The Arrival of Tactical Nuclear Weapons in South Asia: Deterrent Stability or Instability?

Abstract

This article examines the arrival of Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNWs) amid the rapid arms race in South Asia. It analyzes the stability and instability prospects linked to the arrival of and dependence on TNWs. It states that TNW is a murky term that confronts a definitional issue. Although TNW has not been used yet, it entails the risk of its use on the battlefield in the event of a limited war. Conceptually, this sets the stage for an interesting debate on whether or not the arrival of TNWs is stabilizing for the South Asian region, which has confronted many wars and minor border skirmishes during pre- and post-nuclear periods. Since it is viewed that a possible limited military escalation to a nuclear level may not be ruled out and the arrival of TNWs has become a reality, the article concludes that a centralized command and control system bolstered with the non-deployed deterring posture of TNWs is the immediate solution to avert the related worries of pre-delegation, force protection, and the use-or-lose dilemma. It is expected that, learning from their nuclear predecessors, the South Asian nuclear leadership would practice restraint, remain rational, and call for the need of political trust and military reassurances to avert nuclear weapon use.

Notes

1. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd Edition, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); and Pierre M. Gallois, “New Teeth for NATO,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 39, no. 1 (1960): 67–80.

2. David E. Hoffman, “The Little Nukes that Got Away,” Foreign Policy, April (2010):1.

3. Walter C. Ladwig, “A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War Doctrine,” International Security, vol. 32, no. 2 (2008): 158 190; and Zafar Khan, “Cold Start Doctrine: The Conventional Challenge to South Asian Stability,” Contemporary Security Policy, vol. 33, no. 3 (2012): 577–594

4. Both India and Pakistan on the Line of Control (LoC) have recently exchanged fire. However, the leadership on both sides are urged to avoid the conflict and try to settle the issues amicably. For details, see “US Asks India, Pakistan to End Exchange of Fire Across LoC, January 8, 2013, available at http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_us-asks-india-pakistan-to-end-exchange-of-fire-across-loc_1786763 (accessed January 9, 2013)

5. When India first tested its nuclear weapons capability in May 1974, Pakistan's started to develop nuclear technology likewise and when India tested its nuclear weapons in May 1998, Pakistan followed suit. Similarly, the Brasstacks military mobilization in 1987 was responded to by Pakistan's Zerb-e-Momin, and in response to India's military exercise in terms of its development process of its war-fighting strategy, cold start doctrine (CSD), Pakistan responded by conducting several military exercises and war games close to its adversary's borders. Also, Pakistan developed TNWs in reaction to CSD. The action-reaction syndrome exists both at the conventional and nuclear levels and tends to affect the policy options of each adversary.

6. George E. Hudson, “Russia Perspectives on Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” in Tom Nicholas, Douglas Stuart, & Jeffery D. McCausland, eds., Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO (Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), 109–115.

7. J. Michael Legge, Theater Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy of Flexible Response (Washington, DC: RAND, 1983), 77–78.

8. V. P. Naik, “Response to Strike from Pakistan Will Be Very Heavy: IAF Chief,” 2011, available at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011–07–26/india/29815644_1_iaf-indian-air-force-nuclear-attack (accessed November 2012).

9. Paul Schulte, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons in NATO and Beyond: A Historical and Thematic Examination,” in Tom Nicholas, Douglas Stuart, and Jeffery D. McCausland, eds., Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO (Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), 14.

10. Schulte, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons, 15.

11. Collin Gray, “Theater Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine and Postures,” World Politics, vol. 28, no. 2 (1976): 300–314.

12. The concept of CSD is not a new one. It existed in the NATO's war doctrinal posture during the critical period of the Cold War between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union/Russia. It was formally taught in the Royal British Army Staff College in the 1960s and 1970s on how the “integrated” groups play out during the battlefield and how the armored inter-services groups (i.e., the army, the air force, and the navy) integrate in the collective war-fighting mechanism. See Subhash Kapila, “India's New Cold Start War Doctrine Strategically Reviewed,” 2004 available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers10/paper991.html (accessed March 2012).

13. Tariq Muhammad Ashraf, “Doctrinal Reawakening of the Indian Armed Forces,” Military Review (November/December 2004), available at http://tamilnation.co/intframe/indian_ocean/ashraf_on_indian_maritime_doctrine.pdf(accessed January 2013).

14. Ashraf, “Doctrinal Reawakening,” 57; and Maria Sultan, “Cold Start Doctrine and Pakistan's Countermeasures: Theory of Strategic Equivalence-III,” The News (2011), available at http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=70218&Cat=2 (accessed April 2012)

15. Pravin Sawhney and V. K. Sood, Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished (New Delhi: Sage, 2003).

16. Kapila, “India's New Cold Start War Doctrine.

17. Khan, “Cold Start Doctrine.”

18. Zulfqar Khan, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Pakistan's Option of Offensive-Deterrence,” in Zulfqar Khan, ed., Nuclear Pakistan: Strategic Dimensions (London: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1–2.

19. Albert Wohlstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 37, no. 2 (1959): 217.

20. Peter Crail, “Pakistan Tests Short Range Missile,” Arms Control Today, (2011), available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2011_05/NewsBrief4 (accessed April 2012).

21. J. Michael Legge, Theater Nuclear Weapons, 77–78.

22. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons & Deterrence Stability in South Asia,” (September 2011), available at http://www.weeklypulse.org/details.aspx?contentID=1252&storylist = 9 (accessed April 2012). Pakistan has recently retested the Nasr short-range missile, keeping the evolving strategic scenarios. Pakistan seems to upgrade the accuracy and penetrability of Nasr to defeat the adversary's anti-tactical missile defence system. See http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&id=2239 (accessed February 2013).

23. See, for example, Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations Press Release (April 2011), available at:http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&id=1721 (accessed April 5, 2012).

24. Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations Press Release (April 2011); also see Sannia Abdullah, “Cold Start in Strategic Calculus,” IPRI, vol. 12, no.1 (2012): 1–27. Abdullah stated that: “The Cold Start has provided Pakistan reasonable grounds to develop and test tactical nuclear weapons to avert the option of conventional war. It is in the interest of Pakistan to increase the stakes of nuclear in order to deter India with any conventional pre-emption strategy [emphasis in original]” (p. 23).

25. Rodney W. Jones, “Pakistan's Answer to Cold Start,” Friday Times, May 2011, available at http://www.thefridaytimes.com/13052011/page7.shtml (accessed April 2012).

26. See Feroz Hassan Khan, “Minimum Deterrence: Pakistan's Dilemma,” RUSI Journal, vol. 156, no. 5 (October/November 2011): 46: Khan, a former Director of Pakistan's Arms Control and Disarmament affairs, recently stated that, “unlike India, Pakistan cannot meet the spectrum of threats with conventional forces alone. It cannot eschew first use.”

27. See, for example, Anita Joshua, “Pakistan Tests Short-Range Ballistic Missile,” April 19, 2011, available at http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article1709352.ece (accessed April 2012). In addition, Mazari stated on the current Pakistani tactical missile development that, “It will act as a deterrent against the use of mechanized conventional land forces. This was essential in the wake of India's adventurist war-fighting doctrine formulations, which envisaged the use of rapid deployment of armed brigades and divisions in surprise and rapid attacks” (quoted in Joshua).

28. Author's interview with Pakistani official Ambassador Tariq Osman Hyder, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, September 2012, also see Tariq Osman Hyder, “Concerns over Pakistan's Nuclear Program: Perceptions and Reality,” Policy Perspectives, vol. 9, no. 2 (2012): 33–65.

29. Jaspal, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons.”

30. For details of this remark, see “ISPR Press Release,” June 17, 2010, available at http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-press_release&date = 2010/6/17 (accessed April 6, 2012).

31. Author's Interview with Feroz Hassan Khan, former Director of Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs within SPD, September 2012.

32. Kapila, “India's New Cold Start War Doctrine,” and Gurmeet Kanwal, “Indian Army Vision 2010,” (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2008).

33. Subhash Kapila, “Pakistan Army Sends Politico-Military Signals to India Through “Ex Azm-e-Nau,” 2010, available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers38%5Cpaper3772.html (accessed June 2012).

34. Michael Krepon, “Nuclear Race on the Subcontinent,” The New York Times, April 5, 2013, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/opinion/global/nuclear-race-on-the-subcontinent.html (accessed April 2013).

35. Gray, “Theater Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine and Postures;” Z. Khan, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Pakistan's Option of Offensive-Deterrence;” Laurence Martin, “Theater Nuclear Weapons and Europe,” Survival, vol. 16, no. 6, (1974): 268–276; and Christopher Bertram, “The Implications of Theater Nuclear Weapons in Europe, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60, no.2 (1981): 305–326.

36. Author's Interview with Zafar Ali, working within Pakistan's SPD, September 2012. However, on India's Prahar short-range missile, Pakistan's SPD does not agree to Prahar as a reaction to Pakistan's Nasr missile test. Pakistan's SPD's personnel Zafar Ali stated that, “India tested the short range missile (TNW) within two weeks of Pakistan's Nasr short range nuclear weapon. How is it possible for India to test its short range missile within two weeks of Pakistan's Nasr test? This indicates that India had already acquired the capability of TNWs. It was just short of testing.”

37. Feroz Hassan Khan and Nick M. Masellis, “US-Pakistan Strategic Partnership: A Track II Dialogue,” 2012, available at http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA555421 (accessed April 2012).

38. See, for example, Rajat Pandit, “Nuclear Weapons Only for Strategic Deterrence: Army Chief,” January 16, 2012, available at http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-16/india/30631202_1_nuclear-arsenal-nuclear-retaliation-nuclear-weapons (accessed April 2012). The similar stances were stated at the peak of the India–Pakistan military standoff in 2001–2002 by the army chiefs of both sides of the border. For example, the then Indian army chief stated in 2001 that, “Nuclear weapons are not meant for war-fighting. It is very foolish for us to even think of nuclear weapons in war-fighting.” See “India is Ready for War,” Guardian, January 11, 2002, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jan/11/kashmir.india1 (accessed April 2012); and then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf stated that nuclear war is unthinkable and no “sane individual” would let this happen. See “Pakistan Tries to Calm Fears, Musharraf Calls Nuclear War with India Unthinkable,” June 22, 2002, available at http://business.highbeam.com/392330/article-1P2-1438110/pakistan-tries-calm-fears-musharraf-calls-nuclear-war (accessed April 2012).

39. Khan and Masellis, “US–Pakistan Strategic Partnership” 26.

40. Ibid.

41. Gray, “Theater Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine and Postures,” 312

42. Ibid.

43. Z. Khan, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 26

44. Z. Khan, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 25–26.

45. Michael Krepon, Ziad Haider, and Charles Thornton, “Are Tactical Nuclear Weapons Needed in South Asia?” (May, 2011), available at http://www.thepakistanupdate.com/2011/05/are-tactical-nuclear-weapons-needed-in-south-asia/ (accessed April 2012).

46. A. H. Nayyar and Zia Mian, “The Limited Military Utility of Pakistan's Battlefield Use of Nuclear Weapons in Response to Large-Scale Indian Conventional Attack,” (2010), available at http://spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/attachments/748/Brief61doc.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1290273544000 (accessed April 2012).

47. William C. Potter, Nikolai Sokov, Harald Muller, and Annette Schaper, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Options for Control,” UNIDIR (2000), available at http://unidir.org/pdf/ouvrages/pdf-1-92-9045-136-X-en.pdf (accessed April 2012): 39.

48. Charles Schultze, Edward R. Fried, Alice M. Rivlin, and Nancy H. Teeters, eds., Setting National Priorities: The 1972 Budget (Washington, D, The Brookings Institution, 1971), 96–99.

49. For details on this account, see “Pakistan Builds Low-Yield Nuclear Capability,” (May 15, 2011), available at http://dawn.com/2011/05/15/pakistan-builds-low-yield-nuclear-capability-concern-grows/ (accessed April 9, 2012).

50. See “Pakistan Builds Low Yield Nuclear Capability.” Also see Rajesh Basrur, “South Asia: Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Strategic Risk,” (2011), available at http://www.rsis.edu.sg/publications/Perspective/RSIS0652011.pdf (accessed April 2012). Basrur stated that, “It could be argued that the Pakistani threat to initiate the use of tactical nuclear weapons will be self-deterred. After all, the nuclear detonations that occur—even if limited—will be either within Pakistan's territory or so close to it that the fall-out will likely affect its own population” (p. 2).

51. Desmond Ball, “Can Nuclear War Be Controlled?” Adelphi Paper, no.169, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies (1981); and Bertram, “The Implications of Theater Nuclear Weapons in Europe.”

52. Krepon, Haider, and Thornton, “Are Tactical Nuclear Weapons Needed in South Asia?” 129.

53. Basrur, “South Asia”; Jones, “Pakistan's Answer to Cold Start;” and Swaran Singh, “India's Nuclear Doctrine: Ten Years since the Kargil Conflict,” in Bhumitra Chakma, ed., The Politics of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia, (England: Ashgate, 2011), 57–74.

54. These challenges and risks existed during the Cold War period, when security analysts on both sides of Atlantic started to worry about the rapid build-up and deployment of forward-based TNWs. TNWs increased the deterrence instability when it was thought that these weapons faced force protection; escalations control; and command, control, and communication dilemmas. For an interesting account on this perspective, see Glenn Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). According to Snyder, “The chance of accidental firing becomes greater as smaller weapons are developed, because the smaller the weapon, the lower the level of command to which it is likely to be assigned and the larger the number of fingers that will be on atomic ‘trigger.’ If a large number of atomic mortars get into the hands of platoon sergeants, the chance that at least one of them will be fired accidently or irresponsibly rise almost to certainty … Once one is fired the symbolic strength of the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons as a criterion for war limitation will have been gravely eroded” (140).

55. Feroz Hassan Khan, “Nuclear Command and Control in South Asia during Peace, Crisis, and War,” Contemporary South Asia, vol. 14 no. 2 (2005): 168–169

56. Zafar Iqbal Cheeema, “Pakistan's Nuclear Use Doctrine and Command and Control,” in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz, eds., Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons, (London: Cornell University Press, 2000), 174.

57. Bhumitra Chakma, “Pakistan's Post-Test Nuclear Use Doctrine,” in Chakma, ed., The Politics of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia (Surrey: Ashgate, 2011), 8.

58. Author's interview with Adil Sultan, who specializes in nuclear studies and works within Pakistan's SPD, September 2012.

59. Gray, “Theater Nuclear Weapons” 314.