender to be an Asian hegemon. , as far the in New was concerned, was a non-issue, but an
extermely irksome one. The Indian Defence Minister, George Fernandes was absolutely right when he intoned that was a bigger
threat to than . is the most comparative challenger to in terms of , economics and an industrial
infrastructure than ever will be. Even though George Fernandes chose to highlight Chinese threat to in terms, the
real danger to from is in the economic arena.

To fully and efficiently compete with , needs to curtail expenditures that waste its resources and instead husband those
means to wage a political-economical with to dominate Asia. Both Beijing and New want to be Asian superpowers and
influence the continent economically. has no outstanding avenues of economic drain that commands its attentions, but does:
and . The Indian posturing on to cow was intended to intimidate into accepting Indian
supremacy on the issue. Thus, the Indian nuclear tests were a manifestation of that intent. There were two reasons why New opted
for nuclear tests. Onc was to determine whether Pakistani nuclear ambiguity was in fact real and if not, to physiologically assert its
influence on Islamabad. Secondly, to pressure Islamabad to rethink its Kashmiri in the sense of an appeasement option. The real
Indian gambit was to force a situation on that would cause it to rethink its stand on and allow the possibility to get
out of the Kashmiri quagmire with a firm control of the valley.

Hence, the question why did explode its own weapons in response to ’s ? was caught in a catch-22 with the
implementation of the Indian tests. had to prove to the Indians that it had the means and to demostrate that capability to the
Indians. To have foregone the tests, and followed the high road of moral restraint, would have implied to some Indian minds a lack of
Pakistani nuclear deterence and in return would have insured a more bellicose attitude from . Secondly, had to explode its
own nuclear weapon to convince BJP that it needed to calm its violent anti- directed xenophobia and to prevent it from
successfully implementing its nationalistic agenda at the cost of Pakistani interests. had to painfully convey to the BJP that, by testing its own nuclear devices, it did not trust the
present leadership in New to be prudent in dealing with the tense political situation on the Line of Control and that it was wary of
its intentions in general. The fact that exploded it own nuclear test devices and was preparing to do so two years ago, when
coincidently BJP was in power, proved that did not feel secure in dealing with a nationalist in New whose
raison d’etrê was a of nationalistically inspired revanché based on and sustained by the of past Hindu greatness. No prior Indian
had ever come to power with avowed intentions of destroying and hence, Islamabad never felt as intentionally
threatened as it did with a BJP in power.

This was the prime reason why opted to test its own nuclear devices against the opinion of the world leaders and to suffer the
consequences for its actions. waited for an international response against in vain when it became clear that such a
response, as envisioned, would not materalize. had to prove to the Indians that it was capable of defending itself with
a crediable deterent. There were a couple of reasons why chose the nuclear option to deter . Had allowed to
proceed with its nuclear weaponization and sought to bolster its defences through conventional capability, it still would be overwhelmed
by the Indians and ispo facto would be encouraging the Indians to act recklessly in a potential crisis. A conventional defence, no matter
how sophisticated and technologically advanced, is no real deterenent to a nuclear option nor is it useful against . To
deter a nuclear aggressor with a conventional capability implies the inability to retaliate and thus, ironically fosters a sence of
invincibility in the aggressor and makes it opportune for to him to attack with acceptable casualities and without suffering any material
damage.

Also, was fully aware of the reality that of all nations urging it to exercise restraint and not conduct nuclear tests and
promising to help in its defence, none would be forthcoming in a potential situation. It was one thing for the United States to pledge all
sorts of incentives to to forego a nuclear option, but it was another thing all together to actually defend . The Pakistani
leadership was aware of the fact that neither nor the United States would offer the nuclear umbrella to and though both
were appreciative of the defensive needs of , neither would be willing to die for its sake. In the words of President Lyndon B.
Johnson, did not want American boys and girls to do the job the Pakistanis were capable of doing themselves.

It is human nature to consign blame when events produce results that no one wanted despite the fact that all conspired equally to create
the outcome. Who is to blame for the nuclear schadenfreude in ? Even incoherent random shapes have a pattern, a logic, to
their being and if seen such can offer insights that reveal highly structured organizations that on the outside may appear chaotic.

The Pakistani and Indian steps towards nuclear confrontation mirrors the reality of pre- Europe in 1914. The First World broke out
as a result of nations being held hostage to their own rhetoric and to their inability to look beyond their own importance. is not to be
blamed for the nuclear race in since she was merely using the nuclear ploy to force an end to Pakistani support of insurgents
in , announce her own arrival as a regional power in Asia and was playing the nationalistic card for domestic political reasons.

wants the Kashmiri issue settled and it knows that will never agree to a vote on the matter. Hence, by supporting an
insurgency in the Valley of , it wants to make it unbearable for the Indians to postpone a decision and come to an agreement on
the problem. Neither side can be held responsible for what is happening in . Both nations decision to raise the stakes was
taken in light of their national interests and was based on a realistic awareness of the political situation. Nations, when their national
interests are concerned, attempt to act rationally in their own self interests. increased the tensions in the region by deploying her nuclear
card, because it thought that risk was better than an indefinete political stalemate and in the same vein, responded because it
felt that not do so would imperil its own interests in the long run.

In a similar , the United States thought it was acting in the best interests of nuclear non- proliferation when it enforced the
Pressler Amendment against . Also, the Americans were acting in their own interests when they buffered against to
gain some leverage in the region and maintain their geo-strategic position in Asia. Nations, like human beings, do not see past the
immediate and therefore should not be blamed for their mistakes. Hindsight is perfect and such both and are right to say
that they should not be judged by the western powers at their rational maturity. New and Islamabad have a valid argument to question the
prejudice of the nuclear club members and ask why are the rules different in regard to their entry requirements into the "nuclear power club". To paraphrase John Steinbeck in the Grapes of Wrath, nations, like men, have a tendency to grow beyond their means and
continually change to improve their prospects of surivial. They will resist the restraints, natural or otherwise, that prevent them from doing
so and will search for means to break free from them.

The United States and the other western powers have to accept the reality that non-proliferation is dead in .
Instead of still preaching non-proliferation, they should be discusssing containment issues with and . No matter how much
it will please Washington and other western capitals, and cannot undo their actions just to soothe the idealism of the
west, which refuses to acknowledge the national security dilemmas of the sub-continent. The west has to understand the concerns of and , as they exist in the region and not how it wishes them to be, and
should be willing to work towards reassuring Islamabad and New of its committments to resolve their problems. It should give up its
policies of sanctions and seek to judge the situation as based on the individaul arguments of each country. and will not be
constrained by international commitments they believe are contary to their national security interests and will not agree to such
obligations no matter how pious and noble they might be. and , ironically, standed united on this issue and will continue to
until the west amends its policies.

Emperor Ausgustine once asked his advisor how he could maintain the of the Roman Empire and the sage answered: para pacem,
para bellum- if you want , prepare for . It is only wished that and in their efforts to achieve through
armaments do not become victims of their own inflexible disillushionary importance like the Europeans of 1914. The German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that when man stares down into the abyss, the abyss stares back at him and that is when he finds his
character. and have both approached and stared into the abyss of their destinies. It is fervently hoped that both will find
their characters before there is nothing left to avert the impending disaster looming on the horizon.

F R Khan is a political researcher. His area of interests include international security issues, conflict resolution, regional crisis management studies and the political history of the twentieth century.