Nuclearization of South Asia - A Human Development Perspective

By Zillur R. Khan, Ph.D., Rosebush Professor of Political Science
University of Wisconsin, U.S.A, and
Chairman, Research Committee on Rethinking Political Development
International Political Science Association (IPSA)

Converting “atom for peace” into “atom for war” mode, India and Pakistan reneged on their commitments to only constructive, peaceful use of nuclear energy. The two South Asian nuclear rivals, particularly India, professed not to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a regional war and yet they never hesitated to brandish them as powerful symbols of nationalism. Even during the 2001-2 standoff India chose to test a more advanced nuclear capable missile to commemorate the nation’s Republic Day raising the level of regional tension. Instead of testing one of its nuclear capable missiles as tit-for-tat as before, Pakistan reacted by reiterating its earlier position that it wished to engage India in a dialogue for de-escalation. Feeling the heat of a worsening standoff between the two South Asian nuclear rivals, all other countries of the region have strongly reiterated their commitment to having South Asia as a nuclear free zone, supporting in unison the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the 2002 UN Review Session of Parties to the NPT. They referred to the success of the NPT in curbing the spread of nuclear weaponry to more countries, hoping that India and Pakistan would consider de-nuclearization as an important tool of mutual confidence building for regional peace and development. In spite of their best efforts South Asian countries have failed to bring their two biggest neighbors closer to negotiating mode through the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC). But publicly regional countries have shown little or no concern about a possible regional war turning nuclear. A former Secretary General of SAARC asserted in an interview with me that Washington would intervene before the two could reach a point of actual launching of nuclear missiles, given the improved monitoring of nuclear missiles by American spy satellites. When asked how the satellites missed the final preparations before India carried out a series of nuclear tests in 1998, the former SAARC secretary general could only say that realities had changed.

The reality is that ideological compulsions tinged with obscurantism and traditional ethnic enmities, particularly among people in bordering states, have made it increasingly difficult for New Delhi and Islamabad to consider any compromise, however reasonable it may seem, over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Lacking resilience, the two have been locked into jingoistic posturing raising tension and increasing the possibility of at least another conventional war. With a real danger of such a conventional war turning into nuclear, the leaders of two nations are morally obliged to initiate a consensus building process by which needed authority can be had for bold compromises to end the sixty year old dispute which has been unnecessarily diverting their resources to the detriment of the general well-being of the two peoples. The only way that can happen is for both to reinforce and restore their democratic values. Reinforcing secular value can restore India to its traditional stature of the world’s largest working democracy transcending ethno-religious prejudices and making the minorities, particularly Muslims of India and particularly those in Kashmir feel empowered. And if re-democratization of Pakistan succeeds, it would broaden the base on which the needed framework for a compromise over the disputed territory of Kashmir may develop, making it possible for leaders to send the right signals for preparing the groundwork for interaction at a bilateral and/or multilateral level to end a dysfunctional conflict.

Democracy did provide the basis for interaction between Vajpayee and Sherif—elected leaders of the two nuclear rivals—in 1999, only to be thwarted by Pakistan army’s belligerent move against India capturing Kargil under general Pervez Musharraf. But for then US President Clinton’s timely intervention, another full blown war between the two South Asian adversaries—now armed with newly developed nuclear weapons—could have broken out. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sherif made a desperate effort to restore the pre-1954 civilian control of the army sacking a number of military officers, including general Musharraf, for their misadventure in Kargil. Had Sherif succeeded in his military reorganization plan, there would have been a real chance of the two nations striking a compromise over their resource draining territorial dispute. In spite of winning a landslide victory in the 1997 election Sherif failed to contain the military, which resulted in the seizure of power by General Pervez Musharraf. Among many justifications given by Musharraf for the coup, two stand out: Sherif’s alleged compromise on national security when he ordered the Pakistan Army to pull out of Kargil and Sherif’s attempt to banish Musharraf by ordering airport authorities to not allow his plane to land inside Pakistan (Musharraf, In the Line of Fire, 2006). Thus began another period of direct military rule and another process of its legitimization. But military rule is seldom conducive to a consensus forming process identifying individual interests with national interests, especially when difficult compromises need to be made between sovereign nations.

Perhaps as important, if not more, is the urgent need for the West to seize the opportunity to go to the most likely source of future nuclear, biological, and chemical terrorism: more than 99% of all nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are stored in Russia and America. It would be vital to significantly strengthen the security of the existing storage facilities in western nations and to provide needed support to Russia to do the same. The surest way to ensure the nuclear safety of the West is to prevent bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups from gaining control of a few relatively small nuclear devices by thefts or bribes. In fact there have been reports of failed attempts at stealing nuclear materials from Russian facilities. Reportedly, 40 of the 100 Suitcase nuclear bombs under KGB’s control could not be accounted, which the Russians later denied (Economist, Nov. 7, 2001).

Although a sensitive issue, it may be in the interest of the West to share its nuclear storage security measures with new nuclear countries, such as China, India and Pakistan. During America’s anti-terrorist campaign against the Talibans, two retired nuclear scientists of Pakistan were arrested for allegedly passing the nuclear bomb making know-how to the Talibans and helping to build a facility in Afghanistan to make, however crude, nuclear devices. Reportedly, bin Laden had made one of his major goals to acquire a nuclear bomb and use it in an attack against the West. Backed by a Fatwa, thereby giving his objective an ideological color, bin Laden reportedly asserted that it was his religious duty to acquire a nuclear bomb. Despite the fact that Pakistan under General Musharrf has revived its old military alliance with America, American and other Western policy makers cannot forget Pakistan’s claim of building an “Islamic Bomb” in the late eighties with suspected financial assistance from radical Arab nations, nor can they rule out the probability of extremist elements within the Pakistani military, particularly its powerful intelligence arm—Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)—getting an upper hand in government and thus neutralize Musharraf’s anti- terrorist campaign. Neither can Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q.Khan’s clandestine network for sale of nuclear bomb making technology to interested buyers be forgotten.

A less discussed threat of nuclear terrorism involves radiological sabotage of the reactor in nuclear power plants, especially in regions of political instability. A conventional or guerrilla armed assault on a nuclear plant’s vital safety systems can result in core melt, containment failure and a massive, Chernobyl-like release of radioactive materials into the environment. Radiological sabotage is a prime example of “asymmetric” warfare: the injury and property damage that could be caused by a quantity of high explosives small enough to fit into a backpack could be magnified a thousand-fold if it were strategically applied at a nuclear plant. Such an assault could conceivably fulfill the same goals for a terrorist group, like bin Laden’s, as the acquisition and use of a crude nuclear weapon (E. S. Lyman, 2001).

Recent experiences in the U.S., which has the world’s most rigorous requirements for physical protection at power reactors, have graphically demonstrated the challenges inherent in defending a nuclear plant against sabotage by armed attackers. The Operational Safeguards Response Evaluation (OSRE), a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) program which uses force-on-force exercises to test the effectiveness of the security at nuclear power plants, has been failed by about 50% of the plants tested, a statistic that has not improved over the course of the program.

Because of the paucity of available information, nuclear scientists using mathematical models have made only educated guesses about the impact of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan on South Asia and beyond. M. V. Ramana, a Princeton University physicist, calculated after the two countries conducted nuclear tests in 1998, that a 15-Kiloton bomb dropped on Bombay would kill between 150,000 and 850,000 people in the short run. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had similar yields and killed 149, 000 and 70,000 people respectively (NYT, January 27, 2002). There are too many variables—weather, exact yield and positioning of the bomb, altitude of the explosion—to make more precise estimate of death tolls. Ramana’s study was meant to show “that the effects of a small bomb, a crude one like that, is horrific”(Ibid.).

In January 2002, a respected American environmental group, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) produced a second model of a full scale nuclear war in South Asia, showing a death toll ranging from 30 to 40 million, about 2 percent of the nations’ combined population of more than one billion Indians and 140 million Pakistanis, besides collateral toll on populations of other South Asian nations, particularly Bangladesh and Nepal. The NRDC model estimated that each side has a few dozen warheads and assumed that each could penetrate the other’s air defense to hit about twelve largest cities. The model has been developed on the basis of extrapolation from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, population estimates of target cities and weather condition in January, and the weapons having yields equal to 25 kilotons of TNT, similar to the ones dropped on the Japanese cities. Despite unthinkable destruction the scenario would not result in “mutually assured destruction” (MAD), which possibly prevented a nuclear-armed conflict between the two superpowers during the cold war. This raises questions of applicability of what I call South Asian Mutual Assured Destruction or SAMAD to prevent a devastating regional nuclear war, seriously challenging the degree of effectiveness of a nuclear deterrence policy, particularly for more vulnerable Pakistan.

A third model of effects of a South Asian nuclear war, developed by another nuclear Physicist from Princeton university, showed that in spite of the initial impact the two militaries would be intact to continue to escalate, crippling the two countries infrastructures and emergency services. The study concluded that the spillover effects of such a war would be incalculable (NYT, Ibid.). Zia Mian of Princeton University’s Program in Science and Global Security, developer of the third model, points out MAD should not be applied to India and Pakistan, because each lacks the nuclear firepower to destroy the other and their previous major wars resulted in fewer than 10,000 deaths on average. “They’ve never fought a war”, Mia stated while explaining his model, “like WW I or WW II or Vietnam…never used strategic bombing against each other’s cities…the notion of what would be a terrible attack is much different than the United States’ or the Soviet Union’s” (NYT, Ibid.). Though the effect of radiation was not calculated in Ramana’s or NRDC’s models, Mian said it is unlikely radiation would spread out of the region because the bombs would be relatively small.

It is quite conceivable that some of the hawks on both sides may have been convinced about a blitzkrieg military campaign to reclaim the disputed territory, even risking a limited nuclear confrontation. New Delhi’s refusal to de-escalate after Islamabad offers an olive branch by cracking down on a number of known groups of Islamic militants connected with attacks on Indian Parliament, but refusing to extradite a few as a tangible gesture of the willingness to normalize relations with India, may be seen as their risk taking ventures. The hawks seem to discount three important factors. First, as alluded earlier, any perceived belligerent action could make the standoff deteriorate into a full blown war, as could have happened when an India military transport plane piloted by an Indian air force general ventured eleven miles into Pakistan’s air space and almost downed by missiles. Second, New Delhi could follow through with its threat of hot pursuit across the border if what India terms cross border terrorism dramatically increases, supported by a reorganized al-Qaeda network. Third, perhaps most importantly, the hawks may be led to believe that the damage caused by a limited nuclear war will be manageable, downplaying the war’s long term effects which, as the three models have indicated, are incalculable.

The inherent uncertainties of a swing state like Pakistan impede institutional growth needed for stable interactions between and among stakeholders—internal and external—for regional peace. Certainly one of the important factors of the South Asian regional cooperation’s disappointing record has been the swing state phenomenon. Tracing the history of regional cooperation one finds effective, positive interactions between states happening during periods of democratic government. Notwithstanding certain exceptions, a few mutual trust and confidence building measures successfully undertaken by the two occurred during Pakistan’s democratic interludes. Indira-Bhutto agreement (through the Simla Accord of 1972) on a de facto border between Indian and Pakistani controlled areas of J&K, and the no attack agreement of their nuclear facilities by their son and daughter, respectively Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto in 1989 may be cited as instances in point.

Before the Pressler sanctions took effect, Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi, the two new generations Prime Ministers of the two belligerent nations made a courageous move at the SAARC Summit of the Heads of the South Asian nations in Islamabad in 1989. Both made confidence-building measures as the top priority for both countries to reduce military confrontation on the Siachen Glacier. The two signed the agreement negotiated in 1985 not to attack each other’s nuclear program facilities. For the first time India presented to the UN General Assembly Special Session on Disarmament an Action Plan for a three-stage non-proliferation of nuclear weapons by 2010. Rajiv and Benazir also urged Asian states, particularly the two sub-continental nuclear rivals, to make a commitment not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons under mutual no-threat guarantee. However lofty their no-threat plan might have been, it surely offered an alternative to the escalating tension of nuclear arms race between the two South Asian nuclear nations. In 1992 Benazir reiterated the earlier stand on the dire need of confidence building measures (CBM), stating that in spite of the counteracting internal dynamics of India and Pakistan “the subcontinent is crying out for a solution that will give economic freedom to the masses…the leaders of both sides of the divide need to rise and meet this challenge or they will be waylaid by history and by time”(Indian Express, May 18, 1992). The return of Benazir from self-exile and her continued commitment to fight for Democracy and against extremism unruffled by her narrow escape from suicide bombing during the mammoth procession of her party supporters in Karachi on October 18, 2007, has raised hopes among moderate political leaders in both India and Pakistan about her possible role in a future peace offensive for the region, despite questions of a US backed power sharing arrangement with Musharraf following the expected January 2008 elections.

Although continuing to accept Pakistan as an important ally for its global war against terrorism, America is likely to have serious reservations about the military government’s support base among the people and within the army itself given the fact general Musharraf has not been successful in removing the Islamic extremists, mostly located within the army’s powerful intelligence agency—Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)—widely held responsible for the creation of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. The great escape of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their top associates would not have been possible without strategic help from Pashtun Talibans working with radical elements of the Pakistani military intelligence, as has been alleged lately (NYT, April 28, 2002; NYT, October 1& 21, 2007). In fact Benazir’s husband held extremists within the ISI responsible for the unexplained lapse in security, which enabled a suicide bomber to kill 140 supporters of Benazir in his failed attempt to assassinate her on October 18, 2007. Writing on Daniel Pearl’s murder, Benazir Bhutto, who was twice elected as Prime Minister of Pakistan, states that in the Pearl kidnapping (and murder), Afghanistan, Kashmir, ex-ISI, democratic destabilization and Islamic militancy have intermingled. Sheikh Omar fought in Kashmir and his accomplices fought in Afghanistan. “The ex-ISI/military intelligence (of Pakistan) was familiar with them…the Islamic militants are bent upon destabilizing the world community hoping to establish a Taliban type Islamic society…the emphasis is less on theocracy and more on nationalism…these causes need to be denied to them. Otherwise, they could end up destroying the world we know today by bringing about a clash of civilizations”(B. Bhutto, The Nation, March 7, 2002).

As a part of CBM, India and Pakistan could conduct periodically joint military exercises in coordination with America, Russia and China. Even a partial success of such a cooperative endeavor in raising the level of mass consciousness about their common problems could go a long way in creating a mutually acceptable basis for conflict resolution. And having participants from think tanks of regional countries with largest contingents drawn from India and Pakistan, public awareness of opportunities for advancements, through containing runaway corruption, implementing civil service and judicial reforms, and launching skill building, and healthcare drives would accelerate the process of resolving nagging problems between India and Pakistan, with positive effects on other regional players. In that scenario, with military expenditures significantly reduced as a result of their joint security cooperation through NPT and CTBT, a 8.6-9.6% GDP growth already achieved by India and Pakistan could be replicated in other South Asian countries, particularly Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Around 8-10% GDP growth for SAARC countries over a ten-year period for poverty alleviation would no more be an optimist’s unattainable dream. Even a partial realization of that dream would help reduce the gap between national sovereignty and public interests in the consensus building challenges being faced by not only India and Pakistan but also other countries of the region for peaceful resolution of their multifaceted problems. In that scenario military institutions would have no justification taking over elected governments. Could it end the vicious cycle of a swing state restoring the democratic form on a more permanent basis? May be. But the question remains whether a military regime has the inherent capability to accept responsibilities for mistakes and make needed corrections needed for enduring restoration of a representative democracy.

As US-Pakistan military alliance proved deceptive for Pakistani policy makers when they sought American military assistance for their war efforts against India, there started strategic shift toward China. Fears of ideological domination were gradually allayed when Pakistan and China made progress on a number of scientific and cultural exchange programs, including one involving exchange visits of Pakistani and Chinese Ulemas (Muslim religious leaders). Militarily and logistically, in particular, the evolving friendship paid rich dividends to Pakistan in terms of strategic moral support during its wars against India. Learning a lesson from the Sino-Indian conflict, Pakistan swiftly moved to settle its British drawn border with China. In December 1962, Pakistan and China provisionally demarcated their border, ceding about 2000 sq. mi. of territory of Pakistan controlled Kashmir invoking diplomatic protests from New Delhi. Two months later in February 1963 Ayub’s Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, signed the border agreement in Beijing. Establishing a stable and friendly relationship with China enabled Islamabad to expand alternative sources of much needed technical help to develop its own scientific infrastructure to ensure national security. More importantly China continued indefinitely its commitment to providing Pakistan scientific and technical help after the western countries cut off such aid because of intelligence reports about Pakistan developing its nuclear capability. Indeed, without the Chinese technical cooperation Pakistan would not have been able to achieve the current near parity with India regarding credible nuclear deterrence.
China’s recent posture of a more neutral policy toward the disputed territory of Kashmir (changing a pro-Pakistan stand) could be attributed to the Tibetan issue being brought to world attention on the human rights question and concerns over Muslim insurgency in Xinjiang province of China. According to a Chinese scholar, a strong and rising China would not affect India’s national security, since China’s foreign policy has been based on establishing relations with other countries on the basis of five principles of peaceful coexistence (Mai Jiali, 2000: 3). Without resolving the border issue, however, Indians would have difficulty accepting China’s projected non-threatening, peace loving image considering its nuclear superiority and the global competition for markets in which Beijing enjoys a definite edge over New Delhi.

China has maintained its assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear program in the face of stiff pressure from the U.S. to discontinue such aid for a hoped for reciprocal non-proliferation gesture from India in terms of accepting a partial if not a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT). But in the light of strained relations between China and India, Pakistan became a bigger beneficiary of China’s assistance to its nuclear program. Moreover, Beijing and Islamabad have increased frequency of joint military simulation exercises with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel. Unlike the Indian military, Pakistani military has had greater authority in designing and scheduling such exercises vis-à-vis the units of China’s powerful PLA. A military to military rapport between two countries with centralized command systems could go a long way in joint preparation to effectively deal with common threats. Given the fact Sino-Russian relations have normalized, India can ill afford to chance another confrontation because of the stated Russian policy of neutrality in regard to any future Sino-Indian war. Even after President Clinton’s visit to India in April 2000 forging a closer relationship between Washington and New Delhi, together with President Bush’s trip to the sub-continent raising the prospects of a strategic partnership between America and India by completing a proposed civilian nuclear accord during 2007-8, Indian security planners could not be sure of Pakistan’s strategic responses to such a war. Whether posing a challenge to India economically and militarily, or helping India’s arch rival—Pakistan–to acquire nuclear warhead making technology, China certainly has featured prominently in the arms race of new nuclear states of South Asia, and would-be nuclear states in the non-western world.

In spite of military created or supported political parties formally espousing a non-political role of the military, they make no bones about currying favor with the military for two reasons. First, the satisfaction of the military is important for maintaining smooth civil-military relations, discouraging future coup attempts. Second, political parties, including genuine ones, have found it politically expedient to support the military in order to project an image of strength and determination to ensure national security. The upshot of such a rationale has been a rapidly increasing allocation of scarce resources to the defense sector in every national budget. In cultures of poverty, where a zero-sum-game is the rule rather than the exception, such prioritization of the defense sector deprives vital programs of poverty alleviation and human resource development. Perhaps, in rethinking political development an integrated approach could be tried with selected civilian and military personnel to train the disadvantaged in both urban and rural areas to acquire basic literacy, health care and myriad other self help and income generating skills to alleviate poverty and ensure sustainable development.

With globalization of politics and economics, outside threats have diminished and with it the excuse of the military to intervene. Without having to contend with rivalries between the superpowers over spheres of influence, civil societies in ex-colonial countries have reason to feel more relaxed in their dealings with their military institution. In partnership they can now embark not only on different nation building activities, but as well generate resources from the military’s deployment to different international training and peace -keeping missions. Overriding the clash of religion based civilizations thesis is the basic dynamism of power relations in the context of time and space. As the long enmity between the Russians and Chinese military leadership, and as well between India and China, is being rapidly bridged for mutual national interests, America can also reinforce its long history of close military cooperation with both India and Pakistan by not neglecting nuclear Pakistan in its global security planning, which necessarily involves the ultimate elimination of weapons of mass destruction. A non-zero-sum game plan could make Pakistan feel much secured for a possible engagement in a dialogue with a vastly more powerful India for a strategic compromise on sensitive and dangerous bi-lateral issues. After learning the difficult game through coordinated training, and some trials and errors, civil and military leaders of the two nuclear countries of South Asia may finally start playing it like their western counterparts having a positive impact on other South Asian countries and their association of regional cooperation– the SAARC.

Security and stability of any given country largely rests on the quality of regional understandings and cooperation in terms of social, economic, and political development. Based on comparative analyses of selected countries undergoing democratization in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southern Africa, Southeast and South Asia, I have drawn a hypothesis that regional cooperation movements must strike a delicate balance between security and justice in order to effectively serve public interests of member countries. In tune with the charge of my Research Committee of International Political Science Association Rethinking Political Development, I suggested in my Keynote Address at the Regional Conference of International Political Science Association on April 2, 2007, at Sheraton, Dhaka that representatives of SAARC countries in their forthcoming meeting in New Delhi consider the following questions: (I specifically requested Bangladesh’s Foreign Adviser Iftekhar Choudhury to take up the following issues in the Ministerial Level meeting in New Delhi on March 31, 2007).

1. Should the Scope of SAARC be broadened by an amendment to the Charter allowing multilateral negotiations for problem solving involving different types of disputes?
2. Considering the current trade between South Asian countries is a paltry 5.6% compared to 80% among NAFTA countries, should the conditions stipulated under SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Area), which includes SAPTA (South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement) require necessary adjustments? In order to ensure an increasing volume of trade and commerce among South Asian countries should most preferential treatment be accorded to smaller countries of the region, particularly regarding transfer of technologies?
3. Should one or more Regional Institute of Leadership Training be established within the framework of SAARC to enable leaders of member countries to gain knowledge and insight in different aspects of governance? Should a comparable Regional Institute be established for bureaucrats from SAARC countries?
4. Like the previously mentioned public-private partnerships and their feedback role in national policy making and implementing processes, should representatives from non-government and business organizations from different SAARC countries be allowed to participate in SAARC deliberations at different levels as non-voting members?
5. Should PTRE (Political Tension Reduction Efforts) comparable to STARE (Strategic Arms Reduction Efforts) be undertaken and a joint monitoring agency be created to oversee the extent of reductions of political tension between member countries as with their strategic and non-strategic arms?
6. Should a Joint Intelligence Commission be established to ensure that intelligence is not manipulated to serve ideologically tinged group interests of intelligence agencies of South Asian countries to the detriment of peace and stability of the region?

The foregoing policy options at national and regional levels reflected the thrust of my keynote paper on Security, Justice and Leadership. Addressing even some of the issues and questions I have raised could help to understand our national and regional environment, which would be conducive to nurturing certain productive democratic values, such as tolerance, accommodation and compromises, respect for individual rights, equitable and timely dispensation of justice, viability of opposition parties, free and fair electoral system, independence of the judiciary and constitutional limits on excesses of power by any branch of government.

Even a partial understanding of mentioned issues could bring about peace dividends to South Asian countries by starting a process of political engagement over security with justice by transforming PMAC (Political Mutual Assured Chaos) into PMAP (Political Mutual Assured Progress). Transformation of that magnitude cries out for leaders who could transform the consciousness of masses by exemplary acts of justice and good governance. In such transforming environment a drastically reduced level of corruption together with increasing effectiveness and accountability of both public and private sectors through partnerships could make a 3-4% rise above the current notable GDP growth of smaller South Asian countries not only possible but also achievable. A leap over the current 6.6 % growth achieved against heavy odds, as happened in Bangladesh, to a sustainable 9.6 to 10.6 % GDP growth could wipe out the dehumanizing mass poverty within a record time, making South Asian a model of Political Development for the third world. Only then could nuclearization of South Asia fulfill the promise of “atom for peace” and human development, through constructive utilization of nuclear energy.