Today 11 May 1998 is an important date in India's quest for security. The fallouts and lessons from it have still not been debated, but one thing in technology viz miniaturization is yet to unfold itself. Leave the likes of Shiekh Rasheed who has evolved new concept of nuclear hand grenades, but one must see its impact on battlefied.
What does a weaponization mean. If we see the total nuclear powers the major power is Japan although has never exploded a device. The virtual capability of japan is largest.
I am loading a Chapter from a Thesis of 1995
Why do states develop nuclear weapons? Why did India weaponise? Why do countries ‘go nuclear’? India is not alone in citing several factors to justify its nuclear capabilities, among them security considerations, technical and scientific poweress and national prestige.[1] Scholars have pointed out the importance of domestic political and bureaucratic considerations.[2] Having an accurate answer to this question is critically important for predicting the long-term future of the Indian Security and international world order. Many Indian foreign policy makers, international relation scholars and defence analyst have a clear and simple answer to the Indian tests:
‘States will seek to develop nuclear weapons when they face a significant military threat to their security that cannot be met through alternative means; if they do not face such threats, they will willingly remain a non-nuclear state’.[3]
Historically nations have acquired nuclear weapons for variety of reasons. These include:
To coerce, destroy, terrorize or blackmail other nations.
To deter others, especially adversaries with nuclear weapons or vastly superior conventional forces.
To achieve political and military targets/ goals and status.
To help protect the abiding interests.
Assessment of threats and opportunities is the primary concern of any government. Moreover, few leaders pass into their nation’s history in a more ignominious light than those who fail to anticipate security threats to their states. Despite enormous popularity in the West for his vision of an independent, peaceful world and for engineering the collapse of Soviet Communism and the end of Cold War, Mikhail Gorbochev is despised by most of the Russians. He was incapable of winning even one percent of the vote in the first Post-Soviet Presidential elections in 1996. Gorbochev was spat at and punched by the same people who ten years before would have idolized him as Russian Saviour.
Here I argue that the consensus view, focussing on national security considerations as the cause of proliferation is dangerously inadequate because the nuclear program’s also serve other, more parochial and less obvious objectives. Nuclear weapons, unlike other weapons are more than the tools of national security; they are political objects of considerable importance in domestic debates and internal bureaucratic struggles and can also serve as international normative symbols of modernity and identity.
Despite agreement in 1995 to have a permanent extension of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT),[4] there will be continuing review conferences assessing the implementation of the treaty after every five years. Each member state can legally withdraw from the treaty, under the clause of ‘supreme national interest’, if it gives a month notice. Many new states can be expected to develop a ‘latent nuclear weapons’ capability over the coming decades. Indeed some fifty seven states now operate or are constructing nuclear power or research reactors, and it has been estimated approximately thirty countries today have the necessary industrial infrastructure and scientific expertise to build nuclear weapons on a crash basis if they choose to do so.[5]
Debate in India on the morality and ethics of nuclear weapons is a healthy democratic sign, but as long as competition in technology decides the hierarchy among nations, its application in war would remain with us. The great leaps in military technology are at times developed with no military participation. The ideas for a new weapon system derive not from military but from scientists and technologists. At Los Almos, the military were merely the administrators, similarly at Pokharan. The jet engine, radar megnatron and the inertial gyros were developed purely by scientists with no military objectives in view. The world is today ruled by technology. Technology appears to be in charge, as much in the growth of arms race as in the economic hierarchy of nations. Paul Kennedy the economic historian has shown in his seminal work, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers’, that top industrial nations corner eighty percent (80%) of the ten most valuable manufacturers. Powers among nations are decided by science, weapons are only a by-product. The international sanctions and legislation aimed at only weapons aim to cure the symptoms rather than the disease.
I believe that arguments and evidence concerning India’s decision to deploy be tested against models of proliferation. For, in contrast to the views of the scholars who claimed the traditional realist theory focussing on security threats explains all cases of proliferation and nuclear restraint.[6] I believe historical records suggest that each theory explains some past cases quite well and others poorly.
The resume of historical background and the utility of nuclear weapons as discussed in earlier Chapters (Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4) ended with testing of nuclear weapons on 11 and 13 May 1998 at Pokharan. India also declared that she is now a nuclear weapon state. The two key issues on which that period ended were the adoption of CTBT by the United Nations General Assembly and an indefinite extension of NPT. India refused to sign these two treaties. The country was isolated and lots of pressure was brought to bear on her to sign. India has refused to sign with one primary aspect that treaties are discriminatory, as it permits nuclear powers to retain their capabilities while forbidding others.[7]
The assessment of decision to test and deploy nuclear weapons will have to be considered against this background.
Border issues- primarily the result of the colonial legacy- are India’s main national concern. Nearly 7000 kilometers of its 16,500 km land border is disputed. A border dispute caused the 1962 Sino-Indian War, India’s first military defeat. The war left the border issue unresolved and revealed the limitations of India’s conventional military capabilities. The reluctance of external powers, particularly the United States, to intervene militarily- despite pleas to do so- was to determine India’s future desire for self reliance in security needs.[8]
Persistent fears for state integrity have been compounded when the enemy within is seen to be acting in tandem with the enemy without.[9] This was the case in Punjab in 1980’s, and appears to be so in Kashmir today. Perhaps explaining why the ‘end of cold war has not resulted in a peace dividend’ for India.[10]
The nuclear weapon capabilities of India’s traditional regional adversaries- Pakistan and China- have also played a significant role in shaping India’s strategic posture, including its nuclear weapons aspirations and its relations with other powers, particularly the United States. India’s suspicion that China has aided Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programs have sharpened the issue and created triangular security relationship while growing nuclear arsenal spurs on India’s nuclear weapons desire. Pakistan cites India’s capabilities as a justification for its nuclear weapon quest. The complication of this three way relationship is crucial to understanding the rationale behind India’s strategic policy.
The first Chinese nuclear took place two years after it had defeated India in 1962.[11] As a result India embarked on its first serious attempt to acquire nuclear weapon capability through the subterranean- nuclear explosion project (SNEP), approved in December 1965.[12] China’s nuclear weapons have once again become an important rationale for India’s nuclear and missile capability as reports emerged of tactical nuclear missile deployments in Tibet.[13]
According to one estimate, three missile divisions are deployed in the Lanzhou-Chengdu region. Indian military officers claimed that China has already deployed intermediate range ballistic missiles [IRBM]at the Tibetan Plateau. [14]Recent United States intelligence reports support this assertion.[15]
Apart from the direct threats posed by the Chinese nuclear arsenal, India also has to cope with the indirect danger presented by Beijing’s export of nuclear weapons technology and delivery system to countries in the region. Chines assistance in Pakistan’s nuclear and missile program is of specific concern: a possible Sino-Pakistan front has been a recurring worry for Indian strategists since mid 1960’s, when nuclear armed China threatened to enter the 1965 Indo-Pak War on Islamabad’s side.
James Woolsey, the then Director of CIA, gave testimony before the United States Congress in 1993 in which he noted: ‘Beijing has consistently regarded a nuclear armed Pakistan as a crucial regional ally and vital counterweight to India’s growing military capabilities. .. Beijing, prior to joining the NPT in 1992, probably provided some nuclear weapons-related assistance to Islamabad’.[16] Beijing is suspected to have transferred an entire M-11 production plant to Pakistan.[17]
The Lok Sabha’s Standing Committee on Defence noted in August 1995; ‘In the light of Pakistan acquiring Chinese M-11 Ballistic Missile capability, India has no option but to continue to develop and upgrade its missiles.[18]
China has also sold 2700 kilometer range DF-3 Missiles, which once formed part of its nuclear arsenal to Saudi Arabia in 1987. These missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads and as far as India is concerned, could be used to deliver nuclear weapons in the future.[19]
General Mirza Aslam Beg, The former Chief of The Pakistan Army Staff, argued that India’s missile program is a response to Pakistan’s:
‘It [the Prithvi] is in response to what we have on our side. We have Hat, which we deployed some three years ago. At that time they [India] had nothing on the ground. So they have deployed in response to that. We do not blame them. . . I think it is just to maintain balance.’[20]
There are also presence of nuclear weapons in the Indian Ocean and the former Soviet Union, particularly ‘loose nukes’ in Central Asia. In 1971, in the midst of Indo-Pak War , United Sates National Security Council dispatched the Pacific 7th Fleet, designated as Task Force 74, to the Bay of Bengal, which it reached on December 13th, 1971, five days before the war ended. The force led by the Enterprise, remained 1760 kilometer from Dhaka until January 1972, when it set sail for the Pacific. The objective of the US in deploying Task Force 74 occupies analyst to this day.[21] To Indians, this move was a form of Gun Boat Diplomacy. The sailing of the United States USS Enterprise was the ultimate in symbolic insult. Above all, it will be remembered as a nuclear as well as a military threat. [22]The Indian naval doctrine subsequently talked about raising the cost of intervention.[23] Although it did not elaborate Indians since then have favoured induction of nuclear powered submarines armed with nuclear and conventional missiles.
Fears of an extra regional nuclear powers threatening India rose again in early 1990’s, when General Dynamic Corporation, makers of the Tomahawks land attack cruise missiles, gave a presentation to United Sates decision makers which portrayed a scenario in which the United States might retaliate against Indian attack on Pakistan by firing hundreds of Tomahawks at military and industrial sites in India. Reports of the presentation in the Indian Press provoked a diplomatic clash between the United States and India, which Indians saw as part of United States desire to threaten India. The above pose a varied degrees of nuclear threat and form base for India’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons.
According to neo-realist theory in political science, states exist in anarchical international system and must therefore rely on self-help to protect their sovereignty and national security. [24] Mr. George Shultz, once nicely summarized the argument: “Proliferation begets Proliferation’.[25]
From this perspective, one can envision the history of nuclear proliferation as a strategic chain reaction. During the World War II none of the major belligerents was certain that the development of nuclear weapons was possible, but all knew that the other states were already or could be building the bomb. This fundamental fear was the impetus for the United States, Britain, Germany, Soviet and The Japanese nuclear weapons programs. The United States developed nuclear weapons first, not because it had any greater demand for the atomic bomb than these other powers, rather, because the United States invested more heavily in the program and made right set of technological and orginzational choices.[26] After August 1945, the Soviet Union’s program was reinvigorated because the Unite States atomic attacks on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated that nuclear weapons were technically possible, and emerging power situation meant that for Soviet Union the bomb was of strategic imperative. From the realist perspective, Soviet response was perfectly predictable. Josef Stalin’s reported requests to Igor Kurchatov and BL Yannikov in August 1945 appears like a text book example of realist logic:
‘A single demands of you comrades …. Provide us with atomic weapons in the shortest possible time. You know that Hiroshima has shaken the whole world. The balance has been destroyed. Provide the bomb- it will remove great danger from us’.[27]
The nuclear weapons decision could also be explained within the same framework. London and Paris are seen to built nuclear weapons because of growing Soviet military threat and the inherent reduction in the credibility of the United States nuclear guarantee[28] to North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) allies once the Soviet Union was able to threaten retaliation against the United States. China developed the bomb because Beijing was threatened with the possible nuclear attacks by United States at the end of Korean War and again during the Taiwan Straits crisis in the mid 1950’s. During the crisis Moscow proved to be an irresolute nuclear ally in the 1950’s. The emergence of hostility in Sino-Soviet relations in the 1960’s further encouraged Beijing to develop, in Avery Goldstein’s phrase, the ‘robust and affordable security’ of nuclear weapons. Since, the border clashes ‘again exposed the limited value of the China’s conventional deterrence’.[29]
Zuckeman states, the British went nuclear, not for any pressing reason of national security but because they were unwilling to accept United States as the sole nuclear power in the western world. Nor would the erstwhile Soviet Union agree to a nuclear technology development plan under United States auspices proposed in the Brauch Plan. Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the specific purpose of developing an independent ‘Nuclear Weapons Capability’, although, security of France was assured in North Atlantic Treaty Organizations. If the British and French owned Nuclear Weapons for reasons of Security, they would have agreed to American plan in the early sixties to man United States Polaris submarines with mixed North Atlantic Treaty Organization crew
India’s nuclear abstinence policy underwent a definitive change after Chinese first nuclear test of 1964. This shift in India’s nuclear policy to nuclear ambiguity began with its own nuclear policy to conduct nuclear tests. This decision was the watershed in India’s nuclear decision making. India’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation initially and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty later, its choice to conduct nuclear tests in 1974, its choice of unsafe guarded nuclear facilities, its pursuit of enrichment technology, its refusal to accept a mutual verification proposal of Pakistan, its skirting around proposals for multilateral negotiations, its rationale for the missile development program and refusal to accept the United States proposal for capping, roll back and elimination of its nuclear weapons program are decisions that were partly influenced by the rise of the school of realism and neo-realism n India. Prime Minister Mr. A.B. Vajpaye used a magazine interview to declare India a nuclear weapon state. He said, “India is now a nuclear weapon state… the decision to carryout these tests were guided by the paramount importance we attach to national security… the tests … have given India ‘Shakti’, they have given strength, they have given self-confidence”.
After India’s 1974 ‘Peaceful Nuclear Explosion’, however, the Pakistani nuclear weapons program had to move forward, according to the realist view: it was inevitable that the government in Islamabad would seek to produce a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible.[30]
India sought nuclear weapons as deterrence against the nuclear threat from China and Pakistan.[31] The two neighbors with whom India has border dispute and have fought four border wars. India had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hand of the Chinese in 1962. Hence, India sought nuclear weapons as a deterrent against overwhelming conventional military threat from China. There had been a marked shift in the posture of China ever since India had conducted a peaceful nuclear explosion in mid 1974. India also has to take into account the large concentration of the nuclear arsenal in Central Asian Republics.
Analysts believe that policy of nuclear restraint followed by India has encouraged both China and Pakistan to step up their covert war against India. Islamabad has backed organizations active in the terror campaign in Kashmir. China has given help to insurgents in the North East; and has provided logistical support to terrorist groups operating within Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand. “‘Enough is enough’, it takes two hands to clap, but only one to molest. Thus, far India’s restraint has been met only by increased anti-India activities’, said a high level policy maker.[32]
The negative approach towards nuclear disarmament by the nuclear powers compelled India to respond to the nuclear blackmail or threat.[33] Hence, India’s nuclear weapons deployment decision could be the best essays on defensive response. [34]
Post ‘Shakti’ the pressure on Indian Government to join the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty has intensified. It is significant that Mr. Clinton, President of United States, after condemning the explosions and signing in sanctions, has already thrice publicly demanded that India sign the treaty immediately and without conditions.
In his official statement on May 11, Mr. Brijesh Mishra offered that: ‘India would be prepared to consider being an adherent of some of the undertakings in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’, adding ‘but this cannot obviously be done in vacuum. It would necessarily be an evolutionary process from concept to commitment and would depend on a number of reciprocal activities’.
Does nuclear superiority matter? More specifically, does an edge in the balance of forces offer an coercive advantage in confrontations near the brink of war? These questions have fuelled spirited debate among professional strategists and policy makers in recent years. Whatever debate there may be about the political utility of nuclear superiority, the United States frequently leaned on it when it to fulfill its objectives. North Atlantic Treaty Organization doctrine for defence against Soviet Conventional attack rested on nuclear counter-strike, and this solution was grasped in disputes in other areas as well. In numerous crisis in the first half of the post war era (over Berlin, Korea, the Middle East and Cuba), American Presidents signaled intentions to resort to nuclear forces to counter political, or conventional military initiatives either by the Soviet Union or by China. A careful look of the record permits reasonable arguments that there was an impressive tendency of United States leaders to back their hands in crisis maneuvering with threats of nuclear forces.[35] There has been no change in the United States Policy even today.
Why look anywhere else, China started negotiating a talking about Sino-India border issues only after India exploded an Atomic device in 1974. The utility of power in world politics has not diminished. United States carried out bombing of Iraq as it is well known that Iraq is not in a position to retaliate. Could United States and Britain do the same to say China or France? In international politics Mao dictum that power grows out of the barrel of the gun holds true. I could add that world only pays attention to a bang and louder the better. There is no reason to believe that nuclear weapons would lose their efficacy in international politics and realpolitik in near future.
There are four mistakes[36] international community should avert when dealing with India:
First, India’s extra regional concerns must be taken seriously. India made explicit repeatedly that a potential threat from China, not Pakistan, was a key motive for developing a credible nuclear deterrent. It has laid great stress on its being an odd nation out in the evolving Cold War security framework. India emphasizes that she is the only emerging power with nuclear neighbours without her own nuclear deterrent.
Second, the policy of denial and isolation will not be effective than it was in the past.
Third, limit the outside powers influence on their behaviour.
Fourth, the nuclear blasts have raised the nationalist fervour.
Ever since China tested the atom bomb in 1964, a nuclear India has been on the ‘Hindu Nationalist’ agenda. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha that year, Vajpayee was categorical, “The answer to an Atom Bomb is an Atom Bomb, nothing else”. In 1969, the then Jan Sangh member Mr. Subrmanian Swamy prepared the outlines for an inexpensive Atom Bomb that could counter China. At the time of the 1974, Pokhartan ‘implosion’ Mr. Advani wrote in ‘The Motherland’, “Only twice in recent years, has one witnessed such a mood of national elation? First, when the Indian Army entered Dacca to liberate Bangladesh, and now when India has entered the nuclear club.”
The elections of 1998, brought in Bhartiya Janta Party as the single largest party. Bhartiya Janta Party in their manifestos had declared that if they were voted to power, they would exercise the nuclear option. Ever since China had developed a nuclear bomb in 1964, India was under pressure to develop the nuclear deterrence. In 1974, after a decade, India responded to Chinese bomb.
Given that Bhartiya Janta Party has always been consistent in its demand for India acquiring nuclear weapons, it is illogical to accuse the Vajpayee Government of violating the ‘national consensuses on the issue. After all, every ruling party or combination is entitled to privileges in taking major foreign policy initiatives, when it comes to foreign policy, ruling parties worldwide fear that overly participatory decision making process could mean dangerous delays. Britain’s Thatcher Government during the Falkland Crisis, the Bush Administration during the Gulf War and Egypt’s Sadat regime during the Camp David peace process did not first secure their respective opposition parties consent.[38]Even in India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, did not seek the oppositions advice before taking the Korean issue to the United Nations, Indira Gandhi did not go for parliamentary debate before conducting India’s first nuclear explosion. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi did not consult opposition before sending the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka.
Domestically the nuclear explosions were greeted with a mixture of understandable pride in the accomplishment. The chauvinistic political and media reaction had a considerable impact on framing the public opinion. Burying their ideological differences, parties across the spectrum rallied behind India’s nuclear test.
The opposition parties barring the communists has fallen in line with the ‘nationalist’, mood. The Congress (I), after some mild initial dissent has under Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s diktat decided to support the fait accompli.
It turns out from the public testimony of the Scientists at New Delhi Press Conference on May 17, 1998 that the go ahead for the Pokharan Explosions was given around April 12, 1998. The thinking and Bhartiya Janata Party and The Sangh Parivar’s approach to India’s Nuclear Policy was well known. The Bhartiya Janta Party included in exercising of nuclear option in the National Agenda for Governance.
National Agenda for Governance includes the setting up of National Security Council which would undertake “India’s First ever Strategic Defense Review”, a re-evaluation of nuclear policy, and exercise of the option to induct nuclear weapons.
In a statement Bhartiya Janata Party, President Kushabhau Thakre said that the tests confirmed the government’s commitment to uphold the nation’s security. The move, he said, was in keeping with the Bhartiya Janata Party’s election manifesto and the ‘national agenda’ of the ruling coalition.
“The government has shown that it is prepared to take such legitimate steps to meet India’s security concern’s”, said Mr Kushabhau Thakre. He pointed out the government had “demonstrated that unlike previous regimes, it shall not give into international pressure”.
Congress general Secretary Madhavrao Scindia congratulated the concerned scientists and termed the development as the “logic culmination of the work initiated by Indira Gandhi and the nuclear implosion of 1974”. The senior Congress leader said, “every sovereign country has to keep in mind the security environment in the region”.
Mr. Vajpayee (in his interview to India Today released on May 15) manages to appeal to two political constituencies. On the one hand, he suggests to the Hindutva constituency that only the Bhartiya Janta Party long committed to the bomb, has had guts to do what only Mrs. Indira Gandhi had once boldly attempted, only to be stopped in her tracks. On the other hand, he acknowledges, with an eye on broader political constituency, that every government and every Prime Minister of Independent India had kept ‘India’s nuclear option open’, and supported, “India’s indigenous research and development in thew nuclear field’. What the Bhartiya Janata Party was doing today was to ‘build a superstructure on the solid formation’.
By ordering the tests the Bhartiya Janata Party succeeded in combinations:
To show of Indian might and independence in Decision Making.
Inviting and defying United States sanctions.
The ability to act decisively despite constraints.
The nuclear explosion has graduated Bhartiya Janata Party to emerge as an all India party and reach out to claim the mantle of Indian nationalism as such. This will unite very broad sections of the Indian Middle Classes. The impression will go around that Bhartiya Janata Party is the only party capable of providing India with coherent, assertive and visionary leadership.
Bhartiya Janata Party had so far established its leading role in defining Indian Culture and Hindu religion. Now it has made its first massive attempt to capture the high ground of anti-imperialism. The nuclear explosion has enabled Bhartiya Janata Party to pick-up the mantle of anti-imperialism in the tradition of the national movement. In both cases, the appeal is made to atavistic feeling of aggression, in the form of a promise to redeem honour. According to Times Opinion Poll conducted in the eight metropolitan cities on May 26 and 27, 1998, as many as 81 percent of the respondents approve of the Vajpayee Governments momentous decision. The Poll was conducted just prior to Pakistanis blast.
Although the Bhartiya Janata Party government has come under sharp attack from the Congress, the left and the other opposition parties for its motive (political advantage) and the timing (before carrying out the ‘Strategic defense review’) of its decision to conduct the tests. The Times Poll shows, on these issues, the public largely agrees with the Vajpayee Governments explanations. As many as 65 percent of the respondents say that the nuclear tests were in the national interests and only 27 percent think that the governments motive was primarily to gain political advantage.[39]
A wide cross section of people spoke in favor of the Nuclear Tests. For former Foreign Secretary, J.N. Dixit, “It is a positive development from India’s national security interest’s point of view. It would enhance our defense capacity, leading to better global power equilibrium”.[40] Mr. M.L. Sodhi, Chairman Jawahar Lal Nehru University’s Center for conflict Power Resolution, said, “Far from leading to regional tension, the test will create a stabilizing atmosphere, so important for peace not only in the region but also for the whole continent of Asia, because, if India is better prepared militarily, there is lesser prospect of war breaking out in this part of the world.”[41] Admiral K.K.Nayaar, former Naval Chief, presently head of the Forum for Indian Nuclear Deterrent, says, “Along with our nuclear scientists, Prime Minister Vajpayee and Defense Minister George Fernandes have made the nation proud. Even if they retire from public life tomorrow, they will remain immortal forever. The government has to be applauded that it has concerned itself with the principal duty of the government which is to ensure national security and integrity.”[42]
By taking a decision to test nuclear weapon Mr. Vajpayee earned respect of India. As Mr. Henry Kissinger has said, ‘tranquility is not the natural state of the world; peace and security are not the laws of nature’. Therefore, a true leader is he who has a sense of distrust and who carefully manages the balance of power. International relations is in the ultimate analysis, is all about possibilities, not probabilities. Emphasis on possibilities often leads to misperceptions as happened to India in 1962. Basing policies on possibilities, on the other hand, reduces the scope for basic misperceptions.
The recent elections results for Vidhan Sabha’s of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Delhi have forced me to draw conclusions about the public opinion.
First, in ordinary times, nuclear and other security issues are non issues. It has virtually no bearing on the elections, nor does it rank high in salience. There is no great support for weaponization at such times. Second, there is a dramatic shift if nations security is threatened or external pressure is imposed.
Despite its ambition to be known as a ‘great power’, India resisted what many members of Gandhi’s generation regarded as a depraved definition of power based on instruments of mass destruction. India, they frequently declared, would become ‘great’ precisely because it eschewed such weapons and placed a priority on economic development of its citizens. New Delhi, mobilized world opinion in response to American atmospheric tests in the Pacific in 1954, which led to the death of Japanese fisherman and severe birth defects among Marshall Islanders. In April 1954, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru became the first leader to call for a ‘standstill agreement’ on nuclear testing.
All that changed in 1962, when India lost a border war with China. The humiliation of that defeat, compounded by the emergence of China as a nuclear weapons power gave new impetus to nuclear development. In 1964, after China tested its first nuclear device, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri publicly indicated that India might follow suit.
India’s first test in 1974 was a signal to China that Asian nuclear monopoly had been broken. Legacy of Budha, Ashoka and Gandhi weighed heavily on the shoulders of Indian leaders and scientists, who yearned for global status which they perceived, could only be achieved through nuclear weapons capability was gradually constructed yet consistently denied.
Advani issued a statement, “Islamabad should realize the change in the geo-strategic situation in the region and the world,” he said, Pakistan should roll back its anti-India policy, especially with regard to Kashmir”. The tests Advani said signified, “India’s resolve to deal firmly and strongly with Pakistan’s hostile designs and activities in Kashmir.”[43]
The nuclear tests by Pakistan[44] has brought into the open that country’s nuclear weapon which has been in existence for 11 years. Many in this country argue that we have lived with the Chinese Bomb for well over decades and, therefore, why should we not live with the Pakistani Bomb too. In fact, India has been living with the Pakistani Bomb since 1987. After Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, then Prime Minister took the decision to initiate the deterrent program, the Indian weapon too came into existence in 1990. Therefore, both China and Pakistan have been living with this deterrent for the last eight years.
If one were to compare the eight years of India and Pakistanis co-existence with the eight years of the United State- Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, United States-China and Sino-Soviet nuclear relationship, the former has been more stable. There was no arms race between India and Pakistan though the leadership of each knew that the other had nuclear weapons. India reduced its defense expenditures sharply in real terms during the period. During the same period the Pakistan had been waging a covert war in Kashmir in India. Both countries exercised restraint in tacit framework of low-intensity conflict in a situation of mutual deterrence. Developments on the ground have totally disproved western predictions about this region, being the world’s nuclear flash point, which it has not been and is not going to be. Most prognostications about the Indo-Pakistan nuclear arms race are purely speculative and merely mechanical extension of the behavior pattern of the three Nuclear Powers United States, China and Russia; and this pattern ignores the developments and history of the region of last eight years.[45]
The Chinese nuclear threat to India has been there since 1964, and it became a combined threat from Pakistan and China since 1987. The combined threat was known to the government, but, the Indian political leadership did not take people into confidence. Their attitude was the same as that of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru who felt he could manage the challenge of China in the 1950’s, without taking the Indian people into confidence. Nuclear threat is not of nuclear exchange or arms race, but more subtle and sophisticated. Professor Cohen had pointed out, the nuclear threat is designed to paralyze decision-making by a weak Indian government by using, among other things, the nuclear factor. Pakistan tried it and failed.[46] China may attempt it whenever an opportunity arises.
There are limits to the Pakistan’s capability to acquire nuclear weapons and missiles. It is totally unrealistic to talk of Pakistan starting an arms race against India since it is not an independent, self-sufficient producer of arms. Therefore, there is no cause of worry about an arms race being triggered off. China is interested in proliferating to Pakistan to a certain extent as a countervailing force to India. However, China will come under increasing scrutiny for its proliferation activity. For net few months if not for years Pakistan’s economy will come under heavy strain. Hence, it would be utterly wrong to talk of arms race.
The reason for resuming the nuclear testing are the continuing negative reaction of the United States to India’s nuclear restraint since 1974. The increasing threat from a nuclear armed China, and with China providing Pakistan with the offensive capability against India; as well as the need to ensure that Indian deterrent is safe and reliable.[49] Despite avoiding further testing since the 1974 ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’. “India was met with sanctions on a range of nuclear technologies, ‘that were 85% civilian’”, in the words of top policy maker. He added, “even essential safety equipment, as well as technology and material needed for peaceful applications such as weather forecasting, were denied to us by Washington”.[50] “However, the sanctions had the effect of spurring Indian scientists into developing super-computer and other equipment ‘that even China’ cannot match”, he added.
‘Ever since the emergence of the Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test ban Treaty, we in India have tried to persuade the nuclear weapon powers and make the world safe for peace. The response has been evasive and high-handed”, said Mr. I.K. Gujral in a statement.
Another reason for Indian testing was stepping up of China’s assistance to Pakistan, Iran and some other Middle East Countries through its ally North Korea. The near-total absence of United Sates reactions to such technological transfers convinced Indian policy-makers that, “India cannot expect any credible United States action to prevent cross border proliferation by two countries described by Washington as ‘strategic allies’”.
“Given that universal nuclear disarmament is utopian, and that China is merely proliferating, there was no option but to take steps to perfect deterrent”, said a high level military maker.[51]He added that, “India being full democracy, is much more responsible than China or Russia or Pakistan, where governmental authority has ceased to exist in most sectors. Pakistan is using money from its friends, is shopping for scientists and materials to become a nuclear power. Under the circumstances, India was left with no option but to resume testing”, said a top policy maker. He added, “our scientists informed us that minimum number of tests were needed to ensure safety, especially as the United States has banned all safety technologies to us since 1974”.
India accepts the link between possession of nuclear weapons and proliferation; as long as few countries have them, others will strive to get them.[52] Politically, India feels her security threatened while there are no moves towards total abolition of nuclear weapons. India could have chosen to weaponise earlier, but refrained from doing so, and put its faith in pressing for disarmament, while keeping its options open on case such disarmament did not materialize. A cabinet source confirmed, “tests would be kept to the minimum, and the policy of not allowing proliferation of technology would continue”. He however said, “much would depend on the reaction of other nuclear powers. Sometimes, painting a country as a outlaw becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy”.
For India Nuclear Deterrence has many advantages:
It would remove dependence on allies and large amount of imported arms.
It strengthens countries bargaining position.
It enhances national prestige as it signals technical competence and political will.
Nuclear weapons are cheaper than conventional arms.
Perhaps most important, the time has come to establish a forum to institutionalise a nuclear dialogue among the acknowledged nuclear powers. A forum would build on the more ad hoc consultations that have occurred between these countries. It would have many benefits. First, it would help each to understand the thinking in all the others about nuclear weapons states and its relations with international security. Second, to identify common security interest and areas for cooperation. Third, to highlight security differences and consider ways to resolve them, and fourth, to build habits of cooperation.
Influence, however, is rooted in more than economic power alone. In international politics wealth is not the primary goal: states continue to pay a high price to maintain their security, autonomy and to spread their values.[56] The game of international relations in the post Cold War will still have a military security dimensions, which will be embedded in the balance of power until the worlds problems are handled in concert by some form of multi-lateralism.
The operation of a balance of power involves a rules based system that limits both the ability of states to dominate each other and the scope of conflict.[57] Its goal is stability and moderation: the pretensions of the most ambitious (or aggressive) members of the international community are kept in check by the combined efforts of other s.
Henry Kessinger notes that a balance of power works best if nation feels free to align themselves with any other state, or where the cohesion of alliances is relatively low so that on any given issue there can be comprises or changes in alignment, or where there are fixed alliances but balance sees to it that none of the existing coalitions become dominant,[58]
In Asia strategic situation is in a state of considerable flux. With the end of the bipolar world of the Cold War era, the emergence of potentially strong regional powers and the declining importance of traditional alliances and of the United States. It is thus uncertain what sort of system of regional order will emerge.
India needs to build up its own industrial- military complex which can assume security on the one hand and catalyse development on the other. The greatest advantage of the perceived weakness is that an enemy may become adventurist.
The recognized purpose of self-defence is to deter aggression and to protect the interest of the state.[60] Its goal is preventive in nature and not retributive.[61] Seventeenth Century Spaniards believed that the right of self-defence was limited to protection of territory. Other writers of believe that the right extended to the violation of any national right.[62] ( Also see Chapter 3).
Historically, states demanded a right of self-defence of considerable scope. Customary international law authorised a state targeted by another state to employ military force as necessary to protect itself.[63] The law recognised, as a minimum, the right of a state to act to protect against threats to its political independence or territorial integrity.[64] The right to act in self defence was not limited only to instances of actual armed attack. States were permitted to act when the imminence of attack was o such high degree that a non-violent resolution of a dispute was precluded.[65]
Protect a nations political independence.
Protect a nations territorial integrity.
Protect citizens and their property abroad.[67]
Maintenance of an orderly world that emphasizes cooperation among states.
A preference for change by peaceful processes rather than coercion.
The minimization of destruction.[69]
United Nations Charter recognizes the use of military force as lawful in only two instances, either as part of United Nation authorised military operations to restore the peace under Article 42 or for self defence under Article 51.[70]
Article 51 provides:
‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by members in the exercise of the right of self defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at anytime such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security’.
India has rightfully acted in testing the nuclear weapon as she is threatened by neighbour with nuclear weapons and has a long standing border dispute.
The power is determined by which stste is ahead in information, and this may be even more true in space based surveillance, direct broadcasting, high speed computers and an unparalleled ability to integrate complex information systems have shaped an information edge that ‘can help deter or defeat traditional military threats at relatively low costs’.
This has permitted highly industrialized countries to strengthen their security through attraction rather than coercion. Since threats have changed fundamentally, the driving forces, dimensions, fdorms, procedures ands mechanisms must change as well. The foundation of common security would be the common values that are the product of history, culture, civilization, religion or common institutions and the community of political, economic, military and other vital interests that largely determine rules among the partners of collective security.
India since independence has been against power blocks, hence, never got involved in the power politics of cold war. Pandit Nehru had shunned the Pakistan President Ayub Khan proposal for collective security by stating, “Collective defence against whom?” India however, has been keen to enter into bilateral arrangements for collective security.
So nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction will continue to exist and will require management and analysis. The politics of weapons of mass destruction, especially of nuclear weapons, therefore, although less intense may be more complicated in near future. Two key issues[72] remain:
Should nuclear weapons be used only to deter nuclear attack, or attack by other weapons of mass destruction, or could they still be relied on to help to deter large scale conventional war?
Should nuclear weapons be reduced to only few weapons?
Nuclear weapons for the West have been not just instrument of deterrence against nuclear attacks; they have also been the ultimate instruments of exploitation of its conventional military power. For India, however, so long as revived Chinese- or more accurately, Chines expansionism remains a concern, there will be legitimate role for nuclear weapons as the deterrent against large scale aggression. The Chinese also plan and advocate the use of nuclear weapons on the tactical battlefield. In 1914, 1939 and 1941, leaders of aggressive regimes could indulge the illusion of that, ‘conventional’ war was winnable at tolerable costs; with nuclear weapons, indulging that illusion becomes difficult. So long aggression is possible, its potential victims can rightly call on nuclear weapons to make clear that even a ‘successful’ conventional attack risk disaster of a kind that robs such victory of any meaning.
First Strike Stability
First the minimum condition of nuclear stability has to be that its forces could not be destroyed by a preemptive strike. Today, India does not have the first strike stability, and its vulnerability might create unacceptably dangerous pressures on the Chinese or any other adversary to preempt. Some thinkers like Mr. Bidwai have argued that Indian interest would be served if the Chinese are to somehow to accept vulnerability, and then they accept mutual survivability as the technically best attainable results.
The deterrence cannot be guaranteed, if China retains the asymmetrical balance in its favour and retain the power carryout nuclear attack while India has only conventional attack capability. If one ascribes an indifference of risk to the Indian’s, the deterrence cannot work if India is significantly vulnerable to the Chinese attacks/ strikes.
To be sure, the risk preference of the Chinese leadership are not known. These could be higher than those of leaders throughout 1945-95. Basic changes in Chinese policy should, logically, erode whatever questions still exist about Indian acceptance of mutual vulnerability. A China, whose foreign policy has been transformed by internal reform can, more clearly than an unreformed China, be regarded as entitled to invulnerable forces to weapons of mass destruction.
Crises Stability
The minimum condition for crisis stability has to be intelligence, communication, and a higher level of threshold. The most important need for this the keeping a channel of communication open between the leadership of the adversaries. The crises stability could also be achieved if both are vulnerable.
Arms Race Stability
The third requirement of stability is not just to direct military attack by other sides current forces, but to changes in those forces accomplished by clandestine build ups, open build ups, so large or so technological ability to compete.
However, under General de Gaulle, France ostentatiously broke away from this consensus, arguing that in matters of nuclear protection of security only national control could guarantee adequate deterrence. India has already shunned away from power blocs. Hence for her there is a requirement to develop her own nuclear, biological and chemical deterrence.[73] India has to especially look into her vulnerability to biological weapons. With the advancement in genetic and other technologies it is the biological threat that would have to be catered for.
To this day, however, it has remained the international consensus that the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are detrimental to international stability. I do not ascribe to the idea. I ascribe to the presence of weapons of mass destruction especially nuclear, that the most comprehensive political conflict in world history had not led to a war for over forty-five years. Whereas, the systems outside the system of deterrence by weapons of mass destruction (nuclear deterrence) numerous wars had claimed million of lives during the same period.
To me this still represents politically and morally the central argument in favour of nuclear deterrence. The fear of potential effects of nuclear weapons has so deeply changed human and state behaviour that in conflicts between countries possessing these weapons, violence has so far not been considered as a means of politics. Although this view has met with considerable criticism in West, it continues to shape international diplomacy.
[1] See Sagan, ‘Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb’, International Security, Vol. 18, No. 3, Winter 1996-97, pp. 54-86.
[2] These include Ashok Kapur, ‘India’s Nuclear Option: Atomic diplomacy and Decision Making’(New York: Praeger Publishers, 1976); T.T. Poulouse (ed.), ‘Perspectives of India’s Defence Policy’,(New Delhi: Lancers Publishers, 1978); Shyam Bhatia, ‘India’s Nuclear Bomb’, (Ghaziabad: Vikas Publicatios, 1979); Rodney W. Jones, ‘India”, in Jozef Goldbalt (ed.), ‘Non-Proliferation: The Why and The Wherefore’,(London: Taylor& Francis, 1985), pp. 101-16; Mitchell Reiss, ‘Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear Capabilities’, (Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, 1995).
[3] Being policy makers, John Deutsch presents the most unadorned summary of the basic argument that ‘the fundamental motivation to seek a weapon is the perception that national security will be improved’. John M. Deutsch, “The New Nuclear Threat”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 71, no. 41 (Fall 1992), pp. 124-125. Also see George Shultz, “Preventing the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’, Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 84, No. 2093 (December 1984), pp. 17-21. For examples of the dominant paradigm among scholars, see Micheal M. May, “Nuclear Weapons supply and Demand”, American Scientist, Vol. 82, No. 6 (November-December 1994), pp. 526-537; Bradely A. Thayer, ‘The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation and the Non-Proliferation Regimes’, Security Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Spring 1995), pp. 463-519; Benjamin Frankel, ‘The Brooding Shadow: systematic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation’, and Richard K. Betts, ‘Paranoids, Pygmies, Pariahs and Non-Proliferation Revisited’, both in Zachary S. Davis and Benjimin Frankel, eds. The Proliferation Puzzle, special issue of Security Studies, Vol. 2, No. ¾ (Spring/Summer 1993), pp. 37-38 and 100- 124.
[4] The Nuclear Test by India and Pakistan shattered the Non-proliferation Treaty and United States policy of non- proliferation for the Sub-Continent.
[5] See Steve Fretter, “Verifying Nuclear Disarmament’, Occasional Paper No. 29, Henry L. Stimson Centre, Washington, D.C., October 1996, p. 38; and ‘Affiliations and Nuclear Activities of 172 NPT Parties’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 25, No. 2 (March 1995), pp. 33-36. For earlier pioneering efforts to assess nuclear weapons latent capability and demand, see Stephen M. Meyer, ‘The Dynamics of Nuclear proliferation’, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); and William C. Potter, ‘Nuclear Power and Non-Proliferation’, (Cambridge, Mass. Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1982).
[6] See For example, May, “nuclear Weapons Supply and Demand’; Thayer, ‘The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation and the Non-Proliferation Regimes’; and Frankel, ’The Brooding Shadow: Systematic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation’.
[7] The NPT lays down that only nations that have carried out tests before 1968 could be given the status of a nuclear weapon state
[8] Kux, Dennis., ‘India and the US: Estranged Democracies”, (Washington DC: natioanl Defence University, 1992), pp. 207-208.
[9] Thomas, Raju G.C., ‘South Asian Security in the 1990’s’, Adelphi Paper 278 (London: Brasseys for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1993), p.3
[10] Indian Ministry Of Defence, ‘Ministry of Defence Annual Report: 1996-97’ (New Delhi: Government of India, 1997), p.2.
[11] Somdutt, Major General D., “The Defence of India’s Northern Borders’, Adelphi Paper, No. 30 (London: Institute of Strategic Studies, 19966), and ‘India and the Bomb’ Adelphi Paper, No. 30 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1966).
[12] By 1965, India was producing fissile material from the 40 MW CIRUS reactor and was also able to process uranium from there.
[13] See Banerjee, Brigadier D., ‘China’s Emerging Nuclear Doctrine: A Prognostication’, Combat, Vol. 16, No. 1, April 1989, pp. 3-14; Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, ‘’The Strategic Deterrent Option’, Strategic Analysis, vol. 12, No. 9, September 1989, p. 587; Colonels Sahgal, A., and Singh, T>, ‘Nuclear Threat from China: An Apprisal’, Trishul, Vol. 6, No. 2, January 1994, pp. 27-38.
[14] Also see Robert S. Norris, Andrew S. Burrows and Richard W. Field house, ‘Nuclear Weapons Data Book Volume V: British, French and Chinese Nuclear Weapons’, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 338-41 and Figure 6-10, pp. 346-47.
[15] Chandran, R., ‘New Chines Missile Targets India: US Daily’, Times of India, July 11, 1997.
[16] James Woolsey testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, 24 February 1993, quoted in Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, ‘Enchancing Indo-US Strategic Cooperation’, Adelphi Paper, No. 312, p. 18
According to one report in the 1980’s ‘Pakistan received a proven weapon design from China. It has been reported that the design was used in China’s fourth nuclear weapon test in 1966. [See Simon Henderson, ‘Pakistans Atomic Bomb’, Foreign Reporter, 12, January 1989, quoted in Wahegurupal Singh Sidhu, ‘Enhancing Indo-US Strategic Cooperation’, Adelphi Paper , No. 313,p. 18.
Also see david Albright and Mark Hibbs,’Pakistans Bomb: Out of the Closet’, Bulletin of Atomic Scientist, vol. 48, no. 4, July- August 1992, pp. 38-43.
This claim was coupled with reports tjhat China had provided Pakistan with Parts of M-11 mobile missiles in the early 1990’s. [ See Bill Gertz, ‘Pakistan-China Deal for Missile Exposed’, Washington Times, 7 September 1994; R. Jeffery Smith and Thomas W. Lippman, ‘Pakistan M-11 funding is Reported’, Washington Post, 8 September 1994, p. A32; Klare, Michael, ‘Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws’, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), pp. 152,191].
[17] R. Jeffery Smith and David B. Ottaway,’ Spy Photos Suggest China Missile Trade’, Washington Post, 3 July 1995, p. A1; Smith, ‘China Linked to Pakistani Missile Plant’, Wsahington Post, 23 August 1996, pp. A1, A23. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress (Washington DC: USGPO, 1996), pp. 20-21; See also Douglas Walter, ‘The Secret Missile Deal’, Time, 30 June 1997, p. 58.
[18] This has been reiterated in Indian Ministry of Defence Annual Report: 1996-97, p. 2.
[19] This staement of mine finds close acceptance by Michael Klare in his book ‘Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws’, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), pp. 152-191.
[20] Interview with General Beg by Michael Krepon, Rawalpindi, May 1994, cited in Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, ‘Enhancing Indo-US Strategic Cooperation’, Adelphi Paper, No. 313, p.18.
[21] Perhaps one of the most credible explanations is that offered by Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State at the time, who claimed that the move was not to ‘assist’ Pakistan, but also to ‘backup the Chinese’.
[22] See Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, op cit., p.21. Also see Henry Kissinger, ‘The White House Years’, (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1979), pp. 905, 911-912; Admiral S.N. Kholi, ‘The Geopolitical and Strategic Considerations that Necessitate the Expansion and Modernization of The Indian Navy’, Indian Defence Review, January 1989, p. 38; Vice Admiral M.K. Roy, ‘War in The Indian Ocean’, (New Delhi: Lancer Publications, 1995), pp. 212-213; Captain Ranjit Rai, ‘Foreign Interference in the Indian Ocean 1971 Repeat performance A Research’, USI Journal, Vol 112, No. 420, October-December 1982, pp. 316-320
[23] The phrase ‘raising the cost of intervention ‘ was coined by Subrahmanyam, K., in ‘Our National Security’, Monograph No. 3, (London: Economics and Scientific Research Foundation, 1972), p. XXI.
[24] The seminal text of neo-realism remains Kenneth N. waltz, ‘The Theory of International Politics’, (New York: Random House, 1979), Also see Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘The Origins of war in Neo-Realist Theory’, in I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (eds.) ‘The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars’ (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 39-52; and Robert O. Keohane (ed.), ‘Neo Realism and Its Critics’, (New York: Columbia Univewrsity Press, 1986).
[25] George Shultz, “Preventing the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”, p. 13. Every time one state develops a nuclear weapons to balance against its main rival, it also creates a nuclear threat to another state in the region, which then has to initiate its own nuclear weapons program.
[26] On the genesis of the atomic programs in World War II, see McGeorge Bundy, ‘Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years’, (New York: Random House, 1988), pp. 3-53; and Richard Rhodes, “The Making of The Atomic Bomb”, (New York: simon and Schuster, 1986).
[27] A. Lavrentyeva in ‘Stroiteli novogo mira’, V mire King, No. 9 (1970), in David Holloway, The Soviet Union and The Arms Race, (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1980),p. 20, also quoted in Thayer, ‘The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation’, p. 487. Also quoted in Scott D. Sagan, ‘Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons”, International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3, Winter 1996/97, p. 58.
[28] The important sources on the British case includes, Margert Gowing, ‘Britain and the Atomic Energy 1939-45’, (London: Macmillan, 1964); Margret Gowing, ‘Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945-52’, Vols. 1 and 2 (London: Macmillan, 1974); Andrew Pierre, ‘Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent Strategic force 1939-70’, (London: Oxford University Press, 1972); and Robert H. Patterson, ‘Britain’s Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: From before the V Bomber to Beyond Trident’, (London: Frank Cass & Co Ltd., 1997). On the French Case, see Lawrence Scheinman, ‘Atomic energy Policy in France Under the Fifth Republic’, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965) and Wilfred L. Khol, ‘french Nuclear Diplomacy’, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971).
[29] Goldstein, Avery, ‘Robust and affordable Security: Some Lessons from the Second Ranking Powers during the Cold War’, Journal of the Strategic Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4, (December 1992), p. 494. The seminal source on Chinese Weapons Program, which emphasize the importance of United States nuclear threats in the 1950’s, is John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb’, (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988).
[30] Valuable sources on Pakistani’s nuclear program include Ziba Moshaver, ‘Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation in The Indian Subcontinent’, (Basingtobe, UK.: Macmillan, 1991) and Ashok Kapur, ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Development’, (New York: Croom Helm, 1987).
[31] Because of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, any state that seeks to maintain its national security must balance against any rival state that develops and deploys nuclear weapons by gaining access to a nuclear deterrent itself. This can produce options. First, strong state do what they can; they can pursue a form of internal balancing by adopting the costly, but self sufficient; policy of developing their own nuclear weapons. Second weak sates do what they must: they can join a balancing alliance with nuclear power, utilizing a promise of nuclear retaliation by that ally as a means of extended deterrence. For such states, acquiring an ally may be the only option available, but the policy inevitable raises questions about the credibility of extended deterrence guarantees, since the nuclear power would also fear retaliation if it is responded to an attack on its ally.
[32] Nalpat, M.D., “India was “forced’ to Conduct Nuclear Tests”, Times of India, No. 110, Vol. CLXI, May, 13, 198, p. 9.
[33] Although nuclear weapons could be developed to serve either as a deterrents against overwhelming conventional military threats or as coercive tools to compel changes in the status quo, the simple focus of states ’responses to emerging nuclear threats is the most common and most parsimonious explanation for nuclear weapons proliferation’. The Israeli and Indian nuclear weapons decisions might be the best examples of the defensive responses to conventional military threats. Pakistan, Iraq and North Korea might be the examples of the offensive coercive motivation. Pakistan is the best example of the offensive coercive motivation, although their leadership deny that their program is offensive. On the status quo bias in neo-realist theory in general, see Randall L. Schweller, ‘Band-wagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In’, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1, (Summer 1994), pp. 72-107 and Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, eds., ‘The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy’, (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1993).
[34] The recent estimates of the number of weapons India could deploy on short notice range from 25- 105. See Mitchell Reiss, ‘Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Construct their Nuclear Capabilities’, (Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995), p. 185: Leonard S. Spector and Mark G. McDonough, ”Tracking Nuclear Proliferation’, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie endowment for International Peace, 1995), p. 89; and Eric arnet, “implications of the Comprehensive test Ban’, (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1996), p. 13. Other important sources on the India’s nuclear program include Ashok Kapur, ‘India’s nuclear Option: Atomic Diplomacy and decision Making”, (New York: Prager, 1976); Brahma Chellaney, ‘South Asia’s Passage to Nuclear Power’, International Security, Vol. 16, No. 1 (summer 1991), pp. 43-72; and TT Poulose, ed., ‘Perspective of India’s Nuclear Policy’, (New Delhi: Young Asia Publications, 1978).
[35] Betts, Richard. K., ‘A Nuclear Golden Age’, International Security, Vol 11, NO. 3, Winter 1986-87, p. 3.
[36] See Marshall M. Bouton, ‘Heed South Asia’s Concern’s’, Far Eastern Economic Review, US Edition, June 25, 1998.
[37] See ‘Cover Story’ in excerpts of interview of Dr. R. Chidambaram, he gave to T.S. Subramanian, ‘Frontline’, Vol. 15, No. 11, May 23-June 5, 1998 ( Chennai 600002: M/S Kasturi and Sons Ltd.), p.11.
To a question, ‘How do you feel of achievement’? Dr. Chidambaram replied,” This has been my ambition for many years. It has been achieved”.
[38] Nanda, Prakash., ‘Pokharan the Test of Vajpayee Leadership’, ‘The Times of India’, Noi. 152, Vol. CLXI, Wednesday July 1, 1998.
[39] See K. Balakrishnan and G.V.L. Narashima Rao, ‘Nation Rallies behind Nuclear Decision’, The Times of India, No. 126,Vol. CLXI, of June 01, 1998. (New Delhi, National Edition).
[40] See Nanda, Prakash, “Experts applaud India’s N- exercise’, Times of India, No. 110, Vol. CLXI, May 13, 1998 (New Delhi), p. 8.
[41] Ibid., p. 8.
[42] Ibid., p. 8.
[43] Lawrence Lifschultz, “Doom Thy Neighbour’, FEEE, Vol. 161, No. 23, June 4, 1998. Pp. 30-34.
[44] Pakistan’s sense of insecurity according to Pakistanis press has been heightened by the lukewarm resolve to punish India. Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff and his advisors waited to gauge world reaction. While Pakistanis scientists and special army unit booted up the test site in the Northern Chagia Hills, which has been ready for tests since 1988. The time when Pakistan first acquired nuclear capability. Senior Pakistani military and civilian officials say the Army recommended nuclear tests as the only way to meet the threat posed by Indian explosion.
President Clinton spoke to Mr. Shariff three times since May 11, 1998 to persuade him against nuclear tests, with offers and counter offers on security package for Islamabad. Senior Western diplomats said Washiungton also promised Pakistan it wouldn’t support for Indian demands for permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and to join the nuclear club.
As Islamabad based European diplomat, put it: ‘Pakistan was looking for nothing less than American nuclear umbrella and Iraqi-type comprehensive United Nations Sanctions against India- both of which were impossible for United States to offer’.[See Ahmed Rashid and Shiraz Sidhva, ‘Might and Menace’, Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 161, No. 23, June 4, 1998, pp. 27-29.] Adds Western Diplomat: ‘Our response to Pakistan’s concern can only be tactical and not strategic and Pakistan must understand that’.
Washington’s predicament is that any strategic security guarantees for Islamabad would be viewed by New Delhi as a return to the old American ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan. A constant barb hurled by India at the United States during the Cold War.
Pakistans’s decision to test got a flip from China. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed visited Beijing. On his return on May 20, 1998, he would only say, “China has not asked us to do anything which is not in our national interest”. China refused to comment on Shamshad’s statement and visit. Beijing assumed Islamabad that bilateral military co-operation remain close and offered its ‘unqualified support’ to Pakistan. Pakistan did not get a nuclear umbrella from either United States or China.
[45] Early in 1980, Professor Stephen Cohen, the United States specialists on India and Pakistan met Pakistani Army officials and discussed the rationale of Pakistani nuclear effort. He was told by Pakistani the Pakistan’s nuclear capability would ‘neutralize an assumed Indian Nuclear Force’. However, others pointed out, it would provide an umbrella under which Pakistanis could open the Kashmir issue. According to Pakistanis, “Pakistan’s nuclear capability paralyses not only the Indian nuclear decision but also Indian Conventional Forces and a brash, bold Pakistani strike to liberate Kashmir might go unchallenged if the Indian leadership was weak and indecisive”.
Professor Cohen’s analyses of Pakistan’s proclivities for risk-taking have turned out to be prophetic. He said in the same paper quoted above, which was presented at a meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Washington in March 1980; “Pakistan (like Taiwan, Israel, South Korea and south Africa) has the capacity to fight, to go nuclear, to influence the global strategic balance and lastly, is in the strategic geographical location, surrounded by the three great states in the world and adjacent to the mouth of the Persian Gulf’.
Also see Subrahmanyam, ‘Arms Race Myth’, The Times of India
[46] Pakistan’s attempt to grab Kashmir in a brash and bold strike at a time when they considered the Indian Government weak and indecisive- during VP Singh’s government- failed. The prolonged covert war waged in Kashmir did not give Pakistan the desired victory. Mr. Nawaz Sharif, as opposition leader, in his speech in Nila Bhat on August 24, 1994, had warned India the Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if India tried to invade Kashmir.
[47] Former French Prime Minister Balladeu said in May 1994, that CTBT, ‘must not in nay way envisage the elimination of nuclear weapons or seek to under mine the status of nuclear power’.
The Pentagons Fiscal Year 1995 Annual report noted that considerations should be given, ‘to whether and how US Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Posture can play a role in deterring the acquisition of nuclear weapons by other nations’. The American Nuclear Stockpile is also viewed as a nonproliferation tool.
The text of CTBT approved by General Assembly includes a list of forty four countries, all of whom must raify before the treaty can come into force. Each of these states have effectively been handed a veto. The list includes India. Britain, backed by Russia and China took the lead in insisting this treaty-wrecking clause. So the well signing session in New York had very little meaning.
{See Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, ‘CTBT Appearance and Reality: The view from Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’, Agni, Vol. 2, No. 2, September-December 1996, p. 5].
The CTBT allows production of very small thermonuclear explosions inside facilities designed to contain them. Examples are the planner US National Ignition Facility and similar French ‘Mega Joule’ facility. Use of such facilities can provide data that can play key role in the design of new types of nuclear weapons. The CTBT will allow the design, construction and use of numerous other facilities, in growing number of countries, designed to investigate possibilities for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) thermonuclear explosions as a source of power for civil purposes.
[48] See Jaswant Singh, ‘Against Nuclear Apartheid’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 77, No. 5, September/ October 1998, p.44.
[49] Nalpat, M.D., ‘India was ‘forced’ to Conduct Nuclear Tests’, Times of India, No. 10, Vol. CLXI, May 13, 1998 (New Delhi), p. 9.
[50] Ibid., p. 9.
[51] Ibid., p. 9.
[52] Arundhati Ghose, ‘Issues of Concern in South Asia’, in Ellis, Peter (ed.), ‘India’s Nuclear Weapons & Global Security’, Oxford Research Group, Current Decisions Report No. 20’, June 1998, (Oxford OX26JE: Oxford research Group), pp.10-11.
Also see Dunn, Lewis ‘Beyond the Nuclear Age: Security, Politics and Inertia’, pp. 14-17,in paper cited above. There are three possible ways to define the elimination of nuclear weapons, to move, in affect, beyond today’s nuclear age. These are:
First, the complete physical elimination of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons components, and all nuclear weapons material;
Second, the political elimination of nuclear weapons; and
Third, the international control of a small number of residual nuclear weapons, with all other weapons physically eliminated.
Let me consider each briefly. The complete physical elimination of nuclear weapons is clearly the most important ant the far-reaching goal. A key problem here, however, would be the great uncertainties that exist today about how many nuclear weapons and how much fissile material the acknowledged and the unacknowledged nuclear powers have produced over the years and still possess. It may never be possible to eliminate the uncertainty, regardless, of the verification provisions. This is likely to be great impediment in the elimination of nuclear weapons as long as relations between nations, remains wary at best, confrontational at worst.
[53] Hedley, Bull, ‘The Anarchial Society’, (London: Macmillan Press, 1977), Chapter 5.
[54] Ernst B. Haas, ‘The Balance of Power as a Guide to Policy-Making’, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3, August 1953, p. 370.
[55] Robert Jervis, ‘The Future of World Politics’, International Security, Vol. 16, No. 3, Winter 1991-92, p. 50.
[56] Morton Abramowitz, ‘Pacific Century: Myth or Reality?’, Contemporary South East Asia, Vol. 15, No. 3, December 1993, pp. 257-58, 267.
[57] L.K. Advani was quoted in The Hindu, 19 May 1998 as calling on Pakistan, ‘to realize the change in the geo strategic situation in the region and the world, created by Indian tests’.
[58] Kisinger, Henry., “Diplomacy”, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994),, pp. 20 –21.
[59] It is necessary to distinguish between self defence and self help. A nation may act in self defence to protect essential national rights from irreparable harm when no reasonable, alternate means of protection is available. Its purpose is the deterrence of aggression and the presentation or restoration of legal status quo. Self help, on the other hand, is remedial or repressive in character. It is a punitive or retributive in response to either some past unlawful act or as a sanction to enforce legal rights. Common forms of self help are reprisal or intervention.
[60] Gravelle, James Francis, ‘The Falkland (Malvines) Islands: An International Law Analysis of The Dispute between Argentine and Great Britain’, Military Law Review, 107 (1985), p. 56.
[61] Bowett, D.W., ‘Self Defense in International Law’, (New York: Fredrick A Praeger, 1958), p. 20.
[62] O’Connell, D.P., ‘International Law’, (Dobbs Ferry, NY.: Oceana Publications, 1965), p. 339
[63] McDougal, Myres S., ‘The Soviet-Cuban Quarantine and Self Defence’, The American Journal of International Law, 57, No. 3, 1963, pp. 597-98.
[64] MacChesney, Brunson., ‘Some Comments on the “Quarantine” of Cuba’, The American Journal of International Law, 57, No. 3, 1963, p. 595.
[65] McDougal, p. 598, op cit. Note 65.
[66] Bowett, D.W., ‘Self Defence in International Law’, (New York: Fredrick A Prager, 1958), p. 20.
[67] United Statesa Department of The Army, ‘Operational Law Handbook’, 2nd Edition (Draft, 1992), pp. 38-39, See Also Bowett, op cit., p. 270.
[68] MacChasney, op cit., p. 593.
[69] Moore, John Norton, ‘Law and the Indo-China War’, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University press, 1972), pp. 170-171.
[70] Lung-Chu Chen, ‘An Introduction in Contemporary International Law: A Policy Prespective’, (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 122.
[71] Collective Defence. States pursue collective defence by forming alliances of like minded states. Collective defence means that states agree to come to the defence of any other in their alliance if they are attacked.
Collective Security. In its ideal form, this is a system in which all states join together to punish any state that carries out an aggressive act. The United Nation is the closet example of collective security mechanism. Although pure collective security does not exist.
Cooperative Security. Cooperative security can be pursued by individual states or alliances. It involves mutual cooperative measures that when carried out by each side improve the security of each side. It is designed to ensure that organised aggression cannot start or be carried out on any large scale. It seeks to devise agreed measures to prevent war (i.e. on-site monitoring, observation of military manoeuvers, and so on.
[72] See Slocomb, Walter. B., ‘Strategic Stability in Restructured World’, Survival, Vol. XXXII, no. 4, July/ August 1990, pp. 299-312.
[73] Amongst the academic, Kenneth Waltz, needs to be taken seriously. He has put forward the thesis that the logic of deterrence, with its inherent imperative for self restraint applies to all. War as a means of politics should be excluded. Thus the proliferation of nuclear weapons would exert a stabilizing influence on world politics. [See Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Toward Nuclear Peace’, in Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz (eds.), ‘The Use of Force’, 2nd Edition (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983)}
The above is dated 1995, but has relevance today also
What does a weaponization mean. If we see the total nuclear powers the major power is Japan although has never exploded a device. The virtual capability of japan is largest.
I am loading a Chapter from a Thesis of 1995
6.2: WHY INDIA WEAPONISED
Why do states develop nuclear weapons? Why did India weaponise? Why do countries ‘go nuclear’? India is not alone in citing several factors to justify its nuclear capabilities, among them security considerations, technical and scientific poweress and national prestige.[1] Scholars have pointed out the importance of domestic political and bureaucratic considerations.[2] Having an accurate answer to this question is critically important for predicting the long-term future of the Indian Security and international world order. Many Indian foreign policy makers, international relation scholars and defence analyst have a clear and simple answer to the Indian tests:
‘States will seek to develop nuclear weapons when they face a significant military threat to their security that cannot be met through alternative means; if they do not face such threats, they will willingly remain a non-nuclear state’.[3]
Historically nations have acquired nuclear weapons for variety of reasons. These include:
To coerce, destroy, terrorize or blackmail other nations.
To deter others, especially adversaries with nuclear weapons or vastly superior conventional forces.
To achieve political and military targets/ goals and status.
To help protect the abiding interests.
Assessment of threats and opportunities is the primary concern of any government. Moreover, few leaders pass into their nation’s history in a more ignominious light than those who fail to anticipate security threats to their states. Despite enormous popularity in the West for his vision of an independent, peaceful world and for engineering the collapse of Soviet Communism and the end of Cold War, Mikhail Gorbochev is despised by most of the Russians. He was incapable of winning even one percent of the vote in the first Post-Soviet Presidential elections in 1996. Gorbochev was spat at and punched by the same people who ten years before would have idolized him as Russian Saviour.
Here I argue that the consensus view, focussing on national security considerations as the cause of proliferation is dangerously inadequate because the nuclear program’s also serve other, more parochial and less obvious objectives. Nuclear weapons, unlike other weapons are more than the tools of national security; they are political objects of considerable importance in domestic debates and internal bureaucratic struggles and can also serve as international normative symbols of modernity and identity.
Despite agreement in 1995 to have a permanent extension of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT),[4] there will be continuing review conferences assessing the implementation of the treaty after every five years. Each member state can legally withdraw from the treaty, under the clause of ‘supreme national interest’, if it gives a month notice. Many new states can be expected to develop a ‘latent nuclear weapons’ capability over the coming decades. Indeed some fifty seven states now operate or are constructing nuclear power or research reactors, and it has been estimated approximately thirty countries today have the necessary industrial infrastructure and scientific expertise to build nuclear weapons on a crash basis if they choose to do so.[5]
|
Debate in India on the morality and ethics of nuclear weapons is a healthy democratic sign, but as long as competition in technology decides the hierarchy among nations, its application in war would remain with us. The great leaps in military technology are at times developed with no military participation. The ideas for a new weapon system derive not from military but from scientists and technologists. At Los Almos, the military were merely the administrators, similarly at Pokharan. The jet engine, radar megnatron and the inertial gyros were developed purely by scientists with no military objectives in view. The world is today ruled by technology. Technology appears to be in charge, as much in the growth of arms race as in the economic hierarchy of nations. Paul Kennedy the economic historian has shown in his seminal work, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers’, that top industrial nations corner eighty percent (80%) of the ten most valuable manufacturers. Powers among nations are decided by science, weapons are only a by-product. The international sanctions and legislation aimed at only weapons aim to cure the symptoms rather than the disease.
I believe that arguments and evidence concerning India’s decision to deploy be tested against models of proliferation. For, in contrast to the views of the scholars who claimed the traditional realist theory focussing on security threats explains all cases of proliferation and nuclear restraint.[6] I believe historical records suggest that each theory explains some past cases quite well and others poorly.
The resume of historical background and the utility of nuclear weapons as discussed in earlier Chapters (Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4) ended with testing of nuclear weapons on 11 and 13 May 1998 at Pokharan. India also declared that she is now a nuclear weapon state. The two key issues on which that period ended were the adoption of CTBT by the United Nations General Assembly and an indefinite extension of NPT. India refused to sign these two treaties. The country was isolated and lots of pressure was brought to bear on her to sign. India has refused to sign with one primary aspect that treaties are discriminatory, as it permits nuclear powers to retain their capabilities while forbidding others.[7]
The assessment of decision to test and deploy nuclear weapons will have to be considered against this background.
THE FIRST MODEL: NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS
India’s national security concerns are based on its location, history and complex domestic, economic, social and political situation. India’s relations with its undemocratic (or democratically fragile) neighbours and with major powers of the post war era have played an important part in shaping Indian Threat perceptions. India’s security concerns have varied at different points in its independent history. Threats have ranged from the purely military and predominantly territorial to questions of ideology, economics and prestige. Changes in the country’s regional influence have also played a role, as the threats have varied, so have India’s response to them.Border issues- primarily the result of the colonial legacy- are India’s main national concern. Nearly 7000 kilometers of its 16,500 km land border is disputed. A border dispute caused the 1962 Sino-Indian War, India’s first military defeat. The war left the border issue unresolved and revealed the limitations of India’s conventional military capabilities. The reluctance of external powers, particularly the United States, to intervene militarily- despite pleas to do so- was to determine India’s future desire for self reliance in security needs.[8]
Persistent fears for state integrity have been compounded when the enemy within is seen to be acting in tandem with the enemy without.[9] This was the case in Punjab in 1980’s, and appears to be so in Kashmir today. Perhaps explaining why the ‘end of cold war has not resulted in a peace dividend’ for India.[10]
The nuclear weapon capabilities of India’s traditional regional adversaries- Pakistan and China- have also played a significant role in shaping India’s strategic posture, including its nuclear weapons aspirations and its relations with other powers, particularly the United States. India’s suspicion that China has aided Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programs have sharpened the issue and created triangular security relationship while growing nuclear arsenal spurs on India’s nuclear weapons desire. Pakistan cites India’s capabilities as a justification for its nuclear weapon quest. The complication of this three way relationship is crucial to understanding the rationale behind India’s strategic policy.
The first Chinese nuclear took place two years after it had defeated India in 1962.[11] As a result India embarked on its first serious attempt to acquire nuclear weapon capability through the subterranean- nuclear explosion project (SNEP), approved in December 1965.[12] China’s nuclear weapons have once again become an important rationale for India’s nuclear and missile capability as reports emerged of tactical nuclear missile deployments in Tibet.[13]
According to one estimate, three missile divisions are deployed in the Lanzhou-Chengdu region. Indian military officers claimed that China has already deployed intermediate range ballistic missiles [IRBM]at the Tibetan Plateau. [14]Recent United States intelligence reports support this assertion.[15]
Apart from the direct threats posed by the Chinese nuclear arsenal, India also has to cope with the indirect danger presented by Beijing’s export of nuclear weapons technology and delivery system to countries in the region. Chines assistance in Pakistan’s nuclear and missile program is of specific concern: a possible Sino-Pakistan front has been a recurring worry for Indian strategists since mid 1960’s, when nuclear armed China threatened to enter the 1965 Indo-Pak War on Islamabad’s side.
James Woolsey, the then Director of CIA, gave testimony before the United States Congress in 1993 in which he noted: ‘Beijing has consistently regarded a nuclear armed Pakistan as a crucial regional ally and vital counterweight to India’s growing military capabilities. .. Beijing, prior to joining the NPT in 1992, probably provided some nuclear weapons-related assistance to Islamabad’.[16] Beijing is suspected to have transferred an entire M-11 production plant to Pakistan.[17]
The Lok Sabha’s Standing Committee on Defence noted in August 1995; ‘In the light of Pakistan acquiring Chinese M-11 Ballistic Missile capability, India has no option but to continue to develop and upgrade its missiles.[18]
China has also sold 2700 kilometer range DF-3 Missiles, which once formed part of its nuclear arsenal to Saudi Arabia in 1987. These missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads and as far as India is concerned, could be used to deliver nuclear weapons in the future.[19]
General Mirza Aslam Beg, The former Chief of The Pakistan Army Staff, argued that India’s missile program is a response to Pakistan’s:
‘It [the Prithvi] is in response to what we have on our side. We have Hat, which we deployed some three years ago. At that time they [India] had nothing on the ground. So they have deployed in response to that. We do not blame them. . . I think it is just to maintain balance.’[20]
There are also presence of nuclear weapons in the Indian Ocean and the former Soviet Union, particularly ‘loose nukes’ in Central Asia. In 1971, in the midst of Indo-Pak War , United Sates National Security Council dispatched the Pacific 7th Fleet, designated as Task Force 74, to the Bay of Bengal, which it reached on December 13th, 1971, five days before the war ended. The force led by the Enterprise, remained 1760 kilometer from Dhaka until January 1972, when it set sail for the Pacific. The objective of the US in deploying Task Force 74 occupies analyst to this day.[21] To Indians, this move was a form of Gun Boat Diplomacy. The sailing of the United States USS Enterprise was the ultimate in symbolic insult. Above all, it will be remembered as a nuclear as well as a military threat. [22]The Indian naval doctrine subsequently talked about raising the cost of intervention.[23] Although it did not elaborate Indians since then have favoured induction of nuclear powered submarines armed with nuclear and conventional missiles.
Fears of an extra regional nuclear powers threatening India rose again in early 1990’s, when General Dynamic Corporation, makers of the Tomahawks land attack cruise missiles, gave a presentation to United Sates decision makers which portrayed a scenario in which the United States might retaliate against Indian attack on Pakistan by firing hundreds of Tomahawks at military and industrial sites in India. Reports of the presentation in the Indian Press provoked a diplomatic clash between the United States and India, which Indians saw as part of United States desire to threaten India. The above pose a varied degrees of nuclear threat and form base for India’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons.
SECOND: THE SECURITY MODEL: NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND INTERNATIONAL THREATS
According to neo-realist theory in political science, states exist in anarchical international system and must therefore rely on self-help to protect their sovereignty and national security. [24] Mr. George Shultz, once nicely summarized the argument: “Proliferation begets Proliferation’.[25]
From this perspective, one can envision the history of nuclear proliferation as a strategic chain reaction. During the World War II none of the major belligerents was certain that the development of nuclear weapons was possible, but all knew that the other states were already or could be building the bomb. This fundamental fear was the impetus for the United States, Britain, Germany, Soviet and The Japanese nuclear weapons programs. The United States developed nuclear weapons first, not because it had any greater demand for the atomic bomb than these other powers, rather, because the United States invested more heavily in the program and made right set of technological and orginzational choices.[26] After August 1945, the Soviet Union’s program was reinvigorated because the Unite States atomic attacks on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated that nuclear weapons were technically possible, and emerging power situation meant that for Soviet Union the bomb was of strategic imperative. From the realist perspective, Soviet response was perfectly predictable. Josef Stalin’s reported requests to Igor Kurchatov and BL Yannikov in August 1945 appears like a text book example of realist logic:
‘A single demands of you comrades …. Provide us with atomic weapons in the shortest possible time. You know that Hiroshima has shaken the whole world. The balance has been destroyed. Provide the bomb- it will remove great danger from us’.[27]
The nuclear weapons decision could also be explained within the same framework. London and Paris are seen to built nuclear weapons because of growing Soviet military threat and the inherent reduction in the credibility of the United States nuclear guarantee[28] to North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) allies once the Soviet Union was able to threaten retaliation against the United States. China developed the bomb because Beijing was threatened with the possible nuclear attacks by United States at the end of Korean War and again during the Taiwan Straits crisis in the mid 1950’s. During the crisis Moscow proved to be an irresolute nuclear ally in the 1950’s. The emergence of hostility in Sino-Soviet relations in the 1960’s further encouraged Beijing to develop, in Avery Goldstein’s phrase, the ‘robust and affordable security’ of nuclear weapons. Since, the border clashes ‘again exposed the limited value of the China’s conventional deterrence’.[29]
Zuckeman states, the British went nuclear, not for any pressing reason of national security but because they were unwilling to accept United States as the sole nuclear power in the western world. Nor would the erstwhile Soviet Union agree to a nuclear technology development plan under United States auspices proposed in the Brauch Plan. Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the specific purpose of developing an independent ‘Nuclear Weapons Capability’, although, security of France was assured in North Atlantic Treaty Organizations. If the British and French owned Nuclear Weapons for reasons of Security, they would have agreed to American plan in the early sixties to man United States Polaris submarines with mixed North Atlantic Treaty Organization crew
India’s nuclear abstinence policy underwent a definitive change after Chinese first nuclear test of 1964. This shift in India’s nuclear policy to nuclear ambiguity began with its own nuclear policy to conduct nuclear tests. This decision was the watershed in India’s nuclear decision making. India’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation initially and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty later, its choice to conduct nuclear tests in 1974, its choice of unsafe guarded nuclear facilities, its pursuit of enrichment technology, its refusal to accept a mutual verification proposal of Pakistan, its skirting around proposals for multilateral negotiations, its rationale for the missile development program and refusal to accept the United States proposal for capping, roll back and elimination of its nuclear weapons program are decisions that were partly influenced by the rise of the school of realism and neo-realism n India. Prime Minister Mr. A.B. Vajpaye used a magazine interview to declare India a nuclear weapon state. He said, “India is now a nuclear weapon state… the decision to carryout these tests were guided by the paramount importance we attach to national security… the tests … have given India ‘Shakti’, they have given strength, they have given self-confidence”.
After India’s 1974 ‘Peaceful Nuclear Explosion’, however, the Pakistani nuclear weapons program had to move forward, according to the realist view: it was inevitable that the government in Islamabad would seek to produce a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible.[30]
India sought nuclear weapons as deterrence against the nuclear threat from China and Pakistan.[31] The two neighbors with whom India has border dispute and have fought four border wars. India had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hand of the Chinese in 1962. Hence, India sought nuclear weapons as a deterrent against overwhelming conventional military threat from China. There had been a marked shift in the posture of China ever since India had conducted a peaceful nuclear explosion in mid 1974. India also has to take into account the large concentration of the nuclear arsenal in Central Asian Republics.
Analysts believe that policy of nuclear restraint followed by India has encouraged both China and Pakistan to step up their covert war against India. Islamabad has backed organizations active in the terror campaign in Kashmir. China has given help to insurgents in the North East; and has provided logistical support to terrorist groups operating within Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand. “‘Enough is enough’, it takes two hands to clap, but only one to molest. Thus, far India’s restraint has been met only by increased anti-India activities’, said a high level policy maker.[32]
The negative approach towards nuclear disarmament by the nuclear powers compelled India to respond to the nuclear blackmail or threat.[33] Hence, India’s nuclear weapons deployment decision could be the best essays on defensive response. [34]
Post ‘Shakti’ the pressure on Indian Government to join the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty has intensified. It is significant that Mr. Clinton, President of United States, after condemning the explosions and signing in sanctions, has already thrice publicly demanded that India sign the treaty immediately and without conditions.
In his official statement on May 11, Mr. Brijesh Mishra offered that: ‘India would be prepared to consider being an adherent of some of the undertakings in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’, adding ‘but this cannot obviously be done in vacuum. It would necessarily be an evolutionary process from concept to commitment and would depend on a number of reciprocal activities’.
Does nuclear superiority matter? More specifically, does an edge in the balance of forces offer an coercive advantage in confrontations near the brink of war? These questions have fuelled spirited debate among professional strategists and policy makers in recent years. Whatever debate there may be about the political utility of nuclear superiority, the United States frequently leaned on it when it to fulfill its objectives. North Atlantic Treaty Organization doctrine for defence against Soviet Conventional attack rested on nuclear counter-strike, and this solution was grasped in disputes in other areas as well. In numerous crisis in the first half of the post war era (over Berlin, Korea, the Middle East and Cuba), American Presidents signaled intentions to resort to nuclear forces to counter political, or conventional military initiatives either by the Soviet Union or by China. A careful look of the record permits reasonable arguments that there was an impressive tendency of United States leaders to back their hands in crisis maneuvering with threats of nuclear forces.[35] There has been no change in the United States Policy even today.
Why look anywhere else, China started negotiating a talking about Sino-India border issues only after India exploded an Atomic device in 1974. The utility of power in world politics has not diminished. United States carried out bombing of Iraq as it is well known that Iraq is not in a position to retaliate. Could United States and Britain do the same to say China or France? In international politics Mao dictum that power grows out of the barrel of the gun holds true. I could add that world only pays attention to a bang and louder the better. There is no reason to believe that nuclear weapons would lose their efficacy in international politics and realpolitik in near future.
There are four mistakes[36] international community should avert when dealing with India:
First, India’s extra regional concerns must be taken seriously. India made explicit repeatedly that a potential threat from China, not Pakistan, was a key motive for developing a credible nuclear deterrent. It has laid great stress on its being an odd nation out in the evolving Cold War security framework. India emphasizes that she is the only emerging power with nuclear neighbours without her own nuclear deterrent.
Second, the policy of denial and isolation will not be effective than it was in the past.
Third, limit the outside powers influence on their behaviour.
Fourth, the nuclear blasts have raised the nationalist fervour.
THE THIRD: DOMESTIC POLITICS MODEL
The second model for India’s desire to develop nuclear weapons focuses on the domestic actors. Three kinds of actors commonly appear in historical case- studies on proliferation: the states nuclear energy establishment (which includes officials in state run laboratories[37] as well as civilian reactor facilities); important units within the professional military; and politicians in states in which individual parties or the public favor nuclear weapons acquisition. When such actors form conditions that are strong enough to control the government decision- making process- either through their direct political power or indirectly through their control of information- nuclear weapons program are likely to thrive.Ever since China tested the atom bomb in 1964, a nuclear India has been on the ‘Hindu Nationalist’ agenda. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha that year, Vajpayee was categorical, “The answer to an Atom Bomb is an Atom Bomb, nothing else”. In 1969, the then Jan Sangh member Mr. Subrmanian Swamy prepared the outlines for an inexpensive Atom Bomb that could counter China. At the time of the 1974, Pokhartan ‘implosion’ Mr. Advani wrote in ‘The Motherland’, “Only twice in recent years, has one witnessed such a mood of national elation? First, when the Indian Army entered Dacca to liberate Bangladesh, and now when India has entered the nuclear club.”
The elections of 1998, brought in Bhartiya Janta Party as the single largest party. Bhartiya Janta Party in their manifestos had declared that if they were voted to power, they would exercise the nuclear option. Ever since China had developed a nuclear bomb in 1964, India was under pressure to develop the nuclear deterrence. In 1974, after a decade, India responded to Chinese bomb.
Given that Bhartiya Janta Party has always been consistent in its demand for India acquiring nuclear weapons, it is illogical to accuse the Vajpayee Government of violating the ‘national consensuses on the issue. After all, every ruling party or combination is entitled to privileges in taking major foreign policy initiatives, when it comes to foreign policy, ruling parties worldwide fear that overly participatory decision making process could mean dangerous delays. Britain’s Thatcher Government during the Falkland Crisis, the Bush Administration during the Gulf War and Egypt’s Sadat regime during the Camp David peace process did not first secure their respective opposition parties consent.[38]Even in India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, did not seek the oppositions advice before taking the Korean issue to the United Nations, Indira Gandhi did not go for parliamentary debate before conducting India’s first nuclear explosion. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi did not consult opposition before sending the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka.
Domestically the nuclear explosions were greeted with a mixture of understandable pride in the accomplishment. The chauvinistic political and media reaction had a considerable impact on framing the public opinion. Burying their ideological differences, parties across the spectrum rallied behind India’s nuclear test.
The opposition parties barring the communists has fallen in line with the ‘nationalist’, mood. The Congress (I), after some mild initial dissent has under Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s diktat decided to support the fait accompli.
It turns out from the public testimony of the Scientists at New Delhi Press Conference on May 17, 1998 that the go ahead for the Pokharan Explosions was given around April 12, 1998. The thinking and Bhartiya Janata Party and The Sangh Parivar’s approach to India’s Nuclear Policy was well known. The Bhartiya Janta Party included in exercising of nuclear option in the National Agenda for Governance.
National Agenda for Governance includes the setting up of National Security Council which would undertake “India’s First ever Strategic Defense Review”, a re-evaluation of nuclear policy, and exercise of the option to induct nuclear weapons.
In a statement Bhartiya Janata Party, President Kushabhau Thakre said that the tests confirmed the government’s commitment to uphold the nation’s security. The move, he said, was in keeping with the Bhartiya Janata Party’s election manifesto and the ‘national agenda’ of the ruling coalition.
“The government has shown that it is prepared to take such legitimate steps to meet India’s security concern’s”, said Mr Kushabhau Thakre. He pointed out the government had “demonstrated that unlike previous regimes, it shall not give into international pressure”.
Congress general Secretary Madhavrao Scindia congratulated the concerned scientists and termed the development as the “logic culmination of the work initiated by Indira Gandhi and the nuclear implosion of 1974”. The senior Congress leader said, “every sovereign country has to keep in mind the security environment in the region”.
Mr. Vajpayee (in his interview to India Today released on May 15) manages to appeal to two political constituencies. On the one hand, he suggests to the Hindutva constituency that only the Bhartiya Janta Party long committed to the bomb, has had guts to do what only Mrs. Indira Gandhi had once boldly attempted, only to be stopped in her tracks. On the other hand, he acknowledges, with an eye on broader political constituency, that every government and every Prime Minister of Independent India had kept ‘India’s nuclear option open’, and supported, “India’s indigenous research and development in thew nuclear field’. What the Bhartiya Janata Party was doing today was to ‘build a superstructure on the solid formation’.
By ordering the tests the Bhartiya Janata Party succeeded in combinations:
To show of Indian might and independence in Decision Making.
Inviting and defying United States sanctions.
The ability to act decisively despite constraints.
The nuclear explosion has graduated Bhartiya Janata Party to emerge as an all India party and reach out to claim the mantle of Indian nationalism as such. This will unite very broad sections of the Indian Middle Classes. The impression will go around that Bhartiya Janata Party is the only party capable of providing India with coherent, assertive and visionary leadership.
Bhartiya Janata Party had so far established its leading role in defining Indian Culture and Hindu religion. Now it has made its first massive attempt to capture the high ground of anti-imperialism. The nuclear explosion has enabled Bhartiya Janata Party to pick-up the mantle of anti-imperialism in the tradition of the national movement. In both cases, the appeal is made to atavistic feeling of aggression, in the form of a promise to redeem honour. According to Times Opinion Poll conducted in the eight metropolitan cities on May 26 and 27, 1998, as many as 81 percent of the respondents approve of the Vajpayee Governments momentous decision. The Poll was conducted just prior to Pakistanis blast.
Although the Bhartiya Janata Party government has come under sharp attack from the Congress, the left and the other opposition parties for its motive (political advantage) and the timing (before carrying out the ‘Strategic defense review’) of its decision to conduct the tests. The Times Poll shows, on these issues, the public largely agrees with the Vajpayee Governments explanations. As many as 65 percent of the respondents say that the nuclear tests were in the national interests and only 27 percent think that the governments motive was primarily to gain political advantage.[39]
A wide cross section of people spoke in favor of the Nuclear Tests. For former Foreign Secretary, J.N. Dixit, “It is a positive development from India’s national security interest’s point of view. It would enhance our defense capacity, leading to better global power equilibrium”.[40] Mr. M.L. Sodhi, Chairman Jawahar Lal Nehru University’s Center for conflict Power Resolution, said, “Far from leading to regional tension, the test will create a stabilizing atmosphere, so important for peace not only in the region but also for the whole continent of Asia, because, if India is better prepared militarily, there is lesser prospect of war breaking out in this part of the world.”[41] Admiral K.K.Nayaar, former Naval Chief, presently head of the Forum for Indian Nuclear Deterrent, says, “Along with our nuclear scientists, Prime Minister Vajpayee and Defense Minister George Fernandes have made the nation proud. Even if they retire from public life tomorrow, they will remain immortal forever. The government has to be applauded that it has concerned itself with the principal duty of the government which is to ensure national security and integrity.”[42]
By taking a decision to test nuclear weapon Mr. Vajpayee earned respect of India. As Mr. Henry Kissinger has said, ‘tranquility is not the natural state of the world; peace and security are not the laws of nature’. Therefore, a true leader is he who has a sense of distrust and who carefully manages the balance of power. International relations is in the ultimate analysis, is all about possibilities, not probabilities. Emphasis on possibilities often leads to misperceptions as happened to India in 1962. Basing policies on possibilities, on the other hand, reduces the scope for basic misperceptions.
The recent elections results for Vidhan Sabha’s of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Delhi have forced me to draw conclusions about the public opinion.
First, in ordinary times, nuclear and other security issues are non issues. It has virtually no bearing on the elections, nor does it rank high in salience. There is no great support for weaponization at such times. Second, there is a dramatic shift if nations security is threatened or external pressure is imposed.
THE FOURTH MODEL: ARMS RACE
“As far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feelings which have sustained mankind for ages”, Mahatma Gandhi said after Hiroshima. “The only moral which can be legitimately drawn from the supreme tragedy of the bomb is that it shall not be destroyed by counter-bombs. Violence cannot be destroyed by counter-violence.”Despite its ambition to be known as a ‘great power’, India resisted what many members of Gandhi’s generation regarded as a depraved definition of power based on instruments of mass destruction. India, they frequently declared, would become ‘great’ precisely because it eschewed such weapons and placed a priority on economic development of its citizens. New Delhi, mobilized world opinion in response to American atmospheric tests in the Pacific in 1954, which led to the death of Japanese fisherman and severe birth defects among Marshall Islanders. In April 1954, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru became the first leader to call for a ‘standstill agreement’ on nuclear testing.
All that changed in 1962, when India lost a border war with China. The humiliation of that defeat, compounded by the emergence of China as a nuclear weapons power gave new impetus to nuclear development. In 1964, after China tested its first nuclear device, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri publicly indicated that India might follow suit.
India’s first test in 1974 was a signal to China that Asian nuclear monopoly had been broken. Legacy of Budha, Ashoka and Gandhi weighed heavily on the shoulders of Indian leaders and scientists, who yearned for global status which they perceived, could only be achieved through nuclear weapons capability was gradually constructed yet consistently denied.
Advani issued a statement, “Islamabad should realize the change in the geo-strategic situation in the region and the world,” he said, Pakistan should roll back its anti-India policy, especially with regard to Kashmir”. The tests Advani said signified, “India’s resolve to deal firmly and strongly with Pakistan’s hostile designs and activities in Kashmir.”[43]
The nuclear tests by Pakistan[44] has brought into the open that country’s nuclear weapon which has been in existence for 11 years. Many in this country argue that we have lived with the Chinese Bomb for well over decades and, therefore, why should we not live with the Pakistani Bomb too. In fact, India has been living with the Pakistani Bomb since 1987. After Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, then Prime Minister took the decision to initiate the deterrent program, the Indian weapon too came into existence in 1990. Therefore, both China and Pakistan have been living with this deterrent for the last eight years.
If one were to compare the eight years of India and Pakistanis co-existence with the eight years of the United State- Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, United States-China and Sino-Soviet nuclear relationship, the former has been more stable. There was no arms race between India and Pakistan though the leadership of each knew that the other had nuclear weapons. India reduced its defense expenditures sharply in real terms during the period. During the same period the Pakistan had been waging a covert war in Kashmir in India. Both countries exercised restraint in tacit framework of low-intensity conflict in a situation of mutual deterrence. Developments on the ground have totally disproved western predictions about this region, being the world’s nuclear flash point, which it has not been and is not going to be. Most prognostications about the Indo-Pakistan nuclear arms race are purely speculative and merely mechanical extension of the behavior pattern of the three Nuclear Powers United States, China and Russia; and this pattern ignores the developments and history of the region of last eight years.[45]
The Chinese nuclear threat to India has been there since 1964, and it became a combined threat from Pakistan and China since 1987. The combined threat was known to the government, but, the Indian political leadership did not take people into confidence. Their attitude was the same as that of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru who felt he could manage the challenge of China in the 1950’s, without taking the Indian people into confidence. Nuclear threat is not of nuclear exchange or arms race, but more subtle and sophisticated. Professor Cohen had pointed out, the nuclear threat is designed to paralyze decision-making by a weak Indian government by using, among other things, the nuclear factor. Pakistan tried it and failed.[46] China may attempt it whenever an opportunity arises.
There are limits to the Pakistan’s capability to acquire nuclear weapons and missiles. It is totally unrealistic to talk of Pakistan starting an arms race against India since it is not an independent, self-sufficient producer of arms. Therefore, there is no cause of worry about an arms race being triggered off. China is interested in proliferating to Pakistan to a certain extent as a countervailing force to India. However, China will come under increasing scrutiny for its proliferation activity. For net few months if not for years Pakistan’s economy will come under heavy strain. Hence, it would be utterly wrong to talk of arms race.
FIFTH MODEL: DISARMAMANT REGIMES
Since independence, India has consistently advocated global nuclear disarmament, convinced that a world without nuclear weapons will enhance both global and Indian Security. India was the first to call for ban on nuclear testing in 1954, for a non discriminatory treaty on non proliferation in 1965, for treaty on no use of nuclear weapons in 1978, for a nuclear free zone in 1982, and for a phased program for a complete elimination of nuclear weapons in 1988. Unfortunately, most of these initiatives were rejected by the nuclear weapon states. The nuclear weapon states still consider these weapons essential for their security.[47] What emerged, in consequence, has been a discriminatory and flawed nonproliferation regime that damages India’s security. For years India conveyed its apprehensions to other countries, but these did not improve its security environment. This disharmony and disjunction between global thought and trends in Indian thought about nuclear weapon is, unfortunately, the objective reality of the world. Nuclear weapons remain key indicator of state power. Since this currency is operational in large parts of the globe, India was left with no option but to up date and validate capability that had been demonstrated 24 years ago in the nuclear test of 1974.[48]The reason for resuming the nuclear testing are the continuing negative reaction of the United States to India’s nuclear restraint since 1974. The increasing threat from a nuclear armed China, and with China providing Pakistan with the offensive capability against India; as well as the need to ensure that Indian deterrent is safe and reliable.[49] Despite avoiding further testing since the 1974 ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’. “India was met with sanctions on a range of nuclear technologies, ‘that were 85% civilian’”, in the words of top policy maker. He added, “even essential safety equipment, as well as technology and material needed for peaceful applications such as weather forecasting, were denied to us by Washington”.[50] “However, the sanctions had the effect of spurring Indian scientists into developing super-computer and other equipment ‘that even China’ cannot match”, he added.
‘Ever since the emergence of the Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test ban Treaty, we in India have tried to persuade the nuclear weapon powers and make the world safe for peace. The response has been evasive and high-handed”, said Mr. I.K. Gujral in a statement.
Another reason for Indian testing was stepping up of China’s assistance to Pakistan, Iran and some other Middle East Countries through its ally North Korea. The near-total absence of United Sates reactions to such technological transfers convinced Indian policy-makers that, “India cannot expect any credible United States action to prevent cross border proliferation by two countries described by Washington as ‘strategic allies’”.
“Given that universal nuclear disarmament is utopian, and that China is merely proliferating, there was no option but to take steps to perfect deterrent”, said a high level military maker.[51]He added that, “India being full democracy, is much more responsible than China or Russia or Pakistan, where governmental authority has ceased to exist in most sectors. Pakistan is using money from its friends, is shopping for scientists and materials to become a nuclear power. Under the circumstances, India was left with no option but to resume testing”, said a top policy maker. He added, “our scientists informed us that minimum number of tests were needed to ensure safety, especially as the United States has banned all safety technologies to us since 1974”.
India accepts the link between possession of nuclear weapons and proliferation; as long as few countries have them, others will strive to get them.[52] Politically, India feels her security threatened while there are no moves towards total abolition of nuclear weapons. India could have chosen to weaponise earlier, but refrained from doing so, and put its faith in pressing for disarmament, while keeping its options open on case such disarmament did not materialize. A cabinet source confirmed, “tests would be kept to the minimum, and the policy of not allowing proliferation of technology would continue”. He however said, “much would depend on the reaction of other nuclear powers. Sometimes, painting a country as a outlaw becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy”.
For India Nuclear Deterrence has many advantages:
It would remove dependence on allies and large amount of imported arms.
It strengthens countries bargaining position.
It enhances national prestige as it signals technical competence and political will.
Nuclear weapons are cheaper than conventional arms.
Perhaps most important, the time has come to establish a forum to institutionalise a nuclear dialogue among the acknowledged nuclear powers. A forum would build on the more ad hoc consultations that have occurred between these countries. It would have many benefits. First, it would help each to understand the thinking in all the others about nuclear weapons states and its relations with international security. Second, to identify common security interest and areas for cooperation. Third, to highlight security differences and consider ways to resolve them, and fourth, to build habits of cooperation.
SIXTH MODEL: BALANCE OF POWER
The concept of balance of power has always been contested and open to various interpretations. The definitions used here assumes, that nations will ensure no power is in position to determine the fate of others.[53]This remains the fundamental principle of order in international society.[54] Hass notes that historically the balance of power has been highly practical principle at once clarifying the nature of the state system and setting forth the operational rules whereby the survival of single state within the system might be assured. This remains the fundamental principle of order in international society.[55]It needs, however, to be modified to take account of different concepts of power in the post Cold War era. Economic and other soft sources of power have become more important in the international relations and power itself is becoming more diffused because of the rapid globalization of economics and technology.Influence, however, is rooted in more than economic power alone. In international politics wealth is not the primary goal: states continue to pay a high price to maintain their security, autonomy and to spread their values.[56] The game of international relations in the post Cold War will still have a military security dimensions, which will be embedded in the balance of power until the worlds problems are handled in concert by some form of multi-lateralism.
The operation of a balance of power involves a rules based system that limits both the ability of states to dominate each other and the scope of conflict.[57] Its goal is stability and moderation: the pretensions of the most ambitious (or aggressive) members of the international community are kept in check by the combined efforts of other s.
Henry Kessinger notes that a balance of power works best if nation feels free to align themselves with any other state, or where the cohesion of alliances is relatively low so that on any given issue there can be comprises or changes in alignment, or where there are fixed alliances but balance sees to it that none of the existing coalitions become dominant,[58]
In Asia strategic situation is in a state of considerable flux. With the end of the bipolar world of the Cold War era, the emergence of potentially strong regional powers and the declining importance of traditional alliances and of the United States. It is thus uncertain what sort of system of regional order will emerge.
India needs to build up its own industrial- military complex which can assume security on the one hand and catalyse development on the other. The greatest advantage of the perceived weakness is that an enemy may become adventurist.
THE SEVENTH MODEL: RIGHT OF SELF DEFENCE
With the increase in terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, border disputes, and ethnic unrest, it is becoming increasingly ambiguous when nations may lawfully resort when a nation may lawfully resort to the use of armed forces for its self-defence and the defence of other nations.[59] Article 51 of the United nations Charter attempts top codify the circumstances in which nation may act in self defence. Despite the express language of Article 51, much debate has taken place concerning the meaning of this article.The recognized purpose of self-defence is to deter aggression and to protect the interest of the state.[60] Its goal is preventive in nature and not retributive.[61] Seventeenth Century Spaniards believed that the right of self-defence was limited to protection of territory. Other writers of believe that the right extended to the violation of any national right.[62] ( Also see Chapter 3).
Historically, states demanded a right of self-defence of considerable scope. Customary international law authorised a state targeted by another state to employ military force as necessary to protect itself.[63] The law recognised, as a minimum, the right of a state to act to protect against threats to its political independence or territorial integrity.[64] The right to act in self defence was not limited only to instances of actual armed attack. States were permitted to act when the imminence of attack was o such high degree that a non-violent resolution of a dispute was precluded.[65]
When Does Right to Self Defence Arise?
The prerequisite to the right to self defence is an injury (violation of a legal obligation), inflicted or threatened, by one state against a substantive right of another state.[66] It is generally accepted that military force may be used to :Protect a nations political independence.
Protect a nations territorial integrity.
Protect citizens and their property abroad.[67]
United Nations Charter
The United Nations Charter has a central theme the maintenance of peace and security between nations. Its aim is to substitute a community response for unilateral action in deterring aggression.[68] Three objectives form the foundation of this order. They include:Maintenance of an orderly world that emphasizes cooperation among states.
A preference for change by peaceful processes rather than coercion.
The minimization of destruction.[69]
United Nations Charter recognizes the use of military force as lawful in only two instances, either as part of United Nation authorised military operations to restore the peace under Article 42 or for self defence under Article 51.[70]
Article 51 provides:
‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by members in the exercise of the right of self defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at anytime such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security’.
India has rightfully acted in testing the nuclear weapon as she is threatened by neighbour with nuclear weapons and has a long standing border dispute.
EIGHTH MODEL: COLLECTIVE DEFENCE
Collective defence, collective security and co-operative security are the terms frequently used in any discussion of ‘security architecture’, or the way the states organize themselves to ensure their security.[71] A new definition of the concept of security should, take into account not only the values and interests but also new premises, including the breakup of the old international system based on the omnipotence of sovereign states.The power is determined by which stste is ahead in information, and this may be even more true in space based surveillance, direct broadcasting, high speed computers and an unparalleled ability to integrate complex information systems have shaped an information edge that ‘can help deter or defeat traditional military threats at relatively low costs’.
This has permitted highly industrialized countries to strengthen their security through attraction rather than coercion. Since threats have changed fundamentally, the driving forces, dimensions, fdorms, procedures ands mechanisms must change as well. The foundation of common security would be the common values that are the product of history, culture, civilization, religion or common institutions and the community of political, economic, military and other vital interests that largely determine rules among the partners of collective security.
India since independence has been against power blocks, hence, never got involved in the power politics of cold war. Pandit Nehru had shunned the Pakistan President Ayub Khan proposal for collective security by stating, “Collective defence against whom?” India however, has been keen to enter into bilateral arrangements for collective security.
6.3: OPTION INDIA SHOULD ADOPT
The ‘nuclear era’ and the ‘Cold War’ were born at about the same time, but the end of the Cold War will not mean end of nuclear weapons. No amount of international reconciliation and no amount of arms control will erase the knowledge of how to build weapons of mass destruction, and while the reduction’s may well be possible, there is little real prospect of total nuclear, ,biological and chemical disarmament.So nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction will continue to exist and will require management and analysis. The politics of weapons of mass destruction, especially of nuclear weapons, therefore, although less intense may be more complicated in near future. Two key issues[72] remain:
Should nuclear weapons be used only to deter nuclear attack, or attack by other weapons of mass destruction, or could they still be relied on to help to deter large scale conventional war?
Should nuclear weapons be reduced to only few weapons?
Nuclear weapons for the West have been not just instrument of deterrence against nuclear attacks; they have also been the ultimate instruments of exploitation of its conventional military power. For India, however, so long as revived Chinese- or more accurately, Chines expansionism remains a concern, there will be legitimate role for nuclear weapons as the deterrent against large scale aggression. The Chinese also plan and advocate the use of nuclear weapons on the tactical battlefield. In 1914, 1939 and 1941, leaders of aggressive regimes could indulge the illusion of that, ‘conventional’ war was winnable at tolerable costs; with nuclear weapons, indulging that illusion becomes difficult. So long aggression is possible, its potential victims can rightly call on nuclear weapons to make clear that even a ‘successful’ conventional attack risk disaster of a kind that robs such victory of any meaning.
Requirements of Deterrence
To realize high-confidence deterrence and to take legitimate advantage of the potential of nuclear weapons to make major wars unthinkable, nuclear retaliation against large-scale aggression must be thinkable, i.e. ‘credible’. For that reason, to deter less than all out nuclear attacks and to help deter conventional aggression, India will need – a capacity for focussed, lesser attacks on military targets that, while reserving the threat of all out attacks, deny aggressor any meaningful gain. The core of Indian doctrine should be ‘stability’, the formula by which deterrence must be preserved. Stability has traditionally had several diverse dimensions- all derivable from and consistent with deterrence principle.First Strike Stability
First the minimum condition of nuclear stability has to be that its forces could not be destroyed by a preemptive strike. Today, India does not have the first strike stability, and its vulnerability might create unacceptably dangerous pressures on the Chinese or any other adversary to preempt. Some thinkers like Mr. Bidwai have argued that Indian interest would be served if the Chinese are to somehow to accept vulnerability, and then they accept mutual survivability as the technically best attainable results.
The deterrence cannot be guaranteed, if China retains the asymmetrical balance in its favour and retain the power carryout nuclear attack while India has only conventional attack capability. If one ascribes an indifference of risk to the Indian’s, the deterrence cannot work if India is significantly vulnerable to the Chinese attacks/ strikes.
To be sure, the risk preference of the Chinese leadership are not known. These could be higher than those of leaders throughout 1945-95. Basic changes in Chinese policy should, logically, erode whatever questions still exist about Indian acceptance of mutual vulnerability. A China, whose foreign policy has been transformed by internal reform can, more clearly than an unreformed China, be regarded as entitled to invulnerable forces to weapons of mass destruction.
Crises Stability
The minimum condition for crisis stability has to be intelligence, communication, and a higher level of threshold. The most important need for this the keeping a channel of communication open between the leadership of the adversaries. The crises stability could also be achieved if both are vulnerable.
Arms Race Stability
The third requirement of stability is not just to direct military attack by other sides current forces, but to changes in those forces accomplished by clandestine build ups, open build ups, so large or so technological ability to compete.
Preconditions for Stable Deterrence
There is a consensus, both among states with weapons of mass destruction and those without, that further proliferation of nuclear arms would endanger the stability of world politics. This conviction was based, firstly, on statistical assumption: according to this thesis, the greater the number of states having access to nuclear weapons; the more probable would be its use. Second, some aversions, notably against West Germany and Japan, found their way into nonproliferation politics; third, nuclear weapons falling into the hands of political unstable regimes.However, under General de Gaulle, France ostentatiously broke away from this consensus, arguing that in matters of nuclear protection of security only national control could guarantee adequate deterrence. India has already shunned away from power blocs. Hence for her there is a requirement to develop her own nuclear, biological and chemical deterrence.[73] India has to especially look into her vulnerability to biological weapons. With the advancement in genetic and other technologies it is the biological threat that would have to be catered for.
To this day, however, it has remained the international consensus that the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are detrimental to international stability. I do not ascribe to the idea. I ascribe to the presence of weapons of mass destruction especially nuclear, that the most comprehensive political conflict in world history had not led to a war for over forty-five years. Whereas, the systems outside the system of deterrence by weapons of mass destruction (nuclear deterrence) numerous wars had claimed million of lives during the same period.
To me this still represents politically and morally the central argument in favour of nuclear deterrence. The fear of potential effects of nuclear weapons has so deeply changed human and state behaviour that in conflicts between countries possessing these weapons, violence has so far not been considered as a means of politics. Although this view has met with considerable criticism in West, it continues to shape international diplomacy.
[1] See Sagan, ‘Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb’, International Security, Vol. 18, No. 3, Winter 1996-97, pp. 54-86.
[2] These include Ashok Kapur, ‘India’s Nuclear Option: Atomic diplomacy and Decision Making’(New York: Praeger Publishers, 1976); T.T. Poulouse (ed.), ‘Perspectives of India’s Defence Policy’,(New Delhi: Lancers Publishers, 1978); Shyam Bhatia, ‘India’s Nuclear Bomb’, (Ghaziabad: Vikas Publicatios, 1979); Rodney W. Jones, ‘India”, in Jozef Goldbalt (ed.), ‘Non-Proliferation: The Why and The Wherefore’,(London: Taylor& Francis, 1985), pp. 101-16; Mitchell Reiss, ‘Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear Capabilities’, (Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, 1995).
[3] Being policy makers, John Deutsch presents the most unadorned summary of the basic argument that ‘the fundamental motivation to seek a weapon is the perception that national security will be improved’. John M. Deutsch, “The New Nuclear Threat”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 71, no. 41 (Fall 1992), pp. 124-125. Also see George Shultz, “Preventing the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’, Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 84, No. 2093 (December 1984), pp. 17-21. For examples of the dominant paradigm among scholars, see Micheal M. May, “Nuclear Weapons supply and Demand”, American Scientist, Vol. 82, No. 6 (November-December 1994), pp. 526-537; Bradely A. Thayer, ‘The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation and the Non-Proliferation Regimes’, Security Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Spring 1995), pp. 463-519; Benjamin Frankel, ‘The Brooding Shadow: systematic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation’, and Richard K. Betts, ‘Paranoids, Pygmies, Pariahs and Non-Proliferation Revisited’, both in Zachary S. Davis and Benjimin Frankel, eds. The Proliferation Puzzle, special issue of Security Studies, Vol. 2, No. ¾ (Spring/Summer 1993), pp. 37-38 and 100- 124.
[4] The Nuclear Test by India and Pakistan shattered the Non-proliferation Treaty and United States policy of non- proliferation for the Sub-Continent.
[5] See Steve Fretter, “Verifying Nuclear Disarmament’, Occasional Paper No. 29, Henry L. Stimson Centre, Washington, D.C., October 1996, p. 38; and ‘Affiliations and Nuclear Activities of 172 NPT Parties’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 25, No. 2 (March 1995), pp. 33-36. For earlier pioneering efforts to assess nuclear weapons latent capability and demand, see Stephen M. Meyer, ‘The Dynamics of Nuclear proliferation’, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); and William C. Potter, ‘Nuclear Power and Non-Proliferation’, (Cambridge, Mass. Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1982).
[6] See For example, May, “nuclear Weapons Supply and Demand’; Thayer, ‘The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation and the Non-Proliferation Regimes’; and Frankel, ’The Brooding Shadow: Systematic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation’.
[7] The NPT lays down that only nations that have carried out tests before 1968 could be given the status of a nuclear weapon state
[8] Kux, Dennis., ‘India and the US: Estranged Democracies”, (Washington DC: natioanl Defence University, 1992), pp. 207-208.
[9] Thomas, Raju G.C., ‘South Asian Security in the 1990’s’, Adelphi Paper 278 (London: Brasseys for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1993), p.3
[10] Indian Ministry Of Defence, ‘Ministry of Defence Annual Report: 1996-97’ (New Delhi: Government of India, 1997), p.2.
[11] Somdutt, Major General D., “The Defence of India’s Northern Borders’, Adelphi Paper, No. 30 (London: Institute of Strategic Studies, 19966), and ‘India and the Bomb’ Adelphi Paper, No. 30 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1966).
[12] By 1965, India was producing fissile material from the 40 MW CIRUS reactor and was also able to process uranium from there.
[13] See Banerjee, Brigadier D., ‘China’s Emerging Nuclear Doctrine: A Prognostication’, Combat, Vol. 16, No. 1, April 1989, pp. 3-14; Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, ‘’The Strategic Deterrent Option’, Strategic Analysis, vol. 12, No. 9, September 1989, p. 587; Colonels Sahgal, A., and Singh, T>, ‘Nuclear Threat from China: An Apprisal’, Trishul, Vol. 6, No. 2, January 1994, pp. 27-38.
[14] Also see Robert S. Norris, Andrew S. Burrows and Richard W. Field house, ‘Nuclear Weapons Data Book Volume V: British, French and Chinese Nuclear Weapons’, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 338-41 and Figure 6-10, pp. 346-47.
[15] Chandran, R., ‘New Chines Missile Targets India: US Daily’, Times of India, July 11, 1997.
[16] James Woolsey testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, 24 February 1993, quoted in Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, ‘Enchancing Indo-US Strategic Cooperation’, Adelphi Paper, No. 312, p. 18
According to one report in the 1980’s ‘Pakistan received a proven weapon design from China. It has been reported that the design was used in China’s fourth nuclear weapon test in 1966. [See Simon Henderson, ‘Pakistans Atomic Bomb’, Foreign Reporter, 12, January 1989, quoted in Wahegurupal Singh Sidhu, ‘Enhancing Indo-US Strategic Cooperation’, Adelphi Paper , No. 313,p. 18.
Also see david Albright and Mark Hibbs,’Pakistans Bomb: Out of the Closet’, Bulletin of Atomic Scientist, vol. 48, no. 4, July- August 1992, pp. 38-43.
This claim was coupled with reports tjhat China had provided Pakistan with Parts of M-11 mobile missiles in the early 1990’s. [ See Bill Gertz, ‘Pakistan-China Deal for Missile Exposed’, Washington Times, 7 September 1994; R. Jeffery Smith and Thomas W. Lippman, ‘Pakistan M-11 funding is Reported’, Washington Post, 8 September 1994, p. A32; Klare, Michael, ‘Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws’, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), pp. 152,191].
[17] R. Jeffery Smith and David B. Ottaway,’ Spy Photos Suggest China Missile Trade’, Washington Post, 3 July 1995, p. A1; Smith, ‘China Linked to Pakistani Missile Plant’, Wsahington Post, 23 August 1996, pp. A1, A23. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress (Washington DC: USGPO, 1996), pp. 20-21; See also Douglas Walter, ‘The Secret Missile Deal’, Time, 30 June 1997, p. 58.
[18] This has been reiterated in Indian Ministry of Defence Annual Report: 1996-97, p. 2.
[19] This staement of mine finds close acceptance by Michael Klare in his book ‘Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws’, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), pp. 152-191.
[20] Interview with General Beg by Michael Krepon, Rawalpindi, May 1994, cited in Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, ‘Enhancing Indo-US Strategic Cooperation’, Adelphi Paper, No. 313, p.18.
[21] Perhaps one of the most credible explanations is that offered by Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State at the time, who claimed that the move was not to ‘assist’ Pakistan, but also to ‘backup the Chinese’.
[22] See Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, op cit., p.21. Also see Henry Kissinger, ‘The White House Years’, (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1979), pp. 905, 911-912; Admiral S.N. Kholi, ‘The Geopolitical and Strategic Considerations that Necessitate the Expansion and Modernization of The Indian Navy’, Indian Defence Review, January 1989, p. 38; Vice Admiral M.K. Roy, ‘War in The Indian Ocean’, (New Delhi: Lancer Publications, 1995), pp. 212-213; Captain Ranjit Rai, ‘Foreign Interference in the Indian Ocean 1971 Repeat performance A Research’, USI Journal, Vol 112, No. 420, October-December 1982, pp. 316-320
[23] The phrase ‘raising the cost of intervention ‘ was coined by Subrahmanyam, K., in ‘Our National Security’, Monograph No. 3, (London: Economics and Scientific Research Foundation, 1972), p. XXI.
[24] The seminal text of neo-realism remains Kenneth N. waltz, ‘The Theory of International Politics’, (New York: Random House, 1979), Also see Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘The Origins of war in Neo-Realist Theory’, in I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (eds.) ‘The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars’ (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 39-52; and Robert O. Keohane (ed.), ‘Neo Realism and Its Critics’, (New York: Columbia Univewrsity Press, 1986).
[25] George Shultz, “Preventing the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”, p. 13. Every time one state develops a nuclear weapons to balance against its main rival, it also creates a nuclear threat to another state in the region, which then has to initiate its own nuclear weapons program.
[26] On the genesis of the atomic programs in World War II, see McGeorge Bundy, ‘Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years’, (New York: Random House, 1988), pp. 3-53; and Richard Rhodes, “The Making of The Atomic Bomb”, (New York: simon and Schuster, 1986).
[27] A. Lavrentyeva in ‘Stroiteli novogo mira’, V mire King, No. 9 (1970), in David Holloway, The Soviet Union and The Arms Race, (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1980),p. 20, also quoted in Thayer, ‘The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation’, p. 487. Also quoted in Scott D. Sagan, ‘Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons”, International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3, Winter 1996/97, p. 58.
[28] The important sources on the British case includes, Margert Gowing, ‘Britain and the Atomic Energy 1939-45’, (London: Macmillan, 1964); Margret Gowing, ‘Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945-52’, Vols. 1 and 2 (London: Macmillan, 1974); Andrew Pierre, ‘Nuclear Politics: The British Experience with an Independent Strategic force 1939-70’, (London: Oxford University Press, 1972); and Robert H. Patterson, ‘Britain’s Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: From before the V Bomber to Beyond Trident’, (London: Frank Cass & Co Ltd., 1997). On the French Case, see Lawrence Scheinman, ‘Atomic energy Policy in France Under the Fifth Republic’, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965) and Wilfred L. Khol, ‘french Nuclear Diplomacy’, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971).
[29] Goldstein, Avery, ‘Robust and affordable Security: Some Lessons from the Second Ranking Powers during the Cold War’, Journal of the Strategic Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4, (December 1992), p. 494. The seminal source on Chinese Weapons Program, which emphasize the importance of United States nuclear threats in the 1950’s, is John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb’, (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988).
[30] Valuable sources on Pakistani’s nuclear program include Ziba Moshaver, ‘Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation in The Indian Subcontinent’, (Basingtobe, UK.: Macmillan, 1991) and Ashok Kapur, ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Development’, (New York: Croom Helm, 1987).
[31] Because of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons, any state that seeks to maintain its national security must balance against any rival state that develops and deploys nuclear weapons by gaining access to a nuclear deterrent itself. This can produce options. First, strong state do what they can; they can pursue a form of internal balancing by adopting the costly, but self sufficient; policy of developing their own nuclear weapons. Second weak sates do what they must: they can join a balancing alliance with nuclear power, utilizing a promise of nuclear retaliation by that ally as a means of extended deterrence. For such states, acquiring an ally may be the only option available, but the policy inevitable raises questions about the credibility of extended deterrence guarantees, since the nuclear power would also fear retaliation if it is responded to an attack on its ally.
[32] Nalpat, M.D., “India was “forced’ to Conduct Nuclear Tests”, Times of India, No. 110, Vol. CLXI, May, 13, 198, p. 9.
[33] Although nuclear weapons could be developed to serve either as a deterrents against overwhelming conventional military threats or as coercive tools to compel changes in the status quo, the simple focus of states ’responses to emerging nuclear threats is the most common and most parsimonious explanation for nuclear weapons proliferation’. The Israeli and Indian nuclear weapons decisions might be the best examples of the defensive responses to conventional military threats. Pakistan, Iraq and North Korea might be the examples of the offensive coercive motivation. Pakistan is the best example of the offensive coercive motivation, although their leadership deny that their program is offensive. On the status quo bias in neo-realist theory in general, see Randall L. Schweller, ‘Band-wagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In’, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1, (Summer 1994), pp. 72-107 and Richard Rosecrance and Arthur A. Stein, eds., ‘The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy’, (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1993).
[34] The recent estimates of the number of weapons India could deploy on short notice range from 25- 105. See Mitchell Reiss, ‘Bridled Ambition: Why Countries Construct their Nuclear Capabilities’, (Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995), p. 185: Leonard S. Spector and Mark G. McDonough, ”Tracking Nuclear Proliferation’, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie endowment for International Peace, 1995), p. 89; and Eric arnet, “implications of the Comprehensive test Ban’, (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1996), p. 13. Other important sources on the India’s nuclear program include Ashok Kapur, ‘India’s nuclear Option: Atomic Diplomacy and decision Making”, (New York: Prager, 1976); Brahma Chellaney, ‘South Asia’s Passage to Nuclear Power’, International Security, Vol. 16, No. 1 (summer 1991), pp. 43-72; and TT Poulose, ed., ‘Perspective of India’s Nuclear Policy’, (New Delhi: Young Asia Publications, 1978).
[35] Betts, Richard. K., ‘A Nuclear Golden Age’, International Security, Vol 11, NO. 3, Winter 1986-87, p. 3.
[36] See Marshall M. Bouton, ‘Heed South Asia’s Concern’s’, Far Eastern Economic Review, US Edition, June 25, 1998.
[37] See ‘Cover Story’ in excerpts of interview of Dr. R. Chidambaram, he gave to T.S. Subramanian, ‘Frontline’, Vol. 15, No. 11, May 23-June 5, 1998 ( Chennai 600002: M/S Kasturi and Sons Ltd.), p.11.
To a question, ‘How do you feel of achievement’? Dr. Chidambaram replied,” This has been my ambition for many years. It has been achieved”.
[38] Nanda, Prakash., ‘Pokharan the Test of Vajpayee Leadership’, ‘The Times of India’, Noi. 152, Vol. CLXI, Wednesday July 1, 1998.
[39] See K. Balakrishnan and G.V.L. Narashima Rao, ‘Nation Rallies behind Nuclear Decision’, The Times of India, No. 126,Vol. CLXI, of June 01, 1998. (New Delhi, National Edition).
[40] See Nanda, Prakash, “Experts applaud India’s N- exercise’, Times of India, No. 110, Vol. CLXI, May 13, 1998 (New Delhi), p. 8.
[41] Ibid., p. 8.
[42] Ibid., p. 8.
[43] Lawrence Lifschultz, “Doom Thy Neighbour’, FEEE, Vol. 161, No. 23, June 4, 1998. Pp. 30-34.
[44] Pakistan’s sense of insecurity according to Pakistanis press has been heightened by the lukewarm resolve to punish India. Prime Minister Nawaz Shariff and his advisors waited to gauge world reaction. While Pakistanis scientists and special army unit booted up the test site in the Northern Chagia Hills, which has been ready for tests since 1988. The time when Pakistan first acquired nuclear capability. Senior Pakistani military and civilian officials say the Army recommended nuclear tests as the only way to meet the threat posed by Indian explosion.
President Clinton spoke to Mr. Shariff three times since May 11, 1998 to persuade him against nuclear tests, with offers and counter offers on security package for Islamabad. Senior Western diplomats said Washiungton also promised Pakistan it wouldn’t support for Indian demands for permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and to join the nuclear club.
As Islamabad based European diplomat, put it: ‘Pakistan was looking for nothing less than American nuclear umbrella and Iraqi-type comprehensive United Nations Sanctions against India- both of which were impossible for United States to offer’.[See Ahmed Rashid and Shiraz Sidhva, ‘Might and Menace’, Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 161, No. 23, June 4, 1998, pp. 27-29.] Adds Western Diplomat: ‘Our response to Pakistan’s concern can only be tactical and not strategic and Pakistan must understand that’.
Washington’s predicament is that any strategic security guarantees for Islamabad would be viewed by New Delhi as a return to the old American ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan. A constant barb hurled by India at the United States during the Cold War.
Pakistans’s decision to test got a flip from China. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed visited Beijing. On his return on May 20, 1998, he would only say, “China has not asked us to do anything which is not in our national interest”. China refused to comment on Shamshad’s statement and visit. Beijing assumed Islamabad that bilateral military co-operation remain close and offered its ‘unqualified support’ to Pakistan. Pakistan did not get a nuclear umbrella from either United States or China.
[45] Early in 1980, Professor Stephen Cohen, the United States specialists on India and Pakistan met Pakistani Army officials and discussed the rationale of Pakistani nuclear effort. He was told by Pakistani the Pakistan’s nuclear capability would ‘neutralize an assumed Indian Nuclear Force’. However, others pointed out, it would provide an umbrella under which Pakistanis could open the Kashmir issue. According to Pakistanis, “Pakistan’s nuclear capability paralyses not only the Indian nuclear decision but also Indian Conventional Forces and a brash, bold Pakistani strike to liberate Kashmir might go unchallenged if the Indian leadership was weak and indecisive”.
Professor Cohen’s analyses of Pakistan’s proclivities for risk-taking have turned out to be prophetic. He said in the same paper quoted above, which was presented at a meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Washington in March 1980; “Pakistan (like Taiwan, Israel, South Korea and south Africa) has the capacity to fight, to go nuclear, to influence the global strategic balance and lastly, is in the strategic geographical location, surrounded by the three great states in the world and adjacent to the mouth of the Persian Gulf’.
Also see Subrahmanyam, ‘Arms Race Myth’, The Times of India
[46] Pakistan’s attempt to grab Kashmir in a brash and bold strike at a time when they considered the Indian Government weak and indecisive- during VP Singh’s government- failed. The prolonged covert war waged in Kashmir did not give Pakistan the desired victory. Mr. Nawaz Sharif, as opposition leader, in his speech in Nila Bhat on August 24, 1994, had warned India the Pakistan would use nuclear weapons if India tried to invade Kashmir.
[47] Former French Prime Minister Balladeu said in May 1994, that CTBT, ‘must not in nay way envisage the elimination of nuclear weapons or seek to under mine the status of nuclear power’.
The Pentagons Fiscal Year 1995 Annual report noted that considerations should be given, ‘to whether and how US Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Posture can play a role in deterring the acquisition of nuclear weapons by other nations’. The American Nuclear Stockpile is also viewed as a nonproliferation tool.
The text of CTBT approved by General Assembly includes a list of forty four countries, all of whom must raify before the treaty can come into force. Each of these states have effectively been handed a veto. The list includes India. Britain, backed by Russia and China took the lead in insisting this treaty-wrecking clause. So the well signing session in New York had very little meaning.
{See Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, ‘CTBT Appearance and Reality: The view from Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’, Agni, Vol. 2, No. 2, September-December 1996, p. 5].
The CTBT allows production of very small thermonuclear explosions inside facilities designed to contain them. Examples are the planner US National Ignition Facility and similar French ‘Mega Joule’ facility. Use of such facilities can provide data that can play key role in the design of new types of nuclear weapons. The CTBT will allow the design, construction and use of numerous other facilities, in growing number of countries, designed to investigate possibilities for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) thermonuclear explosions as a source of power for civil purposes.
[48] See Jaswant Singh, ‘Against Nuclear Apartheid’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 77, No. 5, September/ October 1998, p.44.
[49] Nalpat, M.D., ‘India was ‘forced’ to Conduct Nuclear Tests’, Times of India, No. 10, Vol. CLXI, May 13, 1998 (New Delhi), p. 9.
[50] Ibid., p. 9.
[51] Ibid., p. 9.
[52] Arundhati Ghose, ‘Issues of Concern in South Asia’, in Ellis, Peter (ed.), ‘India’s Nuclear Weapons & Global Security’, Oxford Research Group, Current Decisions Report No. 20’, June 1998, (Oxford OX26JE: Oxford research Group), pp.10-11.
Also see Dunn, Lewis ‘Beyond the Nuclear Age: Security, Politics and Inertia’, pp. 14-17,in paper cited above. There are three possible ways to define the elimination of nuclear weapons, to move, in affect, beyond today’s nuclear age. These are:
First, the complete physical elimination of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons components, and all nuclear weapons material;
Second, the political elimination of nuclear weapons; and
Third, the international control of a small number of residual nuclear weapons, with all other weapons physically eliminated.
Let me consider each briefly. The complete physical elimination of nuclear weapons is clearly the most important ant the far-reaching goal. A key problem here, however, would be the great uncertainties that exist today about how many nuclear weapons and how much fissile material the acknowledged and the unacknowledged nuclear powers have produced over the years and still possess. It may never be possible to eliminate the uncertainty, regardless, of the verification provisions. This is likely to be great impediment in the elimination of nuclear weapons as long as relations between nations, remains wary at best, confrontational at worst.
[53] Hedley, Bull, ‘The Anarchial Society’, (London: Macmillan Press, 1977), Chapter 5.
[54] Ernst B. Haas, ‘The Balance of Power as a Guide to Policy-Making’, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3, August 1953, p. 370.
[55] Robert Jervis, ‘The Future of World Politics’, International Security, Vol. 16, No. 3, Winter 1991-92, p. 50.
[56] Morton Abramowitz, ‘Pacific Century: Myth or Reality?’, Contemporary South East Asia, Vol. 15, No. 3, December 1993, pp. 257-58, 267.
[57] L.K. Advani was quoted in The Hindu, 19 May 1998 as calling on Pakistan, ‘to realize the change in the geo strategic situation in the region and the world, created by Indian tests’.
[58] Kisinger, Henry., “Diplomacy”, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994),, pp. 20 –21.
[59] It is necessary to distinguish between self defence and self help. A nation may act in self defence to protect essential national rights from irreparable harm when no reasonable, alternate means of protection is available. Its purpose is the deterrence of aggression and the presentation or restoration of legal status quo. Self help, on the other hand, is remedial or repressive in character. It is a punitive or retributive in response to either some past unlawful act or as a sanction to enforce legal rights. Common forms of self help are reprisal or intervention.
[60] Gravelle, James Francis, ‘The Falkland (Malvines) Islands: An International Law Analysis of The Dispute between Argentine and Great Britain’, Military Law Review, 107 (1985), p. 56.
[61] Bowett, D.W., ‘Self Defense in International Law’, (New York: Fredrick A Praeger, 1958), p. 20.
[62] O’Connell, D.P., ‘International Law’, (Dobbs Ferry, NY.: Oceana Publications, 1965), p. 339
[63] McDougal, Myres S., ‘The Soviet-Cuban Quarantine and Self Defence’, The American Journal of International Law, 57, No. 3, 1963, pp. 597-98.
[64] MacChesney, Brunson., ‘Some Comments on the “Quarantine” of Cuba’, The American Journal of International Law, 57, No. 3, 1963, p. 595.
[65] McDougal, p. 598, op cit. Note 65.
[66] Bowett, D.W., ‘Self Defence in International Law’, (New York: Fredrick A Prager, 1958), p. 20.
[67] United Statesa Department of The Army, ‘Operational Law Handbook’, 2nd Edition (Draft, 1992), pp. 38-39, See Also Bowett, op cit., p. 270.
[68] MacChasney, op cit., p. 593.
[69] Moore, John Norton, ‘Law and the Indo-China War’, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University press, 1972), pp. 170-171.
[70] Lung-Chu Chen, ‘An Introduction in Contemporary International Law: A Policy Prespective’, (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 122.
[71] Collective Defence. States pursue collective defence by forming alliances of like minded states. Collective defence means that states agree to come to the defence of any other in their alliance if they are attacked.
Collective Security. In its ideal form, this is a system in which all states join together to punish any state that carries out an aggressive act. The United Nation is the closet example of collective security mechanism. Although pure collective security does not exist.
Cooperative Security. Cooperative security can be pursued by individual states or alliances. It involves mutual cooperative measures that when carried out by each side improve the security of each side. It is designed to ensure that organised aggression cannot start or be carried out on any large scale. It seeks to devise agreed measures to prevent war (i.e. on-site monitoring, observation of military manoeuvers, and so on.
[72] See Slocomb, Walter. B., ‘Strategic Stability in Restructured World’, Survival, Vol. XXXII, no. 4, July/ August 1990, pp. 299-312.
[73] Amongst the academic, Kenneth Waltz, needs to be taken seriously. He has put forward the thesis that the logic of deterrence, with its inherent imperative for self restraint applies to all. War as a means of politics should be excluded. Thus the proliferation of nuclear weapons would exert a stabilizing influence on world politics. [See Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Toward Nuclear Peace’, in Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz (eds.), ‘The Use of Force’, 2nd Edition (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983)}
The above is dated 1995, but has relevance today also