DECCAN HERALD - Saturday, June 8, 2002

http://deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun08/top.htm

A perceived nuclear crisis in the subcontinent has taken precedence over the core issues in the India-Pakistan stand-off, namely Kashmir and cross border terrorism. While these issues are still being talked about, the imminence of the mushroom cloud is already hanging over India. Several analyses have been churned out about how a South Asia’s ‘The Day After’ would look like. In all assessments the dangers and anxiety have focused on how India would feature after a Pakistani first strike. It is a foregone conclusion that the certitude of Indian retaliatory strikes would render Pakistan a non-functioning entity.

The pathways of nuclear deterrence would work if the two sides recognise the colossal magnitude of destruction that would entail in the event of nuclear strikes.

South Asia’s current crisis is not only an acrimonious dispute of territoriality but still more the existential reality of a belligerent neighbour which is bent on the total annihilation of his opponent. Nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles deployed in close geographical proximity as in the case of India and Pakistan have enhanced the chances for the worst scenario. Pakistan is brandishing its weapons of last resort as weapons of immediate defence. Its conventionalisation of nuclear weapons poses far greater danger to India than the perils of an unresolved Kashmir crisis.

Doomsday spectre

The Kargil crisis of 1999 and the present escalation since December 13 events prove that Pakistan has gained immeasurably in the perfection of its nuclear gambit as the most invaluable weapon in its arsenal. Pakistan’s nuclear operational environment is conditioned by the following factors:

(a) Its high motivation to strike India with nuclear weapons at the slightest provocation i.e., India’s pro-active military response;

(b) Pakistan’s provision of unofficial refuge status to the fleeing al-Qaeda-Taliban combine in its North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and their significant role in escalating the civic turmoil in Pakistan, leading to destabilisation of the current praetorian leadership to be replaced by a more sympathetic military leadership to the sectarians;

(c) the constant portrayal that the elements of the radical sectarian groups are threatening to unseat the "moderate" self- styled presidency of President Musharaff which is evident in the playing of the ISI card and his efforts to rein in the radical elements within the armed forces and the ISI;

(d) the doomsday spectre of a possible nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan and the al-Qaeda-Taliban-Pakistani jihadi combine seizing power either as result of a military coup or by power switchover.

Dangerous motivation

These could be the starkest possibilities for a brewing nuclear crisis which will have grave and perilous implications to India and Pakistan. Relentless streams jehadis from the madrassas are being indoctrinated on a mission of revenge. This cultist trend of glorified death and the ultimate symbol of conquest is seen in the possession and the unflinching will to use weapons of mass destruction to vanquish the heathen.

It is this dangerous motivation that constitutes the patterns of Pakistan’s irrational paradigm of sustained and escalating warfare, though it justifies its nuclear arsenal as an ultimate resort to national survival. Pakistan is constantly on the look out to escalate Low Intensity Conflicts bleeding India by a thousand cuts, and at the same time uses its nuclear rhetoric to restrains any Indian response.

Four contingencies reinforce the spectre of a Pakistani overt nuclear gambit:

First, there has been an increasing evidence of the growing influence of sectarian elements in the ISI and in the Pakistani army with the commanding officers of the intermediate and middle rank with pro-Islamic radical sentiments that had earlier been nurtured by the late Gen Zia-Ul-Haq.

These forces are certainly the most decisive in terms of influence and control of nuclear weapons as field commanders. Their reliability in times of full-blown civic crisis to President Musharaff would be quite dubious contrary to all reassuring claims of the President to assuage international concerns on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons safety. The possibilities of their instigation of the sectarian elements in civic strife to destabilise Gen Musharaff cannot be ruled out.

The second contingency may arise from the existence of multiple threats to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons-missiles complex. The transportation of fissile material from storage sites to weapon assembly plants and the warheads to the air bases to be mated with fighter aircraft or missiles is a precarious operation. Given the divisiveness between the different levels of the armed forces and the ISI, the serious possibility of compromise on safety is evident.

Threats may emerge from outside elements attempting to storm nuclear complexes and the spectres of theft of fissile materials is already there. Yet another possibility could be the removal of the fissile material by the operating personnel compromising the same to outside elements.

Loose nukes

The active association of several pro-jehadi retired scientists and technicians of Pakistan’s nuclear and missile establishments with the jihadi groups could further enhance compromises on Pakistani nuclear material. These incidents have been quite frequent and have received much public attention.

The third contingency could be the temporary loss of central command of nuclear weapons storage sites emanating from a serious civic crisis resulting in a military coup de etat - the most common means of succession in Pakistan.

Such a contingency could trigger external intervention to secure "the loose nukes"; it could lead to the loss of central control to "rogue" field commanders who could fire such weapons given the state of fragile or redundant nuclear safety keys like the dual key command in the Permissive Action Links (PALs); it could also lead to the theft of fissile material and technological know-how by terror groups and the foreign special operations forces (SOF) that could interdict the transfers of fissile material.

Unknown factors

It could also feature an orchestrated attack by the terror groups in conjunction with local elements to usurp control of the nukes and could inadvertently land in terror groups that could possibly fire or spread nuclear contamination across the border.

The fourth contingency is the role of other Islamic States that are now bankrolling the Pakistani scientific establishment supporting the nuclear and missile development programmes.

Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Syria do have common agendas to aid the Pakistani effort to garner expertise and transfers of systems and technological know-how that could have multiple ramifications in South Asia and the Middle East. While these contingencies remain speculative, there still is a strong persistence of the unknown factors that could drive the levels of Pakistani irrationality to war and the use of nuclear weapons.

A nuclear Pakistan is a double-edged sword in peace and war alike, due to its extreme fragile state structure and the proclivity to high levels of internal violence and its adversarial relations with India.

All materials on this website are © 2000-2010

Printer Friendly Format

Search this website

top