by Amartya Sen
What of the argument that nuclear deterrence makes war between India and Pakistan less likely? Why would not the allegedly proven ability of nuclear balance, which is supposed to have kept peace in the world, be effective also in the subcontinent? I believe that this question can be answered from four different perspectives.
First, even if it were the case that the nuclearization of India and Pakistan reduces the probability of war between the two, there would be a trade-off here between a lower chance of conventional war against some chance of a nuclear holocaust. No sensible decision-making can concentrate only on the probability of war without taking note of the size of the penalties of war should it occur. Indeed, any significant probability of the scenario captured by Arundhati Roy’s description of ‘the end of imagination’ can hardly fail to outweigh the greater probability, if any, of the comparatively milder penalties of conventional war.
Second, there is nothing to indicate that the likelihood of conventional war is, in fact, reduced by the nuclearization of India and Pakistan. Indeed, hot on the heels of the nuclear blasts, the two countries did undergo a major military confrontation in the Kargil district in Kashmir. The Kargil conflict, which occurred within a year of the nuclear blasts of India and Pakistan, was in fact the first military conflict between the two in nearly thirty years. Many Indian commentators have argued that the confrontation, which was provoked by separatist guerrillas coming across the line of control from Pakistan (in their view, joined by army regulars), was helped by Pakistan’s understanding that India would not be able to use its massive superiority in conventional forces to launch a bigger war in retaliation, precisely because it would fear a nuclear holocaust. Whether or not this analysis is right, there is clearly substance in the general reasoning that the enemy’s fear of nuclear annihilation can be an argument in favour of military adventurism without expectation of a fuller retaliation from the enemy. Be that as it may, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and no matter what the explanation, nuclearization evidently has not prevented non-nuclear conflicts between India and Pakistan.
Third, the danger of accidental nuclear war is much greater in the subcontinent than it was in the cold war itself. This is not only because the checks and controls are much looser, but also because the distances involved are so small between India and Pakistan that there is little time for any conversation when a crisis might occur and a first strike were feared. Also, the much discussed hold of fundamentalist militants within the Pakistani military and the absence of democratic control add to the fear of a sudden flashpoint.
Fourth, there is a need also to assess whether the peace that the world enjoyed with nuclear deterrence during the global cold war was, in fact, predictable and causally robust. The argument for the balance of terror has been clear enough for a long time, and was most eloquently put by Winston Churchill in his last speech to the House of Commons on 1 March 1955. His ringing words on this (‘safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation’) have a mesmerizing effect, but Churchill himself did make exceptions to his rule, when he said that the logic of deterrence ‘does not cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dug-out’.*
Dictators are not unknown in the world (even in the subcontinent), and at least part-lunatics can be found with some frequency in both the countries, judging by what some eloquent commentators seem to be able to write on the nuclear issue itself. But perhaps more importantly, we have reason to note that risks have been taken also by people with impeccable credentials on sanity and lucidity. To give just one example (a rather prominent one), in choosing the path of confrontation in what has come to be called the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy evidently took some significant risks of annihilation on behalf of humanity. Indeed, Theodore C. Sorenson, Special Counsel to President Kennedy, put the facts thus (in a generally admiring passage):
John Kennedy never lost sight of what either war or surrender would do to the whole human race. His UN Mission was preparing for a negotiated peace and his Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing for war, and he intended to keep both on rein…. He could not afford to be hasty or hesitant, reckless or afraid. The odds that the Soviets would go all the way to war, he later said, seemed to him then ‘somewhere between one out of three and even.’*
Well, a chance of annihilation between one-third and one-half is not an easy decision to be taken on behalf of the human race.
I think we have to recognize that the peace of nuclear confrontation in the cold war partly resulted from luck, and may not have been preordained. To take post hoc to be propter hoc is a luxury that can be quite costly for charting out future policies in the nuclear – or indeed any other – field. We have to take account not only of the fact that circumstances are rather different in the subcontinent compared with what obtained during the nuclear confrontation in the global cold war, but also that the world was actually rather fortunate to escape annihilation even in the cold war itself. And the dangers of extermination did not come only from lunatics or dictators.
So, to conclude this section, the nuclearization of the subcontinental confrontations need not reduce the risk of war (either in theory or in practice), and it escalates the penalty of war in a dramatic way. The unjust nature of the world military balance does not change this crucial prudential recognition.
Were the Indian Government’s Goals Well Served?
I come now to a question of rather limited interest, but which is asked often enough, addressed particularly to India. Even if it is accepted that the subcontinent is less secure as a result of the tit-for-tat nuclear tests, it could be the case that India’s own self-interest has been well served by the BJP-led government’s nuclear policy. India has reason to grumble, it is argued, at not being taken as seriously as one of the largest countries in the world should be. There is unhappiness also at the attempt by some countries, certainly the United States in the past, to achieve some kind of a ‘balance’ between India and Pakistan, whereas India is nearly seven times as large as Pakistan and must not be taken to be at par with it. Rather, the comparison should be with China, and for this – along with other causes, such as getting India a permanent seat in the Security Council – India’s nuclear accomplishment could be expected to make a contribution. The subcontinent may be less secure as a result of the nuclear developments, but, it is argued, India did get some benefit. How sound is this line of argument?
I have some difficulty in pursuing this exercise. Even though I am a citizen of India, I don’t really think I can legitimately enquire only into the advantages that India alone may have received from a certain policy, excluding the interests of others who were also affected. However, it is possible to scrutinize the effects of a certain policy in terms of the given goals of the Indian government (including strategic advantages over Pakistan as well as enhancement of India’s international standing), and ask the rather coldly ‘scientific’ question whether those goals have been well served by India’s recent nuclear policy. We do not have to endorse these goals to examine whether they have actually been better promoted.
There are good reasons to doubt that these goals have indeed been better served by the sequence of events at Pokhran and Chagai. First, India had – and has – massive superiority over Pakistan in conventional military strength. That strategic advantage has become far less significant as a result of the new nuclear balance. Indeed, since Pakistan has explicitly refused to accept a ‘no first use’ agreement, India’s ability to count on conventional superiority is now, to a great extent, less effective (along with increasing the level of insecurity in both countries). In the Kargil confrontation, India could not even make use of its ability to cross into the Pakistani-administered Kashmir to attack the intruders from the rear, which military tacticians seem to think would have made much more sense than trying to encounter the intruders by climbing steeply up a high mountain from the Indian side to battle the occupants at the
top. This not only made the Indian response less effective and rapid, it also led to more loss of Indian soldiers (1,300 lives, according to the government of India’s estimate and 1,750 according to Pakistan’s estimate) and added greatly to the expenses of the war conducted from an unfavoured position ($2.5 billion in direct expenses).14 With the danger of a nuclear outburst, the Indian government’s decision not to countercross the line of control in retaliation was clearly right, but it had no real option in this respect, given the strategic bind which it had itself helped to create.
Second, the fact that India can make nuclear weapons was well established before the present tit-for-tat nuclear tests were conducted. Pokhran-I in 1974 had already established the point, even though Indian official statements tried to play down the military uses of that blast a quarter of a century ago. After the 1998 tests, India’s and Pakistan’s positions seem to be much more even, at least in international public perception. As it happens, Pakistan was quite modest in its response. I remember thinking in the middle of May 1998, following the Indian tests, that surely Pakistan would now blast a larger number of bombs than India’s five. I was agreeably impressed by Pakistan’s moderation in blasting only six, which is the smallest whole number larger than five. The government of India may deeply dislike any perception of parity with Pakistan, but did its best, in effect, to alter a favourable situation of acknowledged asymmetry into one of perceived parity.
Third, aside from perceptions, in terms of the scientific requirement for testing, Pakistan clearly had a greater case for testing, never having conducted a nuclear test before 1998. This contrasted with India’s experience of Pokhran-I in 1974. Also, with a much smaller community of nuclear scientists and a less extensive development of the possibilities of computerized simulation, the scientific need for an actual test may have been much greater in Pakistan than in India. While Pakistan was concerned about the condemnation of the world community should it have tested on its own, the Indian blasts in May 1998 created a situation in which Pakistan could go in that direction without being blamed for starting any nuclear adventure. Eric Arnett puts the issue thus:
In contrast to its Indian counterparts, Pakistan’s political elite is less abashed about the need for nuclear deterrence. Military fears that the Pakistani nuclear capability was not taken seriously in India combined with a feeling of growing military inferiority after being abandoned by the USA after the cold war to create an imperative to test that was resisted before May 1998 only because of the threat of sanctions. The Indian tests created a situation in which the Pakistani leadership saw an even greater need to test and a possible opening to justify the test as a response that was both politically and strategically understandable.15
The thesis, often articulated by India’s pro-nuclear lobby, that India was in a greater danger of a first strike from Pakistan before the summer of 1998 lacks scientific as well as political credibility.
Fourth, there was not much success in getting recognition for India as being in the same league as China, or for its grumble that inadequate attention is internationally paid to the dangers India is supposed to face from China. Spokesmen of the Indian government were vocal on these issues. A week before the Pokhran tests in 1998, Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes said in a much quoted television interview: ‘China is potential threat number one…. The potential threat from China is greater than that from Pakistan.’16 In between the tests on 11 and 13 May, the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee wrote to President Clinton to point to China as being related to the motivation for the tests. This letter, published in the New York Times (after being leaked) on 13 May, did not name China, but referred to it in very explicit terms:
We have an overt nuclear weapon state on our borders, a state which committed armed aggression against India in 1962. Although our relations with that country have improved in the last decade or so, an atmosphere of distrust persists mainly due to the unresolved border problem. To add to the distrust that country has materially helped another neighbour of ours to become a covert nuclear weapons state.17
However, as a result of the tit-for-tat nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, China could stand well above India’s little grumbles, gently admonishing it for its criticism of China, and placing itself in the position of being a subcontinental peace-maker. When President Clinton visited China in June 1998, China and the United States released a joint statement declaring that the two countries would cooperate in non-proliferation efforts in the subcontinent.
Mark Frazier’s assessment of the gap between the government of India’s attempts and its achievement in this field captures the essence of this policy failure:
Had it been India’s intention to alert the world to its security concerns about China as a dangerous rising power, the tests managed to do just the opposite – they gave the Chinese officials the opportunity to present China as a cooperative member of the international community seeking to curb nuclear weapons proliferation. Far from looking like a revisionist state, China played the role of a status quo power, and a rather assertive one at that.18
Fifth, the blasts did not advance the cause of India’s putative elevation to a permanent membership of the Security Council. If a country could blast its way into the Security Council, this would give an incentive to other countries to do the same. Furthermore, the new parity established between India and Pakistan after Pokhran-II and the Chagai hills also militates against the plausibility of that route to permanency in the Security Council, and this too could have been well predicted. I personally don’t see why it is so important for India to be permanently on the Security Council (it may be in the interest of others for this to happen, given India’s size and growing economic strength, but that is a different issue altogether). However, for the government of India, which clearly attached importance to this possibility, it would surely have been wiser to emphasize its restraint in not developing nuclear weapons, despite its proven ability to do so since 1974, and also use the pre-1998 asymmetry with Pakistan, in contrast with the symmetry that developed – following the Indian government’s own initiative – after Pokhran-II and Chagai.
One of the interesting sidelights that emerge from a scrutiny of Indian official perceptions is the extent to which the government underestimated India’s importance as a major country, a democratic polity, a rich multi-religious civilization, with a well-established tradition in science and technology (including the cutting edge of information technology), and with a fast-growing economy that could grow, with a little effort, even faster. The overestimation of the persuasive power of the bomb went with an underestimation of the political, cultural, scientific and economic strengths of the country. There might have been pleasure in official circles at the success of President Clinton’s visit to India and the asymmetrically favoured treatment it got in that visit vis-à-vis Pakistan, but the tendency to attribute that asymmetry to Indian nuclear adventure, rather than to India’s large size, democratic politics and its growing economy and technology, is difficult to understand.
On Separating the Issues
To conclude, it is extremely important to distinguish two distinct problems, both of which have a bearing on subcontinental nuclear policies. First, the world order on weapons needs a change and in particular requires an effective and rapid disarmament, particularly in nuclear arsenals. Second, the nuclear adventures of India and Pakistan cannot be justified on the ground of the unjustness of the world order, since the people whose lives are made insecure as a result of these adventures are primarily the residents of the subcontinent themselves. Resenting the obtuseness of others is not a good ground for shooting oneself in the foot.
This does not, of course, imply that India or Pakistan has reason to feel happy about the international balance of power that the world establishment seems keen on maintaining, with or without further developments, such as an attempted ‘nuclear shield’ for the United States. Indeed, it must also be said that there is an inadequate appreciation in the West of the
extent to which the role of the big five arouses suspicion and resentment in the Third World, including the subcontinent. This applies not only to the monopoly over nuclear armament, but also, on the other side, to the ‘pushing’ of conventional, non-nuclear armaments in the world market for weapons.
For example, as the Human Development Report 1994, prepared under the leadership of that visionary Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, pointed out, not only were the top five arms-exporting countries in the world precisely the five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations, but they were also, together, responsible for 86 per cent of all the conventional weapons exported during 1988–92.19 Not surprisingly, the Security Council has not been able to take any serious initiative that would really restrain the merchants of death. It is not hard to understand the scepticism in India and Pakistan – and elsewhere – about the responsibility and leadership of the established nuclear powers.
As far as India is concerned, the two policies – of nuclear abstinence and demanding a change of world order – can be pursued simultaneously. Nuclear restraint strengthens rather than weakens India’s voice. To demand that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty be redefined to include a dated programme of denuclearization may well be among the discussable alternatives. But making nuclear bombs, not to mention deploying them, and spending scarce resources on missiles and what is euphemistically called ‘delivery’, can hardly be seen as a sensible policy. The belief that subcontinental nuclearization would somehow help to bring about world nuclear disarmament is a wild dream that can only precede a nightmare. The moral folly in these policies is substantial, but what is also clear and decisive is the prudential mistake that has been committed. The moral and the prudential are, in fact, rather close in a world of interrelated interactions, for reasons that Rabindranath Tagore discussed around a hundred years ago.