Nuclear Weapons and India–Pakistan Relations

Abstract

India–Pakistan relations are best understood as an example of nuclear rivalry, in which nuclear weapons both exacerbate and limit hostility. In all such relationships, the minimal possession of nuclear weapons suffices to deter. Both India and Pakistan have adopted a minimalist posture, yet their strategic thinking tends to be inconsistent, which makes them vulnerable to needless expansion. This essay points to the conceptual basis for an optimal doctrine. It concludes that, while the military equation between India and Pakistan is stable, India has begun to widen the political gap between them.

Notes

1. On the India–Pakistan relationship as an example of enduring rivalry, see Paul F. Diehl, Gary Goertz, and Daniel Saeedi, ‘Theoretical Specifications of Enduring Rivalries: Applications to the India-Pakistan Case’, in T.V. Paul (ed.), The India-Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005; and T.V. Paul, ‘Why Has the India-Pakistan Rivalry Been So Enduring? Power Asymmetry and an Intractable Conflict’, Security Studies, 15(4), 2006, pp. 600–630.

2. For a detailed study of the India–Pakistan relationship as a Cold War, see Rajesh M. Basrur, South Asia's Cold War: Nuclear Weapons and Conflict in Comparative Perspective, Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2008.

3. Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History, Penguin, London, 1967, pp. 93–110; Robert C. Grogin, Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, 1917–1991, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD, 2001, pp. 7–21.

4. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981.

5. Rajesh M. Basrur, South Asia's Cold War, n. 2, see especially ch. 2.

6. Grant T. Hammond, Plowshares into Swords: Arms Races in International Politics, 1840–1991, University of North Carolina Press, Columbia, NC, 1993, pp. 226–227 (table).

7. Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC and London, 2001; Qiang Zhai, ‘Reassessing China's Role in the Vietnam War: Some Mysteries Explored’, in Xiaobing Li and Hongshan Li (eds.), China and the United States: A New Cold War History, University Press of America, Lanham, MD and Oxford, 1998; Thomas Robinson, ‘The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict of 1969: New Evidence Three Decades Later’, in Mark A. Ryan, David Michael Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (eds.), Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1949, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 2003; P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, and Stephen P. Cohen, Four Crises and A Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 2007; Sumit Ganguly and Devin T. Hagerty, Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2005.

8. Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007; Ishtiaq Ahmed, ‘The 1947 Partition of India: A Paradigm for Pathological Politics in India and Pakistan’, Asian Ethnicity, 3(1), 2002, pp. 9–28; Ashutosh Varshney, ‘India, Pakistan, and Kashmir: Antinomies of Nationalism’, Asian Survey, 31(11), 1991, pp. 997–1019.

9. Rajesh M. Basrur, India's External Relations: A Theoretical Analysis, Commonwealth Publishers, New Delhi, 2000, ch. 4.

10. For the original concept, see Glen Snyder, ‘The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror’, in Paul Seabury (ed.), The Balance of Power, Chandler, San Francisco, 1965, pp. 194–201. In the South Asian context, see Michael Krepon and Chris Gagné (eds.), The Stability-Instability Paradox: Nuclear Weapons and Brinkmanship in South Asia, Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC, 2001.

11. 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 University Press, Stanford, CA, 2005.

12. Vajpayee bluntly declared later that ‘we were stabbed in the back’. Cited in Harjinder Sidhu, ‘Ansari Arrest Proves Pak Hand: PM’, Hindustan Times, February 11, 2002. Nevertheless, he was ready to return to the negotiating table in 2003.

13. On the new thinking over Kashmir, see Verghese Koithara, ‘The Advancing Peace Process’, Economic and Political Weekly, January 6, 2007, pp. 10–13.

14. Rajesh M. Basrur, ‘Kargil, Terrorism, and India's Strategic Shift’, India Review, 1(4), 2002, pp. 39–56.

15. ‘We Could Take a Strike and Survive. Pakistan Won't: Fernandes’, Hindustan Times, December 30, 2001.

16. Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, American Political Science Review, 84(3), 1990, pp. 731–745.

17. K. Subrahmanyam, ‘A Credible Deterrent: Logic of the Nuclear Doctrine’, Times of India, October 4, 1999; K. Sundarji, ‘India's Nuclear Weapons Policy’, in J⊘rn Gelstad and Olav Nj⊘lstad (eds.), Nuclear Rivalry and International Order, PRIO, Oslo, and Sage, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, 1996, p. 176.

18. For a detailed critique of Indian thinking on nuclear strategy, see Rajesh M. Basrur, Minimum Deterrence and India's Nuclear Security, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2006, especially ch. 2.

19. Sandeep Dikshit, ‘BrahMos to Be Used in Plains’, The Hindu, June 22, 2007.

20. Rajesh M. Basrur, ‘Minimum Deterrence and Pakistan's Nuclear Strategy’, Research Brief, 38, Pakistan Security Research Unit, University of Bradford, July 27, 2008, at http://spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/attachments/748/Brief_No_38b.pdf.

21. Rasul Bakhsh Rais, ‘Conceptualizing Nuclear Deterrence: Pakistan's Posture’, India Review, 4(2), 2005, pp. 144–172.

22. See, for instance, Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, ‘India's Endorsement of the US BMD: Challenges for Regional Stability’, IPRI Journal, 1(1), 2001, pp. 28–43; Shireen Mazari, ‘BMD and Its Impact on Pakistan’, Strategic Studies, 21(2), 2001, at http://www.issi.org.pk/journal/2001_files/no_2/comment/2c.htm (Accessed August 5, 2008); Stephanie Nebehay, ‘Pakistan Warns on Dangers of US Missile Shield’, Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases, Otley, W. Yorkshire, January 5, 2001, at http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/caab/articles/pakistan.htm (Accessed August 5, 2008).

23. Naeem Ahmad Salik, ‘Regional Dynamics and Deterrence: South Asia (2)’, Contemporary Security Policy, 25(1), 2004, p. 186. See also ‘Musharraf Favours Balance of Military Power with India’, Hindustan Times, December 7, 2004, pp. 179–201.

24. Mahmud Ali Durrani, ‘Pakistan's Strategic Thinking and the Role of Nuclear Weapons’, Occasional Paper, 37, Cooperative Monitoring Center, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, July 2004, p. 31; Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, ‘India and Pakistan: Nuclear-Related Programs and Aspirations at Sea’, in Lowell Dittmer (ed.), South Asia's Nuclear Security Dilemma: India, Pakistan, and China, Pentagon Press, New Delhi, 2005, pp. 91–93.

25. The projection is made in Tushar Poddar and Eva Yi, ‘India's Rising Growth Potential’, Economics Paper no. 152, Goldman Sachs, New York, January 22, 2007, p. 5. For a similar prognostication, see Jonathan Ablett, Aadarsh Baijal, Eric Beinhocker, Anupam Bose, Diana Farrell, Ulrich Gersch, Ezra Greenberg, Shishir Gupta, and Sumit Gupta, The ‘Bird of Gold’: The Rise of India's Consumer Market, McKinsey Global Institute, San Francisco, 2007, pp. 13–14, 55–56.

26. Cited in Stephen Blank, ‘The Geostrategic Implications of the Indo-American Strategic Partnership’, India Review, 6(1), 2007, pp. 1–24.

27. John W. Miller, ‘Global Trade Talks Fail as New Giants Flex Muscles’, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2008.

28. On China, see Jeffrey G. Lewis, The Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age, Cambridge, MA, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Cambridge, MA and London, MIT Press, 2007. Some of the contradictions emerging from the Chinese use of strategic concepts similar to American thinking can be found in Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘China's New “Old Thinking”: The Concept of Limited Deterrence’, International Security, 20(3), 1995/1996, pp. 5–42; and Litai Xue, ‘Evolutionof China's Nuclear Strategy’, in John C. Hopkins and Weixing Hu (eds.), Strategic Views from the Second Tier: The Nuclear Weapons Policies of France, Britain, and China, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ and London, 1995.

29. Rajesh M. Basrur, Minimum Deterrence, n. 18, ch. 3.

30. For exceptions, see Rajesh Rajagopalan, Second Strike: Arguments about Nuclear War in South Asia, Viking, New Delhi, 2005; and Rajesh M. Basrur, Minimum Deterrence, n. 18, and South Asia's Cold War, n. 2.