Keeping an eye on South Asian skies: America’s pivotal deterrence in nuclearized India–Pakistan crises

ABSTRACT

Since declaring their nuclear weapons capabilities in 1998, India and Pakistan have engaged in three major crises that each threatened to escalate into war. In each crisis, the USA engaged in active diplomacy to dissuade the South Asian rivals from taking escalatory actions. Previous literature on the crises has described the American role, but has not theorized third-party involvement in a nuclearized regional rivalry. We apply Timothy Crawford’s pivotal deterrence theory to the nuclearized India–Pakistan conflict, and extend the original theory to cover the novel condition of a non-superpower nuclear dyad, in the context of a single-superpower international system. We find that America’s pivotal deterrence generally enhanced stability in the India–Pakistan crises, and unlike in pre-nuclear South Asia, other great powers supported American diplomacy. However, we suggest that future regional crises between nuclear rivals, in South Asia or elsewhere, may present greater challenges for pivotal deterrence.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank four anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this analysis. We also especially thank Tim Crawford for his encouraging feedback on a preliminary version of the analysis. The empirical sections and literature review of this article are substantially condensed and reworked versions of much more extensive discussions in Yusuf’s PhD dissertation ‘Brokered Bargaining: Nuclear Crises Between Middle Powers’ (Boston University, 2014).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Moeed Yusuf is an expert on South Asian strategic and security affairs and serves as Director of South Asia programs at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. He is working on a book examining US crisis management in India–Pakistan crises since their overt nuclearization in 1998. Yusuf is also the editor of Pakistan’s Counterterrorism Challenge (Georgetown University Press, 2014) and Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Asia: Through a Peacebuilding Lens (USIP Press, 2014). He serves on the Executive Committee (Board) of Nobel Laureate Pugwash Conferences for Science and International Affairs, an organization committed to nuclear disarmament. Yusuf holds an MA in International Relations and PhD in Political Science from Boston University.

Jason A. Kirk is associate professor of political science at Elon University in North Carolina. His scholarship focuses on India’s political economy and international relations. He is the author of India and the World Bank: The Politics of Aid and Influence (Anthem Press, 2014), chapters in several edited volumes by Oxford University Press, and research articles in India Review and other scholarly journals. Kirk has a special interest in teaching through role-play and simulations to deepen students’ understanding of the India–Pakistan conflict, both in its historical origins and contemporary dynamics. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Notes

1. 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 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp.301–25; Srinath Raghavan, ‘A Coercive Triangle: India, Pakistan, the United States, and the Crisis of 2001–2002’, Defence Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (June 2009), pp.242–60; Moeed Yusuf, ‘Banking on an Outsider: Implications for Escalation Control in South Asia’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 41, No. 5 (June 2011), pp.21–7.

2. Rajesh M. Basrur, South Asia’s Cold War: Nuclear Weapons and Conflict in Comparative Perspective (London: Routledge, 2008), p.59.

3. Timothy W. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence: Third-Party Statecraft and the Pursuit of Peace (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).

4. Robert J. Art, ‘To What Ends Military Power?’, International Security, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Spring 1980), p.4.

5. See Moeed Yusuf, Brokered Bargaining: Nuclear Crises Between Middle Powers (PhD dissertation, Boston University, 2014), pp.27–39.

6. For a recent, wide-ranging review of this literature, see Bhumitra Chakma, South Asia’s Nuclear Security (London: Routledge, 2015).

7. Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Introduction: The Importance of the Kargil Conflict’, in Peter R. Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p.29.

8. P.R. Chari, Pervaiz I. Cheema and Stephen P. Cohen, Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), pp.7–8.

9. Bhumitra Chakma, ‘Escalation Control, Deterrence Diplomacy and America’s Role in South Asia’s Nuclear Crises’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 33, No. 3 (2012), pp.554–76; S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007); Dinshaw Mistry, ‘Tempering Optimism about Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia’, Security Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2009), pp.148–82. Chakma’s perspective most closely aligns with ours; he characterizes US interventions as ‘deterrence diplomacy’ and notes a connection to pivotal deterrence, though he does not expound on the theory.

10. S. Paul Kapur, ‘India and Pakistan’s Unstable Peace: Why Nuclear South Asia is Not Like Cold War Europe’, International Security, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Fall 2005), pp.127–52. See also Bhumitra Chakma, ‘South Asia’s Nuclear Deterrence and the USA’, in Bhumitra Chakma (ed.), The Politics of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), pp.113–36; Sumit Ganguly and R. Richard Wagner, ‘India and Pakistan: Bargaining in the Shadow of Nuclear War’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2004), pp.479–507.

11. Feroz H. Khan, ‘The Independence-Dependence Paradox: Stability Dilemmas in South Asia’, Arms Control Today, Vol. 33, No. 8 (October 2003), http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_10/Khan_10 (accessed 9 April 2016).

12. Basrur, ‘Coercive Diplomacy’ (note 1); Raghavan, ‘A Coercive Triangle’ (note 1); Yusuf, ‘Banking on an Outsider’ (note 1).

13. Chakma, ‘South Asia’s Nuclear Deterrence and the USA’ (note 10).

14. Sumit Ganguly and Devin T. Hagerty, Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crisis in the Shadow Weapons (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2005).

15. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence (note 3), pp.2–3.

16. Ibid., p.5.

17. Ibid., pp.209–10.

18. See G. John Ikenberry, Michael Mastanduno and William C. Wohlforth (eds), International Relations Theory and the Consequences of Unipolarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Birthe Hansen, Unipolarity and World Politics: A Theory and Its Implications (London: Routledge, 2012); and Nuno P. Monteiro, Theory of Unipolar Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

19. Monteiro, Theory of Unipolar Politics (note 18), p.73.

20. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence (note 3), pp.171–2.

21. Ibid., p.6.

22. Ibid., p.7.

23. Ibid., p.140.

24. Ibid., pp.1–2. This ‘simple but powerful answer’ helps to explain why the USA failed to prevent the India–Pakistan war in 1965, but did manage to prevent Greece and Turkey from going to war over Cyprus around the same time: in the latter conflict, neither side had good alignment alternatives.

25. P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen Philip Cohen, Perception, Politics and Security in South Asia: The Compound Crisis of 1990 (London: Routledge, 2003), pp.134–6.

26. India declared a draft no-first-use policy soon after its 1998 nuclear test, later formalizing the policy; Pakistan retains a defensive first-use option against India’s conventional superiority.

27. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence (note 3), p.21.

28. Peter Lavoy, ‘Escalation Control Workshop Summaries’, The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC, 14–18 November 2002 and 20–23 May 2003, n.p., http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/reducingnukes-section4_2.pdf (accessed 24 March 2016).

29. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence (note 3), p.28.

30. Pakistan’s is territorial revisionism over Kashmir, whereas India’s is a strategic revisionism that seeks to end Pakistan’s support of militant non-state actors as proxies against it.

31. A preponderant pivot ‘can outmatch the adversaries, even if they combined’. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence (note 3), p.30.

32. Ibid., p.31.

33. See Colin S. Gray, The Sheriff: America’s Defense of the New World Order (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009); Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); T.V. Paul, The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).

34. See Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon, ‘South Asian Threat? Local Nuclear War = Global Suffering’, Scientific American (December 2009), pp.74–81.

35. Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder, ‘The Ally from Hell’, The Atlantic, December 2011, p.50.

36. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence (note 3), p.44.

37. N.C. Menon, ‘Ultras will Have to Go: Inderfurth’, Hindustan Times, 31 May 1999.

38. Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Why Kargil Did Not Produce General War: The Crisis-Management Strategies of Pakistan, India, and the United States’, in Lavoy (ed.), Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia, p.186.

39. For details, see Yusuf, ‘Brokered Bargaining’ (note 5), pp.172–6.

40. Amit Baruah, ‘Any Weapon Will Be Used, Threatens Pakistan’, The Hindu, 1 June 1999.

41. V.P. Malik, Kargil: From Surprise to Victory (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2006), p.147.

42. A.G. Noorani, ‘Kargil Diplomacy’, Frontline, Vol. 16, No. 16 (31 July–31 August 1999); Andrew C. Winner and Toshi Yoshihara, ‘Nuclear Stability in South Asia’, The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (January 2002), p.71.

43. Tom Clancy, Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz, Battle Ready (New York: Penguin Group, 2004), p.347.

44. Ibid.

45. Lavoy, ‘Why Kargil Did Not Produce General War’ (note 38), p.201.

46. Bruce Riedel, American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House (Philadelphia: Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, 2002).

47. ‘The Kashmir Crisis’, Acronym Institute, Disarmament Diplomacy 38 (June 1999), http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd38/38kash.htm (accessed 24 March 2016).

48. Yusuf’s interviews with Karl F. Inderfurth, US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs during Kargil, Washington, DC, 13 June 2013; and Bruce Riedel, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and South Asia Affairs, National Security Council at the White House during Kargil, Washington, DC, 30 April 2015.

49. D. Suba Chandran, Limited War: Revisiting Kargil in the Indo-Pak Conflict (New Delhi: India Research Press, 2005), pp.64–5; Rajesh M. Basrur, Minimum Deterrence and India’s Nuclear Security (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), p.59.

50. S. Paul Kapur, ‘Ten Years of Instability in a Nuclear South Asia’, International Security, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall 2008), p.78.

51. Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent (note 9), p.128.

52. C. Raja Mohan, ‘Fernandes Unveils “Limited War” Doctrine’, The Hindu, 25 January 2002.

53. Rajesh Kumar, ‘Revisiting the Kashmir Insurgency, Kargil, and the Twin Peak Crisis: Was the Stability/Instability Paradox at Play?’ The New England Journal of Political Science, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Fall 2008), p.79.

54. S. Kalyanaraman, ‘Operation Parakram: An Indian Exercise in Coercive Diplomacy’, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2002), p.483; Zafar N. Jaspal, ‘Understanding the Political-Military Context of the 2002 Military Standoff – A Pakistani Perspective’, in Zachary S. Davis (ed.), The India-Pakistan Military Standoff: Crisis and Escalation in South Asia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p.60.

55. Yusuf, ‘Brokered Bargaining’ (note 5), p.253.

56. Feroz H. Khan, ‘Nuclear Signaling, Missiles, and Escalation Control in South Asia’, in Michael Krepon, Rodney W. Jones and Ziad Haider (eds), Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2004), pp.88–9.

57. When complete, India had mobilized half a million troops on the international border. Pravin Sawhney and V.K. Sood, Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished (New Delhi: Sage Publications), p.62.

58. J.P. Shukla, ‘No Weapon Will be Spared for Self-Defence: PM’, The Hindu, 3 January 2002.

59. ‘Uncalled for Concerns: Fernandes’, The Hindu, 12 January 2002.

60. Khan, ‘Nuclear Signaling’ (note 56), p.88.

61. Wallace J. Thies and Dorle Hellmuth, ‘Critical Risk and the 2002 Kashmir Crisis’, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2004), pp.16–8.

62. Bill Gertz, ‘Pakistan Builds Missile Sites Near Border with India; Bush Asks Nations to Ease Tensions’, Washington Times, 14 January 2002, p.A.1.

63. ‘Islamabad Adheres to Norms of Coexistence: Freedom to Struggle Confused with Terrorism: Sattar’, Dawn, 30 December 2001.

64. ‘No Action to be Taken in Haste, Says Sattar’, Dawn, 31 December 2001.

65. Basrur, ‘Coercive Diplomacy’ (note 1), p.307.

66. Steve Coll, ‘The Standoff: How Jihadi Groups Helped Provoke the Twenty-First Century’s First Nuclear Crisis’, The New Yorker, 13 February 2006.

67. Sawnhey and Sood, Operation Parakram (note 57), p.80.

68. Alex Stolar, ‘To the Brink: Indian Decision-Making and the 2001–2002’, Henry L. Stimson Center, Report No. 68, February 2008, p.18. On the US role, see also Yusuf, ‘Brokered Bargaining’ (note 5), pp.277–9.

69. ‘President General Pervez Musharraf’s Address to the Nation, January 12, 2002’, South Asia Terrorism Portal, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/document/papers/2002Jan12.htm (accessed 24 March 2016).

70. The USA and UK coordinated a series of visits by their officials during the crisis, believing that neither side would initiate hostilities when these officials were physically present in the region. Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011), p.125.

71. David E. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (New York: Harmony Books, 2009), p.221.

72. Polly Nayak and Michael Krepon, ‘US Crisis Management in South Asia’s Twin Peaks Crisis’, The Stimson Center, Washington, DC, Report 57 (September 2006), p.16.

73. Sumit Ganguly and Michael R. Kraig, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis: Exposing the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy’, Security Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2 (April–June 2005), p.305.

74. Basrur, ‘Coercive Diplomacy’ (note 1), p.320.

75. Luv Puri, ‘Be Ready for Decisive Battle, PM tells Jawans’, The Hindu, 23 May 2002.

76. Mistry, ‘Tempering Optimism’ (note 9), pp.166–7.

77. Khan, ‘Nuclear Signaling’ (note 56), pp.88–9; ‘Pak. Test-Fires Another Missile’, The Hindu, 27 May 2002.

78. Waheguru P.S. Sidhu, ‘Operation Vijay and Operation Parakram: The Victory of Theory?’, in E. Sridharan (ed.), The India-Pakistan Nuclear Relationship: Theories of Deterrence and International Relations (New Delhi: Routledge, 2007), p.227.

79. ‘Indian Official Says Attack Plan Ready: Defense Ministry Plays Down Report’, Dawn, 4 June 2002.

80. ‘Musharraf Rules out Possibility of Nuclear War’, The Hindu, 2 June 2002.

81. Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker, ‘Bush Presses Pakistan on Kashmir and Orders Rumsfeld to Region’, New York Times, 31 May 2002.

82. Chakma, ‘South Asia’s Nuclear Deterrence’ (note 10), p.131.

83. Coll, ‘The Standoff’ (note 66).

84. ‘Infiltration Has Not Declined: Fernandes’, The Hindu, 6 June 2002.

85. Kanti Bajpai, ‘To War or Not to War: The India-Pakistan Crisis of 2001–02’, in Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur (eds), Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: Crisis Behavior and the Bomb (New York: Routledge, 2009), p.169; Ganguly and Kraig, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis’ (note 73), p.176.

86. Sawhney and Sood, Operation Parakram (note 57), pp.82–3.

87. Yusuf, ‘Brokered Bargaining’ (note 5), pp.299–300, pp.313–4.

88. Nayak and Krepon, ‘US Crisis Management’ (note 72), p.34.

89. Sharad Joshi, The Practice of Coercive Diplomacy in the Post 9/11 Period (PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2006), p.103.

90. For a detailed account see Arabinda Acharya, Sujoyini Mandal and Akanksha Mehta, ‘Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai: Picking Up the Pieces’, International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2009.

91. Nandini R. Iyer, ‘PM: Our Neighbours Will Have to Pay’, Hindustan Times, 27 November 2008.

92. Nayak and Krepon, ‘The Unfinished Crisis’ (note 72), p.35.

93. ‘We Feared Indian Strike: ISI Chief’, The Hindu, 8 January 2009.

94. See Nirupama Subramanian, ‘Furnish Evidence, says Pakistan’, The Hindu, 13 December 2008; Angel Rabasa et al., ‘The Lessons of Mumbai’, Occasional Paper, The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2009, p.17, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2009/RAND_OP249.pdf (accessed 24 March 2016).

95. ‘Govt. Downplays Indian Jets’ Airspace Breach’, Dawn, 14 December 2008; Iftikhar A. Khan, ‘Indian Planes Intrude into Pakistan’s Airspace’, Dawn, 14 December 2008.

96. ‘India, Pakistan: Signs of a Coming War’, Stratfor, 24 December 2008; ‘Geopolitical Diary: Countdown to a Crisis on the Subcontinent’, Stratfor, 22 December 2008; ‘India May Still Strike at Pakistan: US Report’, Times of India, 19 December 2008.

97. ‘Will Retaliate “Within Minutes” if India Strikes: Kayani’, Indian Express, 24 December 2008.

98. Nayak and Krepon, ‘The Unfinished Crisis’ (note 72), p.46; Rajesh Basrur et al., ‘The 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks: Strategic Fallout’, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Monograph No. 17, 2009, p.22.

99. ‘General Kayani Calls for Calm with India’, Dawn, 29 December 2008.

100. ‘Bush: U.S. Stands Behind India in Wake of Mumbai Attacks’, The Associated Press, 24 November 2008.

101. Ibid.

102. Yusuf, ‘Brokered Bargaining’ (note 5), pp.407–9.

103. Rice, No Higher Honour (note 70), p.720.

104. ‘Rice Warns India Against Unintended Consequences’, Reuters, 3 December 2008.

105. Rice, No Higher Honour (note 70), p.xviii.

106. Ibid., p.721.

107. Nirupama Subramanian, ‘McCain Warns Pakistan of Indian Air Strikes’, The Hindu, 7 December 2008.

108. ‘Pakistan Cracks Down on LeT Under US Pressure’, The New Indian Express, 8 December 2008; ‘Pakistan Finally Admits Kasab is Pakistani’, India Today, 7 January 2009; ‘Pakistan Admits Mumbai November Attack was Hatched in Pakistan’, Homeland Security News Wire, 12 February 2009.

109. Nayak and Krepon, ‘The Unfinished Crisis’ (note 72), p.38; Yusuf’s interview of Polly Nayak, 15 June, 2013.

110. Nayak and Krepon, ‘The Unfinished Crisis’ (note 72).

111. Howard B. Schaffer, The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, 2009), pp.6–7.

112. Mistry, ‘Tempering Optimism’ (note 9), pp.149–50.

113. Walter C. Ladwig III, ‘A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army’s New Limited War Doctrine’, International Security, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter 2007–08), pp.158–90.

114. ‘A Cost Islamabad Can’t Afford: Modi Warns Pakistan of “Adventurism” on the Border as PM Praises Soldiers’ Courage’, Daily Mail, 9 October 2014.

115. Saeed Shah, ‘Pakistan Warms to Russia as U.S. Ties Chill’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 August 2015, p.A10.

116. Mehreen Zahra-Malik and David Brunnstrom, ‘Pakistan to Tell U.S. It Won’t Accept Limits on Tactical Nuclear Arms’, Reuters, 21 October 2015.