Proliferation Optimism and Pessimism Revisited

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Notes

¹Representative works include Peter D. Feaver, ‘Proliferation Optimism and Theories of Nuclear Operations’, in Zachary S. Davis and Benjamin Frankel (eds), The Proliferation Puzzle: Why Nuclear Weapons Spread (and What Results), special issue of Security Studies 2/3-4 (Spring/Summer 1993), 159–91; Scott D. Sagan, ‘The Perils of Proliferation: Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons’, International Security 18/4 (Spring 1994), 66–107; Feaver, ‘Optimists, Pessimists, and Theories of Nuclear Proliferation Management,’ Security Studies 4/4 (Summer 1995), 754–72; Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: W.W. Norton 1995); Devin T. Hagerty, ‘Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: The 1990 Indo-Pakistani Crisis’, International Security 20/3 (Winter 1995–96), 79–114; David J. Karl, ‘Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers,’ International Security 21/3 (Winter 1996–97), 87–119; and Jordan Seng, ‘Less is More: Command and Control Advantages of Minor Nuclear States’, and Feaver, ‘Neooptimists and Proliferation's Enduring Problems,’ both in Security Studies 6/4 (Summer 1997), 50–92, 93–125. A good overview of the debate is provided in Jeffrey W. Knopf, ‘Recasting the Optimism-Pessimism Debate’ Security Studies 12/1 (Autumn 2002), 41–96.

²Apocalyptic assessments of the state of nuclear stability in the region were a common refrain within the Clinton administration. See the comments of R. James Woolsey, then director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, in David Albright, ‘India and Pakistan's Nuclear Arms Race: Out of the Closet But Not in the Street’, Arms Control Today 23/5 (June 1993), 12; and of Robert L. Gallucci, then Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs, in ‘Non-proliferation and National Security’ Arms Control Today 24/3 (April 1994), 14.

³R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick, ‘Nuclear aims by Pakistan, India prompt US concern,’ Washington Post, 28 May 2009. Also see Rajat Pandit, ‘In a year, India will have nuclear triad: Navy chief’, Times of India, 3 Dec. 2010.

⁴See David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, ‘Pakistani nuclear arms pose challenge to US policy, New York Times, 31 Jan. 2011; Karen DeYoung, ‘New estimates put Pakistan's nuclear arsenal at more than 100’, Washington Post, 31 Jan. 2011; David Albright and Paul Brannan, ‘Pakistan Appears to be Building Fourth Military Reactor at the Khushab Nuclear Site’ (Washington DC: Institute for Science and International Security 9 Feb. 2011); and Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin, Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues, Report RL34248 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service 7 Oct. 2010).

⁵The final report of the bipartisan US Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism characterizes Pakistan as ‘the intersection of nuclear weapons and terrorism’, World At Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism (New York: Vintage Books Dec. 2008). On the security of Pakistan's arsenal, see Joby Warrick, ‘Pakistan nuclear security questioned’, Washington Post, 11 Nov. 2007; David E. Sanger, ‘Obama's worst Pakistan nightmare,’ New York Times Magazine, 8 Jan. 2009; Sanger, ‘Strife in Pakistan raises US doubts over nuclear arms’, New York Times, 4 May 2009; Bruce Riedel, ‘Pakistan and the bomb’, Wall Street Journal, 30 May 2009; Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, ‘Nuclear Security in Pakistan: Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Terrorism’, Arms Control Today 39/6 (July/Aug. 2009), 6–11; and Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2010 (Cambridge, MA, and Washington DC: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard Univ., and Nuclear Threat Initiative April 2010). On the possibility of Pakistani state collapse, see Riedel, ‘Armageddon in Islamabad’, The National Interest, No. 102 (July-Aug. 2009), 9–18. On the possibility of terrorist groups triggering inadvertent conflict, consult Craig Whitlock, ‘Gates: Al-Qaeda has assembled a “syndicate” of terror groups’, Washington Post, 21 Jan. 2010.

⁶See David Leigh, ‘WikiLeaks cables expose Pakistan nuclear fears’, The Guardian, 1 Dec. 2010; and Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller, ‘WikiLeaks cables show US focus on Pakistan's military, nuclear material’ Washington Post, 1 Dec. 2010.

⁷‘Pakistani Army will remain India-centric: Kayani’, Economic Times, 5 Feb. 2010.

⁸See, for example, the comments by President Asif Ali Zardari in Seymour M. Hersh, ‘Defending the Arsenal,’ New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2009.

⁹‘Significant progress on Kashmir was made on backchannels, says Kasuri,’ The Hindu, 21 Feb. 2009; Steve Coll, ‘The back channel,’ New Yorker, 2 March 2009; and Ranjan Roy, ‘Kashmir pact was just a signature away,’ Times of India, 24 April 2010. Musharraf has confirmed the substance of these reports and New Delhi has not denied their accuracy.

¹⁰Kapur contributed a chapter to Inside Nuclear South Asia that recapitulates many of the arguments made in India, Pakistan, and the Bomb and Dangerous Deterrent. Unless otherwise specified, quotations in this review are drawn from Dangerous Deterrent.

¹¹The literature on the Kargil crisis is voluminous. Among the works to be consulted are Kargil Review Committee, From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report (New Delhi: Sage 2000); Ashok Krishna and P.R. Chari (eds), Kargil: The Tables Turned (New Delhi: Manohar 2001); Ashley J. Tellis, C. Christine Fair and Jamison Jo Medby, Limited Conflicts Under the Nuclear Umbrella: Indian and Pakistani Lessons from the Kargil Crisis (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2001); V.P. Malik, Kargil: From Surprise to Victory (New Delhi: HarperCollins 2006); and P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen P. Cohen, Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press 2007), 118–48.

¹²On the Siachen conflict, a bitter contestation in a nondemarcated region of northern Kashmir that is largely unknown outside of South Asia, see V.R. Raghavan, Siachen: Conflict without End (New Delhi: Viking 2002); and Myra MacDonald, Heights of Madness: One Woman's Journey in Pursuit of a Secret War (New Delhi: Rupa & Co. 2007).

¹³George Iype, ‘Advani wants troops to strike across LoC to quell proxy war in Kashmir’, Rediff News, 25 May 1998.

¹⁴Bruce Riedel, ‘American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House’ (Philadelphia: Center for the Advanced Study of India 2002); and Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press 2004). Also see Alan Sipress and Thomas Ricks, ‘Report: India, Pakistan were near nuclear war in ‘99’, Washington Post, 15 May 2002; and Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: Secret Story of India's Quest to be a Nuclear Power (New Delhi: HarperCollins 2000), 437.

¹⁵See Four Crises and a Peace Process, 149–83; V.K. Sood and Pravin Sawhney Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished (New Delhi: Sage Publications 2003); Sumit Ganguly and Michael R. Kraig, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis: Exposing the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy’, Security Studies 14/3 (Winter 2004–05), 290–324; Rajesh M. Basrur, ‘Coercive Diplomacy in a Nuclear Environment: The December 13 Crisis’, in Rafiq Dossani and Henry S. Rowen (eds), Prospects for Peace in South Asia (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford UP 2005), 301–25; Polly Nayak and Michael Krepon, ‘US Crisis Management in South Asia's Twin Peaks Crisis’ (Washington DC: The Henry L. Stimson Center Sept. 2006); and Praveen Swami, ‘A War to End a War: The Causes and Outcomes of the 2001–02 India-Pakistan Crisis’, and Kanti Bajpai, ‘To War or Not to War: The India-Pakistan Crisis of 2001–02’, both in Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur (eds), Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: Crisis Behavior and the Bomb (New York: Routledge 2009), 144–82.

¹⁶Quotations in Nayak and Krepon, ‘US Crisis Management in South Asia's Twin Peaks Crisis’, 15.

¹⁷Ibid., 18; Sarah Left, ‘Indian PM calls for “decisive battle” in Kashmir’, The Guardian, 23 May 2002; and Barry Bearak, ‘Indian leader's threat of war rattles Pakistan and the US’, New York Times, 23 May 2002.

¹⁸Sumit Ganguly and Devin Hagerty, Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press 2005), 191. Also see David J. Karl, ‘Lessons for Proliferation Scholarship in South Asia: The Buddha Smiles Again’, Asian Survey 41/6 (Nov./Dec. 2001), 1002–22.

¹⁹It should be noted that Kapur in Dangerous Deterrent makes an extended argument that because scholars have misapplied the concept of the stability-instability paradox to South Asia, it has little analytical value in explaining Indo-Pakistani security behavior. Nonetheless, his own analysis of the origins of the Kargil and Twin Peaks crises echoes the widely-held view that Pakistani behavior sprang from a calculation that its newly overt nuclear capacity provided strategic cover to indulge in major anti-Indian provocations.

²⁰Kargil Review Committee, From Surprise to Reckoning, 241; and Malik, From Surprise to Victory, 272.

²¹Musharraf, who was chief of the Pakistan Army during the crisis, has made the same claim. See In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press 2006), 97.

²²As one account of the crisis relates, US and British intelligence analysts ‘felt that they had evidence that [Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate] provided systematic support to Kashmir jihad groups….Yet intelligence about whether or how ISI directed particular terrorist strikes within India was less certain; according to officials familiar with CIA intelligence reports, the agency did not have evidence of direct instructions from ISI controllers to jihadi cells to carry out attacks such as the raid on Parliament House. Nor could India offer specific evidence about what role, if any, Pakistan's Army or its intelligence services had played in that raid.’ Steve Coll, ‘The stand-off,’ New Yorker, 13 Feb. 2006. Similarly, John R. Schmidt, who served as political counselor in the US embassy in Islambad just prior to the Parliament assault, contends that the jihadi groups responsible for the attack were by that time already carrying out ‘brazen, highly provocative attacks against Indian targets that were almost certainly not sanctioned by their ISI taskmasters.’ Schmidt, ‘The Unravelling of Pakistan’, Survival 51/3 (June–July 2009), 35.

²³Bruce Riedel raises the possibility that the Parliament attack may have been a jihadi effort to divert Pakistani military attention from the Afghan border precisely when Osama bin Laden and hundreds of Al- Qa'eda and Taliban fighters were fleeing out of Afghanistan. Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution Press 2011), 69–70.

²⁴Ganguly and Kraig, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis’.

²⁵Alex Stolar, ‘To the Brink: Indian Decision-Making and the 2001–2002 Standoff’ (Washington DC: The Henry L. Stimson Center Feb. 2008), 14.

²⁶Ibid., 20, 23.

²⁷Inder Malhotra, ‘Of diplomacy, rhetoric and terror: ground realities matter most’, The Tribune, 27 May 2002, as cited in Nayak and Krepon, ‘US Crisis Management in South Asia's Twin Peaks Crisis’, 18.

²⁸For more background, see Subhash Kapila, ‘India's New “Cold Start” Doctrine Strategically Reviewed’, Paper No. 991 (Noida, India: South Asia Analysis Group), 4 May 2004; Tariq M. Ashraf, ‘Doctrinal Reawakening of the Indian Armed Forces’, Military Review 84/6 (Nov./Dec. 2004), 53–62; Gurmeet Kanwal, ‘Cold Start and Battle Groups for Offensive Operations,’ Strategic Trends 4/18 (June 2006); Walter C. Ladwig III, ‘A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War Doctrine’, International Security 32/3 (Winter 2007–08), 158–90; and Kanwal, ‘India's Cold Start Doctrine and Strategic Stability’, IDSA Strategic Comments, 1 June 2010. For recent concerns about the doctrine by the Pakistani and US governments, see Lydia Polgreen and Mark Landler, ‘Obama is not likely to push India hard on Pakistan,’ New York Times, 5 Nov. 2010.

²⁹For similar arguments that Indian military restraint cannot be taken for granted in the event of another major attack by Pakistan-based terrorists organizations, see Daniel Markey, ‘Terrorism and Indo-Pakistani Escalation’, Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 6 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Jan. 2010); and Peter Bergen and Bruce Hoffman, ‘Assessing the Terrorist Threat,’ (Washington DC: Bipartisan Policy Center 10 Sept. 2010).

³⁰Novelist Aravind Adiga may have a more accurate prediction regarding New Delhi's response to the next major terrorist strike: ‘The government will immediately threaten to attack Pakistan, then realize that it cannot do so without risking nuclear war, and finally beg the US to do something. Once it is clear that the government has failed on every front – military, tactical and diplomatic – against the terrorists, senior ministers will appear on television and promise that, next time, they will be prepared.’ ‘Tips for India's next premier’, Financial Times, 12 May 2009.

³¹Quotations in ‘US embassy cables: India “unlikely” to deploy Cold Start against Pakistan’, The Guardian, 1 Dec. 2010. Similarly, Shankar Roychowdhury, who served as Indian chief of army staff in the mid-1990s, argues that ‘Pakistan's nuclear weapons deterred India from attacking that country after the Mumbai strikes’, ‘Pakistan's nuclear weapons deterred India’ The Hindu, 10 March 2009.

³²‘US embassy cables: India ‘‘unlikely” to deploy Cold Start against Pakistan.’

³³Stephen P. Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming: India's Military Modernization (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press 2010), 68.

³⁴For an alternative view of the 1998 tests, one that emphasizes security-seeking behavior on India's part, see Sumit Ganguly, ‘The Pathway to Pokhran II: The Prospects and Sources of New Delhi's Nuclear Weapons Program’, International Security 23/4 (Spring 1999), 148–77.

³⁵See Rama Lakshmi, ‘Key Indian figures call for new nuclear tests despite deal with US’, Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2009.